All in Time

I have a good ear for timing in music. This arose largely because I hardly ever practiced the tuba, my main instrument, outside of official rehearsals. This meant I had to be able to precisely time when I came in. If I messed up my timing, the entire song would be ruined by a single loud FWARP. I used to adopt a similar approach in life, waiting for the precisely correct moment to complete a particular task. This usually meant doing things at the last minute.

I procrastinate. It used to be one of the defining characteristics of who I was. At university, I would leave assignments until the point at which no normal human should be able to churn out whatever word count was necessary. Teaching and managing my activities outside of teaching has helped me reign in the desire to just do it tomorrow. Now, most of the time, I’m just doing it.

Insert obligatory meme here

I am teaching for 9 hours of my day. Last week, we had open class to prepare for and deliver, two major tests to administer, and submission deadlines for material for next month’s classes. When I get home, I often make dinner. Most days, I write a freelance writing piece and/or a piece for GosuGamers. This past week was particularly intense in terms of this. I submitted one large piece of freelance writing (2000 words is large, okay), stayed up until at least 3am on Friday and Saturday to cover the past Dota Major for Gosu and spend 3 hours casting my first competitive Dota series in a long while.

After I managed to get all of these things done, not missing a single deadline, I spent the majority of Sunday…procrastinating. I had one last deadline for Sunday, and I spent it watching Downton Abbey, playing Dota, and Skyping an old friend. You know what they say about old habits. I still didn’t miss the deadline, though.

While some of these projects yield more immediate rewards, like being paid money to write as a freelancer, others are more long-term investments. Writing for GosuGamers builds up my network within the Dota community. I hope to one day use some of these connections to fast-track my casting career. Either that, or be offered a paid job for the site. To be honest, I could think of little better than sitting and writing about the game that I love and actually getting paid for it.

All of these endeavours make me realize that I have become far less lackadaisical about what I want to do with life. I want to write. I want to have the game that is my passion, Dota, involved. I don’t want to be wrangling small children for 9 hours a day. It’s not bad work, don’t get me wrong. I just know it’s not really for me. Maybe next year I will work with older children, and I will find that far more stimulating.

For now, I will continue to fill my after-work hours with a fine balance between work, Dota-related endeavours, and procrastination. And I could think of nothing better. I hope that you all find your time signature. I can’t say I’ve found mine yet. All I’ve done is started to listen to my own song a little closer.

 

Open Class – Much Ado About Nothing

Yesterday, I completed my first ever Open Class as a teacher. Inside me swirled a colour-loaded washing machine full of emotions – everything from confidence in the children and myself to hating their guts and wishing I could catch a moderately-crippling disease so I wouldn’t have to do the confounded class. Turns out, like most public performance, once the show begins to roll, it will most likely continue to roll until it has rolled itself to completion.

In the early hours of yesterday, I was a wreck. I was nervous. I was panicked. I detest being observed, which is strange considering my background in choir, musical, and theatre performance. The thought of having three lovely strangers watching me attempting to ‘educate’ their children was highly nerve-wracking. I was due to deliver my open class in the fourth period of the day, directly following our lunch break. Sitting in the teacher’s room for 50 minutes with nothing to do but ponder the upcoming 20 minutes of intense scrutiny did not do my psyche any good. Nevertheless, I tried my best to remain calm. Right before the lunch break was due to end, I listened to Rise Against’s ‘Saviour’ at as loud a volume as I could bear, to drive all thoughts of panic and self-doubt from my mind. The bell went. I was ready. I picked up my materials, stood up, and stared down into the bite-size abyss that lay before me.

The parents arrived soon after I did. They smiled awkwardly and waved gingerly at me as they entered. They sat on child-size stools at the back of my small classroom, eagerly eyeing both myself and the class. I began confidently, giving my obligatory spiel about the content of the class. As my longest unbroken period of speech for the entire class, I was elated when I completed it without a hitch.

From there, I showed the children flashcards to ‘test their vocabulary’ (more like test their visual memory, because of how many times they had seen the flashcards). The children then took turns reading pages of a simple story. I occasionally chipped in with questions to ‘test their comprehension’ and get them to speak and demonstrate their mastery of the English language. Finally, the children completed a written task comprised of some more comprehension questions. There were a few small hitches, mostly from the weakest student in my class, but nothing that raised my blood pressure beyond healthy limits. And then, before I knew it, it was time to give my obligatory little speech thanking the parents for their time and saying farewell. It was done. All of the preparation had paid off. All of the panic was unwarranted.

Now that the open class is completed, it seems like a rather easy coast to the Christmas holidays. Each day brings me closer to seeing my family in Australia, and being away from our first school in Korea for a little over a week. I cannot wait. With the major obstacle of open class behind me, I am a lot more relaxed, a lot more upbeat. I can see the end of the year, and I can’t wait to embrace it.

 

Talking about Terror

A tragedy has occurred in Paris. Innocent people have had their lives cut tragically short by an organised group of people seeking to strike fear and rage into the hearts of the world. Around the world, people are waking up to see once more that the world can be a horrible, cruel, unpredictable place. But it can also be a place filled with love, compassion, and generosity. And social media has the power to control which of these two sentiments dominate the global mentality.

Right now, people are seeing the terrible news for the first time. #PrayForParis is everywhere. The world is in mourning for innocents killed in a city that many people have never seen with their own two eyes. Messages of strength, sadness, and solidarity flow from everywhere. Soon, however, that will change.

The global heartbreak will turn to global outrage and fear. As the ever-wise Yoda once said:
“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
The world will want to punish those responsible for the attack. To do unto them as they have done unto those in Paris. This is precisely what they want, and what the world must not do.

Terrorists strive to strike fear and, well, terror into the world with calculated, horrific attacks on an unsuspecting populace. They want to sink the world into a guerrila war, with the powers that be seeking to kill every last one of them where they hide. Which is why we mustn’t.

Who has the power to control how the world responds to this latest attack? The media. But here is an important message, from Amanda Palmer, a master of the Internet culture: We are the media. Social media has the power to shape how the world feels. If enough people continue to speak out expressing their sorrow and messages of strength for the families of those innocents in Paris, and not demanding retribution, that is what the mainstream media will express as well. That is what the world will feel.

So, take the power of the media into your own hands. You can play your part in shaping the world’s feelings. Think about what you share on your social media. Do not succumb to hatred. #PrayForParis.

Smoke and Mirrors: Open Class Starts Soon

Open class. These two words strike fear, anger, frustration, and the rest of the host of negative emotions in English teachers in Korea. Nothing seems more unnecessary than the pomp and fanfare that most schools go through to try and ensure that their current students return to their school for the next year. This sentiment is heightened when it involves actually bringing parents into the classroom to ‘show them’ how their children are ‘doing’. At our school, open classes occur next week. All of the teachers have their plans, myself included. As the time draws near, we come to see whether those well-laid plans will ever work in practice.

Open class represents an actual class as pornography represents actual human intimate relations. The parents are herded in to the classroom situation. Everyone feels a little awkward. The children demonstrate their ‘skill’ by performing the same tasks that we have rehearsed with them for the past few weeks. The parents smile, happy that their child is at a successful institution, and that they have made progress worthy of entrusting the school with their money once again. The parents leave, waving goodbye to their little angels, telling them to enjoy their day. They leave with a glow of satisfaction, pride, and with a story to tell all of their friends. In the class, we roll over and go back to normality after the brief intensity of the class.

I have been preparing my children well, but not as well as I’d hoped. We are to read a story, write answers to questions from a book, and hopefully maintain order throughout these two simple tasks. The children were initially well-motivated by the possibility of disappointing their parents should they misbehave or not perform well. Sadly, as we practice the tasks more repeatedly, they have begun to become bored. I hope to maintain a balance between comfort with the material and complacency and boredom right up until next Tuesday, when all of the work will prove to be worth it or worth nothing.

As it is my first open class, I am nervous. I hate being observed in any way, shape, or form. I am remarkably insecure. This may seem ironic, as I regularly cast my feelings in the swirling whirlpool of ideas that is the Internet for all to see. I guess I am just more comfortable with my written expression than I am with my verbal. This is odd, considering I use my mouth for nine hours per day, but only pen words for a fraction of that. That is a contradiction for another day. Right now, I have to make sure my three small children can read a basic story and answer some easily-lobbed questions that they have managed to answer repeatedly.

Open class is little more than a pantomime. We put on a show and the parents lap it up, not wanting to imagine that they are experiencing anything other than a true class. Their little angel is doing so well! It must be true. My job is to make sure that the show is a good one, with no rampant chandeliers or over-long third acts. There are only a handful of rehearsals left before the curtain raises. Let us hope that the players will be ready.

Relax, Take it Easy

For the first time in may weeks, Kristen and I do not have any plans for the weekend, apart from doing as little as possible. This came about through sad means – the playoffs for ROK-U (the Ultimate league we have been participating in) were cancelled due to rain. Nevertheless, we have endeavoured to and shall continue to strive to make the most (or least, depending on your perspective) of our weekend off.

This relaxing weekend came at a welcome time – the new schedule at work (with 20 minutes of additional class time for kindergarten) has meant that we come home more exhausted than we have before. Kris fell asleep at about 9 p.m. three times this week, before waking up a couple of hours later and struggling to get a good night’s sleep after that. I have had less trouble, because I am a light sleeper by nature and I have had writing due on most of the evenings this week.

It felt good to wake up at 9 a.m. (still not that late, but later than we have done for a long while) and proceed to stay in bed until 3 p.m., watching Big Hero 6 and Dota streams. It felt nice to not have to leave the house to fulfill any obligations. While today may be winding down, we still have tomorrow to look forward to.

Writing this post was the only thing I really had to do today, and it feels nice to not have pressure weighing on my mind. I most certainly would rather be on a field trying my damnedest to win a game of Ultimate, but I am also enjoying the alternative. What will tomorrow bring? Maybe a board games meetup with friends, maybe simply many games of Dota and more sloth. I look forward to every moment of relaxation, regardless of what form it takes. Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

Small Change, Big Impact

We recently had a new boss arrive at our first school in Korea, vowing to make changes and improve the state of the school. Unlike the majority of such vows made in Korea, he has actually acted on them, making a number of small changes already. The most pertinent of these is a change-up to our daily schedule. Our breaks are now shorter, and we have one additional class per day. It may no be a big change, and it may have only been in effect for a couple of days, but it has already made a noticeable impact on our approach to the school day.

Previously, we started the day with a period of largely smoke, mirrors, and bovine excrement known as ‘Sharing’. This class is one that all of the teachers at our school dread, because there is literally nothing to do for it. Until now, we have gotten by, weaving vast, creative webs of time-wasting and reviewing past content. As of yesterday, there is now essentially an additional 20 minutes of Sharing, in the form of ‘Morning Circle Time’. Where did this additional class come from? Our break times. Before this week, we had 10-minute breaks between the majority of our classes, an hour for lunch, and a 20-minute break between kindergarten and elementary classes. These have been hacked to pieces. We now only have 5-minute breaks between classes, 50 minutes of lunch time, and 15 minutes between kindergarten and elementary. Again, not exactly monumental changes. But the effects that these shortened breaks have had are quite significant.

The morning classes leading up to lunch feel like they take an absolute eternity to pass, simply with the addition of Morning Circle Time. We reach our shortened lunch break feeling far more drained, and have less time to recover through consuming either home-made or restaurant-bought edible goods and talking about everything and nothing with the other teachers. We also have less time to prepare for the upcoming classes, which hurts the effort we want to put into these later classes. In ten minutes, we had time to photocopy any necessary materials, or collect things that we needed for a lesson such as Arts and Crafts. Nor do we have time to simply sit, play a silly game on our cellphones, and disconnect from teaching for a couple of minutes and recharge our batteries.

On the other hand, the classes after lunch, including elementary, pass considerably more quickly. So, once we manage to reach the milestone that is lunchtime, it feels as if the majority of the day is over, even if this is not the case. Ultimately, I am sure that these feelings are temporary, and we will adjust to the new schedule quickly. For now though, we simply have to get used to it, and it is proving more unpleasant than I had previously thought it would be.

Will these changes truly change the course of the school? Who knows. For the time being, we will simply grin, bear our slightly less energetic smiles, and do what we do every day – try to actually teach our kids something.

This is Halloween

South Africa doesn’t really do Halloween. Sure, there are a few drunken parties organised for people in their twenties with too much disposable income. But there is very little tangible excitement for the Americanised ‘traditional’ Halloween – trick-or-treating, bobbing for apples, dressing up in creative costumes that don’t have ‘sexy’ in the title. As an American cultural colony, Korea believes Halloween to be a rather big deal indeed. As today was the last day of school before the actual celebration tomorrow, we celebrated at our school with a suitably festive, fun amalgamation of Halloween classics. It can be said that Kris and I have had our first true Halloween. And it was pretty great.

The day started normally, with the usual farcical ceremony of waving at the kids as they walk the 20-metre passage from where they leave their bus to the elevator that will take them to the school. However, today’s bus duty was a little different. With each new child came a new costume, and a new reaction to the costumes of the teachers. The teacher’s costumes varied greatly, from a low-budget Batguy (similar to but legally distinct from Batman) to a scary skull-face, to my own outfit (which shall remain a secret due to it being re-used for Halloween Hat this weekend – no spoilers!). As such, the children’s reactions ranged from bemusement to laughter to nervousness. Each one was unique, each one was priceless. It is at times like that that one can truly see the beginnings of complex human existence, as they grapple with something unexpected.

From here, there was a little bit of free class time before the inter-class trick-or-treating began. This ceremony carried a typical taint of laziness, but was a heap of fun nonetheless. Essentially, the classes were split into pairs. In each pair, one class would go and knock on the door of the other class, say ‘Trick or treat!’, and be bombarded in equal measure by candy from the foreign teacher and flashlight photography from the Korean co-teachers. As with the majority of the events of the day, it was simple but enjoyed by all parties.

Once all of the classes had received their treats, they returned to their rooms. Here, the children gave each other some of the candy they had been instructed to bring to share amongst their classmates. This ensured that each child left the school with an obesity-inducing amount of candy. I was happy to receive only a small share of what was doled out. I received enough to get a taste of each, but not enough to want to visit the doctor in the building to check my blood sugar levels.

Following this, the school ventured, class-by-class, to go trick-or-treat at the local candy store in the square nearby the school building. Each class would ride the elevator down to the ground floor, walk out in the cold, and line up neatly in the sweet shop. Here, the children took turns to say ‘trick or treat’ to the shopkeeper, and receive more candy to toss atop their hoards. It is possible but unconfirmed that Halloween is endorsed by the dentists of Dongtan. Sadly, I have neither the resources nor the time to investigate this claim.

With the kindergarten trick-or-treating concluded, the costume contest began. Here, I realized the true dedication of Korean parents. The children were almost all dressed in lavish, expensive-looking costumes.

These included:

• muscled versions of Captain America, Hulk, Spider-Man, and Iron Man.
• Six Cinderallas.
• Three Elsas and one Anna (from Frozen).
• Four ghosts.
• At least eleven variants on the witch theme, ranging from cat witch to witch-princess mixture.
• Two Minnie Mouses (Mice?). One of these looked considerably more like Mad Moxxi from the Borderlands game series, which gave some of us teachers a chuckle.
• One Grim Reaper costume which clearly cost more than R1000.
• One Maleficent (which looked more like a wingless purple bat, but was still quite cute).
• Zero children who did not dress up in a costume.

Many of the costumes were clearly not hand-crafted, and were simply purchased and put on. Others were mish-mashes of multiple costumes thrown together. There was, of course, the sheet ghost. What would any Halloween be without a child wearing a costume no more elaborate than a sheet with holes cut into it?

The final part of the Halloween festivities for the kindergarten children was playing bobbing for apples. For those unfamiliar with this particular game, a child must attempt to eat a slice of apple floating in about 2 centimeters of water inside a small, flat dish, without using their hands. Doesn’t sound like traditional bobbing for apples? Well, let’s call it a variant. Children were pitted off against each other to see who could perform this feat the quickest. It was quite hilarious to watch the children struggle to gather the apple into their mouth, particularly those who had lost their front teeth and were waiting for their new set to grow. Great fun was had by all.

With their bags full of candy and smiles on their faces, the kindergartners were sent on their way. They made way for the elementary children. Costumes were rarer here, with a number of children not dressing up at all. The celebrations took the entirety of their time, with no time to complete any work. The elementary children also ventured to the sweet shop for trick-or-treating, and also thoroughly enjoyed bobbing for apple slices. Their festivities had one additional activity – balloon javelin. This entailed the children throwing small foam sticks with sharp metal points at the end, attempting to pop balloons strewn across the gym floor. Despite the safety hazard, it was a lot of fun, and all of the kids seemed to enjoy it. Once the games were done, it was time for the elementary students to go, and our first school Halloween to come to a close.

It was a draining experience. Running all of the games, trick-or-treats, and contests took it out of all of the teachers. Not one of us complained. It was a wonderful day, and it flew by for all of us. Some kids will be sick tomorrow. Some teachers will be sleeping in late, exhausted from the activities of the day. But today is definitely one of the highlights of Korea so far. I look forward to the next Halloween far more keenly than I would have before seeing the events of today. Let’s hope that it will be at least half as good as today. That would still be better than any Halloween I’ve experienced in South Africa.

Sport or, How I Learned to Socialize Whilst Sweating

I sit with most of my body aching at present. My shoulder is sore. My calves are tight. My back occasionally reminds me that it is not at tip-top performance either. Finally, my throat is hoarse, and my voice gaining husky sultriness and quiet awkwardness in equal measure. Why is this? Bonding over sport, namely Ultimate and rugby. There were losses. There were wins (although these were fewer). Most importantly, friendships were formed or forged even stronger through the simple acts of playing and watching sports that we love together.

In school, I found sport largely an odd phenomenon. Sure, I played sport all of the way through my schooling career. I was in the 3rd cricket team in my final year. I batted at number seven at earliest, and bowled one over per game if I was lucky. I occasionally latched on to the optimistic thought that my fielding was that good, but most of the time I realized that I was profoundly average. The sport that I enjoyed the most in school was hockey. Although I did not achieve a higher team placement than cricket, I felt like a more integral part of the team than I did in cricket.

My first truly great sporting experiences lay on the hockey field, but on the club level. When I say club level, I do not mean the kind of club level where the players are all sporting six-packs, there is constant training, and my team is expected to win the title each and every year. I mean the kind of club level where the players are all sporting six-packs of beer, there is no training whatsoever, and the team is expected, well, to hopefully remain in the same league and not get relegated.

It was great fun, and I had many happy memories from my club hockey days. Some of these great memories came from on the field, but the majority arose during the shenanigans that took place off of the pitch. One memory that springs to mind most often is the one and only time I have seen my father truly drunk. Here is a picture from that night.

Doesn’t he look majestic? I was a year or so shy of legal drinking age, and fairly responsible. I ended up driving us home, because he was incapable of doing so. It was a night I will never forget.

Whilst hockey was my first foray into social sport, I feel that I truly found my outdoor sporting community in Ultimate Frisbee at Wits. Everywhere else, I had felt a little bit of an outsider, for one reason or another. I was too slow. I was too young. I didn’t drink enough. The list goes on, and many are likely to be overly critical perceptions from my mind. But in Ultimate, while I wasn’t the most integral part of the lineup, I still felt like part of the team to a degree that I had never felt before. Some of my strongest friends from my days at university come from the Ultimate team, despite me only playing in my final year in the university. I even played with my supervisor for my Honours thesis project whilst doing my thesis. Witsies will always be there to jol (have a good time for all of you not from South Africa), and that is what I loved about Wits Ultimate and the Ultimate community as a whole – everyone simply wanted to have fun.

This feeling continued into Korea, where the emphasis on the community is even more intense, especially in ROK-U, the main league in which I am playing now. ROK-U is largely comprised of expats from countries as varied as Russia and Canada, with several stops off in South Africa along the way. As a result, when game weekends are planned, so are organised social events for the teams to mingle and grow their expat connections within Korea. Ultimate people are great. Everyone is a little weird, and no-one cares, because you are all there together, in a strange country, playing the game you all love.

This past weekend, there was a two-day game weekend in Daejeon, which is pretty central in Korea. At one of these parties, the South Africans in ROK-U all bonded by staying up until 2am to watch our national rugby team, the Springboks, suffer a narrow defeat to the rugby juggernaut that is New Zealand. It was a heart-breaking affair, but I will never forget the sounds of a handful of South Africans (some more drunk than others) screaming at the top of our lungs at a television screen in the corner of a bar. It really was one of those special moments.

So, to everyone looking to meet new people, try sport. I’d say try Ultimate, but I may be a little biased. I am sure there are many sporting codes being played really close to you that you never knew existed. You don’t have to be serious, or even fit. I most certainly am not. Just get out there. Spend a little bit of time away from the digital overload. You won’t regret it. Not even when everything aches on a Monday evening and you have to carry heavy shopping.

New Head of the Pack

I have been moderately worried about the future of the company that Kris and I have been working for more than half a year now. There have been a number of small signs that it has not been doing well, from the first few weeks that we have been in Korea right up until this week. However, clearly our boss has noticed that the school is not doing as well as it could, and has brought in a new co-director to help the school expand and gain students and reputation in the competitive market of Dongtan.

There have been many small suggestions that our school is under-performing. Children have been slowly drifting away from the school, particularly in the elementary section. This week, we were asked to open bank accounts to help convince the bank to give the school a loan. Even the fact that the printer is regularly out of paper makes us a little edgy about the security of our jobs and the school’s existence as a whole.

Despite these small indications of instability, two things have happened this week to ease my mind: our boss purchased the entire floor of the building that the school is on, and she hired a co-director to help improve the academic side of the school.

Purchasing the entire floor ensures that the building does not simply get sold off, with the school left stranded and evicted. Now everyone can rest easily in the fact that we are secure in our location. The new co-director also seems to be a positive influence. He wants to meet with each teacher individually to find out about both the students and our teaching styles. This will help him understand the state of the academic playing field before attempting any reparations.

All in all, it looks like the school will be around for the rest of our contract, and we won’t have to worry about having to find a job at the last minute to remain in Korea. We are probably not going to stay in Dongtan for another year, but the school will likely continue to serve the children of the city. Maybe they’ll even become a top-quality education provider, and less of a business. This will set it aside from many hagwons, and I will be happy to see it compete with the big players in the future.

Shitting in the Street

Today, I saw a man empty his bowels onto a street in Suwon, the town where we catch a portion of our trains around Korea. We were walking to a restaurant to have dinner after returning from a hard day’s Ultimate, and there he was. Pants down, standing up, with a neat little pile of excrement near his feet. When he was done, he simply returned his pants to the normal position and continued to go about the rest of his drunken evening. We did the same, perplexed and shocked by the sheer vulgarity of what we had just witnessed.

This is by no means a common occurrence in Korea, but it is not unheard of. Our co-workers have mentioned spotting piles of human waste on pavements around Dongtan and the cities where they previously worked. It was clear that the offender was in a drunken stupour. Hopefully, a human in their normal state would not do such a thing. There are bathrooms in most restaurants in Korea (although not all, due to space constraints), and there are public bathrooms in train stations, which are common enough that they should be able to cover the needs of anyone desperate enough. But not our bare-bottomed fellow.

One moment, we were walking happily, discussing our exploits from the day with one of our team-mates. The next, we saw a person performing an act that is normally hidden away behind a number of doors. I was almost physically ill soon afterwards, and was happy to be able to have a sugary float a few minutes later, to distract my bowels.

I pity the man. His clothes were clearly well-worn, and he was likely one of the surprisingly high number of homeless people in Korea. In South Africa, homeless people are often seen at robots (traffic lights to those not familiar with the greatness of South African terminology), begging for spare change. They are not afraid to make themselves seen, if it gets them even the smallest amount of money. In South Korea, the homeless seem far more passive. Even when they beg, they do so by sitting quietly, with a mat placed out in front of them for people to place money or food on. They say nothing, and often hide their faces. There is an air of shame surrounding being homeless in Korea, particularly when they feel the need to beg for money.

Many of the homeless are also alcoholics. Often they carry plastic bags filled with empty bottles of soju (Korea’s cheap liquor of choice). The man we saw today seemed to be a person in this category.

Extreme poverty can drive a person to do drastic things. I pity the man who felt desperate enough to forgo all dignity and relieve himself in a crowded street. I hope that his future days are better. We will likely never see him again, but I feel that the image of a man at his lowest will stick with me for a long time to come.