My coteacher told me we had to start the supplementary book in class today, since all the exercises have to be finished by June.

She said she would do it. But my lesson plan for my open class was due that day, so she decided to edit it, instead of teach.

2nd period, she had a meeting. She gave me the supplemental book, and 4 pages to teach.

For 40 minutes.

It was a simple dialogue about greetings. Even the kids who can’t read can say “I’m fine, thank you, and you?”

How could i stretch this into 40 minutes?

I’ve always admired people who can bullshit for entire class periods. My coteacher. My afterschool teacher. During Winter Camp, the educational DVDs didn’t work, so my coteacher had to fill 40 minutes. And she did.

I could kill 5 minutes, if I needed to. Any more than that, and I’d have to resort to Hangman.

But today was different.

I was able to make 4 pages of short listening activities last the entire class.

We did Listen and Repeat, we practiced in Korean and English, they read the dialogue, I gave them time to study, and then we had a quiz. The quiz was hard, but hey, they tried.

Then they had 5 pages of homework, haha.

I had become a teacher. My coteacher had sprung an unfamiliar book on me at the last minute, and I had risen to the challenge. I taught all the classes by myself today, something I hadn’t counted on doing.

I felt like I’d finally arrived. It’d only taken a year and six months, but I could go into an unfamiliar situation and come out relatively unscathed.

Then came my failure.

I’d been working diligently since Friday on my Open Class materials. I’d come in early and stayed late every day.

Today, all I had to do was print the cards for our Go Fish Game and cut them out.

Except it wasn’t that easy.

I had to finish the cards, re-edit them when the printer messed them up, practice our Lesson Plan with my coteacher, and make the Dialogue Game cards look nicer.

I didn’t have time to print until it was time to leave.

Then, my coteacher said she wanted me to paste different color paper to the back of the cards, to make them thicker.

Which made the process of cutting out the cards take twice as long.

I only managed to finish 4 out of 10 before I had to leave. And that was at 6:20. I got out of work at 4:30. My coteacher is cutting out the other 10 cards, but I’ll have to help her because it’s my class, not hers.

So tonight, I’m sleeping in my clothes and going to work at 7 to make more copies and glue pieces of paper to the cards before cutting them out.

I’m seriously regretting selecting a “Go Fish” game for my Open Class. Then again, it’s my fault for deciding to make FIFTY TWO CARDS. What is wrong with me? I just wanted the game to last a long time!

But my students are going to play this game for 9 minutes. NINE MINUTES. AND IT TAKES THIS MUCH PREPARATION. WTFFFFF

All schools have Open Classes, but not all of them put such emphasis on them, as mine does.

I just have to make it to 12:10 tomorrow. Then on Friday, it’s Sports Day, and I have no classes.

Except for 7 on Monday, 4 of which need to be prepped.

My Open Class is in 8 days.

OMG I’M GOING TO DIE

…not really, because I had to stay late.

Anyways, I went downstairs to make a billion copies.

My coteacher came in to ask me something, then she left.

She came back in a moment later, followed by two 6th grade boys. One was clutching his finger, and it was covered in blood. Apparently he and his friend had been playing with a boxcutter. Korean students carry them in their pencil cases to sharpen their pencils. It scares the shit out of me. They’re allowed to carry knives in school!

The nurse wasn’t around, so my coteacher yells for some bandaids, but there aren’t any. So they find gauze, but it’s easily soaked.

My coteacher yells at another woman to call someone. Several other teachers show up to watch, stand around, and wonder what they should do.

She holds the boy’s finger in gauze. The wound is too deep for the small bandaid we managed to find.

The boy had been bleeding for a long time in the classroom before he came downstairs. He started feeling woozy, and he collapsed.

My coteacher roused him awake. He sat on the floor, took a look at the bloody gauze, and passed out again. His friend cradled his head in his arms.

Eventually, the nurse showed up, and my coteacher took him next door to her office. She came back and forth to the copy room to bring the boy several cups of water. Later, him mom came to pick him up. She walked down the hallway with him, holding his hand high above his head.

As if the day hadn’t been crazy enough already.

So today was like any Tuesday. My 6th graders were learning about “Don’t use bad words.” My coteacher asked them, “What else can’t you use?”

One student said, “Don’t use the fire.” Another said, “Don’t use the lighter.”

This turned out to be nearly prophetic, as today was a Fire Drill day.

I should have suspected something when my coteacher told me she had to go to the gym for a meeting.

She came back and wrote a note on the board while the students were reading.

“Let’s talk about open class at 4. I have to go gym. I am a patient for fire training.”

I’m not sure why, but this made sense at the time.I thought she’d pretend to be a victim or something, while the principal talked about what to do in a fire. I pictured her chilling in the gym. If it were me, I’d fall asleep on the gym floor.

So she leaves, I read with the kids, and around 3:30, I hear an announcement. They usually end after like 10 seconds, but this one kept going…and going… and going.

Then, one of my students runs to the window, and sees a fire truck. There’s a fire hose, spraying water at the building.

“Teacher, FIRE!” He shouts. All the kids are now at the window.

“It’s not a real fire, it’s just practice.” How can I explain to the kids not to panic? From our window, we can’t see what the fire truck is spraying. Why is there water involved? And where is the truck getting the water when there’s no hydrant in the yard?

My coteacher said fire “training.” She’d tell me if I had to evacuate the building, right?

“No, REAL FIRE!” The kids are now shoving their pencil cases into their bags and heading out the door.

Since they speak Korean, I’m assuming they could understand the announcement. So I start to panic. Their screams aren’t helping.

We head outside, and see the fire hose spraying class 1-3.

“Teacher, class 1-3 is ON FIRE!” one student screams.

As if on cue, class 1-3 stampedes past the fire hose, giggling. Several of them wave, and then run back into the supposedly “burning” school.

One guy has what looks like a propane tank that’s spraying fire in the middle of the yard. Behind him, 6th graders are playing soccer, unperturbed by the open flame. Then. one of the first grade teachers runs up to the flame and douses it with a fire extinguisher. The smoke resulting from the spray gets the kid’s attention.

I see teachers running out of the building, helping and carrying other teachers into the year. I see my coteacher being supported by two other teachers, who help her walk to safety. That must be what she meant by “patient.”

I think back to all the fire drills I’d been subjected to in my life. None of them were this interesting, this well planned or dramatic. I lived in a dormitory that had smoke sensitive alarms, which were placed right outside the bathrooms. Shower steam could, and often did, trigger the alarms. The other triggers were pot smoke and college students who couldn’t cook. Instead of replacing the alarms, my school instituted a $75 fine and a fire safety course if you set it off multiple times.

At this time, the students had figured out that it was, in fact, a drill. And now we were outside, with 5 minutes left in class, and kids were playing soccer.

Somehow, we all made it back to class. I worried my co-teacher had seen me out in the yard while she was being a “patient”, but there was an alarm going off, and the announcement made it impossible to teach.

After posting about this on Facebook, my friends asked me what was the point of it. What can you learn from teachers pretending to die, a fire truck randomly rinsing off parts of the building, and a fire extinguisher demonstration? I’m not sure. Don’t play with matches?

The only thing I’ve learned is that my apartment doesn’t have a fire alarm.

Awkward Conversations with my Coteacher, part V?

Note: Pororo is an animated penguin from a South Korean TV show, popular among children. When I say his name, I say “PO-ro-ro,” but I think Koreans say “po-RO-ro”. I also pronounce “Doraemon” strangely, and I can never remember the right way to say it.

On Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, I had in-service training. i expected it to be “how to improve your teaching skills”, but only half of it was like that.

The other 50% was “Hey! Did you know you’re in Korea! Things are different here!”

Most of the other trainees had only been there since February, but even then, you’d have to be an IDIOT not to realize that old women are pushy or recycling is done with an iron fist.

So yeah, it was a vacation, except some teachers expected us to do stuff, like work in groups, write lessons, or talk about how Korea is different than America/Canada/the UK.

On Wednesday, it was a national holiday - Korean Voting Day. My friends and I went to Gyeongju, which was part folk village, part tourist trap, but entirely awesome.

The weather wasn’t perfect, but it was a nice day. Only rained like 15 minutes. We went to Bulkuksa Temple, and The Grotto, and Taejeon Muyeo’s tomb.

I’ll try to upload some pictures later.

This weekend wasn’t so good, because I totally forgot all the activities I wanted to do. I wanted to be social, but instead I just watched Game of Thrones. It’s not bad to stay in once in a while, but it’s all I ever do.

I got Russian food and ice cream tonight, though.

But I still don’t want to go to work tomorrow. I need another break.

In 2010, after getting a job offer to teach in South Korea, the New York Times ran an article about a North Korean rocket launch. My mother implored me to read about the state of affairs between North and South Korea before heading over there.

I felt a huge amount of anxiety. I thought South Korea was a powderkeg, just waiting to explode. Should I stay home? If I go, could I die at any moment? How would I get home if war broke out?

However, a year and half later, I’m still here. I may be here another year. And people keep coming and coming, despite knowing the “situation.” Last year, I was near Seoul. Now, I’m in Busan, a large Southern coastal city.

So these are some observations from my time in Korea. Take it with a grain of salt, but also, take all the news reports with one as well. Remember the news media exists to entertain you. People watch scary movies for entertainment. Filling you with fear is just another form of entertainment.

The Military:

Most foreigners in Korea are soldiers or English teachers.

The US used to have a military base in the South Korean village closest to the North Korean border ( I went on a tour of the DMZ last year, and we drove through it). It’s still there, but it’s been abandoned. If the US was really worried about an attack from North Korea, wouldn’t it make sense to keep US soldiers at the base closest to North Korea? However, they do keep large amounts of soldiers in Seoul, located in Yongsan and Itaewon.

A friend went on a blind date with a US soldier, and asked if he was worried about an attack, and he said that if no one counterattacks, NK has enough supplies and weapons (though no long-range capabilities, as evidenced by the failed rocket launch) to attack for 60 days. After that, they’re done.

If something when down, they’d only have the element of surprise for a few hours before SK and the US counterattacked. They would not be able to win.

They could still cause a hell of a lot of damage - NK has dug tunnels to Seoul before, wide enough to get 30,000 soldiers into Seoul in one hour. They’ve discovered 4 tunnels, and estimate there could be a dozen more. If NK figures out a sophisticated long-range missile launcher, Seoul could be in trouble.

However, this is unlikely to happen. Why? NK’s leader was thought of as a God. A God would not lose a war. While Kim Jong Il is dead, his son has been presented to the people that same way his father and grandfather were - as divine. He can’t attack another country because he KNOWS he would lose, and he wouldn’t just lose the war, he’d lose the respect of his people. People may begin to question how all powerful he really is, and that would be worse than being nuked by the US.

Threats:

Whenever there are threats, they make the hourly news rotation in the US. Everyone asks me if I’m worried. And there have been attacks. Last year was the shelling of Yeongpyong Island, which killed 2 people and 2 soldiers. After that, my Korean friend told me a Spanish exchange student at her university was going home, due to pressure from her family. In the aftermath, most Koreans were just upset at the loss of life. They didn’t want anymore fighting. It was a game of chicken that went too far. South Korea was doing naval exercises in the sea, which is covered by the 38th parallel agreement. North Korea said that South Korea was in the their part of the sea, even though they weren’t. So NK responded by doing their own naval exercises, and the shelling hit the island.

Living in South Korea is strange to me, as an American. It’s common to see Korean men dressed in camo on the subway. All Korean men have to do a year and nine months of mandatory military service before they’re 29 - they can only get out of it if they’re mentally ill or gay (both are taboo in society). Every month, on the 15th, there’s an air raid drill at 2pm. They sound the sirens and all buses and cars stop for 15 minutes. It’s annoying more than scary.

The year before that, it was the sinking of the Chenoan ship, which killed 42 people. Instead of being angry, a lot of South Koreans doubted North Korea was responsible for that one, though. But my friend was in Korea at that time, and her parents flipped out and wanted her to come home immediately. People overseas were more upset than those on the peninsula.

The Cost of Fear:

Last year I met a recruiter, and the number one question she got from American parents was “how will you get my child out of the country? Is there a contingency plan?” And she said, “no.” As a result, a lot of parents wouldn’t let their kids go teach in Korea.

All you can do is register your trip with the Government, and they’ll send you updates about travel safety. They’ll help you if you lose your passport, but you’re on your own if something happens. Then again, so are all the Koreans.

I guess if something terrible did happen, and Koreans started fleeing, I’d probably take a ferry to Japan. Luckily I live in a coastal city now. I don’t know how the US Government would get us out. There’s only so many airplanes. Plus, there are people from all over the world here - Canadians, Brits, Russians, Filipinos… if their governments did have to get them out, it’d take a really long time.

I can imagine that this fear of a NK attack may keep people from visiting. It may keep English teachers from considering Korea. I know it almost kept me from the country as well, but I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t come here. Going to Korea has been the best decision of my life, and I’m so glad fear didn’t get the better of me.

If you want to come here, don’t let fear stop you.

The US is really far from North Korea, and at no risk for attack. This most recent launch proves that - NK does not have the potential for long range missiles. So they can’t nuke us. They can’t even nuke Seoul. They can make nukes, but they can’t go anywhere. Why are we so worried about NK? Is it just the fact that they MIGHT have nukes? Or are we worried about our allies, SK?

I think US media covers NK more than SK does. In the days leading up to the launch, life went on as normal. No one seemed worried. If Koreans did start leaving, I’d be worried.

My students were happy when Kim Jong Il died, though.

-

The REAL North vs. South.

The vibe I get from people is that they’re sick of the fighting. The war ended in an armistice, not a treaty, so there have been incidents nearly every year since the end of the war. Obviously people would want a more secure peace. It’s not that they live in fear or anything - they sort of forget NK is there until they make a threat, then they get irritated, and then they go back to ignoring them. Politicians also ignore them unless it’s an election year, I think. A few years ago, I remember politicians promising to be harder against North Korea, with mixed results from constituents. Most people are in agreement - they don’t want to fund NK’s nuclear program, but they don’t want to see NK people suffer.

On Korean Independence Day last year, on August 15th, I saw people protest in favor of reunification. Also, there were people protesting the US Army base. They threw tomatoes over the barbed wire fence. It was the only time I put my hood over my head, trying to hide that I was American.

People may want to reunite, but there are already North Koreans living in South Korea, since South Korea doesn’t send refugees back (I think China does, in some cases). However, they face a lot of discrimination. If people find out they’re from North Korea, they don’t want to hire them or rent apartments to them. They also face mental problems, because the world is so different than what they’re used to (i.e. cell phones, passports, the presence of food), and physical health problems from the starvation they’ve faced over the years. Language difficulties abound too - North Koreans use a different word for North Korea than South Koreans do. Also, South Korea has adopted some English words - like ai-su-cu-reem for ice cream, but North Korea doesn’t do that at all - they’ll use the Korean word for “ice” and “cream”. This could lead to communication problems, as I think Northerners have different accents than Southerners in Seoul, Busan, and Jeju.

There are volunteer organizations trying to help North Korean refugees, but these services need to be expanded, especially if the South and the North reunite.

There will be some South Koreans who won’t want to reunite, and some North Koreans that will be so badly brainwashed, I think they’d rather commit suicide that live outside of their Dear Leader’s grasp. Reunification will not be easy, but it may be better than what we have now in the long run.

In Conclusion:

Just remember, every summer, North Korea launches a rocket. They seem unpredictable, but really, all they have is their rocket launches, naval exercises, and threats. They physically cannot do anything more. And if they unthinkable does happen, South Korea is not defenseless. They have an army of EVERY SINGLE MAN in Korea, and the US’s nuclear weaponry.

So don’t lose sleep over North Korea. I don’t - at least, not any more. I wish I could stop looking at my newsfeed and seeing friends back home in a state of panic over news that NK MIGHT be testing something. America wants you to think we’re on the brink of World War III, but in reality we’re probably closer to a Class War or a Civil War 2.0

If you worry about one thing, worry about the North Korean prisoners in the labor camps. Seriously, Google that shit. It’s terrifying.

There are a set of twins in the 6th grade. Fortunately for me, they’re in different classes, but they have extremely similar names. The first part of their name is the same, but the second parts are different enough. These kids don’t have a freckle out of place, I don’t know how their parents tell them apart.

Me: CO, who is older - you or your brother?

CO: My brother.

Me: How much older? One minute? Two minutes?

CO: Two minutes.

Me: Do people call you the wrong name - they call you CH instead of CO?

CO: Yes. I don’t like my brother.

Me: I call you the wrong name too.

Another student: He’s not CO, he’s CH!

Me: Don’t confuse me!

CO: CH is my girlfriend’s name.

Me: CH is your brother’s name, and your girlfriend’s name?

CO: Yes.

Me: Your brother is your girlfriend?

CO: Yes. I don’t like my girlfriend, either.

6th grade boys are so, so weird.