The worst is over now, right?

I’ve been feeling for the past few weeks that I’m over the culture shock. Coincidentally, Hetty has been off my back for about that long, no idea why, just freaking grateful. I’ve been thinking that’s really what is behind my feeling that I’ve adjusted, but giving it a few more days to mull over, I still kind of feel like it’s more than that, that I have somehow found a comfort level here, and accepted the lack of logic that I can’t change, while still knowing the difference between logic and logical, in a land with no such distinctions.

I’m so sure that I’ve adjusted because sometimes last week and this (really up to Wednesday), I thought I’d just stay on until Hetty DID find a teacher, which she still is no closer to doing at this point. I also thought I could definitely stay if it were possible to just teach elementary kids, not the kindergartners, though that is definitely not an option. In the end though, I counted it: I like 3 of my 6 elementary classes. I have accepted Elmo as my fate and don’t get too upset when they pull their shit, though they have been REMARKABLY better overall since Heidi-teacher came on. If I could just teach Elmo and elementary, I thought, maybe even that would be ok. Because I hate teaching pre-k. Largely because I’m teaching them math. Though I also have to do basic listening and writing practice twice/week with one group, and that also makes me hate life.

I’m completely confident I’ll be leaving Korea now, still don’t know where, still waiting to hear back on one interview, have to work on cover letters to apply for others. But now I’m kind of looking forward to a new country, even though I won’t make as much as here, which I still desperately need. I’m nowhere near caught up, never mind ahead. Someone posted a video on facebook which I shared of Thai students starting their day by doing prayer hands and then hugging the person next to them as they sat in a circle. I’m sure it’s not common, but I just thought, Thailand is the one place I really liked. But, no money there, I’d definitely break even, but that would be it, no putting an extra thousand/month aside to pay off credit card and student loan debt.

Had an interesting realization. We were told yesterday that Circle Time (which I despise, it’s the “exercise” and “warm up” for the kindergartners, where we have to lead them in saying the days of the week, the date, and then sing songs for 20 minutes) and the last 15 minutes of their day which the kids would spend in the playroom, sing a goodbye song with the assistant principal, then head out for their buses, will no longer be done because Ian’s mom (Ian from Elmo, of course) thinks that Eric (also from Elmo, shocking) has been hitting and pinching Ian during those times. Never mind what an instigator Ian is, or that that is just Elmo class, that Ian’s likely making it up, and the parents all know that. In order to protect the ONE child, ALL the children have to have a new plan, rather than just having Ian &/or Eric sit them out. Of course, we’ve found some compromise b/c the kids were confused and it was utter chaos the day we went with the Korean plan of just keeping the kids in the rooms. Sitting. Or whatever. For 15 minutes. The solution to I think anyone reading this is, you take the out the one kid with the problem. But Asia is all about the group, and frowns on individualism. So they can’t do the alternative for one or two students, because that is rooted in individualism. Here, all the kids have to do as the lowest functioning does because group unity is so important.