Lydia Understands That Things Are Insane

Lydia sat down with Geoff and I this morning and said she wasn't sure if she'd be staying on as our co-teacher. We were a bit surprised. It turns out that she was trying to get any information at all yesterday about her role with us, and no one could tell her a thing.

She said the school's system is terribly disorganized. We told her we understand how she feels and we feel the same. It's just more of that never knowing anything more than 5 minutes ahead of time. It can be quite stressful.

Well, after talking to the vice principal, she decided to stick it out. She wants our team to stay organized and keep lines of communication open.

I can say I'm VERY relieved she decided to stay. She's one of the first Koreans I know who ever openly complained like that. Most of the Koreans I've met in the past just accept the situation. She isn't willing to just roll over. Thank goodness someone else gets it!

Our co-teacher thought about quitting on her second day.
Definitely for the birds ...

Tomorrow, we have NO classes. It's another case of Korean school inefficiency. The morning classes shift around a lot. Sometimes we'll be told we don't have them on a Monday. Then, we'll have them on a Monday, and not on a Thursday. That's dumb. Instead of having three afternoon classes Monday and three morning classes Thursday. We have six classes Monday and zero Thursday. See the birds above for my thoughts on that.

But we found out a little info through Lydia today. It turns out the schedule is always changing like that because we are actually in contract with three other schools to have their students get taught by us once in awhile. Again ... birds.

But that could mean we only see the Hambak students once a year in some cases. Entire months will be taken up by grades from these three other schools.

While Geoff has taught some students from one of the other schools, he thinks they're using it as an excuse to keep us off balance and never fill us in on an actual schedule. But Korean school administrators can't be that sneaky, can they?

Anyway, I like Lydia's style so far. She wants to plan things a week or two ahead, organize our workspace and nail down a schedule. That's starting to sound like actual professionalism. Also, her English is good, so there should be less misunderstanding. I'm sure miscommunication won't disappear, but she has a pretty darn good grasp of common sense, from what I can tell. It's a relief, for sure.

Stay tuned as the Hanguk world keeps on turning.