The Ultimate Korean Surprise

It's not a secret that the English Program in Korea (EPIK) is undergoing huge budget cuts.  Afterall, this is the reason that I had to switch to elementary school after teaching at a high school last year.  When it came time for people in the February intake to resign their contacts last year, there were tons of high school and middle school teachers who were shocked to find out only two months before they contract ended that they would have to make the switch to elementary schools...or leave the country and face unknown job prospects back home.  Needless to say, this caused quite a bit of chaos, and I was thankful that I had six months warning about the fact that I'd have to make the switch to elementary school if I wanted to stay in Korea.

After that happened last year, we all knew that this meant that the EPIK program would be coming to an end altogether, and sooner rather than later.  We heard other warning signs of this when we heard that Chungcheongbukdo (the province right next to our province) cut ALL the EPIK positions for next year.  This was especially alarming because it's typically the urban areas that cut jobs first.  In fact, Busan and Seoul have been cutting a large amount of jobs for years, but they typically stick around in the more rural provinces for a bit longer.  However, starting next year all of the native teachers in that province will be gone.

When my friends in the February intake were asked to sign their intent for renewal a few months ago, everyone thought it was a good sign, even though we knew that big surprises could still happen...after all, last year everyone signed their intent to renew at their high schools and middle schools only to have their actual contracts arrive with assignments to elementary schools.

My friends have been waiting for well over a month for their contracts to arrive, and finally, this week they did....but again with some big surprises, not just for people in that intake, but for us all.

This year, teachers were resigned in our province, but just about everyone got assigned additional schools.  Essentially the schools of those who are leaving Korea in February are being reassigned to those of us who are staying.

Yes, that's right.  Even though I already have THREE schools, I have now been assigned two more schools.  That means that beginning in March I will be teaching at FIVE different schools.

To say I'm less than pleased is a bit of an understatement.  Although technically EPIK can do this to us--when we sign our contracts we are told where we will be teaching, but it doesn't actually say in our contract where we are teaching.  EPIK can pretty much put us at as many schools as they want as long as we are under our 22 hours.

I know nothing is ever certain in Korea, but these changes have officially put me on Korea overload.  I think I'm just sick of constantly changing schools in general.  This is my fourth year teaching and every year has been at a different school.  This time, I didn't even make it a whole year without having to start over again.  Ok, I'm not starting over completely, but yet again I have to learn a new bus schedule, make new first impressions, adapt to a new set of textbooks (because naturally every school I teach at has to use different ones), and most importantly, learn a new groups of students.

Maybe it means I'm getting to the point where I'm finally feeling ready to settle down, but these days I find myself with a much stronger desire to get back to teaching back home.  I think teaching the robotic textbook lessons of elementary school is taking its toll on me, which will only be worse in the new semester because now that I will be spread out between so many schools I'm sure I won't have any after school classes--which are when I can do my own thing instead of using the mandated textbooks and cds like I do during regular classes.

All I have to say is I'm glad that I will only have six more months of this teaching situation.  I'm thankful for the time I've had in Korea, and I'm trying to stay optimistic about my new situation for next semester, but my mind is starting to think more and more about what will come next.  I'm not the type of person who enjoys a job just because it's easy.  If I'm spending this much time at work I want it to mean something, and I think I'm getting to the point where I'm sick of going around in circles.

In the meantime, I'm trying to look on the bright side....hey, at least this means I won't have to spend so much time with my aggravating coteacher.  Plus, I have tons of traveling coming up before these changes kick in, so I'm trying not to get too ahead of myself.

A Friday Korean Surprise Part 2: The Teacher's Dinner

Friday as a whole captured the yin and yang of Korean surprises.  They are wonderful sometimes when your classes are canceled at the last minute or when you get to take some fun trip, but they can also get you just when you want them the least.

My day Friday started with a wonderful surprise Sports Day, and I was fully ready to cruise to the weekend after the festivities were over.  I typically leave school around 4:17 to catch the 4:20 bus home.  At about 4:12 on Friday one of the teachers asked me if I was coming to dinner.  

What dinner?!

Yes, it was what I feared.  There was in fact a teacher's dinner that I was expected to attend after school.  Now, it's not that I don't like the teachers at my school.  I actually like them a lot, but that doesn't make teacher dinners any less boring when you can't really communicate with anyone.  Also....it was Friday.  All I wanted to do was get home and put some sweatpants on.  

Luckily the plan was to eat at a restaurant right next to my apartment. It also wasn't a super long teacher's dinner with drinking afterwards (which can happen more times than not).  So, I guess all in all I can be thankful for that.  

Needless to say, by the time I got home Friday night I was ready to settle in for a surprise-free night locked in my apartment. 

A Friday Korean Surprise Part 1: Sport's Day!

Fridays have now become my longest, and therefore most exhausting days.  Fridays are always a little tough no matter what kind of schedule you have, but with my new schedule I have six classes on Fridays, which means I pretty much don't stop teaching all day long.  Last Thursday I stayed out late with some friends, so Friday morning came way too soon and I had those remorseful thoughts we've all had when our alarm abruptly wakes us up--why did I stay out so late? Why did I stay for that one last drink?

Nonetheless. I got on the bus and was on my way to school to face my Everest of a day.  As I got off the bus I quickly realized something was different.  There were tons of things set up on the school's yard.  Yes, this could only mean one thing: SPORT'S DAY!

Sure enough, I saw some of the sixth grade students and asked them what was happening and they confirmed that is was indeed sports day.  I walked into the teacher's room and all of the teachers were dressed in their matching athletic clothes at which point they said "Oh, Sarah. Did you know today was sports day?" Well, obviously not since I was dressed in black pants with a nice top and a cardigan sweater.  TIK.  Although I did find it somewhat amusing when the other teachers scolded my CT for not telling me.

Now, Korea can throw some pretty terrible surprises in your face from time to time, but it can also throw some wonderful surprises at you at well.  Thankfully, this was one of those wonderful surprises.  Instead of teaching all day I got to sit around and watch the kids participate in various activities.

Group warm up.

The kindergartners are in green and are just TOO CUTE!

Popping the balloons. 

Karaoke session at the end of the day.  So funny. 

I experienced sports day last semester at my high school, but the elementary version was pretty different in large part because sports day is a family event at the elementary schools.  The students had their parents and sometimes their grandparents there with them at school, which was actually really awesome to see.  The parents even participated in a number of events, including the karaoke session that happened at the end of the day.  This was probably the most entertaining part of the day to watch because the students (even the 6th graders!) would get on stage with their parents and sing and dance to whichever songs they chose, I love how much Koreans love singing.

Overall, it was an entertaining day even though I wasn't really involved with any of the activities.  It was fun just to watch the kids have fun! And I guess it didn't hurt that I didn't have to teach any classes either...

A Korean Surprise: There's a little problem...you're not allowed to leave the country.

Although there are some perks to my new schools schedule, Fridays are hands down my craziest days.  It's a little rough because I think everyone likes to take it a little easy on Fridays, but my final day of the work week is now packed with six classes.  It's kind of stressful because each of those classes is different, so I have to shift gears and switch to totally different lessons with different textbooks all day long.  

This afternoon I had just finished my fifth class of the day and I felt like I was almost home free. I had one more class left.  I was prepared, my papers were copied, and I knew what I was going to do with those kids. I was almost done, and I could already feel the relief start to take over. That is, until my co-teacher came into the teacher's room and told me "We have a little problem."

Now, this co-teacher is quite a character, so I thought it was probably just some minor thing that wasn't really a problem at all.  However his reply went pretty much just like this:

"I heard according to the contract you aren't allowed to leave the country during Chuseok."

It was at this point I wanted to yell and throw things, but I just managed to hold it together enough to tell him that I know I am allowed to leave the country because NETs always travel during this break.  If you give foreigners 5 days off in a row, people are going to travel.  And they do in huge numbers every year during Chuseok break.

As he sat there reading through the contract, he got called somewhere else and left me with the contract, which I then furiously read through trying to find why he was so confused about this.

About ten minutes later he called my cell phone and asked me to bring the contract to the gym, where there was some sort of presentation going on.  I gave him the contact, and although he wanted me to stay, I had to run off to teach my last class of the day.

Obviously it took a little more strength than I had at the moment to put on a smile for those fifth graders, but I think I kind of managed?  In the middle of my class, my CT came in again, showing me part of the contract about vacations, at which I point I sternly and just a hair shy of yelling explained that Chuseok isn't part of my vacation, it's a Korean national holiday guaranteed in another part of our contract. 

He then left again to call whoever is a supervisor at the office of education, only to barge into the room ten minutes later declaring that "Sorry! It's no problem! You can go!"

As if I were really going to cancel my plans at point anyway?  

It takes a lot to get me mad, but this definitely pushed me to my limits.  I'm left wondering why he even was looking into this at all (why does it matter what I do on days we don't have school), and why he waited until the very last minute to bring this up?

However, I should note this day totally redeemed itself when I was on my way out from school.  I said goodbye to everyone in the teacher's office and was walking towards the bus stop when I was called back to say goodbye to the principal.  

This wasn't any typical goodbye though--the principal wanted to give me something.  He handed me an envelope, and my CT translated to tell me that he wanted me to have a great time in Japan.   

When I walked a safe distance away I opened the envelope to discover a 50,000 won bill.  That's about $50 for anyone keeping track. 

I've had my share of uniquely Korean moments over the past year, but I have a feeling I am going to have WAY more this year.  They warned us about these Korean surprises at orientation last year, but a year later they're keeping me on my toes more than ever.    

Korea, you are taking me for the ride of my life.  Some days I want to get off this crazy roller coaster, but I'm sure when it's over I'm going to miss the thrill of these experiences that are indescribably frustrating one moment and overwhelmingly kind and heartwarming the next. 

A Korean Surprise: Graduation

Last night I was talking to one of my friends and she said "Oh you guys have graduation tomorrow, right?"

It was news to me.  Although, I knew graduation had to be coming up at some point.

This week has been exhausting.  Although it's not technically the school year, everyone has classes this week.  Apparently there are laws that the students have to be in school for a certain amount of time, so they throw in this random week of classes that are ultimately meaningless for the students.

So, you can imagine how fun it is to try to have classes with students who know that it's a waste of time. 

This has been one of the craziest weeks of classes since I've been in Korea.  As I was leaving school last night, one of my classes of boys was literally hanging one of the boys out the window. They were hanging onto his upper body and his legs were dangling out the window--it was quite the distance down. 

So that nearly gave me a heart attack, but I think accurately sums up the kind of energy I've been dealing with in the classroom this week.

When I got into school today my co-teacher told me "Today is the graduation ceremony.  So no classes today."

Surprise! 

Although, technically I had a little warning on this one.  But I definitely welcomed this surprise with open arms--especially since today I would have had 5 class, all with the boys.  

Gradation was definitely different than it is in America.  No caps and gowns, for one.  A few speeches and awards were given out, but I think it's definitely not as big of a deal as it is in America.  I didn't teach the 3rd grade students, so I feel like I would have been more sentimental about it if they had been my students.  But mostly it was a long ceremony that I couldn't understand any of.  Soooooo that was that. 

Still, today was great because my supervisor told me that the vice-principal said that next week I don't have to go into school.  I wanted to clarify this to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding, so I asked her what I should do next week.  She told me "Maybe just enjoy outside Korean culture."

No complaints here.  She also told me that the two weeks after I only have to go to school from 2-5:30, and I only will teach one class from 2-3:00.

So, that is awesome, and I'm quite frankly really lucky to have a school that's letting me do that instead of just desk warming for 8 hours a day. I'm pretty lucky. Scratch that.  I'm really lucky.

This job has its stressful moments.  But at the same time, we have it amazingly well as EPIK teachers.  Our jobs aren't THAT hard, especially compared to teaching back home in America. It's going to be tough to get back into a routine when the new school year starts in March, but for now I'd prefer not to think about that :)

A Korean Surprise: Canceled Classes

This week has been a little difficult for me.  While exam week was great because I got to go home early every day, it's been brutal to jump right back into a full course load.  Actually, with speaking tests, student trips, and "self-study" time, really I haven't had all my classes for quite some time.  Now add in the fact that students are tired and lacking motivation now that exams are done--and this week has been a struggle.

I woke up today exhausted, without any motivation to teach.  When I went to my first class, the students all looked surprised and told me that today is a test day.

SURPRISE!

No classes today.

Needless to say, I was relieved. However, why do my students have testing when they JUST finished final exams?

I mean, this is Korea after all.  I don't know why I'm still surprised by this.

A Korean Surprise: The Yearbook Picture

One of my favorite things about Korea is all the random snacks that suddenly appear in the teacher's room.  At least once a week I will be sitting at my desk and suddenly some food will either be brought to me or put on the table in the center of the room.  Snacks range from grapes, to dried squid, to spaghetti.  You just never know what it's going to be.

Today I was sitting at my desk when my vice-principal came over and showed me to the sweet potatoes and apples that had just been served.  I stood there and ate for a few minutes with the other teachers, unable to understand anything, but trying to be sociable and friendly nonetheless.  Then one of the teachers said something to my co-teacher, and she told me that he said I should have my picture taken for the yearbook.  Of course I said ok, and after a few minutes I went back to my desk, definitely NOT thinking that the picture thing was happening right at that second.

I wasn't at my desk for long before my co-teacher came over and told me that I should go with the other teacher to go get my picture taken.  It was 4:30 at this point, so she told me to take my stuff and go home after.  Of course, when I envisioned getting my picture taken for the yearbook I was thinking more along the lines of how it goes in the US--you go to the auditorium and they take your picture AT school.  This was a different story.  Within five minutes I was in a cab heading to an actual photo studio.

I didn't really know what was going on, and the other two teachers with me didn't speak english.  We went to the same photo studio I had been to when I first arrived and needed a photo for my ARC.  At least this time the lady didn't completely rearrange my hair.  She did tell me I should put on some powder (gotta love that oily skin...thanks, Dad ;) )....of course I didn't have any powder because you know, I wasn't anticipating having my picture taken on a Monday afternoon.

I had lesson plans I had hoped to finish before I left school today....but I guess you never know when having your picture taken is going to suddenly become a number one priority.  Oh, Korea.

A Korean Surprise: The Teacher's Trip

I was walking to school today when I just happened to meet up with two of the other English teachers at the cross walk before the school . As we crossed the street and walked towards school, one of the teachers asked me "You know we're going to a temple today?"

What? No. And clearly not, which in retrospect is probably why she was asking. I was wearing a maxi skirt and sandals.

Apparently exams were only going to go until 12, and after that we were going on a field trip for teachers.  SURPRISE!!!

Not that I was disappointed. I am down for sightseeing, especially since I have basically no responsibilities at school this week as the students take their exams.

Of course, initially I thought we were just going to a temple, so I didn't really think my wardrobe selection was going to be a big problem.  But around 12:30 one of my co-teachers came over and asked if I knew about the trip.  I told her I didn't know until the morning and she said "Your fashion is no good."

What I got from the following conversation was that there was going to be a lot of walking involved and my sandals were not going to be practical.

So I rushed back to my apartment to change my attire, went back to school, and got on the bus with the rest of the other teachers.

As I was sitting on the bus one of the other English teachers came on and asked if I would ride in her car with her.  She is probably one of the nicest people I've met in Korea, so of course I agreed.  She likes getting to talk to me because it's an opportunity for her to practice her english.  Many of the English teachers here have said the same thing--they want to talk to me because so much of what they do is teaching grammar and reading so they can read English and comprehend everything, but when they try to speak it's difficult for them to pull out the words they want.  Obviously I get it, and it's my job to talk to people, so I hopped in her car and we continued in her car behind the bus.

We got to our first destination where we got to see a really cool temple.  I wish I remembered the name, but as is typically the case with Korean words, I was able to repeat is a few times, and now the name is gone from my memory.  It's apparently a really old temple, and they usually only let people visit it on Buddha's birthday.  I was really amazed by the temples because the detail was absolutely breathtaking.  I really wish I would have had my nice camera with me because my pictures don't even begin to show the intricate details of the temple.  I saw tons of pictures of temples before I came to Korea, but I can honestly say they are a million times more impressive in person.

 

There were Buddhist monks and other people inside of the temple, so I didn't get any pictures of the inside, but it was also really amazing.  There was a huge Buddha, as well as some other statutes.

After we saw the temples, we walked up a path through the woods (which was fun because it rained this morning and I was only wearing my Tom's), until we reached a waterfall, a stone Buddha, and some stones with Korean written on them, which was apparently done by some historical figure.  The language barrier pretty much prevented me from getting a full explanation of that one.

After that, we got back to the bus, and in my case the car, and we continued on to our next destination.  This time we hiked (again, fun in my Tom's) and we got to another little waterfall, which apparently is connected to a legend of a dragon, but I don't get it (and the explanation I received didn't really make much sense).

After that the teacher I was driving with headed home because she is a vegetarian and the next stop was dinner. We went to a small place with an amazing view of the mountains and were served a selection of pork and goat meat.  I stuck to the pork.

As we were waiting for some people to finish dinner, I got a chance to talk to some of the younger English teachers.  It was actually really good because I don't get to talk to them often, and they by far have the best English of any of the teachers in the department so we could joke around and laugh a bit--something that is hard to do with the large language barrier with some of the other teachers.

We got back on the bus and we were all really tired....a group of teachers went to noraebang, but we decided to head home.

All in all, it was a totally unexpected, but interesting day.  When I woke up this morning I never would have thought that I would end up visiting temples, but Korea is keeping life interesting, and I'm appreciating that.

A Korean Surprise: Impromptu Lunch?

On Thursday I finished teaching my 4th period class and headed back to the teacher's room.  I was starving because at this point it was 1:10 and I had been teaching non-stop all day, so I put my stuff down and was ready to head to the cafeteria. Just as I was about to leave, one of my co-teachers came over and said "We will go to lunch now.  You will come with me."

Ummm ok?  I could tell that this meant we were not going to the cafeteria, so I grabbed my purse and followed her to her car.

We then proceeded to drive to a restaurant not too far down the road, where we met the other English teachers from our school.

We ate a typical Korean lunch (lots of side dishes, soup, fish)...but I kept looking at my watch and thinking things along the line of "Shouldn't we be getting back to school now?"

It was 2:05 by the time we were done, and our next class starts at 2:10.  Of course, no one seemed worried about it.  We got back to school a little late, and went to teach our next class without anyone batting an eyelash.

Again, I couldn't help to think that I REALLY am in Korea now (in case the whole language thing hasn't given it away yet).  If a bunch of teachers in the US went out to lunch and were a few minutes late getting back, you would never hear the end of people complaining about those "lazy, overpaid teachers." Talk about a different perspective.

All in all, not a bad surprise.  School lunches in Korea are pretty good, but I can't complain about a random restaurant outing.  I have no idea why it happened, or if there even was a reason, but that's part of the mystique of these lovely Korean Surprises.

A Korean Surprise: The Lesson Demonstration

Today was a long day. A very long day.

I was already exhausted going into the day because of the all day field trip yesterday (which I really will write about soon).  Of course, Tuesdays are always crazy days for me because I teach pretty much all day and then I have a night class from 7:30-9.

So it was only made more crazy when after I finished teaching my first class of the day, my co-teacher asked me about my lesson demonstration.

My what?! (SURPRISE!!!)

She looked at me in a confused way and said "wait, you do not have your lesson prepared?"

I  told her that I did have a lesson plan for the day, but I didn't have it written up in a formal way.

The look on her face told me that was not good.

So, she called down my other co-teacher who told me that he had written up a lesson plan, but that I should just teach whatever I had prepared.  What?

 He told me that he didn't think the Principal had even seen the lesson plan, so it wouldn't matter.

Now, I'm still not exactly sure WHAT I'm supposed to be teaching in this class.  My co-teacher told me that it should be speaking related, so I had planned some speaking activities.  Of course, I've never tried any of these activities, so I had no idea how they will work,. Being observed while trying something that could potentially fail miserably was not really so thrilling to me.

I asked my co-teacher more questions as I tried to figure everything out, but he eventually told me not to worry because he doesn't think the Vice-Principal can even understand any English, and he thinks the Principal can understand very little, if any.

The whole thing was almost comical in a weird way.  My co-teacher knew this demonstration was going to happen, and he wrote up a lesson plan, knowing that it was just complete BS and that it would never be used...because his bosses can't understand it anyway.

Moments like these remind me I'm really not in America anymore.

When the time for the class came, my co-teacher told me that he had forgotten that I hadn't even met that class yet (we didn't have classes last Tuesday), so I should just forget about everything and do my introduction lesson.

So, in the end I was stressed for the larger part of the day over nothing.

Everything I've read about Korea warns you about how schedules change all the time and you have to be able to go with the flow.  I was totally prepared for schedule changes, but I was not in any way prepared for a last minute lesson demonstration.

Today really took the Korean Surprise to the next level.

Please excuse me as I try to placate my stress with ice cream (I'm really mad at myself for not having any beer in my refrigerator right now).

The Korean Surprise

During one of our lectures at orientation, we had an amazing presenter who talked about classroom management.  She mentioned that as you teach in Korea, you will be presented with many last minute "surprises."  Sometimes this could be that a class is canceled, other times it might be that you have an extra class or have to go to a staff dinner.

This presenter said that she refers to these instances as the "Korean Surprise."  She told us that whenever these last minute surprises happen to her, she yells "SURPRISE!" in her head to add some enthusiasm and to try and make her feel better about it.

Of course, this was probably one of our favorite lines from orientation, and since that lecture we have been anticipating our own Korean Surprises.

I have to say, this was a momentous day. Today I got my first real Korean Surprises.

When I got to school this morning we had a faculty meeting.  I sat in the meeting having no idea what was being said, when my co-teacher turned to me and told me that the Vice Principal had just introduced me and that I had to get up in front of the teachers and introduce myself.

Ok, not so bad.

But after the staff meeting, I was then told that I had to go to the auditorium, where I would have to speak in front of the entire school.

SURPRISE!

So I got up on stage and said a few words.  It's only mildly awkward trying to sound gracious being put on the spot like that....

So that was Korean Surprise number 1.

Surprise number 2 came when I was teaching.  One of the classes I teach is Advanced English Conversation--this is the class I was told to teach writing in.  I have these kids for two periods in a row on Mondays, so I had prepared a writing assignment for them today so I could assess their writing abilities.

Of course, after my first class my co-teacher told me that only the first half is supposed to be writing. The second part of the class should be speaking.

SURPRISE!

I'm sure this was mostly just a miscommunication.  The language barrier makes it REALLY hard to figure out what is expected of me, so I'm sure I'm just going to have to make mistakes to figure it out.

So for lack of a better idea, I had the kids interview each other and introduce their classmates.  Such a boring lesson and not the way I would have liked to have started my time teaching them.

But that's the thing about Korean Surprises--you just never know when they're coming.

Oh, and I also found out I don't have classes tomorrow (except for my night class).  At least I had 24 hours notice on that one.

Oh Korea, definitely keeping me on my toes!