You Think You Are Having A Bad Day?

I am happy to say that I only have 6 more essays to mark and then I am done with the 91 of them!

It definitely has not been a labour of love doing these essays this time. Especially considering that 77 of them were all exactly on the same subject. I only have one class that is different from all the other classes!

When Wayne, the head teacher for the English teachers, asked me what levels I wanted, I told him that I didn't care, anything would be good. I didn't realize that they were going to give me every Wisdom Basic class!!!!

That means that I teach the same lesson on Monday and Wednesday for 4 classes straight, or about 5 hours. The exact same lesson and the exact same thing the next day for 2 out of my 3 classes. I guess preparing is a lot easier, but it is a little boring after a while doing the same thing for 7 hours over 2 days!!!!

I like the level that I am teaching, but would have liked a little more variance in my classes, even if it was one or two of the lower levels or intermediate levels. I am still enjoying my job, as always and wouldn't trade what I do for any other job at the moment. I really like teaching and plan to do this for as long as I physically can, hopefully until I feel like retiring.

It is such a rush teaching the young kids and they keep me young at heart, or is it the other way round. Anyone that knows me, knows that I am about 12 at heart, 13 tops!

These are a few photos that have been doing the circuit, either on email or on website. I still think they are good and it makes you think about how shit happens in the world. Like the title says, "You think you are having a bad day?"

People never cease to amaze me on their take on things that happen. I will give you a prime example of one that happened to me today.

I was sitting at my desk with my yogurt, low fat biscuits and bean bread pancakes. One of the Korean English teachers walked towards me and pointed at one of the bean breads and said, "Give me!" I replied to her that she was not getting one unless she asked me nicely, as the way she asked me was bad manners, just like a little child. I of course was also saying; Give me, give me, never gets, haven't you learnt your manners yet.

Well the surprising thing is that Wayne saw this and said that I was rude for not giving her one! I told him that if she asked me nicely, she could have one, but not before. It is our job to teach the kids and the non- English speaking teachers.. joke joke.... some of our culture and what is rude and what is not.

I could not get through to Wayne or one of the other teachers. They firmly believed that I was wrong. I didn't say it in an angry tone of with attitude. I just said matter of factly that she was not getting one unless she asked me politely.

The students here do the same thing, "give me, give me, " 'hey you, hey you' or wave their hands in front of your face and I mean right in front of your face. I won't have it of course and make every student stop doing anything of the sort when they do it.

The thing is that they don't do the same thing to the Korean teachers, which goads me to say the least. Sometimes I think, let me rephrase that, I know that the kids have more respect for the Korean teachers. Even the foreigners when we have food are begged by the kids to give them some, but it never happens with the Korean teachers.

The fact that the Korean teachers say nothing or do nothing when it happens get on my nerves too. I am not the slightest bit angry or frustrated blogging this, I am just stating a reality, but what did surprise me today was the two American teachers thinking that I was rude! What was I supposed to do? Let the teacher carry on asking every foreigner in that fashion for something? That would be rude of me to let her embarass herself in that manner without telling her the polite way to ask. Even I know the polite way to ask for something in Korean. There is a word "Jusayo" which means please give or please do and I always use it when I ask for something or something to be done.

This kind of thing is a normal occurrence in Korea and it takes someone to let them know that what they are doing is impolite or not acceptable behaviour. I guess most of the teachers are either too lazy or too fedup to say anything about it. Not me, I am always on my preacher's box and won't let the unbelievers pass without giving them the sermon!!!!!!!

I am on my break right now and well deserved must I say. I listened to the Liverpool game last night on the pc and from being 3-0 up, they almost blew it. I watched the highlights today and what a goal that Crouch scored!!!! Not bad for a bloke that hasn't started the last 4 games!

Tonight it is off to the gym after work. I ran 7kms last night and plan on doing some weightraining tonight and then a short 2 km run. I think I am going to go with the 2 day cycle of day 1 just run and no weights and day 2 do weights and just a short run and then keep repeating that throughout the whole week. I think it will be more beneficial for my elbow too as I still have a bit of pain after doing 2 days in a row of weightraining. Anyway, I will see how it goes.

I am eating as healthy as ever now. I have a yogurt and fruit for lunch and eat very little meat. I don't eat chocolate or cookies or a lot of any kind of snack food. It it easy to maintain living this way, which I think is the key to any kind of healthy food lifestyle. If you ask yourself the question; "Can I eat like this for the rest of my life?" and the answer is yes, then you have the right diet for yourself.

Off to input some marks into the computer and start to think about going to Taiwan next Tuesday. Looking forward to the time off and the new experience of another country to explore.