Korean Hospitality

From Ruined for Life:

Barry Peacock, an English teacher who's been at Sogang on and off for at least 10 years, will be returning to England after this semester. The English Dept. held a going away party for him last week. The only problem is they forgot to invite Barry. Well, he wasn't tenure track, so . . .

Then at the restaurant when the error was noticed, no one did anything to rectify the mistake. They just had the party.

Poem of the Week

December 26
by Kenn Nesbitt

A BB gun.
A model plane.
A basketball.
A ‘lectric train.
A bicycle.
A cowboy hat.
A comic book.
A baseball bat.
A deck of cards.
A science kit.
A racing car.
A catcher's mitt.
So that's my list
of everything
that Santa Claus
forgot to bring.

An Email

Again from Ruined for Life
I wrote this in response to a talk with my unprofessional director about teaching more in lock-step with my colleagues. I went to a progressive education school and incorporate ideas that were not commonly used in the 19th century. I am not a slave to the text book and that bugged a few malcontents, who wanted the safety of just going through the book page by page.

October 11, 2010

Dear Dr. L,

I've thought a lot about our talk. I appreciate all your feedback and I will now use the book a lot more and do it all in sequence more slowly (one concept at a time).

Also, I need to ask you a favor. If one more student comes to you with even the smallest complaint, please fire me. I am so stressed in this job. I can't sleep or eat properly. I think it's because I'm living in such a dirty, run down apartment, surrounded with men who enjoy toilet humor and now teaching students who complain about every little thing because they love to criticize the woman who's below them in the pecking order.

I will try to do this job, but really perhaps unemployment would be better.

Also, today I will tell Reggie that I will not be in his crude movie full of bad jokes.

I offered to write the teachers' script, but he wanted to do this horrible, degrading movie. When I was in my 20s I actually pursued screenwriting as a career. While I never became famous, I was accepted into Act One: Writing for Hollywood. One thousand people applied and I was one of 30 selected. I have received writing honors from the American Film Institute and gotten praise and been invited to interview to write for the television program "Family Ties" and "Growing Pains."

As a Christian, I will not participate in his movie. I was going to, but should follow my gut and refuse.

Thank you for your consideration.

Susan

What Should I Do?

From Ruined for Life, my old blog

I just tried to download the new Explorer and learned that this computer is running on illegal Windows software. I'm going to see if others downstairs are. It could be the vendor's misdeed. If I worked in the US, I'd just explain the situation to my boss. At DDB Needham they were so above board on this stuff. I'm not there anymore. Part of me wants to report them. Yet I sort of think the validation test got reported to Microsoft.

I'm having a bad day. I thought things would be smooth sailing as of Friday afternoon. My classes are winding down. I've got a lot to grade, but am on schedule with that. Next week Monday and Tuesday I'm giving tests and Weds. is sort of a Last Harrah fun day. Thurs. I'm home.

I walk in the door after a little pizza party with my Bible Study group and the phone rings. It's Young Ok calling about the schedule. Mine is kind of weird or rather bad. The good thing is I can get Mon. off because all classes will meet twice a week for 75 minutes. Everyone just has to work 4 days. My four days are oddly timed. Weds and Fri. I start at 9 and end at 5:45 so I have these long gaps. (Thank God I live on campus and can go home in between.) Tues and Thurs. I start at 3 and end at 6:45. I know I can somehow make lemonade out of these lemons, but I'm curious if everyone's schedule is so poorly constructed. My guess is that they aren't.

Then I'd asked to teach 6, rather than 5 classes to make some extra money. Since I have such a crappy social life here, why not work like crazy and have little time to dwell on the negative? Well, that request was impossible to meet because I'm not working on Mon. Huh? I've got a huge gap Tues. - Friday.

I'm livid because Geoffrey always gets to teach extra (he taught 3 extra classes this term). He makes an extra $22K+ (US) from his double summer school and extra regular term classes. That's per year. Julian and Scott also teach extra.

I'm really aware of my low status. They couldn't give me extra classes the last two summers either. What is up?

Well, this makes me really want to report their widespread software piracy to Microsoft. My motives are now tainted. When I first learned of the illegal software, I thought of reporting it. I just sent a letter to Pearson publishing to report flagrant illegal copies made of their chemistry text. So I'm on this whistleblowing wave.

Korean Health Clubs

From the archive, March 2007:

Today I joined a health club right next to Sogang's campus. I know I scared the uniformed reception clerk. Her outfit was like that of a hotel reception clerk. No sweats or workout clothes. She didn't speak English, but I could see from the chart pasted on the desk how much a membership for 3 months would be.

She got a man to help explain everything. The most complicated part was their key system. I was given two locker keys. One's electronic and every time I go will open the locker the receptionist tells me. That will change. The other key will open my locker, #67.

The man gave me a tour and had one of the members give me a tour of the ladies' locker room. The club is open from 6am - 11pm, that he managed in English. (He knew more English than he realized.)

Here's the procedure: go to the locker room, taking off your shoes first, and get the correct size ugly cotton T-shirt and shorts. Pink for women; baby blue for men. Change clothes, and get a towel.

The work out machines are like in the US. The treadmill actually has a fan you can turn on when you start perspiring. There's a big driving range for golfers in addition to the workout room and exercise classes.

One thing that was different was that men paid more than women ($30 difference). I'm not sure why. It could be that the men get more weight machines. Probably three times more. The men's machines have black seating; the women pink, of course.

I'm looking forward to de-stressing here on a regular basis.

They keep coming

From Ruined for Life

Dear Professor Kelly!

Hi, Kelly! I'm Alicia. How was your Christmas? and I hope you enjoy new year day. And then I really want to know the reason why I got B plus. (Many friends got A in your class) I think I tried to do my best in English 2 class. So please tell me what I have to do to get A and to improve my English. I hope to meet again in next semester.

Have a happy holidays !

From Alicia
. . . . . . . . . . .
Dear Alicia,

One key to academic success, believe it or not, it to NOT think about grades too much. This is proven through research and my own experience. The times I got a 4.0 average were when I didn't care about grades and just cared about learning, ideas and new skills.

I've explained how I grade before, but I'll do it again. We have a grade curve at Sogang. Each class is limited in the number of A's and B's that can be given. At Sogang 30% can get an A, which is ridiculously high since usually only 10% of our students are excellent anyway.

Smaller classes allow teachers to grade based solely on achievement and common sense. I add up everyone's score and rank the results. For this class 5 A's were allowed. You ranked 8th in the class with an 85%, which is typically a B, not a B+, so I was generous. As I think you know the true value of taking English is to improve your skill and keep working on it. If you do this by reading lots of those Penguin books like About a Boy, keep writing in your journal and also listen to English movies, TV programs or internet radio. You will achieve the skill level you desire. Also, you should take at least one English class at Sogang every semester.

Don't worry so much about your friends' grades. Comparing yourself to others will guarantee unhappiness in life. Stop that habit, it's like poison.

Wishing you a Happy New Year,

Ms. Kelly

I'm saving these responses so I have a bank of formulas to send out each term.

From the Archive

Originally posted on March 16, 2007

Good Grief
Our latest mission is to jazz up the names of our courses. Intermediate Reading is just too boring. (Not to mention that intermediate means between two different levels and we don't have a beginning or advanced reading - that's escaped people's notice.)

I'm playing with Sex (and reading) in the City.

Any other ideas?

My observation that "reading" doesn't bore people who enjoy it was dismissed.

Today a student shed light on this move. She went to a seminar on study skills. The instructor mentioned that when it was called Better Study Techniques, few people came to this free event.

When they changed the name to (the misleading) How to Get an A+, the sessions were packed. Given that there's a strict grading curve and it's impossible for everyone to get an A+, I see a problem. I may be alone.

Ever Had a Job So Bad It Made You Sick?

I did till recently when I quit working at KNUE's teacher training program. Holy Moly. My former blog that was deleted by some malicious moron chronicled the craziness. In October, I suffered from a terrible case of hives. It was all over and I itched incessantly. That prompted the following"

Subject: 30 days
To: "Dr. Lee"
Date: Saturday, 30 October, 2010, 9:12 AM

Dear Dr. Lee,

All week I've had a growing skin condition. I tried to get to the English clinic here at Yonsei but it wasn't open. I'll go on Monday. I do think this problem is work related, caused either by stress or the bedding in the depressingly dismal apartment. If the doctor agrees, then consider this my resignation letter. There's no point in working at a place that makes one sick.

Since I must give 30 days notice, I wanted to write this now to "start the clock." Yet perhaps the doctor will assure me that this won't recur.

Sincerely,

Susan

My first resignation letter.

There's something weird about making yourself a Lord in your email account name.

Drawing the Line

So I've gotten sick of Dr. Lee's remarks in meetings about my appearance. At first it didn't seem like a big deal. "We're so glad to have a beautiful woman on our staff now" was easy to brush off and just attribute it to ignorance, but the remarks have continued. He makes a lot of inappropriate remarks to the trainees and many may think it's funny.

However, this is a country where sexual harassment is rampant and I think part of that is because women brush off the casual remark, which could be complimentary. But that's how they get painted into a corner. I thought it was particularly weird, when our director at KNUE urged some younger trainees to try to be more attractive for one of the trainers. This trainer caused a scandal some time ago when he started a romance with one of his students and then dumped her. She was devastated and there was a big brouhaha when her brother came to school to call the trainer out.

With that in mind, I wrote and sent the following:

Dear Dr. L,

Although you may think you're just being grandfatherly when you comment on my appearance or that of the trainees, in most professional organizations, remarks on women's appearance or any jokes like "This is my love letter to you," are considered extremely unprofessional.

This may just be your humor and style. I do want you to know that remarks of this nature should stop as far as I'm concerned. They're just unprofessional.

I hope that's all I need to say.

Regards,

SK

Next I have to see if he's going to sit in on class today. That's got to stop too. He can come back when he's seen 5 hours of all the other teacher's classes.

From the archive, October 2010.

N.B. He stopped for about 2 days and started up again.