Restless feelings

I haven't felt this restless and unsettled in a long time if ever. My roots have shifted and aren't where they used to be and I'm not even sure if some of them are still living.
Living on the other side of the world for an extended period of time does change you at your core. I've always been grounded to wherever I am but right now I'm not feeling it or a pull to anywhere.
Last time I started to feel this sort of shift I ended up in Korea. I'm having the feeling that a new major move is coming in the next year or so. It's always a little strange to feel them coming. Hopefully I'll slow down enough to find where I'm headed soon.

Just Venting.

I think I've gotten pretty good at dealing with stressed out Koreans over the last year and a half. I've learned when to just retreat and meditate and let stuff go. Unfortunately Miss Bahn chose the wrong day to say the wrong thing. She compared her teaching in English (after 17 years of classes and lessons) to me teaching in Korean with all of 30 hours of class.


Yeah. No comparison. I feel a little bad about basically saying you should be better at English. but not really. The truth is she is an English teacher now. She should be comfortable speaking in English and not freak out.

I remember the fear of my first teacher observation. It was scary and rightfully so. I didn't know when it was coming, never had done one before. But I knew my material and I knew my students. I survived it. Just like she will survive this.
Open classes here in Korea I think are better and yet worse than teacher observations in Atlanta. They know when they are coming. They can plan the lesson, do the whole dog and pony show. The kids know because their parents are there they have to behave. Oh yeah did I mention the parents and other teachers and the principal observe the open classes and evaluate the teachers based on them. I've gotten used to this and I know the parents, students and principal love me here. They know I've worked hard with their students and am friendly outside of school. I have an advantage because I am a known factor now. The first few were for everyone from parents to teachers and administrators through out the whole city. Those were nerve wracking. I also refuse to let the kids get away with right answers for everything. Sorry I'll try to make you look good but you should know your stuff too. I'm not going to make the class so easy that the parents who've seen my classes before think wonder what happened to make this one so easy.

I guess all of those years of hearing and seeing that students will rise and fall to a level of expectations have stuck. I'm not going to dumb down my class because the co teacher can't handle the harder classes.

I feel a little calmer now. Maybe I can go explain things better and try to relax her but I am not going to back down on my level of expectations for the students. Our school is known for it's English program... because I have always challenged the students.

Spring is coming..... I hope.

After the cold and dark of the winter here in Korea everyone is waiting for spring. I know many of us are trying to rush the seasons. I started my spring travels by heading down to Busan in late March to meet up with the gang down there. We played a couple of rounds of screen golf which is popular here in Korea though I'd never played before. Then there was the usual dinner, laughter and drinking. I managed to not stay out too late and get to my motel in time to get about 6 hours of sleep before I hopped a train back to Daegu. These little weekend trips are sanity savers here in Korea because we get a chance to be ourselves with out having to hold back on anything.
The following weekend several of the of us got together again back in Busan to see the Kite festival. Even in a small group of 8 we still can scare Koreans and laugh enough to make us forget that we're thousands of miles from home and our families. There were kite flying competitions and a pot luck picnic on the beach. I took a couple of pounds of trail mix which were inhaled quickly... let one never question the international appeal of trail mix for lesbians. Sometime that afternoon I started to lose my voice most likely due to the yellow dust from China. By the time I got back to Daegu that evening I was sure that it was going to be gone for a few days.
Teaching without a voice is rough when you're teaching in your native language and culture. When you're working with language barriers and cultural issues it gets even more crazy. Thankfully by Thursday my voice was mostly back.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Jinhae to see the Cherry Blossoms which I missed last year. After that I'm in Daegu for a while. Which is good since I've been getting teased about my road warrior ways again.
Otherwise no big news from here I've completed the 1A level of Korean classes and I'll start 1B in a week. It's even more important now that I get a good grasp on Korean since my co teachers English isn't as good.

Goodbyes and Hello's

In the middle of February before I headed off to Bali I had a sad task I had to undertake. I had to say goodbye to several of my co-teachers I'd worked with since I started in Taegu. It was very bitter sweet because I know I will stay in contact with several of them but it is not as easy as when I could teach with Sunny every day or see Mr. Kim at Lunch. I also lost Mrs. Ye and Mrs. Gwon. This is part of life in Korean schools at the end of every school year teachers get reshuffled. Not only in the school to different grades but also to different schools. I knew it was coming but the mass exodus from the school of English speakers was a bit of a shock. I handled the good byes better than many of the Koreans did there was lots of tears and heartfelt speeches at the farewell dinner. I managed to not tear up then in front of the whole school. There were many, many comments from people that I was going to really miss Sunny. Which is true.I was going to miss her. I didn't realize how much till I came back to school after Bali and didn't see her there. I've met up with her once since then due to both of our busy schedules. Hopefully that will be remedied with a dinner soon.

I got two new co teachers this semester. One is only there two days a week and she has a desk in my office. She's pretty good and she's growing more and more confident as a teacher every day. Her English is good and she feels pretty comfortable around me. I have a feeling we're going to end up being friends as well as colleagues.

The other new teacher is my main co teacher. She's the one who is supposed to be responsible for me and make sure all my paperwork is taken care of. She also is my liaison and translator with the principal. I've been trying to put off saying much about her because I kept hoping that she would relax and start to be a better teacher. I knew that since she had just graduated college I was going to have to mentor her and help her become a better teacher. Unlike Sunny who we both had been teaching awhile and we knew the basic concepts and that there is nothing wrong with borrowing other teachers lesson plans and just tweaking them. She wants to reinvent the wheel with every lesson. She also writes out scripts in English that she memorizes before teaching class. Ad-libbing or having a discussion with the students in class has been curtailed because she doesn't feel comfortable with them. I've also had to simplify my language so it's only short and simple sentences. I've gone from having 5 or 6 fluent English speakers around to maybe 2. It's a huge shift. I know the students can see the differences and I'm trying to help her but she's still scared of me. I'm trying to think up ways to make her feel more comfortable around me and let me work with the students. The problem is she, I think, feels intimidated when I step in and start talking with the students and taking care of any behavior problems that have come up because the students (like students anywhere) can smell the fear of a new teacher. I'm hopeful that things will get better I just know it's not going to be as easy as it was.
The good news is she is no longer shaking with fear when she talks to me. Unlike the first week where I think she was going to pass out from fear. She shook like a leaf whenever I talked to her the first couple of days.
The other new teachers at the school are obviously nervous around me. I don't have much interaction with them since I'm no longer teaching the teachers. A few of the young ones are fun and I may build up a relationship with them but it's going to take a real effort on my part. The new 6-3 teacher Mr. Seok is slowly getting over his fear of me, which is nice since his classroom is next door to mine. I know he get's teased by many of the young female teachers and he's shy but I have a feeling he will relax and start joining in the joking soon enough.
There is just a lot of things for everyone to get used to with the new semester and hopefully everyone will relax and start getting along soon enough.