Saturday Night Fever and the 8 Month Itch

I've come to the realization that I've become bored with teaching. Everyday, I see the same students, do the same things, teach the same words/phrases. When the kids are working in their workbooks my mind wanders. I doodle on the board, pace about the classsroom, or stare blankly at the wall until pulled out of my reverie by a questioning and/or rowdy student. I don't feel any excitement for teaching. Don't get me wrong, there are some classes I enjoy, especially the one with the doctors but that's because it's less like teaching and more like hanging out and talking with friends. I've really come to the conclusion that teaching children is not something I want to do for any extended period of time. 14 months will be plenty, thank you. This has been a rather gradual realization that I've probably hinted at previously, but only now feel it to be completely true. I like the kids (most of the time). I don't hate my job. I just don't want to do it for any longer than necessary. After 8 months of this, I am itching to move on. Thus, my decision to go back to school in the fall. Laura and I have managed to get everything set up so far and are just waiting for the transcripts to arrive at SFU. We should know soon-ish, I think, whether we're accepted or not. We're fairly confident that we will be.

Aside from teaching, though, I'm having a blast lately. Last Saturday was a great example of that. Our group (Me, Laura, Andy, Matt, and Ji Yeon) all went out for drinks. Ji Yeon's brother joined us, as well as another ECC teacher, Peter, bringing the Foreigner:Korean ratio almost into balance (we still slightly outnumbered them 4:3). It was a rather typical night out, featuring tasty food (eel and chicken), drinks (beer and flavoured soju), and singing. None of us felt overly intoxicated as the night progressed but I think the fact that Laura, Andy and I attempted to sing Bohemian Rhapsody to close the evening out and afterwards thought we did pretty well indicates that we were drunker than we thought (and I must note that we were goaded into singing something by Queen by the owner of the bar who decided that I look like Freddie Mercury. I can't say as I agree, but then again I don't access to his wardrobe, so we may never know for sure). Tonight, it's back out for more fun and this time Andy says he's bringing someone along. I think this picture of Matt and Ji Yeon fairly well describes the fun that was had:

For other pictures from last Saturday night, look here.

Well, to finish up here, I feel the need to qualify some of the things I said in my last entry. First of all, it should be known that Koreans make many other great foods that don't feature chicken. Just thought I should reinforce that. On the flip side, I may have given the impression that when a Korean cooks chicken, it is always an unqualified success. That is most definitely not the case.

Guy