Another day in the Life...

Well, here I sit at Santa's; nursing a couple of beers while I wait for 6:00 to roll around. I have the great pleasure of covering a class for one of the other teachers who is out, with, and this is an unsubstantiated rumor, stress related blindness. If this particular diagnosis is correct, it leaves me to wonder what this guy has to be stressed about. He's working at one of the easiest jobs in Korea, and he's not even working a full schedule. I know I should be more empathetic or something, but I'm finding it difficult to work up any sympathy what so ever. It's probably because I have come to work at times so sick that I would have been a more effective teacher had I been dead. Anyway, I just have to grin, bear it, and drink another beer.

The other very typically Korean thing that happened this week at school was the sudden, or attempted sudden, start up of the CNU Dormitory English Cafe. This project was apparently the brainchild of the Dormitory Director. The initial idea was to have a place where students could hang out with teachers, drink beer or coffee and speak English or get some help with homework and what not. However, the cafe will not exist now because the people who put the place together did not build the cafe to spec. Therefore, the building (which is really just a gazebo with walls) cannot be licensed as a cafe. Now it's an English club. The next thing was that yesterday, the FLEC office informed us that the club would be up and running that night and that certain teachers would be on call to help wandering students. As you might imagine, that went over like birdshit on a newly washed car. The short notice (a very typical thing here in the land of what the fuck were they thinking) was not the only thing. Added to that was the fact that on call meant that students would be going to the teacher's apartments and knocking on the door or calling them up to get help. I don't know about you, but I don't want a student anywhere near my apartment (well...some students might not be so bad slobber, slobber, drool) or to have my cellphone number. The last and final piece of the pie was the fact that the payment plan for this was free kimbab. 'Nuff said. While I do think that the original idea has some merit, the execution: no plan, no funding, no space, no clue, left much to be desired.

Korea is a great place. I've been here for five and a half years, and I love it. However, one of my pet peeves is the seeming lack of planning or forethought that goes into some of the projects people put together here. It's all, "This is a good idea! Let's do it now!" It ends up, "Wow. That didn't work out. I wonder why?"

All complaining aside, this coming Sunday is my birthday. It's official. I'm old and I'll probably be ten years older by the time the weekend is done. It's going to start on Friday with dinner with one of my freshmen classes, wander it's way into Saturday, and die in a pitiful mess of bloated flesh, blood, and brain calls sometime Sunday evening. If I'm lucky, there will be no photographic eveidence of the sin and debauchery that will be this weekend. If I'm REALLY lucky, there will be sin and debauchery of the kind that has been sorely missing in my life of late...wink wink nudge nudge say no more say no more!

Much to the joy of my co-workers, I received my first birthday gift today: two trays of my mom's brownies. Boy oh boy, are they GOOOOOOOOOOD!!!