"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!!!!!!