You teach from 9:25 today!!

was the title of today's 'mail'.
Sent to me at 9:26.

No really. Look.

===========================================================
[제목] : this is todays schedule. you start at 09:25!
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[발신인] : 담임 이은영
[수신인] : 어학실
[수신인원] : 1명
[수신일자] : 2009-12-18 09:26

I compared what my clock was saying against the oddly empty classroom, and hurriedly replied back.

"Ok, but so the kids know that? There's no one here."

I learned from before to NOT expect any help so I quickly translated some of what looked relevant Korean emails ONLY to find out today was another test day.

Thanks for the one minute warning people.

Actually, one minute AFTER THE FACT.

This will make the third time they didn't bother to inform me of something dreadfully relevant or a major schedule change. (This is a test-centered school culture.)

Foreigners already have a HUGE disadvantage here far, far beyond the constraints of a language barrier.

But that's another gripe/warning for another time.

The point is that this oversight makes me look BAD. AGAIN.

You do NOT make mistakes here.

And this is "my" third major mistake.

Last week was finals.

Normally I proctor tests so I was prepared to do the same for this one. Even made up a little "test bag" of supplies. When I spoke to my lead teacher, she said that just like the mid-term I would not be on the schedule. Instead I would be "off".

I no longer trust anything here so I decided to come in that morning anyway to do some other work. As I received no "quick! come proctor!" message via the internal messaging system I felt rather confident in her statement. Even so, I went through the dozen or so Korean mails, looking for the ones about the final test and quickly translating what I could.

My name did NOT appear in the schedule.

So I was feeling pretty good and for some reason I can no longer remember went down to see the lead teacher.

After she walked in from her test period, some other male teacher grabbed her and started irritatingly blathering at her. Unfortunately I caught a slurred version of my name.

The resultant explanation of this exchange was delivered with a typically plastered smile - "Oh, you were supposed to proctor! You were on the list!"

...

Really?!? You told me I wasn't going to be on the list.Matter of fact, I went so far as to check the list and I couldn't find my name on it.

It was the FINAL, for %^$%# sake.

And for a foreigner to make a mistake (much less a woman) it is automatically assigned to the pigeon hole thought process of "foreigners = unreliable. lax. sloppy. not serious about their work. have it so f*(&*%g easy yet they can't even be counted on to do something as simple as THIS."

Admittedly, there's more than a few like that (like apparently my next door neighbor), but for those of us who came expecting to actually teach...

Like I told the lead teacher once after another 'incident' - "They (the teachers) have stress so they take it out on you. The kids have stress which they ALSO take out on you. It really seems to me that they're just looking for someone to kick around."

I so, so, sooo hate this place.

Cheers! (^_-)-☆

Thanks again for stopping into my little corner of the 'net, and Happy Browsing!!

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