Back in the good ol' PC Bang!

Cough, cough...

Excuse me! It's really smoky in this PC Bang. Since we moved (pictures and a story to come soon!), we don't have our trusty, not-that-smoky, free coffee, PC Bang. Instead, we found one and it's kind of filled with smoking teenage boys playing video games.

We are having our internet reconnected this saturday, so we won't have to put our fingers on the sticky keyboards anymore after that!

Ugh. Our Principal who we loved, is now on maternity leave, and won't be coming back. Instead, we are supposed to respect Sally, our "supervisor" as our new principal...yeah right! She is not a pleasant woman. Infact, she is terribly self-concerned. She makes soooo many mistakes, every single day, and when you ask her to correct them, she makes up some lame excuse about how it's not her fault and never apologizes. It got really annoying, so Brendan and I confronted her about it the week before last. She basically told us that everything was our fault. Like, the kids calling us "waygooks" in class, and telling each other not to bother with us because we can't speak Korean. I asked if she could help me deal with this problem in one of my classes, and she said it's an unheard of problem and must be my fault! I laughed in disgust and told her she doesn't listen. She didn't believe me, she told me, after she cut me off.

Some of you may think this is an exaggeration of what is actually going on. It's not. It's just the surface of it all, really. I could tell you a million stupid things, but I won't.

Today, Brendan and I went to the bank. We have to pay our loans off each month, so we have to send money home. We didn't eat lunch at the school, instead, we decided to head to the bank, and use our half hour (by law!) lunch break. Unfortunatly, the bank screwed up (like they always do) and sent Brendan's money home in US dollars. They had to fix that problem and they misplaced my passport and had to find it (in the photocopier!). It took us an hour and when we got back to the school, we explained why. Sally told us that we need to come in early to go to the bank. We said the bank screwed up and we were using our half hour lunch to go. They didn't understand that we get a lunch break. The owner's daughter said that "It's not in your contract that you get a lunch break." Brendan said, "It's in Korean labour law that we get a half hour for every 4 hours worked." Then I said, "It's also in our contract that you provide all necessary living conditions and you will help us adjust to Korean life, and it is necessary for us to go to the bank."

They got all huffy and called the owner.

So, at the end of the day, when we said, "Bye!" Sally, said, "Mrs. Park wants to talk to you guys." She said it in such a doom-y kind of way. Like we should cry, like the poor teacher they fired did.

So, during the meeting, everything was blown out of proportion, and we were basically told we have attidtude problems. At one point, I said "So are you saying we should just obey you and never stand up for ourselves?" Yeah. They didn't like it. They said to "Stop bringing up the contract and the law. It's shocking." It was pretty silly. Anyway, we convinced them to give us time each month to go to the bank. Oh, and they told us that we're not allowed to leave the school during working hours, because Sally is responsible for anything that could happen to us. I asked if she needed to escort us to Dunkin Donuts down the street if I ever felt like a bagel for lunch. She didn't answer me. We also enquired, why, if this was the case, we were never told before not to leave the school. We've been going to the bank for 4 months now.....

Are some of you thinking, "How long will they last?" Well, we are too. Although, this school we work for, would not last if we just quit. Or if they fired us. They don't want us to quit or be fired. We have the upper hand in this, and it will be interesting to see how things turn out. In the meantime, I'll just keep crossing the days off the calendar and thinking about my family and friends who I can tell this silly story to in 7 and a half months.

Brendan here: I just want to add that we honestly don't want to just up and leave, but we are here to work, to learn about another culture and to enjoy the experience. Leaving is the final option if we fail at the last of our goals. We will keep trying to work things out, but we have our limits of tolerance. Also, it may sound silly, but Sally really is the root of almost all of our problems. We made an "agreement" today to discuss issues with each other, so maybe I'll just bring that up at the next meeting...