If you like to plan ahead, don't teach in Korea

I had been warned about this, and it's completely true... Koreans do everything last minute. And when I say "last minute," I really mean it. This is true for nearly everything, even things Westerners consider very important. For example, my classes. They're constantly being rearranged/moved and no one tells me until about two minutes beforehand. Today Mr. Kim came up to me at 11:45 when the sixth grade was supposed to come to class from 11:50-12:30 and told me that they're moving the class to this afternoon at 13:00. Okay, sure. There was no explanation given.

On Wednesdays I teach the "extracurricular activity" class from 14:20-:15:00, but yesterday Mr. Kim said it was cancelled (for no reason I knew of). Then today at 13:45 he came up to me (this is immediately following the sixth grade class) and said that the extracurricular class would be at 14:25 (instead of the usual 14:20, but okay). So I was sitting at my desk, wondering why the kids were all in the classroom seated at 13:50 when (supposedly) they had half an hour before the class started. At 13:55 Mr. Kim came over and was like, Class is starting at 13:50. And I was like, You just told me 14:25! Unfortunately, Mr. Kim's English isn't so great so it wasn't worth it to argue, whatever I was eady and just killing time before class started anyway so I taught the lesson. So if you ever come here to work or socialize with Koreans, be prepared for last-minute everything.

I think things are going more smoothly with my classes. The third grade was rough today, but overall I think maybe they're starting to pay more attention. I know it must be hard for them because I tell them to do things and they can't understand me. I've noticed that the kids in school here are allowed to get away with being pretty aggressive. I know at St. Tom's that you would have gotten in serious trouble for hitting someone on the back with your book, knocking someone's chair over, or wrestling another kid. The kids run around school a lot too. Christopher (Lee Boyeong), one of my sixth graders, is always getting beat up by the other kids, including the girls. I have no idea why as he's not a particularly small boy. His friends are always telling me that he's "crazy, Teacher!" Christopher and Elliott (Lim Byeongchan) came up to my desk today to ask me if I liked Michael Jackson. I said sure and asked them if they could moonwalk. They didn't understand, so I demonstrated my own. Elliott seemed impressed.