New School.

I recently moved to a new city within Gwangju that is about a 40 minute bus ride from everywhere. It is almost in the middle of no where. I like it here. It's peaceful.

I feel like I can fit in here. Everyone is supportive and appreciates my role here. The students here speak better English then at my former hagwon. They are also older. This is an area of town where most of the middle class live so students are not as insane. The students aren't as spoiled here. The other place I lived is where all the rich people lived so I guess that the children received no rules on how to behave properly.

This program here is also much better. This hagwon focuses on speaking and writing. There are occasional speech contests. The former teacher was here for two years. That is quite a good sign for a hagwon. I was even told to record my classes. The other teachers would offer me constructive criticism about the teaching of my classes. I am even teaching three adults on their speaking skills. The material that I need to teach is straight forward. The classes should be interactive. I think that is the most difficult part since I have to apply the learning of the material with games and activities. It's harder then it looks.

I have even been invited to hang out with the teachers for lunch and dinner. I was asked to go out to dinner with two of my co-teachers and I acted so excited. One of my teachers told me to calm down. It was because I was so excited. I have never been invited to go out for dinner with my co-teachers before.

This is a good start to my new life in Korea. Cheers!

I'm finally moving on....

Hello.

I AM OUT OF THAT HELL HOLE OF A HAGWON!!! I am so happy. I can almost move on except for a couple of things.

I had to go back to that school one last time to pay my last rent. I did not want to go but I had to since I had no way of transferring any funds to her Korean bank account from an ATM. I had to give her the money in person because this was the only was I could pay for it.

Anyway, that same day I went on a trip to immigration with my new director. She was told by the immigration officer that she needed tax information from my former school. OK, fine. She offered to take me back home and said we would we would have to come back another day. I said I needed to visit this school to pay my last rent. She thought it would be faster to get tax information from my former school directly so we went in the school van to a city about 40 minutes away.

I was greeted with cheerful glee from the principle and the director but this was Korea. The last person that they wanted to see was me and this was not how they really felt about me. They were saving face. They served us tea in fancy cups. They talked for a long time in Korean while the principle was getting the tax information. Obviously, I could not understand anything. It was another game of charades in order to try and grasp anything they were talking about. I had fum imagining this witch with a lions mane all over her face. I knew her true nature. I don't know what I would be doing if my currently director wasn't with me.

There was a moment when my director had to step out briefly to take a phone call. I still was sitting there drinking tea out of this fancy cup. Suddenly, I noticed that their shadow was cast over my teacup so I looked up and noticed they were both standing over me with their evil grins. "Are you happy?" they asked. "Yes." I said with a unsettling nod. What were they trying to get at? It was then that I was grateful for a language barrier. I don't know what other threats she could of said to me.

The director said that she would withhold my last paycheck. Om....I thought you had already paid me? I was told before I left that she would put that deposit in my bank account right away. I fixed and mailed this phone back to this school. I did not trust this lady to pay me back but she did.

 I want to tell you the story of this phone. I dropped this phone on the floor and broke the screen a week before my contract ended. I was terrified. I was scared of how this women would treat me. I spent some time looking for a place to fix the phone but no one knew where I should go to fix this phone. The only place that I knew and trusted by other foreigners did not have any matching screens for this brand of phone. I was at a loss to where I could this stupid phone fixed. As I was trying to figure this out, I left it on a bus the following week. I tried to say that the phone was stolen since I didn't know if the phone was going to be returned to me after losing it. Well...several phone calls later with the help of a Korean friend calling this lost phone, the phone was returned to the bus station by some random Korean man. I bet if this screen was not broken, he would of kept it. Whatever. I went to pick up this phone. This trip was about 40 minute taxi ride. I had to leave around 8AM  and arrive back to work by 11AM in order to leave enough time to be at work the same day.

I gave the "stolen" phone with the address and the money to fix it to the director. I thought I was off the hook. Next, my co-teacher tells me that she wants to have dinner with her. She does not want to leave on bad terms. Well, the dinner never happened and how was going to communicate to me? I already had plans...

The lesson is that you should never agree to use a companies cell phone. I can finally move on.

I quit my job.

I've been in a roller coaster of bad moods for the past three months. I came into Korea with a colorful view of the future as a teacher in training for kindergarten and elementary students. My job made me bitter about everything, including Korea. I never saw through those rose colored sunglasses.

I was thrown into a disorganized workplace that did not have their crap together. I was forced to know everything by week one. I had students yelling into my face. You mix that with the inability to manage these students and as a result, I experienced internal chaos on a daily basis. I was consistently reminded of my inability to do my job despite being told many times that it is my job to figure it out anyway. I was under deep stress. I did not eat. My coworker, Jenny, had noticed that I was getting skinnier. When I did eat, it wasn't that filling. I acknowledged this to myself but I didn't look twice. I had no short term memory and I was losing more hair then I was used to after every shower There were more bad then good days. I wanted out of that pit of despair.

I didn't know how long I was going to survive. I wasn't prepared to hear of all the horror stories of former native English teachers that used to work here. I was thrown into this place by my recruiter. As a business, their goal is to earn money for their business. They guilt tripped me into taking this position because they had no other positions available at the time. I was not convinced since I could not contact any former native teachers. I really wanted this type of job so I took the offer. Patience is a virtue because I regret ever making that decision. I learned later from another couple that the same recruiter had placed them there and they had experienced the same results as I had. This company has no consideration for anyone except themselves. I can't believe that I assumed that this recruiter or any recruiter would be looking out for my well being.

I worked in a place of hell. Every teacher was afraid of this director. She has a great temper and power to use people to do her will. She is the devil in disguise. Her hard earned power is shown by the fact that she owns all of these hagwon chains in the Gwangju area. She manipulated people and disrespected them. My former manager had warned her that she would quit if she were to be treated with disrespect. Well, she never changed her attitude and my manager quit. 

The director attempted to look for a new manager. Ten people came to be interviewed. The next day, no one came. My co-teachers became the new managers. Oh no. 

She would manipulate people to treat others unfairly so they would do her will. I had a teacher meeting with her and two other co-teachers who had become my managers. She manipulated them to be cruel to me for not doing my job right. I had never felt so under appreciated and ridiculed in my life. I was under so much hatred that I managed to not eat for the entire day until I left at the end of my shift. I refused to eat anything that was made in this school. I refused to listen to anyone's advice. No one was there for me.

I wanted to try at my job harder. I wanted to do it for the kids since I was their teacher. There were no comments for me yet so I thought I was doing OK. I thought I was doing it right until I was called in to meet with the teachers. The non-contracted teacher came to my aid before the meeting and told me after all that observing the relationship between the school and me that she concluded that it was not a workplace relationship that could be made better. I could always try to do better but if I was fired I would have to leave the country and I wouldn't be able to visit Korea for 30 years as the result of a break in my visa. The best decision would be to find a new job even though it isn't guaranteed. I also thought this was for the best because by this point, no matter what I did, I would not please this director and I am not going to risk my visa so I quit that day. I cried a little because I tried to hard to do my best but no matter what I did, it was not enough for this evil witch. I was under appreciated and worthless. They never saw the good things that I had done for students. I was ready to go. I was not going to try to please anyone here for any longer.

I made a threat to the first graders to bring a person of authority since they were misbehaving. I did not want it to seem like an empty threat so I followed through with the idea. I could not find the principle so I brought the director. I don't think I could have been so stupid to even consider her. She ridiculed me in Korean all the way to my classroom. Another teacher was with me. I asked her what she was saying and she said nothing but weakly smiled and quickly looked away. She was literally yelling so the entire floor so everyone could hear quite clearly what she was saying to everyone else. When I stared at her, the look in her eyes were so evil. I was looking at the devil in the eyes when she yelled at me. I am not that mean of a person. This was after I had quit the job.

I had to wait until the new teacher came. The news came and went and I was already yearning to start my new job. I had already told some of my kids by now. There were already rumors that a new teacher was coming. I have no idea how that got started. I felt that I had been liked by the students. A handful of the students are already sad to know that I am leaving. This breaks my heart because of this crappy place. There is such a high turnover of teachers that they cannot built quality relationships with any of the native teachers. 

The new teacher can't get their visa for another week so I am forced to be here for one more week. I had additional news of chaos. I left my phone on the bus. So, it was stolen and not lost. I don't technically own this phone but I was being told to pay $1,000 dollars for it. RIP OFF. I don't know of any phone costing this much. I am in a race now. I had a Korean friend call for this lost phone at a lost and found at the bus station. I'm going to retrieve it before my director does. I hear of someone who is already looking to get this phone so I need to retrieve this phone before the school does. I plan to get the screen fixed and have the company mail it to the school. I just hope this works out. I don't want to be connected to this school any longer.

I hope to start my job by the end of this week. I hope I don't experience as much hell as I did there.

Festivals +4

Drama, Kimchi, Oktoberfest and Lantern Festival.