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Week 43- Y3(Dec 30th to Jan 5th) |
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Monday:Happy New Year's Eve! This afternoon I had coffee with Sage (my student) forwhat I thought would be the last time-- he's goingback to Utah for a semester, and then he's going toapply to University of Toronto, which is prettyexciting for me! Anyway, turns out that he's beenjumping through hoops trying to get his visa ready forthe US-- apparently they're putting up all kinds offuss because he got very sick last time he went toschool. So he had to get all kinds of documentationto prove that he's healthy now, but in any case, hehad to cancel his flight for tomorrow at the lastminute! At least we'll have time for one more lesson. . .Tonight I had to meet a guitar player named Drew totalk some music-- he's putting together a GratefulDead tribute show, and he wants me to sing on it! This is kind of funny to me, since I know absolutelynothing about the Grateful Dead . . . anyway headmired my professionalism and ability, which is whyhe asked me. I said I'd check out the tunes. After that, I headed to a house party at Joe'splace--lots of food, drinks and fun people to ring inthe New Year! |
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Wednesday:So, after several more doctor's visits, loads moremedicines and a lot of days of feeling like hell,Garan is finally getting over his tonsilitis . . . but now he's got bigger problems to worry about-- hishagwon is trying to fire him for being sick!!!! Hehasn't actually broken his contract in any way,everyone is allotted 4 sick days, and he didn'tactually go over that, but they gave him his 30 daysnotice anyway. Even worse, he's in the 10th month ofhis contract, so it's quite transparent what they'retrying to do-- they just don't want to dish out themoney for his severance pay bonus and flight ticket atthe end of the contract. It's actually so common forthis to happen that it's now illegal to pull an "11thmonth firing", but unfortunately the law a)doesn'tprotect against the 10th month and b) the law verystrongly favours Koreans over foreigners, so chancesare the case would not come out in Garan's favouranyway. What a horrible thing to do to a loyal andgood teacher. This kind of crap is way too common inthe hagwon system, and it's disgusting. As for Garan,they haven't actually given him written notice yet,because they can't find an actual concrete reason tofire him yet, so he's going to keep on fighting fornow. |
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Thursday:I am totally frustrated with Andy!!! We have aperformance on Saturday, and he's been flaking for thepast 2 weeks on practising, he's constantly late, andconstantly making mistakes. Now, Joey and Helenclosed the studio for New Year's, so Andy and I weregoing to go to a dance club to practise tonight. Hesaid he knew one in Gangnam, so we arranged to meet atGangnam subway station. First of all, he was half anhour late. Then, he didn't know where the club was,and he led me on an hour long goose chase in thefreezing cold. When we finally found the club, it wasclosed. I'm totally irritated, and I'm thinking thatthis is going to be our last performance as partners--I'm going to be on the lookout for a new partner! |
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Saturday:Tonight Andy and I had our salsa performance atKabinett, a wine bar in Itaewon. It was kind of aparty for the dance studio that was also open to thepublic, so there was a good-size crowd there. Iwasn't nervous at all this time, and I totally rockedit! Andy, however, fell apart on me, and I ended uphaving to whisper all the moves to him as we did theroutine. Even Joey and Helen are saying that it'stime for me to get a new partner, and there's maybeabout 2 people that they have in mind for when I getback from vacation. In any case, we got a free bottleof really good champagne, which was pretty cool, and Ispent the rest of the night dancing. Every time I satdown, someone else asked me to dance. There was afriend of Joey's named Brent who had actually been theteacher during the 1st dance workshop I did way backin March, and I got to dance with him a lot, which wasgreat, cause he's one of the best dancers here rightnow. After Kabinett we all went to Caliente, thelatin club in Itaewon for even more dancing. I thinkI must have danced about 9 hours tonight! |
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