Always counting

Testing times. Still having fun here. Still having laughs. But there are some lulls. Seven months to go and it often seems like it will be much longer. The endless repetition at work gets me down from time to time like today. In particular the lessons that I repeat to another set of students directly after the previous class. Perhaps it was just the book we were using, perhaps it's my workplace.

In my break time I got bored and worked out that I have roughly two hundred more days left, that's about 140 days of actual teaching. Sad that I worked that out but just goes to show that I am counting down till I leave. I love being here in Korea and love what's being here has given me, but I'm just about done with teaching here after over four years. Tomorrows another day. Smile up.

Tests+breaks=boredom²

All of my Middle school students are in the process of studying for or taking exams. This is both good and bad for me. Bad because classes are disrupted, disjointed and lacking most of the kids so sometimes there are one, two or three there because most don't have to actually go (punishment exemption). Small numbers are often harder to teach because all the energy comes from you and not the students. Those that come often don't have the material of haven't prepared which makes the class pointless and usually drifts off to a juncture where things end up being a waste of time for all concerned.


Then there is the good part. Sometimes we do get breaks if no one turns up. I've had three during these tests but I think that's that now. Others have more, some have less and one co-worker has had none at all. Tough luck for him. Even though my last class was a no show I still had to stay at work. I've been trying to give myself an easier time and prepare some of next weeks stuff but there is only so much you can stomach when you could just relax. 'Teaching' to some is very boring but from my experience counting down the clock when you're on these breaks can be equally tedious.

Another window in Korea

Wednesday. Bored. Outside always seems more exciting. Lights, camera, action.

Wednesday nightmare returns

Today I began four Wednesday's of potential hell. My schedule has changed and for the most part for the better. Despite losing some good students I am now teaching only four middle school classes so now I have more respectful and motivated kids in the classroom. The apparent trade off is that out of the 8 periods I teach, the first 6 are spent teaching the SAME material. So I teach the same lesson for 75% of the day. That's not good as I'm telling the same jokes, saying the same things and hearing the same predictable mistakes. For the last two periods I have a listening class where I for the most part press play and then pause on a CD player, occasionally explaining how to improve your chances of understanding a listening test. To be fair, today was the first day of this and it went better than I had predicted. I count down the Wednesday's left. Fifty Nine to go.