(13) 90 in 90: "Take a Rest"

"Kyle, please take a rest."

This is a phrase that has been told to me many times by various teachers at my school. Whether its a cancelled class, a day that I don't have to come to school, or even a holiday, these four words are the words of both relief and excitement for a slightly easier work day.

However, I seem to be one of the only ones living up to these words. Due to my work contract, I only am needed to work 20 to 24 hours a week. I do not have to work on the weekends, I have every major holiday off and I get a larger amount of time off in the summer and winter months.

The other teachers at me school are not so lucky.

Often I see and hear about teachers working to 8 or even 10 PM with few breaks. They are often required to do massive amounts of work both in and out of school and are often asked to come into work even on the weekend, all with no extra pay or incentives. They do it because it is what the culture has told them to do. Hard work is expected, it is part of working in Korea.

At first I wasn't sure how I felt about these long work hours. I often felt sorry for my teachers as they would lament the lack of time to go visit the places they wanted to visit and see the people they wanted to see. It seemed that while I had than enough free time to do what I wanted, my fellow teachers were left with nothing but things to do.

However, I have asked my teachers what exactly they do the entire time they have to spend at school. I was curious and wanted to know exactly they spent time doing for hours on end.

The answers surprised me.

"Well not much, its not a lot of work, just having to stay late," one teacher told me.

"I mostly just have to monitor," said another teacher. "Sometimes, I feel like I am at my school doing nothing worthwhile."

Other teachers have more work to do in a much smaller time frame.

A few days later, I was spending time with my girlfriend at a restaurant. It was a national holiday that day meaning most Korean people had the day off. When asked what her parents would do with a day of no work, she replied that they would do nothing. Sleeping, watching TV and eating were the only plans to celebrate their day off.

"Koreans, especially older generation Koreans don't really know how to use their days off from work. They just aren't used to days where they don't have to work," she said.

The thoughts on Korean work habits and break time came to mind after reading a recent article in the Korea Times. This article was an opinion piece on Korean work habits and how effective they were. In an attempt not to spoil the entire article, the numbers showed that despite being one of the hardest working countries in the world, Korea only ranks 28th in overall work efficiency.

This is due to much of long work day being spent doing "busy work" to look good for the boss and make it appear that they are always busy when in truth, this work is not efficient or effective, more or less wasting the time of everyone involved.

I'm not here to say which way or getting a job done or working is better, there are lots of cultural aspects and backgrounds that go far beyond what my short read of the article would justify. However it is something interesting to think about. Does having more time at work and less free time hurt or hinder work progress? Is this something Korea can change? Do they want to change?

I don't have answers, and even a opinion would be half-baked at best. For now, I can only think about the long hours my co workers put in, and realize my luck ability to participate in the Korean work environment, while still being an outsider looking in.

The original article from Korea Times

(10) 90 in 90: Back again aka working is hard!

Today marks the first day back for the second school semester and while I wish it was a little more exciting with a little more fanfare... there wasn't.

The mood today was incredibly dour and quiet. None of the enthusiastic greetings from teachers, none of the normal greetings from students. Everyone today was tired and not looking happy to be there.

I guess you could have included myself as well. After having an extra long vacation and having to start my normal schedule again, I also felt incredibly lethargic and sluggish throughout the day. Something about being back and working didn't register in my brain. Thank goodness the activity level of everyone today was low because I'm pretty sure the thought processes in my brain were tumbleweeds.

I'm hoping that this is only temporary and I'll be back in the work and teaching mode by the end of the week. It's such a weird feeling having a different mind set when you need to be doing something. It feels weird, not right and yet you know it has to be done. Your body is rebelling against you while your brain yells at you for being a lazy ass.

You tell em lazy cat. You tell em. 

I wish there was more to say but today was incredibly meh, a solid 5 out of 10. Here's hoping my students and more importantly myself are ready to go at this whole teaching and learning thing again soon. Doing simple warm up activities was a long and time consuming task that took a large amount of effort just to get the students doing what they were supposed to do. An activity that was supposed take thirty minutes took almost the entire hour.

I can't help but feel bad for the students though. Their summer vacation wasn't really a summer vacation like I was used to. Students still had to go to school and attend classes until noon. Afterwards, they were required to stay and study until 6 pm. Some of the teachers also had to stay full days as well not only to teach them, but to monitor the study sessions as well. I consider myself very lucky. I have a feeling that besides myself, very few teachers or students had the opportunity to relax and go on vacation like I did.

So now, I head to bed. Wish me luck tomorrow world. Let this laziness go away and get my butt back in gear. I'm a big boy now, time to start acting like it.

The Best Weekend Ever (or close to it) Part 1

I don’t live for the weekends. I was never one of those people who felt the need to let loose all of their bottled up stress from the week and let it loose for two days. Having fun on the weekend was important but be rested and relaxed was also just as important. Going back to work on a Monday jus as exhausted as you were on Friday is about as much fun a day full of deskwarming in a air conditioner-less room. Bonus points for misery if you were still hung over Monday morning.

Just like a day at work, there is also no guarantee that every weekend would be a perfect weekend. Sometimes things would go wrong, plans would fizzle out and changes would have to be made. This was a common occurrence in my life. It never bothered me, but was something that I was simply aware of and flexible to. I never hyped myself up for a perfect weekend, because I always knew there was simply no such thing.

This past weekend came awfully close to be perfect. It wasn’t a full weekend, nor was it anything too terribly exciting but, the amount of fun I had and the people I spent it with will probably last for a long time. Just thinking about it puts a huge smile on my face.

The week leading up to the weekend was an absolute disaster, a swirling mass of chaos that enveloped my school for the entire week and caught all of the teachers and students in its trap. Missing tests, missing grades, confused students and frustrated teachers made for a generally unpleasant environment to be in. 

Every day seemed to get slightly worse. I’m sure the super hot teacher’s office didn’t help matters. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Do the Right Thing” you will have a close idea. Just replace the themes of racism with missing papers, and you’re half way there.

I was excited and practically jumping at the opportunity to leave the school. A weekend break sounded like the perfect thing to clear my mind. In truth though, this weekend had been planed many weeks before. This was the weekend I was going to watch Wicked.

I was never a person who avidly watched musicals. I had no distaste towards them; in fact a majority of my middle school years was spent with musicals, whether acting in them or working behind the scenes. Where I lived, the number of musicals that were available to see was severely limited. Even community productions were in short supply as the community theater in my town only held a handful of productions a year.

I lived close to Chicago where a large variety of musicals would end up. One of the most noticeable ones was Wicked, based on the novel by Gregory Maguire. In it, the story of the Land of Oz from the Wizard of Oz and the origins of iconic characters such as The Wicked Witch and the Good Witch are explained. It was a musical I had always heard of but never actually made my way to see it. My sister and brothers saw it.  A majority of my friends saw it, but I never did. I always assumed that I would see it one day when the opportunity developed.

When I found out that Wicked would be coming to Seoul, I jumped at the opportunity. Eventually I made plans to see Wicked in Seoul along with two close friends living in Korea.  Tired, sweaty from the humidity and itching to leave my small town behind for the weekend, I boarded my train after school and began the ride towards Seoul and an evening at the theater.

I arrived at Seoul about an hour early, making sure that I had enough time to meet up with my friends and make my way to the theater. After meeting up we excitedly claimed out tickets and found our seats. The seats were on the third floor with a bird’s eye view overlooking the stage. At first I was worried a seat so far away from the stage would hamper my enjoyment, but it actually was a good view. The stage, despite being small, was loaded with large props and details that were able to be made out from even far away. The musical was in English, with the cast from the New York production performing. For all the Koreans in the audience, subtitles were on the side of the stages so they could follow along. 

I don’t claim to be a reliable or reputable source on musicals, but watching Wicked was one of the most enjoyable and engaging entertainment experiences in my life. Wicked had great music, excellent performances from all of the actors and a story that gave backgrounds on characters and the world of Oz without ruining the reputation of the original Wizard of Oz. I would even go as far to say that if you were going to make it a prequel, borrow a page from Wicked. It was that good. 

I remember feeling such a vivid flux of emotions and during the course of the musical, not necessarily from sadness or happiness, but through the delivery of the songs and the nuance from each character. It was so well done it inspired a raw emotive response that I rarely if ever feel from any entertainment medium. Like I said, I may be wrong; this may be a fairly mediocre to bad musical from a connoisseur’s perspective, but what I do know for sure is that I enjoyed it to death and would take an opportunity to watch it again in a heartbeat. Hopefully one day, I will. 

A good musical seen with good friends. A night I will never forget.