Being able to show someone around really shows me how far I've come. It solidifies my confidence that I know what I'm doing and I've really settled in and found my groove. This weekend, my dear friend Brandy who lives the Seoul area came to visit me. I've met up with Brandy in Seoul a few times since I've been here, but this was her first trip to Daejeon.
I'm happy to report that it was a fabulous one! First of all, it's just so nice to have someone to hang out with - especially someone who knows me, who I'm not worried about making a good impression on. (That was a terrible sentence. Oh, well.) Anyway, we shopped, we ate Mexican food, we went to Starbucks, we hit up some bars I'd been wanting to try and/or hadn't been to in a long time. Most foreigners were away at the mud festival (which Brandy and I both kept saying we were so glad we chose to skip) so all the foreigner hangouts were pretty sparse, but that's ok. We had fun anyway.
This morning, she's on her way back home and I've spending this rainy Sunday watching movies and making pancakes. I'll do more productive things like laundry and getting stuff ready for the week later on this afternoon. Speaking of rain, the rainy season has definitely arrived. It's rained for at least a couple of hours every day for the past week or so. I don't really mind it though. It's not too hot, just incredibly humid. And I like the clouds because they mean the sun isn't waking me up at 5:30 a.m.
I read on Facebook yesterday that someone I know (not well, but we went to the same college, have mutual friends and both ended up in Korea, so we became FB friends) pulled a midnight run this weekend. Apparently, things were so bad at his school that he, his wife, and three other teachers all planned and executed this massive escape all at once. That means come tomorrow morning, the school will be short FIVE foreign teachers. Wow. I don't blame them. They said the school was flagrantly stealing from them and their boss was a total jerk. I feel so fortunate that, while my school has its flaws, it's nothing so bad as that. There has never been a problem with pay, and our directors do A LOT for us. The owner is a little sketch, but in my opinion, the directors make up for it, and things could be a million times worse.
However, I did learn on Friday that a teacher is leaving at the end of August (8 months before his contract is up), which ordinarily wouldn't really affect me, but the school is probably not going to replace him. Our afternoon enrollment has been going down every month, so right now it appears that we can get by with one less teacher. This means that all the foreign teachers are going to get more classes come September, which I am none too happy about, but I just gotta roll with it. And try my best to demand more money, but who knows whether that will work or not. I've more or less come to terms with it, it's only 6 months, it's just Korea, and I feel like I know what I'm doing well enough now that I can handle it. It'll be ok. And who knows, maybe they'll replace him after all. But I'm not holding my breath.
It would take a lot for me to give up and come home early this time. Things would have to get really, really bad. And I really don't see that happening (fingers crossed). Plus, I have so many exciting things planned in the next six months that I don't want to give up. And there's the big chunk of money we get at the end of the year (assuming the school doesn't do anything shady, like fire us right before our contracts are up or shut down and refuse to pay anyone's severance or flight tickets home, but again, I really don't see that happening. I just know other people it has happened to. At other schools. But even in the grand scheme of things, that would suck but it wouldn't be the end of the world.) And, most importantly, there's the promise I made to myself to finish this and prove to myself I can do it, unless circumstances beyond my control prevent me from it. But so far, so good. All I can do is relax and go with the flow.
I'm finally starting to let go and enjoy the ride. Let's keep that going.
And in other news, two weeks from this very moment, I will be exploring the streets of Ho Chi Minh City!!!! What is UP.
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