I'm going to quit

I've decided that the time has to come to abandon my post. I think I'm probably going to give my notice on Tuesday. I'm just not happy working there. I just keep getting angrier day by day. I was such a bad teacher on Friday. My terrible class again. May, the one who wanted to learn, quit and I don't blame her at all. She wasn't going to learn a thing. It's 3 boys now. None of them listen to me. They draw constantly in class and don't listen. I took their notebooks away and then their pencils. One fought to keep it and I ended up just breaking the lead. Same effect. He cried and I felt satisfaction. What kind of person delights in making someone cry? I really don't want to become this type of person. I would really love to make David cry. How sick is that?

I also can't sleep, which is probably influencing my thoughts a lot. To put me up in an apartment in the hottest city in Korea without air conditioning just really reflects how they treat their employees I think. Last night, I lost my mind a bit. Nothing really seemed very real to me. I tried to sleep and couldn't. I don't know why. I ended up laying in my bed with headphones on and singing loudly. It was about 4 in the morning I guess. I'm sure people could hear me and all but what difference does it make. I hear them having arguments at 3 in the morning. There are windows so close to mine. I used to think it was coming from the street. I don't know why. Then some guy started watering the street and brushing it or something.

I thought about quitting at the 6 month mark so that I wouldn't have to repay the airfare but if I'm not happy now, I won't be any better the next 3 months. I hate this downward spiral and quitting is the only way to make it stop I think. I enjoy a few of my classes. I even enjoy my kindergarten class but the hours are terrible. I feel like I'm working from 9:30 to 8:00 everyday. The mornings are light I guess. I only have 2 classes. One hour class and the other is 30 minutes. The problem is that they are spread out over 4 hours. Which really means that I have to stick around for a bunch of hour breaks, 40 minute breaks, and all this other stuff so I'm basically just stuck at the school. Then there's the lunch break 1.5 hours. Not much to do with that really either. From 3:30 to 8:00, I am in the classroom the whole time. I don't get to sit down and have maybe 5 - 5 minute breaks which is just enough to time to grab stuff for the next class and sit for maybe a minute or 2 just waiting for the little chime of doom to ring. How could the same sound be both the sweetest sound and the one I dread the most? It rings at the end of class too. I have too many monsters in my classes. I spend more time raising my voice than I do any actual teaching. I have yelled more in the past 3 months than the entire rest of my life. Actually, it's probably 3 times more than the during the rest of my life. I can't think of anytime in the past 10 years where I have actually yelled except the past few months. I used to be so easy going. Even when my friend turned onto a one-way highway going the wrong way (a sure recipe for death), I just said 'I think you are going the wrong way.' I could see cars coming right at us. I'm surprised I was so calm. Now I'm just a pissed-off yelling machine who enjoys the sound of crying children. I hate it.

I really don't feel respected at the school either. They gave the kids speeches and passed them to the foreign teachers to correct. I corrected them and made them sound like something English speakers would say. They changed a few things but it was still full of mistakes and odd expressions that made no sense. Why ask me to correct it just to keep it the same way? I guess they just want me to say 'yes, this is an excellent speech. It totally sounds like a native speaker wrote this. This is seriously award-winning material.' I feel embarrassed for some of the kids that will be doing their speeches. They aren't good but I'm not going to waste more time on them. They have a speech contest next Saturday for all the Wonderland schools in Daegu. I can't imagine the others would be better though. If there are kids that show promise in the school, I feel a bit sorry for them and like telling their parents that they should send their kids elsewhere. One of their speeches actually had this line it 'I can get the best english classes which korean teachers lead. I have interaction with foreign teachers too.' It really is just like I'm there for the kids to look at and make the parents say. 'Wow, foreign teachers, my kids won't respect them and neither will any of the other teachers but they're enough to fool me into think my child will get a good education here.' My boss has stopped smiling when he sees me and his wife is always looking through the windows of my classes. I really try to do my best but there's only so much I can do. I yell too much for it be effective anymore. Then there are teachers meeting which are 95% Korean and we just sit there waiting for them to talk a bit of English. They'll ask our opinion and just dismiss it. It's such a waste of an hour and a half. They feed us and then talk about us. One of the other teachers, who used to call me just to practice English, told me they would discuss why I wasn't eating the food or some other trivial thing about us. Why do we have to sit through that? It's only once a month but it's during our week of phone teaching too. They expect me to call 30+ students 3 times (until we get a hold of them, only once for each kid) when I get home at 8:30 and they eat up all my Monday night. There's no way I'll be calling on a Friday or a weekend night. So that's 3 hours total to have 150 minutes worth of conversation. After 3 kids, I don't feel like doing it anymore. This is another part of the show to impress the parents and it really only shows me how little they are learning or retaining in class.

Then there are other things that bother me too. First, they feel like they can just demand things of us. We had to sacrifice our vacation basically to help the school move. They gave us 5 days off from Wednesday to Tuesday. Why can't I have Monday to Friday? Two halfweeks blows but it was acceptable, I guess. Then our boss tells us not to make plans for Wednesday or Thursday because the school is changing locations and we need to set-up the school. Does he give us any kind of incentive? Any compensation? Nope, it's just a demand. It'll probably be accompanied by some meal or something. Unpaid days helping rewarded with a lousy meal. Thanks. Then, the other day the mother of one of Renee's students needed some paper of hers corrected. Was she asked if she would mind doing it as a favour? Nope, just you're going to do this and there's nothing you can do about it. She was rewarded with some kind of pastry. Oh boy. Her and Matt worked on it and they said it was actually kind of fun and interesting. Luckily for them. Really though, why should we be forced to do this extra work? They do pay us on time and give us housing but that's not a free pass to give us no consideration. Then, on Friday, when I was signing my pay slip, I noticed this 200,000 won or $200 US deposit deducted from my wages. I didn't know what it was for. I looked in my contract and found that they are going to deduct 200,000 from our first 3 paycheques to cover utilities for the 2 months after we leave. Why do they need 600,000 won to cover 2 months of utilities? I think I pay like 50,000 a month in utilities. It's supposed to make its way to our home bank accounts 2 months after we leave. I can just imagine them keeping it. What are we really going to do about it a whole ocean away? Matt and Renee believe it's just 200,000 total. They were discussing it a few days before this incident. I doubt they know they have a collective 1,200,000 being held from them. I wonder what other aspects of the contract we are supposed to forget. Then, my contract states that I will receive my one month bonus after the completion of the 12th full teaching session. I started on the 5th day of the first session maybe so I'm sure they could use that to screw me out of it. I never thought they would but this deposit issue, which sounds really illogical and easily a way to just trick us out of $400+, really makes me question that. As does, all the talk about me that I'm assuming is going on behind closed doors. 'Some of his classes are really out of control but let's not help him and just keep discussing it and give him disapproving looks when we see him.' Amy did talk to Jessy the other day about his behaviour. I write something about him in my daily report everyday. He was good on Friday but I'm sure it was just a one day effect. I would love to see him cry too.

Matt and Renee, I think, have just resigned to accept things. They only have 4 months left and don't want to rock the boat. Renee would've gone to him about the vacation thing if it had been in her first few months. She isn't afraid to say what she is thinking. It makes her a bit unliked at work but I really respect her for it. One of her students stole from her and was then made student of the month. Renee refused to give it to her for that month. She just flat out told them no. Next month was fine but not this month. They talked to her and Renee backed down and ended up writing something. I don't know what was said but the fact she said no to begin with was nice to see. I get the impression that Renee is respected as a teacher and Matt is well liked but they don't like Renee and think Matt isn't a great teacher. It really would be nice to be part of couple. At least they have each other. Meanwhile, I have no better half to make up for my shortcomings or to make me less lonely. My schedule just really keeps me from doing anything during the week and the only people I seem to meet all live downtown. I can't go on like this. Spend the weeks, tired, angry, and lonely and then continue feeling too tired to do anything on the weekend. I get just enough rest to just make me think that I can possibly put up with another week. Life's too short to go on like this. There are better jobs here that pay better, have no split shifts, no phone teaching, no occasional weekend crap do to. I wonder what the teachers from the other Wonderlands think. Renee was thinking of drinking during this contest speech contest next week. She was kidding mostly but it really doesn't sound like a bad idea. I think if I did have friends in this part of town, I'd end up drinking every night and just bitching about work. I do that here instead and there's no alcohol involved.

A lot of people, end up just hating Korea by the time they leave. By the time you realize how much you're putting up with you just want to get out of there with your bonus as quickly as possible. Why quit and start at month 0 again? I could put up with all the crap at work if it weren't for my schedule or location I think. Or I could put up with my schedule and location if it weren't for all the other bullshit. Give me downtown and no split shifts or make it a really nice work environment. The school's not going to change so I'm going to go. I could care less about the bonus or return airfare. I'll just work for 9 months or so in Korea and leave. If I do end up really liking wherever I work next maybe I'll stay. I always told myself I'd never do anything for money that I wouldn't do for free. The bonus, while a nice incentive, wouldn't be enough to make me stay if I were miserable. I have no illusions about it. That's something I don't understand about Renee. She hates almost everything about Korea and says she would be gone if someone else paid her return ticket. Why come here for money if you have no sense of adventure and hate everything else about it? My sense of adventure has been slowing dying but I'm going to reclaim it.

Usually, I just take whatever I'm given and then complain later. I'm not very good at being assertive. I think it's time to do something about that. I can't spend another 9 months ( or even 3, I was aiming for 6 to avoid repaying airfare) living like this especially at 23. I spent many more months being miserable in Corpus Christi. My youth is slipping away and I don't want it to be full of times like these. I admit my job could be worse but I've resolved to make it better. I don't want to end up as an insurance salesman in Nebraska for the rest of my life, if you know what I mean. Why put up with something because it's one step above completely intolerable?