A Busy Week of Nothing Much

It's been a slow week here in Korea, and it's nice to finally have Friday come around. I hinted at having a pretty big week coming up this week, and in some senses it was, but in others, well, I've basically spent half of it or more just sitting at my desk again. Allow me to explain.

I'm going to be working during my vacation in January. How much I'll be working isn't enirely determined yet, but it will probably be at least 2 1/2 weeks. So, to make up for that, Shannon and I have requested an extra week off in February, which means we'll be traveling from Feb 6th-Mar 1st (not sure where quite yet). To make up for the lost week (during which I'll probably only teach 10 hours out of 40) I've been scheduled to have an extra 10 classes per week for three weeks, plus a Saturday of work. Basically my workload has nearly doubled from now until Dec. 27.

So, why have I been just sitting at my desk? Because no one is coming to class anyway. I've actually taught less during this week of "hell" than I did the week prior when I had only a regular workload. Most of this has to do with my grade 4's off at the English Village all week, but even then other classes haven't been coming. So I've spent X hours preparing for 30 classes and only 15 have actually happened. It's a lot of busy work with very little reward.

My computer also crashed this week, which made for some interesting scrambles to get teaching done. The curriculum is based around textbooks and CD-ROM's, and in each class I'll use it for 60% of the time, so I had some mad dashes making up new materials as well as some long boring waits when classes didn't come and I had nothing to work with. Anyway, I'm whining, let's chat about something more interesting.

I've been learning a little more about driving and liability issues on the road in Korea. Not that I'm planning on getting a car or scooter anymore, but it's pretty interesting and bizarre stuff. For example, liability is always split when it comes to an accident in Korea, usually 60-40, and rarely more than 80-20. You could be in a parked car, engine off, having a snooze, and if someone hits you, you'll have to pay for some of the damages. In fact, if you don't have enough insurance to cover it, you have to pay out of your own pocket to cover it. My one friend who was in a car accident (a very bad one where someone ran a red light and creamed him off of his scooter. His superman-esque tumble was eventually stopped by a refrigerator) found that he was still liable for 20% though he did nothing wrong, and he had to fight very hard even to get that amount. His description of the law was that:

"Say you're sitting in your living room, watching TV and a car comes crashing through your wall and pins you underneath it. By the law's rationale here, you're partially at fault, since maybe you shouldn't have been sitting watching TV at that time or maybe you should have had a fence up around your house."

Here's a couple of links if you're interested in reading more about this,


Anyway, it's Friday afternoon, I may or may not have one more class to go today. I work tomorrow then I'm off to Seoul! Should be some good times. See you next week.