1. My pro. rugby students showed up today and what a joke that was. There were three of them. Not only did they not show up with even so much a pen or piece of paper to write on, but they chatted in class, one decided to take a call during class, and another one got up and left for the bathroom, I'm assuming that's where he went. The rest of the students all saw this go down and were quite amused when I locked the door, locking two of them out in the hall. I don't care if their English level is low, I tell them this all the time, that's why they're taking my class. But what I do care for is manners. Bad manners are not tolerated in my class and so I guess today those boys learned that pretty quickly.
2. How ironic, turns out one of the boys isn't even registered in my class. We discovered this after he sat out in the hall, waiting for me to let him back in again.
3. Lectured my students about the fact that being a student is their job. Do the work, show up on time, bring your books, study, and you'll get paid a sweet mark. Don't do your job and well, I'll fire ya. It's as simple as that. I am their boss, I am not their mother, I'm not their buddy or the person who'll give them a free ride. Most of them are already getting a free ride as it is, I'm not about to jump in on that.
4. I've been emailing my students every week, religiously and now we are on week 5 but still I'm having students approach me in class to tell me that they couldn't do the homework cause they didn't get my email... nice. It made for a very frustrating homework check today.
5. Sometimes I think some of my students would seriously either A., go crazy, or B., die if they had to be a university student in Canada or at least fend for themselves here in Korea. I think many of my students are incredibly awesome and I always love talking to them, but seriously, their life here in Korea isn't exactly hard but they complain about homework. Dealing with the pressure and stress of homework was just one of my concerns when I was a university student. My stress came from having to pay for my tuition with my job that, during the first year of school required me to commute back to my hometown, but then I scored my bartending job. I was working about 35 hours within 3-4 nights. I made great money but in addition to paying for school, I also was paying for my own clothes, food, training, and 2-story apartment. Geez Louise... I'm seriously starting to sound like my father... "When I was your age.." Mind ya, having sad that, my stories can't compete with his "I had to walk 5 miles in shoulder-height snow to get to school"... not too sure why you'd be doing that. I guess they didn't have snow days back then... hehehe.
6. Gave 6 girls in my one class a big goose egg (a zero) for their homework check and then they stayed after class to plead with me.
7. After a full day of walking around in stelletto heels and feeling like I had become the mother to some 90 students or so, I felt so tired and so warn-out. The fact that my weekend was packed to the max definitely played a role here in my exhustion. Weekends are meant for relaxing but this past weekend was anything and everything but relaxing. I need a break from my break.
8. And on that note, it was lights out for me at 6pm.
9. Woke up around 9pm to Q calling me, asking me a million and one questions that I can't quite remember cause well, I wasn't exactly conscious.
10. Woke up again around 10pm to Young Chan texting me. He's so over dramatic. I had agreed to meet up with him tonight and I know I blew it by crashing early but I really had no energy left to deal with him. Something is ALWAYS up with him. Whether it's food poisoning, getting lost on some random road, or what not, it just never ends with him. He always seems to have some kind of drama going on in his life and I am beginning to see a pattern here. Maybe I should tell him of the boy who called wolf, or maybe I should introduce him to Pinocchio.
QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Why does drama always supposedly happen to him?
QUOTE OF THE DAY...
A lie told often enough becomes the truth.
-- Lenin
As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).
After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.
Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.
2 comments:
I feel your pain with trying to get Korean university students to take English (or any) class seriously. I think the reason for their utter laziness is perfectly illustrated on Jenn's page (the pic of the kid who goes to a million classes a day sleeping in her class). By the time these kids get to college, they're completely spent. Any measure of freedom gets abused. But of course, you already know this.
BTW, great playing Scramble with you! I'm not too good at keeping track of my games though, so if I leave you hanging sometimes, I apologize. I know you're ultra-busy anyway though!
Dear Beloved,
Ya, I read Jenn's page and totally hear ya about them being completely spent. That's the "Korean way" though and as much as we don't necessarily agree with it, there's nothing we, nor they, can do to change it.
And as for the Scramble game, ya, I love it too. My cousin Ashley is totally kicking my butt on it. She scored like 89 on one round... how is that possible?!!!
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