Summer and summer intensives

So, it was summer. It was around 35C outside, and the kids were on summer vacation. In the magical world of Korea, vacation for kids means that they actually get to spend 30 or so hours a week in a hagwon and the teachers at said hagwon get to teach an additional 10 hours each week for the duration of the "summer vacation." This was not a pleasant time.

To begin, it was fucking hot and humid. I've had hot summers before, but never as unpleasant as in Korea. In my home town, it sometimes went above 100F or 38C, but it was dry. I had always heard "It isn't the heat, it's the humidity." Now I know why. If you're in a hot and dry place, you sweat. The sweat evaporates and cools you because evaporation is an endothermic process meaning energy is taken from the surrounding area and put into the reaction. Not only does the sweat evaporating make you feel cooler, but you don't feel disgusting the entire day. My first year, I took about 5 showers a day during the summer.

So, the weather was awful and I was teaching tons of classes. I noticed in my home that even though I had the ac set on the coldest temperature, my apartment still felt like a sauna and I could actually see vapor condensing on the walls. I played around with the remote a bit, and finally I go up in front of the ac and feel the stream of air. The unit has a green light and says 18degrees on it, but the air being blown was room temperature. I ask my boss to get it fixed, and he "calls someone to fix it." He tells me the next day that someone went over to take a look at it and it works fine. I just need to make sure I set it on a cold temperature.

I'm skeptical, but I go home and check it. It's still doing the same thing. I go downstairs to my Canadian coworker's apartment and ask if I can take a look at his air conditioner. He says "yeah no problem." I step inside, and his apartment is a lovely, cool and refreshing 20 degrees. I ask how he turned his ac on, and he tells me he hit the power button and turned the temperature down to 20. So, my ac was certainly broken. I asked my boss about it again, he sends someone to take a look at it, and I get the same story. I say "Fuck it" and I buy a couple electric fans and bring my room down to a tolerable temperature.

Speaking of really hot rooms, the classes in the hagwon weren't much better. So, I'm teaching eight or nine classes a day, and I'm basting in my own sweat. I had a passive aggressive battle of wills with the vp of the school that summer. I would walk into a classroom, and it would be horribly hot. I'd go to the lobby and turn on the ac. I'd teach for a while in comfort until the ac was turned off, and then I'd go out again to turn it back on. After a few weeks of this, I won and the ac remained on. I can handle heat and even humidity, but if I'm in a classroom which is 10square feet or 3square meters, with ten kids and no windows, it gets a bit stuffy.

Anyhoo, the summer was hot. I was teaching a ton of classes. I also had to do phone teaching which is where you call every one of your students from home after you've finished teaching. I also had progress reports for a total of 95 students, and at the end of the intensives, we had to come in on a Saturday to do open classes with kindergarten classes.(More on this later.)

One nice perk about this job was that they bought a small dinner for us every day since we were all there in the afternoon and early evening and we didn't have time to run out and grab something to eat. It was usually pizza, toast, mandu or kimbap. One day in the middle of the intensives, the supervisor tells us that there's no pizza today because the director is bringing in a special treat. So, I wait around for a little bit, and in walks the director with apples. I was teaching from 9:30 to 8:00 with one twenty minute break, and my dinner was an apple.