My ears are bleeding. My host mother is singing about three octaves higher than she should. I hate to begrudge someone the joy of song, but the lady cannot carry a tune. Shrill, piercing, fury-inducing, annoyingly persistent….this is how I would describe her voice. It’s a good thing I’ve had a lifetime of experience ignoring shrieks and screams (growing up in a daycare center). But today it’s too much—even I have to close my door and turn up the music. Hopefully she’ll take the hint.
Today I am sick, again. I didn’t write yesterday because I felt too drained to attempt to collect my thoughts. Things aren’t going so well and I feel worn down by that as well. Such is life. There’s no eternal bliss, unless you are watching the final episode of a Korean drama.
I am not sure if it’s sickness, or boredom, or general discontent, but I have been feeling down, to the extent that I’m searching for comfort in food. This is why I gain and lose weight so frequently, I suppose. I wish I could reach an equilibrium, both in mood and in its manifestations (ie: my weight), but it’s in my nature to be a person of extremes. No middle ground exists for me. It’s not the easiest way to live.
School, too, is contributing to my discontent. This week my new classroom was finally ready, which is nice, I suppose, until today, five minutes into my first class, when I realized it was way way way too small. They’d made it about half the size of a regular classroom by constructing several learning areas—a “hospital,” a “restaurant,” a “supermarket,” and a “house.” God only knows how I’m supposed to use these small rooms with their elaborate props in an English lesson with 25 squirmy tots. And they’re on the side with windows…no more natural light for me. And the annoying automatic sensor is right outside my room, so I have to listen to idiotic phrases OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER as everyone walks by. That thing had annoyed me so much last semester that I’d taken to a different route around school to avoid it. Now there’s no refuge. And I have no internet! My co-teacher told me today, after I asked her on Monday to have it fixed, that the wireless signal is weak. Then give me a darn cable! I know all of this is stemming from the best of intentions—why would they spend the money on all of this if they didn’t care and didn’t want to help me?—but it’s ridiculous how essentially all of it is counterproductive. Seriously, just give me a big classroom with space to move and desks, an overhead projector, a printer, and a laminator, and I’d be ecstatic. Instead it’s tens of thousands in construction and props that more than likely will diminish my teaching. I cannot comprehend how the people at my school could possibly, and rationally, think this is helpful. They are certainly not idiots. Am I missing something here?
There’s been a big push for me to move into this new room immediately. I delayed a little while—for one thing, there weren’t enough seats for the kids, and then there were internet issues, and then the not-so-small matter of moving my things and preparing my room and myself. Evidently these are uniquely American issues, for no one could understand my apparent hesitation. Two scarred desks, probably dating from the colonial period, were quickly brought in yesterday (so I could conduct my very next class there—yippee!). Four of my five classes were actually canceled yesterday so the children could run in preparation for Sports Day on Thursday (a laughable matter itself—they ran for probably ten minutes, and in any case, fitness does NOT come in a day. Also, considering the spectacle of last Sports Day, they will do no physical activity barring walking less than they probably do on a regular day, anyway.). I used that time to move some of my things to the new room, but I don’t have any cabinets or shelves, so I didn’t move it all. I would much rather wait until everything is ready, but there’s all this pressure on me to MOVE MOVE MOVE and now I regret bending to it. I’m stuck in a tiny room that’s a mess with no functioning necessary props. I’m more than irritated about this. My co-teacher came in yesterday afternoon with several of her sixth-grade boys yesterday and offered to help me move, evidently still not understanding why I wasn’t happily in the new room, even though I told her why.
Today I came to school to find everything moved, despite the fact I told her I would let her know if I needed help. And that would be fine, except that everything I’d painstakingly arranged (because I was moving, but just in my own way) was completely in disarray. Things that were clearly in a box together were scattered about the room. It looked like they’d taken everything, dumped it out, and thrown it into baskets and placed them on shelves. I am still so angry about this. There is absolutely no plausible reason for everything to be destroyed the way it was. Now I have hours of work ahead of me, trying to sort through the mess—work that I’d already done most of yesterday, when she assumed I was not working. And then she came by this morning, beaming and informing me they’d helped me move. Seriously—is there something I’m not getting here? I wouldn’t think this would be a cultural thing, rearranging someone’s belongings.
This all just makes me feel underappreciated and belittled. They obviously think so little of my teaching that I can just pick up and move in five minutes, that I don’t need prep time. Do they think that I do nothing, that I just throw things out there and do not need the benefit of time or props or preparation? Do my lessons say to them: I am not a real teacher and please don’t respect me? And who had the audacity to rearrange my things? To the extent that a tornado would most likely have been more helpful? Do they think I just cart things around for the fun of it, that my property is expendable and unimportant as well as myself? I am mostly sure this is not correct; however, I am still angry at the lack of regard my school is showing me. And the fact that I’m supposed to show gratitude….ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! It’s all I can do to bite my tongue.