A Slow Monday.

I’m currently on my laptop, but here’s what’s tabbed up on my school computer: a hockey game (currently streaming full-screen), my G-mail inbox, 2 articles, 1 on drone strikes and Obama’s foreign policy, and another on the finer points of raising taxes for the American public, as well as an hour’s worth of sappy Korean drama, courtesy of YouTube, my Korean listening practice for the day.

You know, the computer I should be doing work on. For school.

Of course, for some of us expats in the Korean ESL industry, especially this time of year, this is a large part of our jobs, a great deal of what we truly have come to be so good at—being at work, but not really working. You see, most of us in the public school system have no classes these days. The kids have all gone again, this time for about 2 weeks, on spring “vacation.” But make no mistake about it, this is not so much a vacation. Not for the students of our school. They apparently go back home, where most teachers attest to a lack of love and compassion, and at times, sadly, a lack of parenting or parents altogether. They go to academies, which see little to no vacation time for both teachers and students. They most certain don’t travel further than downtown Pyeongtaek, and they most certainly get little stimulation outside of a computer game.

Today, and for the next two weeks, I have no classes. But these things tend to, at any other point of the school year, change on a daily, no, hourly, no, as-the-seconds-tick-away basis.

Upon hearing the faint rumble of what could possibly be our English room door opening (which by association means my “co-teacher” will soon step into our office and observe what I’m so curiously busy doing), I turn the volume down on the stereo speaker that, up until this moment, blasted the sounds of skates and sticks and hip checks into the boards. St. Louis leads Vancouver, 3-2, late in the 3^rd period. Vancouver has about 20 seconds left on the power play, and still shows plenty of life.

Turns out that rumble was not our door. Crisis averted. Sound is on again.

Such is the nature of a day with no students, no classes, and barely any teachers in the school. If not for the humming of the ceiling heater, one could all but hear a pin drop in the English room office.

It’s 1:31 p.m. on a Monday afternoon. My co-teacher has made exactly 2 trips to the English room today, each time alerting me that she’ll be spending most of her day in the teachers’ room. There, she’ll answer phones, make schedules, kiss a little vice principal ass, and generally stay busy and as informed as she can about all the happenings around the school. She does this because she has to. She does this because, in Korean schools, those below the principal and vice principal work their entire lives (and, consequently, their entire asses) off for a mere crack at the opportunity given to the education system’s most superior figures (one of my vice principals last year would kick his feet up the sound of 9:00 a.m.’s class starting bell, open the newspaper, and break from this routine only to stroll down the hill for lunch). My co-teacher is the head of all the school teachers at our school, and as such, she spends most of her free time back and forth between the principal and vice principal’s offices, doing a little brown nosing and staying overly diligent.

Vancouver’s really peppering St. Louis in the offensive zone now.

So today, and this doesn’t happen too often, there is no one in the office with me for the better part of 8 hours. At my job, it’s as cool as it is sad. While I was initially thrilled at the chance to mindlessly internet surf, read books as I pleased, even watch movies or catch up on recently missed episodes of useless TV shows as I saw fit, I tried to spend a great deal of this time writing, studying Korean, and preparing some classroom materials that, for myself and my co-workers, at least give the impression of an honest day’s work. I can remember a few conversations in the last month or two in which we, Pyeongtaek’s expats, asked each other “so, what do you tend to do while deskwarming?”

I watch hockey at my desk, too. I can’t deny that. But you can bet that, when I hear that distant door slide open, the volume’s off and the Korean study book is opened to a seemingly complicated page, full of new words and reading practice.

Vancouver just tied it…and we’re heading to overtime.

Just Another Thursday

     Tardy on the blogging yet again. And why? I've spent so much time at my desk these days, I've literally stated scrambling for ways to try to look busy when my eternally stressed co-teacher comes in, frazzled about vice principal this and obligations that. I want nothing more than to help her, but I've settled on the fact that her answer will be the same as it always is: "you look busy, and I don't want to burden you."

     "But Mrs. Cheon, I'm really not so busy right now, and I would really like to help."

     "Why aren't you busy?"

     Such is life here. I can't really buy a win--the students come in, and sure, I'm happy to see them, but it would be nice to be notified of such once in a while. Conversely, there will be entire days with no classes, during which I'm totally prepared in that the computer is on, the heat is blasting, and the review game .PPT is all set...

     And then nobody shows up, and suddenly I feel a little empty inside. I hang my head, turn off the computer, turn off the heating, close the window (don't get me started on Korean teachers and their insistence to have, yes, simultaneously, windows open and heat blasting in the thick of winter), and saunter back to my desk. I say saunter because, if I step too firmly on the floor, our little space heater starts flashing and sparking and altogether not working.

     And yet I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. I don't know where I was going with that. I guess, these days, I'm just bored. I study Korean in my free time (the grammar is starting to eat away at what brain capacity to learn a language I have left), I watch hockey highlights (happy to have it back!), I read my Hemingway book (A Farewell to Arms, good stuff), and I prepare alphabet books and simple stories for my kindergarten and 1st-2nd graders next semester. I still have 3 weeks to do...just about anything! Our semester will start again in March.

     My life has become one awkward conversation with my co-teacher.

     We have an hourly chat about an English word in which she takes some interest in using in a few sentences, we squabble about the room being cold, she takes a few calls from superiors and is visibly flustered, and I bide my time with the aforementioned attempts to look busy.

     On the bright side, although it is Valentine's Day (better spend it with the teachers!), we have a teachers dinner tonight--in Korean, this is referred to as a "회식." These are always really fun events, and I can in no way complain about how well we are all treated at such 회식s. There is usually amazing food involved, heavy drinking from the male end of one, awkwardly long table, stories told about school, life, relationships (some meant to be heard by all, some merely soju-induced spats about things that should not be uttered in such company), and even a quick 5-minute jab at American culture and customs...if we're really lucky, an elder, Mr. 최, offers a rant about why Samsung has been, is, and will continue to be, the greatest company conceived on this fine planet and why Apple can simply never match up.

     Of course, then it's on to the 노래방, literally "singing room," or karaoke, where all is forgotten and everyone's just down to have a good time, drink some more beer, get a little frisky (and by that I mean our 60-year old female principal danced pretty close to me during my rendition of the Rolling Stones's "Honky Tonk Women" at our first such get together), and just pound on the 2-3 tambourines each room is offered.

     Tomorrow the 6th graders graduate. I've got some mixed feelings on that...certainly I'll miss them, but they've been real punks as of late--surely, the knowledge of the proximity of their ceremony has not been lost on them. All teachers are pretty psyched, it seems, to have them out of the school, as they've all but given up on any form of classroom work that doesn't involve a smart phone or an open space in which to tackle each other.

     That's all from the captain's chair today, folks. Thanks for reading!

     -Sam