I am now safely back in the United States for a month. I have had ten days "rest," though some of it was lest than restful. How do I feel about it? Well, the jury is out. Some very tragic things have happened since I came home, but there have been benefits as well.
A day after I arrived home, the news reached me that a very dear former coworker had suddenly died of cancer. She was the very first person to welcome me to MIlpitas High School when I began working there in 2002, something I really appreciated. I attended her wake and funeral; her "thousand-watt smile" and cheerful attitude will be sorely missed. She was a very caring and maternal "earth mother" type; a coronet of flowers adorned her still beautiful fair hair, and under her rosary and in her hands someone had placed her favorite treat, a Hershey bar. She would have gotten a kick out of all of it, especially the Janis Joplin exit music.
The good news is that I have cleared a lot of debt. Considering the state I was in when I left, I have done very well, or at least I try to believe that I have. I will not, as I previously hoped, be able (on my lower salary) to clear ALL of my debt, as I had originally planned; this is distressing, but a long drive this evening cleared my head and I feel a little better.
I have finally secured a job at the University of Suwon; the salary is less than stellar, in fact, it is quite laughable given the qualifications they were looking for. Even so, I look at it as a resume builder. I will gain experience in a smaller Korean town teaching adults and university students (nevr confuse the two in Korea!).
But the Korean system is based, after all, on bringing in people who cannot or will not function the way a "normal" person should in their own society; some of the people I have met along the way have given me pause to say, "Whoa! Am I really like that?" Certainly I fit this in that I have never needed the fancy car, the house, or the money. The irony is that I cannot even get what I do want - a modest condo or apartment in the coastal area...But I am very sane compared to some of the characters I have met, or at least I flatter myself that this is so.
When I got in the taxi to leave Seoul, I immediately knew my trip was going to be interesting. It had been pouring rain for several days, and parts of the freeway system were flooded. The taxi driver darted in and out of the city several times in order to avoid the floods. It took so long that my bladder gave out, and we had to stop at a gas station. I left everything in the taxi except my plane ticket and my purse. When I came out, we got on the freeway again. Then, I realized that I had left my e-ticket in the bathroom. The driver was kind enough to turn around; fortunately, it was still there.
We finally arrived at Incheon, and the journey through immigration went smoothly. The ticket given to me was "Economy Plus," so I felt very lucky (5 inches extra leg room). The first plane took off, and we had a very bumpy ride to Nippon (Japan). I managed to sleep most of the time, in spite of stomach churning turbulence. Once on the ground, I tried to get some money changed. After several consultations with a very inconvenient computer map, I found the currency exchange. They would not, however, exchange my won for dollars, even though they said they were full service.
I boarded the next plane, which proved to be a vintage Boeing 747 built sometime in the 1970s by the looks and sounds of it. Every twist and bump caused the plane to creak. To my horror, I discovered that I had been placed in a "sandwich seat" between two male passangers. The window seat passenger was a good-looking and entertaining Korean American grad student (UCLA) who was also, alas for me, very tall and leggy. On the aisle sat an Army reservist fire chief from Santa Fe; he was in his fifties and had quite a bit of trouble with his knee on the flight. Both companions were pleasant; I wish I had gotten the grad student's phone number!
I arrived in LAX with about two hours to spare. As this was considered the point of entry, the plane had to unload the luggage so we could carry it to customs. I had two very large and heavy bags to deal with, so I took advantage of the free baggage carts. Unfortunately, the baggage carousel broke down. Two more international flights came in, and they were being unloaded onto the same carousel. Throught fits and starts, the baggage was unloaded. An hour later, I heave-hoed my massive baggage off. I fought valiantly with the baggage cart and finally won. I knew I was in America because not one person offered to help me get my luggage on the cart, though I was swearing, huffing, and puffing. In Korea, I would have had at least three people try to help.
I then got into the long line through customs and went through pretty smoothly. I put my baggage on another carousel and pulled out my ticket. I asked an airport security guard for directions; she was very pleasant, and indicated that the terminal was a "two minute walk" from the international terminal. Actually, it was fifteen minutes in scorching heat. I got there just in time to be harassed by security. When I left America, security was only doing selective screening of shoes, laptops, etc. The rude guard gave me attitude when I expressed confusion about taking off my hiking boots and taking my laptop out of its case. He then got squiffy when I took a long time to do it (there was no one else in line), hiking boots not being an easy item to remove in a hurry. Both he and the technician then laughed at me because I was not wearing socks (long story there) and I was being very delicate about putting my bare feet on the filthy floor (in Asian countries, they give you temporary slippers).
The puddle jumper flight was uneventful; I had a nice chat with my seatmate about living abroad. My family was at the airport to meet me, as well as two of my friends.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Monday, July 10, 2006
JOURNAL: Man Versus the Machine
Well, I have officially begun packing to return to the US. My last work day is July 12; I leave Korea on July 16th, and arrive in San Jose a half hour after I left, according to my ticket...I have a two hour stopover in Narita (Japan); hopefully the Japanese will hold off their counter attack against N. Korea while I am there...
I was penniless when I came here, and now I am jobless as well. I have had no luck on my university job hunt. Sigh. Maybe it is time to flip some burgers....But maybe I am too cocky; maybe working an extra three years to get an MA was not worth it in the end. Maybe it IS just a piece of paper with no meaning behind it. I love literature, and I love the English language. Maybe there is no room for it in this world.
This is my blessing and my curse. I am an academic at heart, an academic who dearly loves teaching AND research. I need the university environment to thrive. This hit me as I began devising Plan B, returning to school for my CELTA certification. It is true that teachers are lifelong learners. I revel in seemingly useless details. I just finished a unit with my second graders on plant reproduction, an area I had never given much thought to (as most of us don't). I learned how a plant makes seeds and how to label their reproductive organs because I had to teach it. You learn in order to teach.
From my students, I have learned a great deal of Korean history and folklore. If asked an essay question on the March 3 Movement in Korea, I could give reasonably accurate details about the Protestant clergymen and students who marched to Topgol Square and declared their independence from Japan in 1911 (causing a bloody massacre). Why does this matter? It doesn't to us; we barely talk about the Korean War (30 years later) in U.S. history class. I didn't even know there WAS a Korean War until I went to college. I have gained a wide-world view from my life here; what happens on a tiny, isolated penninsula has world-wide impact on so-called democracy. Note the current thunderings from "the North."
I have digressed quite a bit from my original intentions, so, without further ado and on a lighter note....
MAN VERSUS MACHINE
I seldom get in trouble at work, but when I do, it is usually a big thing.
On Wednesday, I had a particularly rotten day. I had only one hour of sleep due to a foul, mysterious odor in my apartment. I had noticed it earlier in the week, but no amount of searching could find the source. It smelled peculiarly of "dead mouse;" I know this because while I was in high school, a mouse (caught in a trap) fell from the attic into the wall space of the spare bedroom, whereupon it died and rotted all winter. Well, this night the aroma was especially bad. I traced the source to under my air conditioner (which is directly above my bed) and found the odor to be overpoweringly strong. I stood on my bed and peered up. The entire inside of my A/C was coated in mold, and there was nothing I could do about it. I tried to sleep, but to no avail.
Bleary and groggy-eyed, I sleepwalked through my day. After work, I went to see the director to verify my last day; there had been some confusion as to when exactly it was. This was at 9 p.m. We hashed out my date to July 12, and then she said something that really made my day.
"By the way, I know you are only her one more week, but I need to tell you we got a parent complaint."
"Oh?"
"Yes. Four students want to drop your class."
"Is it my GT4B5-1 class, by any chance?"
"Yes, how did you know?"
"Just a lucky guess."
"Well, we at POLY backed you up; I told the parents you had an MA in English."
(Not sure what that had to do with anything, but ok...)
"What was the problem?"
"You know, Rebecca, teenage girls are very sensitive. I have a daughter, and she is very sensitive also, and we need to be gentle with them."
(Where is this going? I wondered.)
"This student says that you are 'mean' and 'hysterical.'"
"I don't see how that can be; I never yell or degrade the students...Ah, this student isn't L___, is it?"
"Well, yes."
"Did she also tell you I gave her a discipline note for drawing on the desk, talking back, and throwing things at other students?"
The director then began to lecture me on the fact that I gave three VERBAL warnings rather than put the student's name on the board. I also told her that I DID lose my temper after the SECOND time a student brought out a squirt gun and shot it off in class. I did not, as she pointed out, follow proper procedure then, either, as I believe that qualifies as a three-strikes-your-out offense. I have also confiscated BB guns on other occasions. This same director, btw, has sent new teachers to observe me because I have "excellent classroom management skills."
As I was leaving in a week, I decided to put it behind me and chalk it up to one more "weird thing that Koreans do." But fate was not so kind as to let me forget that easily.
At 9:30, well past my leaving time, I went downstairs to get money from the ATM. I needed 100,000 Won to pay the landlady my maintinence fee and to have money for the weekend. I punched in my number, checked my balance, and then hit the "Withdrawal" key. The machine hummed and whistled, as it usually does, and counted out my bills. There is a compartment where the bills are counted into, wherupon a door opens and you take your cash out of a deep box. The door opened about a centimeter...and the computer crashed, capturing both my money and my bank card in the machine.
"Arrrrgh..." I screeched. I looked around helplessly. I must have stood there like a dummy for about five minutes.
The building security guard came back from his rounds, and saw me. We are on very friendly terms in spite of the fact that he doesn't speak a word of English; I always greet him in the afternoon in Korean and bow slightly (as he is an older gentleman). He came over to see what was wrong, and in an elaborate pantomime, I managed to convey what had happened. He laughed delightedly at my enactment, as I included sound effects (the ATMs in Korea have beeps and whistles to tell you where you are in the cycle) and ended with a dramatic KABOOM and pointed to the computer screen. He understood the KABOOM, and called the bank security.
The bank security guard came after about 15 minutes, and took the whole machine apart. He was able to retrieve my card, but he was not able to get my money. I tried to convey that I wanted some assurance that the money would be redistributed to my account, but there my Korean ran out. The two men then got into a loud, and completely incomprehensible arguement about what the proper procedure was (I assume). I kept trying to pantomime "receipt" and said the word repeatedly, but no one was listening to me. When Koreans get excited, they gesticulate wildly just like the Italians, except in even less personal space. So, with arms and spittle flying, I dodged and brought out my only weapon, my "handu phone."
I began to call every Korean friend I had, and NOT ONE answered their cell phone. Finally, in defeat, I dialed the one number I had left in my arsenal - the director who had just yelled at me. I knew she was working late, and she did answer her phone. After a few minutes, she came down, and got it sorted out. Heaping coals on my head, she even lended me 20,000 Won after she found out I only had 7,000 Won in ready cash. The money was to be transferred by the end of the next business day. And it was.
As soon as I got it straightened out, I limped home (my ankle was swollen from a slight accident I had). As I went out the door, I received a text message from one of my Korean friends, who asked what the problem was. He then called me, and laughed with me at my loony situation.
"By the way, " I asked, "Just for future reference, what is the Korean word for 'receipt'?"
"'Re-si-tuh.'"
I was penniless when I came here, and now I am jobless as well. I have had no luck on my university job hunt. Sigh. Maybe it is time to flip some burgers....But maybe I am too cocky; maybe working an extra three years to get an MA was not worth it in the end. Maybe it IS just a piece of paper with no meaning behind it. I love literature, and I love the English language. Maybe there is no room for it in this world.
This is my blessing and my curse. I am an academic at heart, an academic who dearly loves teaching AND research. I need the university environment to thrive. This hit me as I began devising Plan B, returning to school for my CELTA certification. It is true that teachers are lifelong learners. I revel in seemingly useless details. I just finished a unit with my second graders on plant reproduction, an area I had never given much thought to (as most of us don't). I learned how a plant makes seeds and how to label their reproductive organs because I had to teach it. You learn in order to teach.
From my students, I have learned a great deal of Korean history and folklore. If asked an essay question on the March 3 Movement in Korea, I could give reasonably accurate details about the Protestant clergymen and students who marched to Topgol Square and declared their independence from Japan in 1911 (causing a bloody massacre). Why does this matter? It doesn't to us; we barely talk about the Korean War (30 years later) in U.S. history class. I didn't even know there WAS a Korean War until I went to college. I have gained a wide-world view from my life here; what happens on a tiny, isolated penninsula has world-wide impact on so-called democracy. Note the current thunderings from "the North."
I have digressed quite a bit from my original intentions, so, without further ado and on a lighter note....
MAN VERSUS MACHINE
I seldom get in trouble at work, but when I do, it is usually a big thing.
On Wednesday, I had a particularly rotten day. I had only one hour of sleep due to a foul, mysterious odor in my apartment. I had noticed it earlier in the week, but no amount of searching could find the source. It smelled peculiarly of "dead mouse;" I know this because while I was in high school, a mouse (caught in a trap) fell from the attic into the wall space of the spare bedroom, whereupon it died and rotted all winter. Well, this night the aroma was especially bad. I traced the source to under my air conditioner (which is directly above my bed) and found the odor to be overpoweringly strong. I stood on my bed and peered up. The entire inside of my A/C was coated in mold, and there was nothing I could do about it. I tried to sleep, but to no avail.
Bleary and groggy-eyed, I sleepwalked through my day. After work, I went to see the director to verify my last day; there had been some confusion as to when exactly it was. This was at 9 p.m. We hashed out my date to July 12, and then she said something that really made my day.
"By the way, I know you are only her one more week, but I need to tell you we got a parent complaint."
"Oh?"
"Yes. Four students want to drop your class."
"Is it my GT4B5-1 class, by any chance?"
"Yes, how did you know?"
"Just a lucky guess."
"Well, we at POLY backed you up; I told the parents you had an MA in English."
(Not sure what that had to do with anything, but ok...)
"What was the problem?"
"You know, Rebecca, teenage girls are very sensitive. I have a daughter, and she is very sensitive also, and we need to be gentle with them."
(Where is this going? I wondered.)
"This student says that you are 'mean' and 'hysterical.'"
"I don't see how that can be; I never yell or degrade the students...Ah, this student isn't L___, is it?"
"Well, yes."
"Did she also tell you I gave her a discipline note for drawing on the desk, talking back, and throwing things at other students?"
The director then began to lecture me on the fact that I gave three VERBAL warnings rather than put the student's name on the board. I also told her that I DID lose my temper after the SECOND time a student brought out a squirt gun and shot it off in class. I did not, as she pointed out, follow proper procedure then, either, as I believe that qualifies as a three-strikes-your-out offense. I have also confiscated BB guns on other occasions. This same director, btw, has sent new teachers to observe me because I have "excellent classroom management skills."
As I was leaving in a week, I decided to put it behind me and chalk it up to one more "weird thing that Koreans do." But fate was not so kind as to let me forget that easily.
At 9:30, well past my leaving time, I went downstairs to get money from the ATM. I needed 100,000 Won to pay the landlady my maintinence fee and to have money for the weekend. I punched in my number, checked my balance, and then hit the "Withdrawal" key. The machine hummed and whistled, as it usually does, and counted out my bills. There is a compartment where the bills are counted into, wherupon a door opens and you take your cash out of a deep box. The door opened about a centimeter...and the computer crashed, capturing both my money and my bank card in the machine.
"Arrrrgh..." I screeched. I looked around helplessly. I must have stood there like a dummy for about five minutes.
The building security guard came back from his rounds, and saw me. We are on very friendly terms in spite of the fact that he doesn't speak a word of English; I always greet him in the afternoon in Korean and bow slightly (as he is an older gentleman). He came over to see what was wrong, and in an elaborate pantomime, I managed to convey what had happened. He laughed delightedly at my enactment, as I included sound effects (the ATMs in Korea have beeps and whistles to tell you where you are in the cycle) and ended with a dramatic KABOOM and pointed to the computer screen. He understood the KABOOM, and called the bank security.
The bank security guard came after about 15 minutes, and took the whole machine apart. He was able to retrieve my card, but he was not able to get my money. I tried to convey that I wanted some assurance that the money would be redistributed to my account, but there my Korean ran out. The two men then got into a loud, and completely incomprehensible arguement about what the proper procedure was (I assume). I kept trying to pantomime "receipt" and said the word repeatedly, but no one was listening to me. When Koreans get excited, they gesticulate wildly just like the Italians, except in even less personal space. So, with arms and spittle flying, I dodged and brought out my only weapon, my "handu phone."
I began to call every Korean friend I had, and NOT ONE answered their cell phone. Finally, in defeat, I dialed the one number I had left in my arsenal - the director who had just yelled at me. I knew she was working late, and she did answer her phone. After a few minutes, she came down, and got it sorted out. Heaping coals on my head, she even lended me 20,000 Won after she found out I only had 7,000 Won in ready cash. The money was to be transferred by the end of the next business day. And it was.
As soon as I got it straightened out, I limped home (my ankle was swollen from a slight accident I had). As I went out the door, I received a text message from one of my Korean friends, who asked what the problem was. He then called me, and laughed with me at my loony situation.
"By the way, " I asked, "Just for future reference, what is the Korean word for 'receipt'?"
"'Re-si-tuh.'"
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