Time for a rant……

Anyone who regularly reads this blog will have noticed that once again it had been devoid of content for a few days. Well that is due to this filthy, dirty, disease ridden (well at least it seems that way) country.

After initially being impressed at how clean the subway system is – compared to the London underground – I have now realised that this country is well… grubby!

I bared witness to Korean standards of cleanliness when I moved into both of my flats here. The first with filthy and over run with insects; whilst the second was just filthy. When I was moving into the new flat the school director explained, and demonstrated, that only one of the gas rings on the hob worked. Looking at it I decided it needed a damm good clean anyway. To my astonishment, after scrubbing away a few millennia worth of grease, all four gas rings work. They were just so dirty the gas couldn’t get through! Even Mark’s kitchen at uni wasn’t that dirty. Yuck! (Sorry dude).

To compound the dirt the weather in South Korea can’t quite decide what to do. One day it is freezing the next pleasant. I am constantly stripping off layers then putting them back on and walking out of boiling hot buildings into freezing cold air or not so cold air depending on the day! Plus I spend most of my time in the school freezing due to the kids being allowed to run riot through the teachers office always leaving to door open and not being allowed to wear shoes to work (it’s the Korean no shoes inside thing).

Also Koreans will turn up to school or work regardless of how ill they are. I was told that if you are Korean you are either in hospital or at work! Subsequently germs in this area are rife and they all appear to be taking up residence inside me!

I had a cold about three weeks ago that I never properly got over because I could only take half a day off work. It was Daniel’s last week and the school has to have a native speaker at all times so there I was working despite being ill. Then last week the cold returned with a vengeance. Conscious of my half day off a few weeks ago I tired to work though it, but last Tuesday morning I woke up knowing there was no way I could face a school full of screaming kindergarten kids. I took the morning off, taking my sick time total to one whole day, and dragged myself in for the afternoon shift. I managed to teach – well sit in a classroom and say the right things – through my headache, sore throat, drowsiness, runny nose, sneezing and coughing. Nice!

Then, on Friday, just as I recovered enough to agree to go hiking with Emily at the weekend my body decided to provide a home for yet more lonely bacteria. Friday lunch time I wolfed down my usual lunch from the bakery across the road from school then as I walked back after my break I realised I felt a bit … dodgy, so to speak. I headed back to school and made a cup of green tea thinking that would sort me out, but instantly regretted it. I spent the rest of the afternoon feeling incredibly sick but knowing there was no way I could ask to go home. By five o’clock my stomach had had all it could handle and I had to sprint from my lesson to for a lunch date with the great white telephone. Ummm lovely!

After my lunch removed itself from my body I only had one more 25-minute lesson to teach so I decided to ask if I could leave early. A reasonable request in the circumstance you may say. Not if you have my boss! After a fifteen minute ‘chat’ he told me that he has to think of his school and I must not be ill again, informing me that if I were he would have to “think seriously” about my position! Cause I enjoy being ill, having a cold is my favourite pastime, I deliberately ate something dodgy for lunch so I would throw up in school and get to go home early. But then if thinking “seriously” means, as it implied, getting sacked – then Australia here I come!

* Posted by j150vsc on 20/11/2006.