Four Days 'til home!

The last couple of weeks have been the worst for me since I have been in Korea. I love my students so much, but dread going into work every day because I don't want to have to deal with my supervisors. It has seemed like everyday they have done something that has been belittling, demeaning or disrespectful. The thought that I have six months left there has torn me up.

I will fly home for my 8 day visit on Thursday!!!!!!!! It has been sooooooo hard to wait these last few weeks. My mom has showed me the snow when I have been talking to her on skype and I am so excited to finally be in it. (I know that for those of you who are in it you are probably sick of it, but it will be a novelty for me.) We have gotten about an inch or two of snow at a time here, but it is always gone by the afternoon. This week my students were really hyper because of the flurries outide. I told them about the 50 cm of snow that Minneapolis got in one storm. (My classroom is named "Minneapolis" so my kids like to know about it.) One of my students almost jumped out of his seat saying "yeah, and the, the field, the stadium fell!!!" It was so cool that one of my Korean 7 year old students knew about what had happened at the metrodome.

Okay, so back to going home.... I will fly in on the night of the 23rd. There are so many things that I want to do when I am there:

- Number one: see my family and friends

- Anything to do with snow: skiing, sledding, snowman making, snowangels, even shoveling!

- Go to Target! I have this list of "American" stuff to stock up on. I even have lists of stuff to get for other people.

- See the dome. I don't know if this will be possible, but I want to see the ruins

- Watch a football game

- Christmas card contest (Okay, I know this will happen, but I can't wait for it)

(sidebar: I sent Christmas cards 2 weeks ago, and it usually takes 8 days. It seems as thought that the last thing I sent took MUCH longer, so you'll get a card, it will just be late.)

- bake something (anything, I don't have an oven here, and just want to use one)

- sleep in my own bed

- take a hot shower (for some reason, I haven't been getting hot water in my apartment for a few months)

- drive a car

- talk to a random person in ENGLISH!

- meet Oliver!

- Smell a real Christmas tree

- (Don't judge) watch "Mama Mia" with my mom

- many more things that I can't think of right now.

See many of you this week!

Love you lots.

"sigh....."

It has been a tough week here. There has been a major scandal at my school that is hard to explain in anything less than a novel (probably just because I tend to ramble on about things). I'll try my best to explain the just of it quickly. (Of course, I can't make any promises.)
There are two supervisors at the school. Both of them do the bare minimum. They leave the school multiple times a day to get coffee or for exercise breaks. One of them has been talking about how much she hates her job and that she wants to quit for more than a year now. The director of the school (basically the principal) has been working really hard to make the school better for the teachers and students, and he has really made a lot of improvements, and had a lot of great plans for more. He has gotten a lot of feedback about the supervisors. His plan was to not renew one of thier contracts when it ends in February (the one who doesn't want to be here in the first place), and offer a transfer (and actually a promotion) to the other one. The two supervisors got wind of these plans, and together went to the owner. The told a bunch of lies about the director, and got him fired. (His wife worked at the school too, so she left with him.) The whole thing happened in a matter of hours. It was announced to us by one of the supervisors, who obviously lied about how the whole thing went down. All of the foreign and korean teachers are furious at the supervisors. The parents are too. (There was a big meeting about which Korean teacher 'leaked' the real story to the parents.) When the parents of my class came in for a meeting with the owner, they actually kicked the supervisor out of the meeting. The hardest thing right now is that the supervisors work in the same workroom as the teachers. We all avoid the room now like the plague, and the supervisors are avoiding having to face us too. No one wants to be at work anymore, and we are clinging to our students to remind us of why we are here.
After having an intense anger festering in me for a few days, I think that it is finally ebbing. I talked to some people at church who really encouraged me to forgive. I don't know how I am going to feel about that when I get into school tomorrow, but at this moment I think that I can go into work without being fureous at these people.

Here are some of my favorite student quotes from the week:

• (When explaining how foreign people look different from Korean people) "Foreign people have red dots all over their face" (to be fair, so do some Koreans)
• One of my students wrote "toetruck" instead of towtruck. (okay, Todd didn't think it was very funny, but I laughed pretty hard trying to imagine what a toetruck would look like.)
• (from a student wearing a coat with fur around the hood) Elika: "Teacher, what is this?" Me: "It's fur sweetie" Elika: "What kind of animal is it from?" (after checking the tag) Me: "It's fox fur." (a short pause for her to digest this information) Elika: "Teacher, I have a dead fox on my head!" (this was repeated several times, to any teacher who would listen to her.)

18 days 'til I'm home for Christmas!!!!!!