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Week 15 - Y2 (June 11th to June 17th) |
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Tuesday June 13th,
For the past two days, I've been teaching makeup
lessons for the few days of holidays that we missed
from teaching. However, since most of my students
have already had their vocal exams, this is a little
futile. So today, I ended up taking out five of my
students for ice cream, and that was their makeup
lesson! (It's nice being in charge)
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Wednesday June 14th,
Today was my first day of adjudicating vocal exams.
Here's how the exams are structured: each student has
approximately 2 minutes to sing a song that they chose
(and had approved by their teacher) to a panel of 2 or
3 of the vocal teachers. Then, very briefly, the
vocal teachers give some immediate feedback. I was
surprised that a lot of the students were not as good
as I had hoped for, which makes me worry about the
quality of teaching they're receiving in the private
lessons (not that I wasn't already worried). But,
here was the real thing . . . one of the vocal
teachers is a somewhat famous Korean pop singer ( I
won't say her name, just in case). Of course, famous
doesn't mean talented, especially not in Korea. In
any case, she's not very good, and she seems to be
just a little peeved that I'm technically her boss.
So she spent the afternoon not-so-subtly trying to
undermine me and take control of the exams. The other
vocal teachers I can handle (not that they've been
particularly warm and fuzzy either), but this one
could potentially cause problems for me-- someone to
keep an eye on.
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Thursday June 15th,
My last day of teaching for the semester! I'm done
i'm done i'm done! Again, my students amazed me with
their utter appreciation of my teaching them. More
presents, and more hugs, and more thank yous. Next
semester, the students can choose their private
teacher, first come first serve, so apparently there's
quite a fight going on to see which students will get
to study with me privately.
After class finished, my students asked to come to
another classroom to watch something. Turns out, that
most of the Jeonju campus vocal students have been
getting together several times a week for the whole
semester to practise vocal jazz ensemble music, and
they wanted to put on a little concert for me! I was
incredibly touched, and I'll admit, holding back a few
tears. I almost can't wait to come back next
semester, just to have such great students.
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Friday June 16th,
Today I went to Daegu, mostly for social reasons, but
also to see Sue at Wonderland to ask for my deposit
refund. At the beginning of the contract, the
employee usually puts down a deposit of $300. This is
to clear your bills at the end of your contract, and
the employee is supposed to receive a refund 2 months
after the contract is finished. Well, Sue has not
given me my refund yet, surprise surprise. So I went
in to ask about it, and she's refusing to give it to
me until I pay her the pension money (ie when I leave
Korea for good). Not only that, but she's claiming
that I told her I would pay back ALL of the pension
money, when I said that I would pay her back what I
legally should have paid into the pension plan in the
first half (half of the money). I'm furious, and
tempted not to give her any of the pension money at
all. Legally it's mine, and she can't get her hands
on it in any way unless I physically give it to her.
Apparently Evan is currently having the exact same
problem with her right now too.
I'm furious that I'm still having problems with her.
And moreover, she's treating her current foreign
teachers even worse than she treated us. She's
incredibly lucky that no one's pulled a runner yet.
I'm sick of having to fight for every little penny
that I so painstakingly earned while being worked to
death by Sue, who has no teaching qualifications
whatsoever, and doesn't know the first thing about
actually teaching, and in fact, only runs a school at
all, because it was a "gift" from her incredibly rich
husband to keep her out of his hair . . .
Unfortunately, while this means that I won't get to
see my former students anymore, I intend never to
step foot into Wonderland again. I don't want any
more contact with Sue.
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Saturday June 17th,
Today was our big Chilgok survivor day. Mark and
Miranda came up from Ulsan, so we had an even eight.
There was also a theme: superheros! So everyone had
to make up a superhero and have a costume to go along
with it. Lindsey was Captain Canuck. Ryan was Party
Man. Joe was Communist Boy. Ange was Captain Kimchi.
Mike was Mustache Man. Miranda was Miss Dang. Mark
was Mark the Shark. I, of course not having planned a
costume at all, settled for Lindsey's last minute idea
of Valley Girl. I kind of got to be in the hostess
role, which was fun, so I got to ask all the
questions, choose all the challenges, make all the
rules, etc, and had to do all of this in character.
We played our game in the big park by my old apartment
in Chilgok, and there were kids swarming us the whole
time (we must have looked pretty ridiculous in our
costumes, doing weird challenges like crab walking,
scavenger hunts, etc.) Best part: all of our
confessions, voting, tribal councils have been
videotaped for further reference!
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