Aft Gang Awry...

Intentions, that is.

Namely, my intention to write more, and keep in touch while in Korea. I've written... under 10 emails since I've come to Korea. Various factors could be blamed. Facebook certainly makes it easy to feign keeping in touch, the voyeuristic act of photo stalking, and the occasional 1 line wall post. As well, I've only made 2 phone calls. $100 for 2 calls cut that mode of communication short. If only I who knows how to get one. Can't communicate with Koreans, so I can't call anyone back home. The life of an ESL teacher, a landmine of ironies. I'm an English language teacher with nothing to say. I'm a conversation teacher who sits down to write an email to my brother, or best friend, and I can't get past "hey".

I have no apologies though, to be quite honest. What would I have said? Nothing occurred to me.

Those who know me well, those closest to me, are the most antisocial people I know, so the mutual silence, I hope, rests on a tacit agreement not to waste one another's time with uninspired chatter one would have with a co-worker you dislike. the kind of dull noise some people need to fill the silences. I do think a lot, but that's as far as it gets. My mind is in too much of a fog to articulate these murky thoughts in concreate form at all, blog, journal or email.

I feel so submerged under the constant noise I can't translate into meaningful language. Submerged under identities I must assume as the foreigner, identities projected upon me by people who will forever view the world as "us" and the "others". Submerged under supressed daily anger, frustrations and worries I don't have time to address.

These last months I haven't had the spare time to look at my experiences here under glass, or give them any kind of second thought. In spite of knowing better, I agreed to an extra job this last semester, which just came to an end. Quitting it was just as exhausting as doing it, since they almost didn't pay me. "Oh, you were volunteering, didn't you know?"

I think I'm doing something wrong. Other teachers I know have loads of spare time, they socialize every weekend, attend every festival. I've never been particularly social. I have a history of being a cave dweller, avoiding people to read, smoke pot, watch movies. But here, I hardly go out anymore, because I am always making lessons! Some teachers say they never make lessons! I would love to see their classes. Seriously. Because when I'm not teaching, I'm working on powerpoints, and worksheets, and scouring the net, because I need lessons to teach for upcoming classes. What the hell do those non-lesson making teachers do??? I guess some people have a text book, and a co-teacher who helps them out, as is SUPPOSED to happen.

But I have no co-teacher, no text book, and no one will help me link my classes to the other curriculum.. I've tried to talk to the other teachers, tried to find out what they're teaching, and they just ignore me. I realised my school doesn't really give a shit what I do. The Korean English teachers just plow through their crappy text books, reading English sentences and translating for the students. And after 6 years of English study, the kids can speak hardly a word.

The Korean English teachers, to be honest, are lazy. They are doing the same. They are failing these kids equally, because they refuse to get off their asses and change the antiquated curriculum, tests and books. They love to brag about how long the kids study for, but it's a waste of time. Why stay until 11 pm at school memorizing vocab lists by route, if you can't tell me what you did this weekend? Really?

So I could easily play Bingo, 7-up, or hand out half ass worksheets to kill the hour, I could fucking play Simpsons videos all class if I wanted. I can do random worksheets or activities with no link between them, collect my paycheque and not care. This job isn't my life, after all. But for some reason it kills me to do that. I'm not sure what I'm going to do to get through next semester. I can't keep killing myself and runnig myself into the ground trying to find a solution to a problem that is systematically engrained. But I can't do a half ass job. It's too depressing and against my character. Living each day against my nature feels like slow death. Some compromise must be found.

But, I have 2 weeks vacation now. and I'm not going to think about it. The boxes on the calendar are crossed off, I've done my time, and Hopefully I'll respond to some messages during my time off. I'm not travelling anywhere... need to save $$ to pay off those cursed student loans which brought me here in the first place. The idea of wasting a year of my life here, growing one year older, but not making a dent in those fucking loans causes much anxiety.

Until then,
I hope your getting through it too, whatever it may be.