Bohol

After my days in Manila, I traveled to Bohol. I had some more Korean immigration setbacks, but I told my recruiter that I'm not staying in Manila for the rest of my vacation and that because these setbacks were caused primarily by my new school slacking off in getting my visa shit together, if I needed to make any other alterations to my itinerary, the school needed to foot the cost of the changes.

Anyhoo, I went to Bohol. I had booked a room at an amazing hotel that looked like an island paradise. I stayed at the Alumbung resort. http://www.alumbungbohol.com/alumbungs.html

Manila was great, but I really wanted to get out of a metropolitan environment and go swimming/drinking on the beach. So, I went to Bohol. The hotel/resort was wonderful. I went snorkeling(I would have gone scuba diving, but I have a strange paranoia about scuba diving.) I saw everything I wanted to see there and had a great time. I finally got my visa after returning to Manila and headed back to Korea. Then, the fun began.

Hobbits and Christmas Carols

One evening while in Manila, I decided to check out the nightlife. I started off by eating in some open air little bar/restaurant. I had an alright dinner, some ridiculously cheap San Miguel, and I talked with some expat from England who was there for some sort of business.

While I was eating and drinking, a group a street kids came up to the entrance. They began singing Christmas Carols. It felt a bit out of place, but then I remembered that even though I was in the South Pacific wearing shorts and a t-shirt, it was in fact December and The Philippines is a very Catholic country.

These carolers were amazing though. They didn't just stand politely singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," they had makeshift percussion instruments and a dance routine. I was more than happy to give them a donation.

My next stop for the evening was a very strange, but kind of amazing place, The Hobbit House. This is a bar which was apparently opened by a peace corps volunteer who really really loves Tolkien. The front entrance is a big round wooden door like that of Bilbo Baggins, and most of the staff are little people.

Now, I know what you're thinking. It's exploitative. The bar/restaurant is there for people to gawk at the little people. Perhaps it is. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the place. They had a great beer selection, a bathroom attendant, a pretty good atmosphere and decent music. When the band had finished, the bar-tender put on the "dream match" between Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya. It was a few days old, but I don't follow boxing much, or really at all, and it was a great match. During the match, the bartender told me all about Manny Pacquiao and acted as a personal commentator for the match. Needless to say, "The Pacman" is now my favorite boxer.

Manila continued

After my carriage adventure, I decided to grab some dinner and head back to the hotel. I was pretty beat, so I stayed in for the night. I watched Pay it Forward which was a pretty stupid movie. I also really just don't like Kevin Spacey.

The next day, I went out and visited Jose Rizal park, which is really beautiful, interesting and a bit odd.







Call me crazy, but in a beautiful park built to preserve old buildings and honor an author who was executed by the conquistadors, a golf course seems a bit out of place.

The carriage ride

I'm at work now, waiting for my evening class to begin, so I don't have the photos to go with this entry.

Anyhoo, I hopped into the carriage, and the driver took me around intramuros. Intramuros is an old area of Manila where a ton of the old Spanish buildings are. It was pretty sweet because it was a whole neighborhood of grandiose European architecture that was all several hundred years old. He talked about the history of the area and then we went through China town which wasn't too exciting.

The trip ended back where he picked me up. He then said, "Ok, 50 hundred pesos." Before I hopped in, he clearly said "50 pesos" which is why I took the trip. 50 pesos is about $1. I told him, "Excuse me? You told me 50 pesos, not 50 hundred pesos."

He replied "Right. 50 hundred pesos."

I said "That's $100 for a 30 minute ride. I won't pay $100."

He said "You won't pay? Alright. I'm taking you to debter's prison." Keep in mind, this guy looked to be about sixty years old and weighed about 90 lbs (that's 41 kilos). He then started to take me to "debter's prison."

After about 30 seconds, I started pondering whether to leave 50 pesos on the seat and hop out or to see where this was going. I decided to stay for a little while. He then stopped again.

"Ok, I'll tell you what. How about 30 hundred pesos?"
"That's still $60. I won't pay it."
"Ok, you're going to debter's prison."

He moved along and stopped again 30 seconds later.
"Ok, I'll tell you what. How about 20 hundred pesos?"
"You told me 50."
"Ok, how about 10 hundred pesos?"

I mulled this over for a while. It was $20 when he told me $1, but I figured that $20 wasn't a ridiculous price, and I wasn't in the mood to play the going to debter's prison game any longer, so I gave him 1,000 pesos and went on my way.

Manila part 1

So, I had some bullshit to deal with regarding my visa and ended up having to fly all over the Philippines, but most of the time, the trip was great. While I spent my first night in Cebu, I pretty much got to my hotel, checked in, passed out and flew to Manila the next day.

I reserved a room in some shitty "hostel" my first night in Manila. I'm fond of hostels not only because they're cheap, but they tend to have a more friendly atmosphere where you can mingle and converse with people if you're traveling alone. This hostel, however was just a cheap place with no character and no other guests.

It was okay, though. I was in the exciting center of fun and tourism in Manila. I was in Ermita. I had arrived in the early afternoon after getting a full night's rest, so I was ready to go out and see the sites. I wandered around a bit and took some pictures. Here are a few.







It was a pretty exciting, vibrant city. It was busy, but not like Seoul. No one was rushing around. People were everywhere, but they were doing everything at a leisurely pace. I had been to Thailand before, but only in smaller cities, never Bangkok. This was like a strange mix of Thailand, Mexico and something entirely new.

After wandering around for a bit, I was approached by several people who wanted to either scam me or sell me something. The first guy offered access to girls, guns or anything else I wanted. I kindly declined. The next person who approached me was a hermaphrodite. H/She said "Hey, I've seen you around here. I think you're very sexy. Why don't you take me up to your place?" I told him that I wasn't interested, and then he/she insisted that he/she wasn't a prostitute, but I continued on my way. Finally, a skinny old guy came up to me and offered me a carriage tour of Intramuros and China Town. I said, no thanks. He said, "Oh no. I don't want to sell you anything. My tours are 50 pesos. That's it."

I asked him, "50 pesos?" and he confirmed it. So, I took him up on his offer.

My first vacation in quite a while

Between the time I finished at Reading Town and I started at my new school, I had about a month. It was December, so I decided to take this time off to enjoy a nice tropical country. I had already been to Thailand, so I decided to try the Philippines. The trip had two purposes. One was for some r and r, the other was to get my new visa. I booked a trip to Cebu and Bohol after confirming with my worthless recruiter that I could get a visa at the consulate in Cebu. A few days before I flew out, my recruiter contacted me to let me know that I had to go to Manila. I was a little pissed, but after I adjusted my trip and got a ticket from Cebu to Manila for about $20, I shrugged it off. My recruiter and new boss would continue to piss me off throughout the rest of my vacation with visa issuance number delays, but that's another story.

So, I flew out to Cebu. The next day I flew out to Manila. I'm kind of glad that I had to go to Manila, because I really enjoyed the city, but more on my trip to the Philippines later.

The search begins again

So, I put in my notice and began searching for another job. I chose a pretty crappy time to search for a new job, though. The won was at a ridiculous rate, and most employers were offering a maximum of 2.3M. I had several interviews at various Avalon branches, and most of these offered 2.5, which I would have been happy with, but most of the locations were brand new, and they had set curriculums with class flow charts. I was not looking for a job where I essentially follow a script, and I wasn't going to gamble with a location that was just starting up.

A friend of mine mentioned his school which sounded pretty great. The classes were entirely up to the discretion of the teachers, and they taught using novels. I went in for an interview, but there were a couple of things which worried me. The pay was pretty high, but there were no benefits. The visa situation was also a little odd. I ended up declining the position.

Finally, I talked to a school in Anyang. The pay was 2.3, but the hours were very low, teachers were allowed freedom in the classes, and there were lots of opportunities for extra pay. I talked to the teacher I was replacing, and he gave a glowing review of the school. So, I decided to work there.

This was one of the worst decisions I have made since coming to Korea.

My thoughts on teaching and the end of my 1st/4th job

Although my new supervisor was a complete moron, I had started to get into the swing of things at my job. My hours had decreased, and my boss was very supportive of me. During the summer, my mother came to visit, and my boss took us both out a couple of times and was quite generous.

Although the working conditions were getting better, some other issues started arising. The lesson content was alright, but I felt it could be improved in many ways. I was teaching two basic classes, speaking/reading and writing. The speaking/reading classes were a breeze, and the lessons went pretty well. The only issue I had with them was that many of the students would listen for key words, find the the key words in the book and then just read the sentence with the key word out loud with out thinking about or understanding the question. Personally, I wanted the students to read their stories, understand them and be able to discuss them. So, I started having students close their books after reading them when we discussed them in order to break them of the habit of just reading random sentences aloud.

In the writing classes there was a whole series of issues I had to tackle. I had many students with incredible vocabularies, great speaking skills and no understanding of basic grammar. While I'm fond of the communicative method, I also think that fundamentals of grammar are necessary when studying a second language, especially a second language with an entirely different grammatical structure from the native language. For example, I had students who knew words like onomatopoeia but couldn't conjugate to be.

So, in my writing classes, I produced some supplementary materials where the students had to practice writing basic verbs in sentences with different subjects. I thought that there wasn't much of a point in teaching students how to "show instead of tell" if they couldn't convey basic information like "He goes to the store."

The admin liked my ideas, but a few parents complained, and then they started scrutinizing all of my teaching techniques. Everything was suddenly too hard. I needed to just follow the lesson plans made by the experts at Reading Town. All of my classes were going swimmingly. My students were all very responsive. They retained most of the information I covered in class. Their test scores were all pretty decent, but the parents hated me. Or, rather one or two parents hated me and the administration was all over my ass because some parent who couldn't speak English thought she was an expert on teaching English. After a month or so of this, I decided that I was done with this bullshit and wanted to find a job where I had control over the content of my class. I gave my notice and agreed to remain until the six month mark.

Laziness and apathy strike

I'm putting the blog on hold for a while. More updates will come, but it may be a while.

The biggest douche in the universe

My new supervisor had started working, but I didn't see him much as he was spending most of his time going over the system with the director. The weekend before the new session started, we had a meeting to go over the new syllabus, meet the new supervisor and discuss random other things. The meeting started, and the new supervisor was introduced. Then we got down to "important business." The new supervisor pretty much ran the meeting. The first important piece of business was stickers. Parents were complaining that we were too stingy with the stickers and didn't make it clear why stickers were awarded. So, we received sticker guidelines. One would think that this part of the meeting would take about 30 seconds, but some of my coworkers insisted on defending their own sticker policies and arguing with the new supervisor for about 20 minutes. Personally, I didn't give a flying fuck because they were stickers. If little Rora needed four instead of three, it has no effect on my classes.

The next order of business pissed me off. We didn't look busy enough when we were in the teacher's room. When we're not teaching, we should be doing work. If a parent saw one of us checking email, reading or eating, they would be very upset. We needed to appear to be working even if we weren't. This is when I excused myself, picked up my contract and printed out a copy of the current Korean labor laws. We ended up arguing for a bit, but it was settled that it was okay to relax while we were on break, but that we could only use school computers for actual work.

Some more random bullshit was discussed. None of it was in the least bit important, and then the director finally cut off the new supervisor so that we could go over the new syllabus. They explained the new format and that we would be using folders for each of the classes which we shared with our co-teachers so that we could see how the kids were doing in the other classes.

The following Monday, the new session started. We had no syllabi. Our books were also unsorted. So all of the teachers had to pick random books and guess how many pages to cover that day. I wasn't too worried. I just counted the books and compared their difficulty. I generally figured out which books to use and covered about as many pages as I had in previous classes.

When it was time to go upstairs to teach the middle school program, I still didn't have any syallabi, so I talked to the secretary up there. I wanted to be a bit more organized for those classes because they involved daily quizzes and specific computer assignments which would both be a lot more work to make up and adjust. So, I told the secretary that I had no idea what I was teaching that day and asked her if she knew which book I was teaching and what homework to give. She looked it up and told me.

The next day, I received all of my syllabi. While I was doing some prep, the douche approached me and told me he was very disappointed with how I acted yesterday. I should have known what I was teaching. I was a little taken aback. I asked him how I was supposed to know what to teach when no one had given me a syllabus. He then told me that he said the new syllabi were in the class folders at the meeting. I told him to wait a second. I then walked downstairs and pulled out all of my class folders. I brought them upstairs and showed them to him. None of them had a syllabus.

"Oh, so are you much proud? Is you happy to show me wrong? I understand. Yesterday was little bit crazy, so I forgive you. But don't forget what you is teaching again."

"Okay, buddy. Sure thing."

A new supervisor

So, the old supervisor left, but we were on much friendlier terms. My hours became a little lower once I got into the swing of things and was able to manage my time and more efficiently grade the huge stacks of papers I had to correct. I still had to wait a little while for the new syllabus to kick in, but it became manageable. I got my time at the hagwon down to 10 hours maximum, and I was no longer doing field trips.

Then, the new supervisor came. This man was, in fact the biggest douche in the universe. He "lived in England for 15 years" but spoke English about as well as my second year students. He had a perm. He insisted on being referred to as Reverend. He also knew absolutely nothing about teaching English.

Once the new syllabus kicked in, my class and workload dropped, and I had considerably more free time. Other things started to drive me crazy though.

More to come later, but I've got some teaching to do.

Things cool off

After my fight/argument/heated discussion with my supervisor, I went home and thought about my work situation. I had some extra money saved. I was being worked to death and had to deal with tons of bullshit, so as I mentioned before, I decided to quit.

The next day, I went in and spoke with the director. I explained that while I appreciated everything that was given to me, I needed things like sleep and a single day at work that wasn't filled with stress. I agreed to stay for another month and a half so that I could leave after the summer session and he could find a replacement.

My supervisor with whom I battled the night before pulled me aside. She told me that she checked my timecard and saw the hours I was putting in and that she was sorry. She also mentioned that she had given her notice as well and that she was son angry the day before because she was fighting with the director. She told me about an opening at a hagwon in Sillim which had pretty good conditions. A coworker from my first year was working there, so I contacted them for an interview. The school seemed alright, but the hours were similar and the place seemed a little off. I interviewed with Jung Chul at their head office the next week.

The Jung Chul position sounded pretty sweet. They offered 2.6 plus all of the standard benefits, an afternoon evening shift, and a great apartment. I spoke with a few of the at that time current employees and the position sounded good.

I was ready to go back and sign, but then my director pulled me into his office. He told me how much he liked me as a teacher and that he really wanted me to stay. He wrote up a contract addendum which stated that I didn't need to attend any field trips or any other kindergarten related events. He showed me the new syllabus which had speaking two times a week and writing once instead of the reverse, and he offered me a better apartment. He also told me that the new supervisor spent a lot of time in England and was a lot more laid back.

After a bit of thought, I decided to stay. I liked the director and knew I could trust him.

The new supervisor is another story...

Fun times at Reading Town

Before I begin this post, I would like to mention that I still like my boss at wonderland/reading town. The workload was ridiculous, but he was generally honest, paid on time in full, was very helpful in getting the teachers situated, and was open to some compromises. I would recommend the school for a first year teacher who is wary of hagwons. Nevertheless, I wouldn't return there myself.

I began working in the middle of the week. I came in on a Wednesday, I believe. My first week, I was just observing classes and going over the new program. The first surprise came when I was handed my schedule. I was in fact teaching kindergarten. I started in the afternoon, but I had to teach kindergarten PE and attend field trips and Saturday events. I would be fine with this except for the fact that on field trip days, I was working from 9:30am to 10:15pm. That's a bit much.

After my training, I started teaching. Teaching was fine for the most part, but the kindergarten classes were horrible. It's one thing when you teach 10 students everyday and you can build up a relationship with the students. It's another when you teach different groups of 20 students each day and you only teach them once a week in a room filled with toys.

The elementary students were fine. The paperwork involved with the elementary students was insane, however. Each student wrote two journals, one essay and three book reports every week. I had about 80-90 elementary students, so that comes out to around 510 pages of marking every week. Then there were tests, quizzes and report cards. I was also teaching a program for a few hours a week with middle school students. This program wasn't so bad, but there was a lot of information I had to print out and enter into the computer using an incredibly buggy and horribly illogical system.

Most days, I was there for about 12 hours. I was barely able to complete all of my paperwork in that time. Sometimes, I'd make a mistake or two like forgetting to write a daily report or not correcting a set of papers for one class on time. This happened on days when I was there for more than 12 hours. The first two weeks, my supervisor was on my ass the entire time.

I am usually a laid back person. I'll be very stern with kids, but I'm usually very calm and diplomatic when I speak to adults. If I am really pissed, I usually maintain my composure. When my boss in Bucheon lied to me every day about my severance pay, I never raised my voice. After two weeks at Reading Town, however, I snapped.

It was Friday. I had come in at 9:30 to go on a field trip. The night before, I stayed until around 11:30 to get some paperwork done because I wouldn't be able to the next morning because I had a field trip. After the field trip, the elementary classes and the middle school classes, it was 10:15, and I was doing some more paperwork. My supervisor came in and started yelling at me about one of the middle school classes. I made a mistake the previous night while assigning their online homework. I had assigned them homework for level 4-AC instead of level 4-AB or something else along those lines.

I said, "Sorry, which class are you talking about? I'll fix it." She said "the Mario class." I said "Which class is that? Is that WM4C or WT4C?" She started yelling again. "You are a terrible teacher. You should know all of your students names. Why don't you know Mario?" I was still calm and explained that I have only been here for two weeks, I only teach the middle school students twice a week and I have about 200 students in total(As it turned out, Mario had been absent for the first two weeks I was teaching, so there is no way I could have known who he was). She yelled for a little while longer and dragged me into her office to watch me enter the homework into the computer. I logged in and began looking for the class after going through six steps to pull up the online homework assignment page. I was slowly scrolling through a list of around 60 classes to find the WM4C class. After I took to long, she pushed me out of the way, found the class and assigned them.

"Why didn't you memorize the instructions I gave you?"
"I need to sleep and eat. I don't have time."
"You are so lazy. I thought you were smart. Mike Teacher memorized the instructions in one day. You don't know how to use the computer after two weeks."

This is when I decided to vent my fury which had been building up over the past two weeks. I yelled at her first about how I would be able to use the computer system just fine if things were listed alphabetically, by level or any other logical system rather than completely random. There is no way to remember a list of names consisting of three letters and one number. I then ranted about how I wouldn't be making so many mistakes if anyone had bothered to debug the horrible software we were using, if I wasn't here for 12 hours a day, and I was able to eat something other than kimchi and rice during my 12 hours at the school.

After I finished yelling at her, she gave me a written warning and I gave my written notice.

Back to the old stomping grounds

Sorry for the delay between updates. I tend to only catch the writing bug when I've consumed some of the Toad Juice, and it's been a while.

So, after I was dicked around for awhile by Lingua, I decided to say goodbye to my free time and hello to a guaranteed paycheck and benefits. I went back to wonderland.

I talked to my former boss and negotiated my new salary which wasn't too bad. I was also taking the afternoon/evening shift which meant not only no phone teaching but no bullshit weekend work or any other nonsense, or so I thought.

Wonderland had changed. They bought a different franchise which I thought I would like, Reading Town.

Towards the end of my first year, my boss had taken an interest in the Reading Town Franchise. He purchased some of their materials and had the teachers try them out. I enjoyed them. I liked the idea of using children's books and basing classes around the stories, grammar and vocabulary in real books rather than half-assed konglish stories about nothing. I thought that the layout was good, and that a lot of important things were emphasized in the workbooks. Granted, I would still say that Reading Town has a decent educational philosophy and system, but I would never work there again.

My boss picked me up and moved me to my new apartment in my old neighborhood. This was an ok apartment in a really great spot. The apartment was really tiny, but it had a veranda and was fully furnished. The kitchen was in the veranda, but that wasn't too important because I don't cook that often, and the immediate neighborhood was great.

This was back in the neighborhood of Siheung-dong. No, not Siheung-Si. Siheung-dong in the southwest corner of Seoul. About thirty steps away from the front of my apartment was a market street where I could buy almost anything I needed for a ridiculously low price. I also found my favorite food a stone's throw away from my new apartment.

In my new, immediate neighborhood, there were/are tons of Chinese immigrants. One Chinese(sort of) food I had not tried before was yang gochi. This is a very simple but delicious food. It's lmab meat on skewers. Not shishkebabs. This is just lamb meat. You grill it for a while and then move the skewer away from the grill/charcoal. You then roll it in whatever you call the red pepper salt/powder. GochuSogeum??? I don't know. Nevertheless, it's one of my all time favorite foods.

Anyhoo, my apartment wasn't so great, but my neighborhood was amazing. I was also much closer to my school than I was my first year.

I knew I would have to adjust to a higher workload than I had become accustomed to the previous year, but I was willing to sacrifice a little bit of free time for a stable and honest employer.

My new found appreciation for the wonders of reading town soon faded....

The end of the new job

After a couple of weeks in Sanbon/gunpo, my employer secured a sweet apartment in Uiwang. It's pronounced eu wi wong, but I always liked calling it wee wang because I'm mature like that. The new place was the best apartment I've had in Korea. It was a relatively new officetel with a loft, a gs25 on the first floor and a great view.

Work was going ok. Some of the paper work was getting annoying, though. It's a bit frustrating to correct multiple choice quizzes with no possible correct answers.

One tuesday morning, I went to the nearest hospital to get an insulin refill. They gave me a bill for 400,000 won. They told me that I didn't have insurance. I called my boss and asked him what the deal was and he told me my old location never transferred over my visa and he can't provide health insurance until that was taken care of. I called my old institute to ask why I didn't have health insurance when I have a pay statement which said that 50,000 was deducted for it. They pretended they didn't know who I was.

After a while, my visa was finally transferred and I had health insurance. I was able to get a refund from the hospital.

After I left the hospital, I went to work and was called into the office. My new boss was "very upset" I didn't tell him I was diabetic. He gave me two weeks notice because he "didn't feel comfortable employing someone with health problems."

Two weeks later, my replacement arrived from the US. This was his first time teaching in Korea, and this was right after the new immigration policies went into effect.

So, somehow, this person was found, hired and had all of his paperwork and consulate interviews taken care of in under two weeks. I later talked to him, because I was a bit suspicious and found out that he was hired a month before he came over.

So, I was in fact hired just so that I could cover for a month while they waited for a teacher who could work for significantly less pay arrived.

On my last day, I was paid for my month at the hagwon. It was 600k less than I was expecting. I was told that the entire vacation was unpaid. As I mentioned earlier, the new vacation plan was 4 weeks vacation, 2 unpaid, 2 paid. So, If we had two weeks off in May, our paychecks would be 75%, not 50%. My vacation was the last week in April and the first week in May, so because my April pay was 75%, I expected my May pay to be 100%.

I talked to the old school and they said, "Oh, no. The whole vacation is unpaid." I asked them why it said 10 days paid vacation, and they told me it was for sick days despite the fact that there were sick days on a different page. I talked to a couple of teachers at my old gig, and they were pissed too. One of them threatened to quit if she didn't receive her contractual vacation pay, and she was successful. I decided to let it go because I was quite tired of dealing with all of the lying and bs.

I also made another poor choice. I was so sick of dealing with people who constantly lied, cheated and were unable to pay me. So, I decided to go back to my first job. I figured it was a stressful job, but I could always count on getting paid on time and in full. I called up my old boss who was thrilled to hear from me. Apparently, they had a relatively new employee they hated and wanted to fire. I would be taking his schedule which was an afternoon/evening elementary/middle school schedule. I was pretty happy, because while I love the kindergarten kids, most of the stress and bullshit from my first year came from doing all of the extra work for the kindergarten program. He offered me a new contract with a generous salary, so I agreed.

A forgotten anecdote and the new gig

Before I begin my short tale of the adventures in Southeast Gyeonggi-Do, I must relay an amusing event which occurred while I was working in Ilsan.

I began teaching a class, and some kid forgot his book. I gave the kid my copy, sent him outside and told him to go to the front desk and get a copy. I marked the pages we were covering and expected him back shortly.

It took a while, but he returned. He didn't have any copies of the pages I marked, but he had a lukewarm cup of instant coffee. A secretary/desk teacher followed him in with another cup of coffee. She asked if I was ok.

I told her I was fine.

She then told me it's not alright to send students out of the class to bring me drinks.

Anyhoo, back in Bucheon I prepared for my move to the Gwacheon area. The new boss would be picking me up in his car, but there wouldn't be room for a few of the things in my apartment like my recently purchased bike or my clothing hanger. I was a little sad to see my new bike go, but it only cost about 60,000 won and the hanger I could do without.

He assured me that all of the paperwork would be taken care of, my visa would be transferred over and my contract would remain the same.

He took me to my new apartment, which was in Sanbon in Gunpo. The place was okay, but it was pretty bare and not as nice as my old place. He asked if I wanted to stay there or move to an apartment in Uiwang that was a loft style officetel. I opted for the officetel. I truly longed for an apartment where I could have guests over in a room that wasn't my bedroom. I had to stay in the Sanbon/Gunpo apartment for a couple of weeks though while he found my new apartment.

The Sanbon apartment was okay. The neighborhood was pretty happening, and the apartment wasn't tiny, but it was a pretty standard one room villa style apartment. There was also a decent hof upstairs where I had a few meals.

The school was okay as well, but not great. At my previous school, I had only taught one speaking class under the new Lingua system. In the new school, half of my classes were under the Lingua system, and I was teaching writing and multi-media. The speaking class books were good, but the new books were shit. They were written in Korea, which means instead of hiring someone who speaks English to write an English textbook, they hired a bunch of Koreans with a basic understanding to write the books. Most of the class time in the writing class was taken up by me correcting the books for the students and giving them other tasks.

The multi-media classes consisted of me pressing play, letting the students watch CNN videos and then giving them tests on the video after playing it twice. I don't know why they needed someone with a college degree from an English speaking country to do this job, but I accepted it.

Updates coming soon

I will continue my tale and let you all know about the exciting world of gwacheon, uiwang and gunpo shortly. For the time being, however, I will be in Fukuoka on a visa run that has cost me almost 4M won. The reasons for this will be told later on in the story, though.

Things start to get unpleasant part 5

So, I worked through the rest of the week. On Friday, there was a staff dinner at the Ilsan school, but I turned down the invitation. I had to take the subway home because the Ilsan boss was attending the staff dinner. He walked me out and showed me where the subway was and asked me to work for another week. I declined, but then he offered me a permanent position. He explained that he'd handle all of the visa stuff and that he really wanted me to work there.

I turned him down because things were still generally good in Bucheon and I enjoyed my life there. I took the subway home. On Sunday, the head teacher in Ilsan called and begged me to work for the next week. After a ton of begging and the cancer stricken teacher calling me, I finally agreed.

I finished up the week easily enough, but on pay day, I noticed my boss had neglected to pay me my severance. Upon returning to Bucheon, I immediately called my boss to ask what was up. He apologized and explained that the money would be in by Tuesday night at the latest. He had to spend a lot of money on renovations and purchasing the new name. I was pretty skeptical and pissed, so I went into work and made my boss sign a document promising that the money would be paid by Tuesday. Had I not done him a huge favor by working at another school for the last two weeks, I wouldn't have been so pissed, but begging for a favor and then turning around and not paying someone severance after a huge favor is done is a pretty shitty thing to do to someone.

I waited. After work on Tuesday, I went to the bank and checked my balance. My money still wasn't there. I went back to work and went into my boss's office. He said "I'm busy, hold on a minute." He was playing solitaire. I told him that he needed to pay me now and pulled out the signed agreement. He said he forgot. He picked up a bank book and went out to pay me. He said sorry and that he was heading straight to the bank to put my pay in.

The next day, I went to the bank. The money wasn't there. So, my boss actually pretended to go to the bank to delay my anger for half a day. I immediately called my boss. There was no answer. I tried several more times. I then sent him several angry text messages. I started off with simple ones like "Where's my money?" and "내금전 어디에??" which I'm pretty sure isn't quite correct. After a couple of hours, I put in my notice and started sending out my resume. I went in and talked to the head teacher and told him I would not be working there after one month. I decided to do the decent thing and give them a full month notice.

A couple hours later, I get a call from my boss. He was in the hospital. He said that he couldn't pay me the day before because the bank was closed. I was a little skeptical, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He promised he'd pay the next day. It took another five days, but he finally payed me my severance. When he came back he said something in horrible Konglish about how he could put me on an immigration blacklist if he wanted. This was of course in front of one of my students.

After that, things went fairly well. Then, the head teacher brought up the new vacation policy. They were offering now instead of 10 days paid vacation on days of the teachers choice, 20 days half paid vacation during exam periods. So, we would get 2 weeks off at a time and receive 75% pay for the month. I agreed because I wanted to go on a long vacation.

During the first long vacation at the end of April, I was contacted by the VP who wanted to know if I could work at a different branch in Gwacheon. The pay and contract would be the same, but it would be in a different location. I went and checked out the other branch and the area around it. I agreed. I didn't want to deal with any more bullshit from Tony.

Things start to get unpleasant part 4

So, the Ilsan guy picks me up, and he's pretty nice. Apparently, the teacher I was subbing for had cancer and was recovering from treatment. So, this guy was fairly decent. Most hagwon bosses would fire someone with cancer and leave them to deal with insurance and treatment. The school was decent, and the students were alright. The school used pretty good books that the kids all liked, and everyone who worked there seemed decent.

The conditions weren't so great though. They weren't horrible, but they weren't as good as the conditions at my school. Instead of teaching about five classes a day with ten minute breaks between each class, I taught seven classes with no breaks. Most of the kids were good, but there was one kid who asked me "Teacher do you like Puck You?"

I dragged this kid out into the hall. I didn't want to invest a lot of time dealing with the kid since I would only be teaching him for one more day, so I brought him to the head teacher and told him to repeat what he said to me to her. That night I got a very apologetic call from her saying she was so sorry that the kid said something so offensive and that it wouldn't happen again. I was a little surprised, because this is pretty standard fare. Usually, Korean staff don't care and either lightly scold students or ignore it. I told her not to worry because I had experienced far worse.

The next day after I finished teaching, the Ilsan boss took me out to dinner and my Bucheon boss met us at the restaurant. We were at some "famous" restuarant and the Ilsan boss ordered bibimbop for us. It was pretty good, but I just wanted to go home. When my Bucheon boss arrived, he said "Oh no. He is America person. He needs meat!!" He then ordered some galbi. I had a few pieces, but I was already pretty full. My Bucheon boss, Tony(I forgot that I decided to include his name)spent the next twenty minutes stuffing his face and speaking with his mouth full and spitting half of his meal on my plate in true Korean fashion.

After a little while, Tony turned to me and said I need to work there for the rest of the week, but after that I would be teaching in Bucheon. The Ilsan boss would also be taking me out to dinner every night to show his appreciation. I protested, but after enough guilt was pushed in my direction for being taken out to such a nice restaurant, I finally agreed. Mostly, I just wanted to go home and get out of the uncomfortable situation of eating with two ajeoshis in a "famous" Korean restaurant.

So, I worked at the Ilsan school for the next three days.

Hmm, this looks like it will turn into a six or seven part series.

*****Stay tuned for part 5*****

Things start to get unpleasant part 3

A few weeks after the remodeling fiasco, my second year at the Bucheon school began. Things started out pretty well. Under my new contract, I had no more Saturdays and a small raise. I did, however have to stay at the school from 2-9 regardless of whether or not I had classes during that time in exchange for the lack of Saturdays. This wasn't so bad though, because they had put computers in all of the offices, and I spent my free time reading, surfing the web, practicing Korean or playing the best computer game of all time, Escape Velocity Nova http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Velocity_Nova Think of this game as a cross between GTA, Freelancer and Battlestations on Facebook. You start off in a crappy spaceship. You fly around doing random odd-jobs and earning a bit of money. You then get a better ship, buy and sell weapons and outfits for the ship and then get involved in one of six major story lines. You then get access to better ships and weapons but can put the main missions aside for a while while you fly around different systems to explore, trade or pirate other vessels and take on side jobs. It's pretty great.

Anyhoo, things were going pretty well for a while. Under my first contract, if I re-signed(I do love how re-sign and resign have entirely contradictory meanings) my severance would come with the first paycheck of my second year, so one month after the end of my first contract. We'll come back to that in a later post.

On a Friday after my first couple of weeks on my second contract, my boss approached me.

He asked me if I could substitute teach in Ilsan for a few days. I told him I couldn't because I had a lot going on in my classes in Bucheon. He told me they'd be covered and not to worry about it. I asked him what the conditions would be. He told me I'd be teaching from 1-7 and that the Ilsan boss would pick me up at 12 and I'd get home at 8. I wouldn't be paid extra. I told him that I wasn't really interested.

Monday morning, I got a call from my boss. He called to tell me that the boss in Ilsan was on his way to pick me up. I asked him what the fuck he was talking about because I had told him I wasn't going to substitute. He begged and pleaded and explained how the guy in Ilsan was his senior and he had to say yes. Finally after he promised that it would be only two days, I agreed.