As of today, I'm down to 12 days of abuse left to take.
Over the last two weeks, they've been asking me constantly until what day I work. So I continually showed them the letter from immigration saying I had to leave by Sept. 5.
Well, they attempted to make a plane ticket in advance (GASP!). They didn't tell me about it, but my head teacher, Kathy, saw the confirmed itinerary on the front desk.
It was for Sept. 9 and had my destination listed as Atlanta. Strange how that happened considering I need to leave Sept. 5 and end up in Pittsburgh.
So that ticket got canceled, and with 12 days left to go, there's still no new ticket. One of the former Jungchul teachers said they dragged their feet on her ticket and then one of the bosses was refusing to pay a certain amount for the available flights. So she ended up with a 36 hour flight back home. It should have been 12 hours.
It's pretty much assured the last two weeks will be a mess. I've continually requested a meeting so we can talk about my summer bonus money, final paycheck and severance pay. To this point, there has been no response.
I assume the flight they get me will have about 6 layovers and take multiple days to get home. Welcome to Korea!!!
At least the weekend was fun. Dan and I went out on Friday and ended up meeting some really cool Korean girls. On Saturday, my Skype friend came in and went to the SK Wyverns game with Dan and I. SK lost again. Go figure.
After the game Saturday, we met up with some girls who we first met a few weeks ago. This time, the three we previously met, brought three more. It ended up being a lot of fun.
Since cutting back on a certain commitment, I've met a lot of people and gotten to practice my Korean a lot. With the occasional exception, none of these Koreans speak more English than, "Fine, thank you. And you?" Clones.
The most annoying thing about my remaining time with Jungchul is that the school started a brand new curriculum. It was, apparently, the big boss' idea. I wouldn't be too keen to take credit for it.
It's mixed up, and all the teachers are confused. There are different sections to each unit. The sections are something like speaking, reading, listening, debate and presentation. The problem is they have to go in a specific order.
Also, they only want me to teach the debate and presentation. But they are last in the cycle. Which means all this week, I can do any of it because the students didn't have reading, listening or speaking yet. So I'm just doing boring essays. The students complain. It's lame.
On top of all that, they don't even know what they want for the debate section. These students are not advanced enough to debate. That's not an insult on them. It's a fact about their ability.
During my last weekend, I'd like to just meet up with my friends here. I'm not so concerned about teaching at this point, because they have no direction for me to go. I might have one week of actual curriculum teaching, but I would be surprised if they got their act together in time for me to do that.
Overall, I'm just anxious. I have to get home and take a break. It's nutty here.
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