English teacher and....?

I had my first job offers the other day from Korea. The first was pretty basic, 2.2 million won/month for 2pm - 8pm or something like that. The next one was more interesting. 2.5mil for "English teacher and golf instructor." I told my Australian recruiter that I might not be qualified to be a golf instructor, seeing that I am pretty bad at it.

"No worries, mate," he said. "When I lived in the United States I was a golf instructor and could barely break 100. It was around the time when Crocodile Dundee came out, and I just gave 'em the ol' Paul Hogan "G'day!," and they loved me."

I'm still not too convinced. I think I'll pass on that one.

Looking backward as the countdown continues...

Today I finally finish my Summative portfolio. It's basically a folder that you put stuff in from the past year with your logs of parental contacts, extra-curricular activities, and staff development things you've attended throughout the year. I pulled out an old accordion folder from my bookshelf this morning to compile everything in. When I looked inside it, I found tons of old papers from my first year of teaching. Looking through the names of the students and teachers, I realized that I remembered next to no one. Maybe it's because I was only at the school one year. Maybe it's because I only saw the kids once or twice a week. Whatever the reason, it made me sad. I feel like the last four years of my life are gone forever. I haven't really accomplished much, and while I've improved vastly as a teacher in terms of lesson planning and classroom management, I'm pretty much in the same place personally and in a heck of a lot more debt. One of the biggest reasons I'm glad to be moving to Korea is to force myself to grow a little bit. I want to look back at my twenties as a time where I further refined myself as a person, and I'm quite sure that if I stayed in the United States and continued to teach music, that growth would not occur.

My students are the best.

"It feels like a smooshed airplane." This was the response given to me by one of my Kindergarten students after asking to feel my newly-cut short hair. When pressed to explain further, she added, "Like when King Kong smashed the airplane."

Oh, ok.

Sometimes you just need good music.

Lately I've been expanding my horizons with eMusic and listening to stuff that I never really gave a fair chance to in the past. I recently downloaded Doolittle by the Pixies, and to my surprise, it's actually growing on me. Spurred on by this, I decided to try an album by The White Stripes, their major label debut White Blood Cells. About halfway through it I had to stop. I had a craving for something with a little more...I don't know...substance. I downloaded two Debussy Preludes, The Sunken Cathedral and The Girl With the Flaxen Hair. Once I hit play, it was like drinking a coke after a night of drinking Natty Light. It was just so good. Sometimes I think it's good to remind myself that even though my life doesn't revolve around performing classical music anymore, it's still good to listen to, if only to serve as a reminder of how much more fulfilling it can be than guitar rock.

Bad Newz...

There was a shooting at the house next to my school this morning.
This isn't the first time that there has been a shooting outside of the school, but this is the first time that they haven't apprehended the criminals involved. When I went out to stand by the buses, I was informed by the principal that I needed to stay outside an extra 15 minutes to make sure the students got in the building safely. I didn't ask her who was going to watch me to make sure I got in safely. I'm not really afraid of being shot though. When you teach in the schools I've taught at, you come to expect gun violence, even violence close to school. Besides, it was a drive-by, and I'm pretty sure whoever did it is long gone by now. File this under things I won't miss in Korea.