Around April

Oh April, not the month, but the place where I spend most of my waking hours on weekdays. Let’s see… on most days, I make it to work by 12:30pm (we’re required to be there by 1:30pm) and stay there until about 9pm. That’s 8.5 hours per day, times that by 5… that’s an average of 42.5 hours spent at my school on a weekly basis. The month of October is proving to be a very interesting month so far. With the new kindergarten opening up, a new teacher coming in, and the general management of the place, I have to say that I’m a bit strained.

Now I’m not perfect, but if anyone around here knows me, then they’ll know that punctuality is very important to me. I think punctuality is the easiest part of your job. Showing up is literally half the battle. So it surprises me when people nonchalantly show up late for work/meetings. It surprises me even more when people show up late to meetings they were supposed to lead. Then there’s communication. A quick text/Kakao message/ERP/e-mail would’ve taken 2 seconds to send out. But of course, it didn’t happen. So when I’m told to show up to a 1:15pm meeting, and I have to knock on 2 classroom doors only to get rejected, it kind of pisses me off. It would’ve been fine if this only happened once, but no. Try the past 1.5 years. Try constant miscommunication between incompetent people. Try last-minute deadlines. Try poorly organized meetings with no effective outcome. But, people are not perfect, “I understand.” However, when you are in a leadership position, and you are repeatedly tardy, I lose all respect for you. More importantly, you are in a PAID leadership position. Collect those extra paychecks & still show up late to your own meetings? Mmmmm hmmm.

That’s just my annoyance and pent up anger talking. I’ve reached my breaking point this past week. I will continue to show up to work on-time (if not, early) and do what I need to do. I need to focus on what’s most important, my students. But beyond that, screw it. You’re on your own mofos, dig your own grave(s)!

Let’s make this a somewhat happy post with a few pictures of my students this term:

Some of my Seedbed 2 babies – Annie, Sandy, Jenny, & the twins – Mary & David.

Another Seedbed 2 baby – Edward. He reminds me of a baby bird constantly chirping for attention.

Sprout 3 – MWF 4 o’clock – my smartest class!

My young Sapling2 class. They told me that I reminded them of a Korean mother in law (시엄머니) when I lecture them about essay writing.

Meet Jared. He likes to avoid participating in class and laughs about everything.

Meet Jungyun (crazy face) – I once saw him and his family on the Mugunghwa train coming back to Daejeon after Chuseok. Meet Woojin (other boy). He’s the smart silent type and doesn’t talk to me even though he laughs at my jokes.

Meet Ryan, the sweetheart. He likes to say “HUH” a lot and he’s a little strange, but overall, a sweetheart. I heard he’s a thug outside the classroom though. Cool with me!

So there you have it. Some of my Monday-Wednesday-Friday students. I don’t have pictures of my last Sapling 2 class because they are way too wild and obnoxious to even have their pictures taken. I’ll be sure to get some pictures next week of my Tuesday-Thursday Seedbed 2 class. They are even more adorable!