It's official. I signed my contract for another year in Korea, today – about 3 weeks after the renewal took effect from a de facto standpoint (the start date is May 1st), but such are things. We spent about an hour playing with our cellphones while waiting for our number to be called at the posh new Goyang City Immigration Office – our municipality finally has its own (as befits a city of over one million); the new office is near the city hall, instead of it just being a branch office of the Uijeongbu office, which is always what it's been during my previous visits there.
As is usual in such moments, after the process was done I felt both giddy and yet at the same time gloomily reflective in a "buyer's remorse" sort of way.
I'm happy that this stressful moment – the moment of decision and worry about if something might go wrong – is past, but I'm also wondering if I made the right decision. There are many things I don't like about my position, some of which have, in fact, been highlighted this week – my lack of control over the curriculum is greater than I had hoped for, and I often feel that my strong opinions about students' abilities and needs are essentially ignored. But… I have strong reasons to stay in Korea, and this provides a stable, safe, predictible environment in which to do so.
In good news, too, today, my student named Nemesis (not his real name, but you get the idea – picture at left) was extracted from my EP1 class, which made them a genuine pleasure for a change, despite their hyperactivity and disinterest in actual English. Ah well.
Teaching is such a strange thing to be claiming to be trying to do, isn't it?
[Daily log: walking, 3 km; running, 2 km]
Well, you’re doing something that you believe in even though it’s not perfect. Something you follow doesn’t have to be perfect as long as it essentially fits somehow, IMHO.
I’m comin’ to visit in a few days…Will you be around?