The Week Thus Far....

Welcome to "Graduation Week": A week of classes that comes sandwiched between 6 weeks of winter vacation and 2 weeks of spring vacation, just before the new school year starts on March 3. Does it make any sense to be here? In a word: NO. The students have already done their exams (like, back in December) and have, in all essence, completed their school year.

The kids hate to be back (except for the wee ones, since school is still "fun" for them), the teachers hate to be back, and - hell yeah - I'm really hating the fact that I'm sitting in an un-heated classroom (and it's cold!), waiting for students who may or may not arrive, when I could have been in Cambodia for another week. Some schools have given their foreign English teachers the week off, some have given a half week, some expect the person to come in and not teach, basically sitting in the office from 9 to 5.

Knowing, from the Canadian side, what the start of a new school year is like, I can just imagine how busy my Korean colleagues are right now. In Canada, most teachers find themselves at school about two weeks (for preparation, meetings etc) before the students start - I feel bad for the Korean teachers who are, essentially, juggling classes full of very unmotivated students and meetings full of administrative stuff.

Fortunately for me, Valentine's Day falls in this week, so I've been doing a lot of fun Valentine's things with my kids - making fish out of hearts, colouring cards, vocabulary games - and while it is fun (especially when I taught my Grade 3s the Sharon, Lois and Bram "Skinnamarink" song and had them sing it to their ajosshi (older male) teacher, who smiled and danced with glee as they sang), it certainly isn't necessary for me to be here. But I digress...

I'm going to be signing my third contract soon. It's amazing how quickly the time is flying: Sometimes, I am still surprised to be here, in Korea.

This next contract, however, is causing me some stress. Criminal behaviour by Canadian ESL teachers in Korea (a suspected pedophile, people caught with drugs) means that I'm going to have to get even more paperwork done to renew my contract. It frustrates me to know that, for example, because people came here with fake or incomplete degrees, I have had to prove four times, not including a spot-check a few months ago, that my diplomas were real (means multiple notarized copies of my degrees, and multiple copies of my university transcripts - which necessitated numerous e-mails, phone calls and faxes to get.... each step is always a tangle of red tape and the whole process is an expensive one). It frustrates me that, after 2 years in Korea, I will need to get a new RCMP criminal check done (even though I had one done in January 2006 and haven't lived in Canada since). It frustrates me that, because I am a foreigner, I will be tested for THC (active ingredient in cannabis). It frustrates me that, over the next three months, my life will be all about getting paperwork done, documents stamped, going back and forth to the Canadian Embassy in Seoul.... with a fee to pay every time I need something else, so that the Korean government can look like they are "doing something" about the "problems with English teachers"... (If I were them, I'd give spelling tests instead of drug tests...half the "teachers" here can't differentiate "you're" and "your".)

And on that note.... Happy Valentine's Day!