RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

you can one of two things, first, maybe your neighbour thinks he's a cat marking his territory, so all you need to do it piss all over the place too, marking it out as your territory.

or second, buy a tiger, and housetrain it to just hang around your block.  can't be too hard. 

You think maybe I should just start pissing on his door? Squirt a few drops onto his keypad, too, for good measure? Either he'll finally get the message and stop urinating in the stairwell, or he'll declare war and start pissing on EVERYONE'S doors. But then I'd feel bad if it weren't really him. 

or you and the tiger, who are now good mates and have a bit of camaraderie going, could do something a bit different.  in a well choreographed piece, you could wait outside for your neighbour, when you can see him, get your tiger to piss on the stairs at which point you give it a smack and wrestle with it a bit.  eventually, the tiger concedes. at that instant, as your neighbour passes, you look him deep in the eyes and say 'that's what happens when you piss on MY stairs'.  He'll scoot off, shit scared, probably pissing himself in the process.  job done. 

disclaimer-no animals were hurt in the making of this scenario

I'm feeling really unmotivated.  I know I shouldn't feel like this but I can't help it  ...

For the past five years I've taught early morning English classes every day (in the classroom before 8am) for a special program where the students get the chance to live and work in Australia.  At the beginning there was some coteaching but over the years that slowly stopped to the point where I am now.  I do all the planning, teaching, preparing them for their interview, even summer and winter camps are usually taught solely by me.  My coteachers handle the paperwork.

If the students pass (100% success rate so far since I've been here) my coteacher also gets the chance to go to Australia for three months to help with the program.  So far three have gone to Australia.

I can't help feeling a little bit bitter about seeing them travel to Australia kind of off the back of my work.  I know I shouldn't feel like this but I can't help it and it's getting me down lol

I'm feeling really unmotivated.  I know I shouldn't feel like this but I can't help it  ...

For the past five years I've taught early morning English classes every day (in the classroom before 8am) for a special program where the students get the chance to live and work in Australia.  At the beginning there was some coteaching but over the years that slowly stopped to the point where I am now.  I do all the planning, teaching, preparing them for their interview, even summer and winter camps are usually taught solely by me.  My coteachers handle the paperwork.

If the students pass (100% success rate so far since I've been here) my coteacher also gets the chance to go to Australia for three months to help with the program.  So far three have gone to Australia.

I can't help feeling a little bit bitter about seeing them travel to Australia kind of off the back of my work.  I know I shouldn't feel like this but I can't help it and it's getting me down lol

Yeah, I understand where you're coming from. I really hate seeing people get credited and rewarded for other people's hard work. It's a sore spot for me, too, and one of my biggest peeves about my job here because it's just so integrated into how the system works. I try not to think too much about it, but sometimes it's just so hard, especially when the person being rewarded isn't even making any effort to deserve at least some of that credit.

Who the #%$^ needs to have their alarm go off for a full hour in the morning and have vibrations on?!?!?!?! I can't hear a damn thing but my last hour of supposed sleep time was just laying there listening to the buzzing. Every while it would go off them back on again..... I just got over the flu (off Monday and Tuesday) and this was the last thing I needed.

Must have got a new neighbour because this never happened the last yr and 3 months. But it has happened on a few occasions in the past few weeks.

I just don't get the incessant need to be friends with the foreign teacher. If it looks like I'm busy, sleeping or just doing literally anything else, why force a conversation? Why do you need to know everything? Does it even look/sound like I want to be a part of the conversation when we start talking???

Especially today with a substitute who's only going to be here for like two days.

I get it. Culture of having to know all the details, but some days I would just like to have my conversations limited only to my students and CT in class time. Too tired for this *sigh*

Who the #%$^ needs to have their alarm go off for a full hour in the morning and have vibrations on?!?!?!?! I can't hear a damn thing but my last hour of supposed sleep time was just laying there listening to the buzzing. Every while it would go off them back on again..... I just got over the flu (off Monday and Tuesday) and this was the last thing I needed.

Must have got a new neighbour because this never happened the last yr and 3 months. But it has happened on a few occasions in the past few weeks.

This sounds like me. I did arrive here 3 months ago. I don't have the sound on, but I do have my vibration on, and it does go off every 10 mins, and I keep putting it off and then waking up and putting it off.  But this only allows me to do it 3 times.
And I doubt the person below me can hear it, but it is annoying.  Sorry! Hope you feel better soon.

Why do all the PA systems in every school I've taught at have to be cranked up to 11!
8:45AM, quietly listening to the birds outside and preparing for a free 1st period as the students are practicing for tomorrow's Sports day. An otherwise peaceful morning is interrupted by the obnoxious speaker "pffft! pffft! 아! 아! 아! 아! 아! 아! 아! 아! pffft! pffft! 아! 아! 아! 아! 아! 아! 아! 아!" blaring at insane volumes. Yes, it's important that every speaker in the school blares the VP screaming instructions to the students, on the field.

Latest K-MIL rant. She always annoys me on the discussion about food. Yesterday, I didn't want to eat the baby octopus in a restaurant and suddenly "He doesn't like seafood" she says to everyone at the table. I do love eating fish (Cod, Mackerel, Salmon) and can eat crab and lobster (though not part of my diet).

Latest K-MIL rant. She always annoys me on the discussion about food. Yesterday, I didn't want to eat the baby octopus in a restaurant and suddenly "He doesn't like seafood" she says to everyone at the table. I do love eating fish (Cod, Mackerel, Salmon) and can eat crab and lobster (though not part of my diet).

Did you bother correcting the table and explaining that you do like most fish-type seafood, but just don't like octopus? Or did you just feel annoyed about it and keep it to yourself?

I just don't get the incessant need to be friends with the foreign teacher. If it looks like I'm busy, sleeping or just doing literally anything else, why force a conversation? Why do you need to know everything? Does it even look/sound like I want to be a part of the conversation when we start talking???

Especially today with a substitute who's only going to be here for like two days.

I get it. Culture of having to know all the details, but some days I would just like to have my conversations limited only to my students and CT in class time. Too tired for this *sigh*

I mean I have the opposite problem in my latest school. I'm literally a ghost. NO ONE makes any effort to talk to me. If I make a conversation I get an answer but that's it. They aren't busy, they sit and INCESSANTLY chat to each other all day. They're all English teachers in my office but I get nothing. Usually on a Monday I will ask how their weekends were...one will say "Good, thanks" then turn to the other teacher and tell her all about her weekend in Korean LOL...like it was my question but sure.

I feel bad for my new main CoT he's not really aware that I have the plague and that no one includes me. One day he happily informs me that we're going to a restaurant for lunch, only to have one of the others rush out on her phone suddenly. He awkwardly tells me that she didn't make a reservation for me so quickly had to go do it.

Latest K-MIL rant. She always annoys me on the discussion about food. Yesterday, I didn't want to eat the baby octopus in a restaurant and suddenly "He doesn't like seafood" she says to everyone at the table. I do love eating fish (Cod, Mackerel, Salmon) and can eat crab and lobster (though not part of my diet).

Did you bother correcting the table and explaining that you do like most fish-type seafood, but just don't like octopus? Or did you just feel annoyed about it and keep it to yourself?

It was brought up in conversation before. They knew I don't care to eat any dish with baby octopus prior to going to this restaurant but a dish containing them was ordered anyway. I stated that I like a lot of fish food but of course, it goes on deaf ears.

I get ignored, but not left out. Two of my coTs are very good about sitting with me so that I'm not sitting in total silence during dinners, though.

@Savant: Do you think your MIL is that dense (I say this because it's pretty dense to assume someone hates all seafood just because they state they don't like one thing) and forgetful, or do you think it's a case of passive-aggressive needling to try to get you to not be "picky" about your food? Or is it possible that she was just using it as an excuse for the rest of the table so that they don't bother you with your own food choices?

I get ignored, but not left out. Two of my coTs are very good about sitting with me so that I'm not sitting in total silence during dinners, though.

@Savant: Do you think your MIL is that dense (I say this because it's pretty dense to assume someone hates all seafood just because they state they don't like one thing) and forgetful, or do you think it's a case of passive-aggressive needling to try to get you to not be "picky" about your food? Or is it possible that she was just using it as an excuse for the rest of the table so that they don't bother you with your own food choices?

She's just one of those Koreans who assumes every Korean dish is delicious and for someone to not want to eat one such dish means that you don't like all Korean food. So yeah, maybe, dense.

It's why I find eating any food with her in the same room/restaurant such a tedious task.

She's just one of those Koreans who assumes every Korean dish is delicious and for someone to not want to eat one such dish means that you don't like all Korean food. So yeah, maybe, dense.

Are you saying she's an idiot, Savant?

I hear stories like this and am glad that my partner's parents aren't difficult.

I hear stories like this and am glad that my partner's parents aren't difficult.

Right? My GF has a kid and it seems to be less stress free than some of this stuff.

When you reach a certain age, you're probably going to order whatever and if your picky son-in-law doesn't like it, tough for him. He has an extra 30 years on this planet more than you. I mean if my Korean son-in-law had a problem with cheese or gravy or lamb or cilantro or pesto, there might come a point where I just said "Eff it, I'm going to order whatever I damn well please. He can eat it or not. I didn't come out to a restaurant to eat spaghetti marinara for the 20th time in a row." So I get the ordering something else. There could well be more cases of something beyond just cilantro/baby octopus. The negatives can stand out over the many times there's no problem.

On the other hand, if she chose a baby octopus restaurant and that's what the primary menu item is, yeah that's a knob move on her part. I don't care for baby octopus at all and that's a hard sell. As for mentioning it to everyone, I guess it depends on how it was said on how picky you are. If it was sneering, yeah that's an asshat move in front of company. If it's ignorance, whatever. Your actions will show her to be either right or wrong and people can see. And I can definitely see that crap getting really irritating after the 80th time. 

Being proactive can help. Be the one that either suggests or declares which Korean restaurant you're going to. Don't let the baby octopus option ever happen. We're going to the jjimdalk or kamjahtang place and that's that. Another good way to beat that perception is to have a few "hardcore oldschool" places on your favorites list. The holes in the wall that have been there for 40 years that get the "How do you know this place?" reaction or certain hardcore dishes.  That usually shuts that crowd the eff up. Maybe a few belts of traditional soju, you know, the varnishy stuff.

Or just order another bottle of soj and go to the happy place in your mind of old college football highlights and scenes from Casino or some old war movie.

I am banned from r/pics forever cuz someone was talking about the Avengers in my thread and I said something that was a spoiler.

FFS

Not a good start to my day so far, I'm in such a foul mood right now.

I had another bad kakao taxi experience this morning. This time the driver's phone ended up crashing, and after rebooting he couldn't get the kakao app to work. That's fine, we can work with that. I can give him directions. Except, he refuses to listen to me. He insists on bringing up a different GPS/navigation app and using that. Fine. But then he can't seem to understand where I want to go. Apparently, he didn't look at the destination on his kakao taxi app before it crashed, and he keeps "mishearing" what I'm telling him after the fact, and asking me over and over again if I want to go to a completely different location -- despite me telling him 'no' each and every single time, he seems to think I don't know what I'm saying and that he's right and that I REALLY want to go to this other place on the complete opposite side of town. He finally gives me his phone so that I can type the destination in myself, only he doesn't let me finish typing and snatches the phone back from me while I'm only halfway done. Then he ****** wipes the whole thing out because he thinks I mistyped it since what I had typed didn't start with the characters indicating the location he kept insisting I wanted to go. Clearly, I was fumbling around too much on his phone and didn't really know how to spell things out.

Mind, this is all while we're still moving on a busy road, with the meter running, and with him going slow enough that people can walk past us, and then only stopping AT GREEN LIGHTS knowing that they are green lights. I begin to insist on making him follow my directions again, but he refuses, and he finally pulls the car over. He hands me his phone again so that I can type in the destination name, only, as he passes the phone off to me, he accidentally hits some button on the app and closes it out, and I have no idea which app it is. Before I can ask him to bring it up again, he gets out of the car and runs off to take a piss.

I got out of the car while he was doing that and flagged down another taxi.

And now one of my new coTs is being an asshole. He's like that with me, and only me, whenever he's loaded down with a lot of work. He's been showing red flags for a while, now, and his level of disrespect has been growing. Today was not a good day for him to test me, and I'm planning on having words with him, but I don't expect that to go well.

I also really ****** hate how some of my coTs will be all, "Well, we discussed and planned the semester's schedule at the beginning of the semester, didn't we?" whenever I ask if there's going to be any changes during a day or week that has certain situations that I have been conditioned to know could bring changes to the schedule... as if we have NEVER ****** changed the schedule before, as if THEY HAVE NEVER ****** changed the schedule before based on where they are with their own classes. Whenever I point that out to them, they give nervous chuckles, like they don't want to argue with me, but then they say the same shit later... unless there is an expected change.

It's so ****** stupid.