This time the connection was a classmate's friend's cousin. I swear it is remarkable how these people just fall into your lap.
Wednesday I began tutoring my student, ShiHak. He is a ten year old boy who goes to the Korean International School. KIS is more expensive than college, and it's a place where Korean kids with rich parents can go to a Western school and remain in Korea. I thought I would be tutoring the boy in English, but it turns out that his English is as good as any 10 year old kid in America. Convenient. I am, in fact, tutoring my first ever history pupil. We move through his text books talking about world and American history. Over his break from school, the mother wants me to go down there every day for an hour and a half. That means every single day I am given $60.
These students keep getting richer and richer. ShiHak lives in Tower Palace, the most prestigious apartment complex in all of Korea. A cluster of buildings A-G, Tower Palace consists of 50-some story buildings with wacko security and awesome views. When I enter the building, I have call the clerk on a designated telephone to get out of the first lobby and into the second lobby, where I sign in and trade my Alien Registration Card for an elevator pass card. I then have to find the lone elevator with access to the highest floors, use my pass card to activate the buttons, and ride straight up at a blistering speed for 44 floors. (They really should make the elevator stop half way down and let you acclimate to the change in pressure and elevation. My eyes are killing me after the ride is over.) Then I walk to ShiHak's apartment, one of six on the whole floor, and have to find the doorbell on the keycode-fingerprint entry system. I here the bolts withdraw as they let me into their immense apartment, and my secret-agent-like journey is over.
The beauty of tutoring this kid is his ADHD. I've never seen anyone with such a short attention span, and my brother was a maniac child. ShiHak and I will be talking about Catholic Church reformation movement, and then all the sudden he'll come out with a question like "If reincarnation is real, and you're supposed to live a better life than the one you lived last time, and you can't remember your previous life, then how are you supposed to improve?" This kid is a freakin' genius. More importantly, we spend much of our class time discussing his deep, philosophical questions. When it's all over, I'm served some lavish meal, handed sixty bucks, and sent back through the security system to my home.
At times I feel bad for the kid, since this is his vacation from school and he is being drowned in private tutoring. He tells me that he prefers school time to break time because his mother makes him work harder than his teachers do. He has 8 private tutors while on break, not to mention the two sports he plays. She smothers the kid, but I'm not about to complain. That's life, that's Korea, and that's my livelihood.
Downsides to this job are the commute most predominantly. It takes me an hour and fifteen minutes to get where they are. I don't mind commuting so much, but it contributes to a bigger problem: My day is butchered by this student. I always meet him at one or eleven, which means I lose the entire center of my day. I can't do anything with anyone until his break is over. She's even got me coming over to teach him on Christmas morning! And these people are Christians!! I suppose I wouldn't be doing anything better on Christmas morning, but it would be nice to sleep in care free once in a while. Regardless, the every day is temporary and I'm banking a ton of cash, so I can stick it out until the 4th, when winter camp begins!
Sunday, December 24, 2006
"Sorry, I can't tonight. I'm moving a piano at 9:30"
Sound like the worst excuse I ever made up? Well it is fact, my friends. Fact.
I was at breakfast on Thursday morning. The landlady served me the usual one egg, one slice of American cheese, and two slices of toast. Then we started making pleasant conversation.
"Looks like all the snow will be gone before Christmas."
"It's nice that it's been warmer lately, though. "
This egg is really good this morning."
"Thanks, how would you like to help me move a piano?"
Suckered right in. So I go downstairs with Xavier (who wasn't invited, but decided to help anyways) on Friday night at 9:30pm. The landlady's room is in two parts. One part that is ground level and separated from the outside by a poorly insulated door, and one part that is slightly elevated and inside a well insulated door. The piano was to go from the low, cold, and moist portion of the room up into the higher, warmer, drier portion of the room. It was a standing piano, so skinnier than a door (but not by much), and it only had to go slightly more than one piano's length.
When Xavier offered to help, the landlady's son (who speaks broken English) told him that he was too thin and weak. I haven't yet heard anything so blunt and cruel and still so comical. Thank you language barrier. Xavier is just one of those spry and stringy guys. I don't know why they would reject his help and take the help of Asians, but that's how it went down.
The piano moved easily, and we were celebrated by the beaming landlady. It was all worth it just to see the look on Xavier's face when he was told "mmmm, you too thin" and of course, to get to use the world's corniest excuse on a friend. "Sorry, I can't tonight. I'm moving a piano at 9:30"
I was at breakfast on Thursday morning. The landlady served me the usual one egg, one slice of American cheese, and two slices of toast. Then we started making pleasant conversation.
"Looks like all the snow will be gone before Christmas."
"It's nice that it's been warmer lately, though. "
This egg is really good this morning."
"Thanks, how would you like to help me move a piano?"
Suckered right in. So I go downstairs with Xavier (who wasn't invited, but decided to help anyways) on Friday night at 9:30pm. The landlady's room is in two parts. One part that is ground level and separated from the outside by a poorly insulated door, and one part that is slightly elevated and inside a well insulated door. The piano was to go from the low, cold, and moist portion of the room up into the higher, warmer, drier portion of the room. It was a standing piano, so skinnier than a door (but not by much), and it only had to go slightly more than one piano's length.
When Xavier offered to help, the landlady's son (who speaks broken English) told him that he was too thin and weak. I haven't yet heard anything so blunt and cruel and still so comical. Thank you language barrier. Xavier is just one of those spry and stringy guys. I don't know why they would reject his help and take the help of Asians, but that's how it went down.
The piano moved easily, and we were celebrated by the beaming landlady. It was all worth it just to see the look on Xavier's face when he was told "mmmm, you too thin" and of course, to get to use the world's corniest excuse on a friend. "Sorry, I can't tonight. I'm moving a piano at 9:30"
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Hey everybody. How's it going.
Ah, it's good to hear it. I'm doing fine, thanks for asking.
This week is finals "week." I put week in quotations because it's a lie. I have my first paper due tomorrow morning, a paper on Tuesday, two essay tests, and the Korean final marathon. All in all it stretched into sometime in the middle of next next week. Ich.
As some of you have already heard, my contract on the job this winter fell through. There was more opposition at the embassy with getting us all work permits than the company had initially predicted, so we were essentially left high and dry. After a week of concern and fret, I applied and was accepted at a different winter camp for the same pay. This camp assures us that they deal with foreign work permits all the time, but we are no longer naive enough to get our hopes up. If it works out, then great. If it bombs, then I've already coped with the disappointment so it's no longer a big deal.
After two weeks of intense computer troubles I'm finally back online. My computer decided one day that it was going to block internet access of all the programs and websites I use in the order I use them most. By the end of it I had tried everything I knew how to do but had still watched one thing after another fade away. Gmail, Skype, MSN messenger, Yahoo mail and messenger, Blogger, Facebook, Myspace, and AIM were systematically refused access to the internet, leaving me with an expensive and cumbersome mp3 player. Thanks to the Kazakhstani down the hall and his windows boot disks and drivers, however, everything is now back in order. Good thing too, since I was on the verge of scrapping my much anticipated February trip to Japan in order to afford a new computer. Thanks Kazakhstan! You are so much more intelligent than Borat and prostitutes.
As far as Christmas, many of us lonely, family-less foreigners are preparing to gather and be sad together on the Eve. At said gathering will be decorations, gift exchange, a veritable feast, music, and no tears....no tears. It is general consensus among us that it doesn't even feel like December, much less a holiday season. The stealth with which Thanksgiving slipped by was astounding, and Christmas is but weeks away and I still don't feel anything. Is it coincidence, just maturation, merely a blossoming lack of interest in Christmas that coincides with being abroad? Maybe its that the rainy, dark, dead weather here is more reminiscent of Georgia Januaries and Februaries than of Decembers. Could it be that there isn't a family member in this hemisphere? I like to think that it's a little of all three, with a dash of way-to-busy-to-care.
Are you following closely the resumption of 6 party talks here between the Koreas? How about the fourth coup in Fiji in less than 20 years? Midterm election shakedown? I know I am. There are so many more interesting things in this world than what I'm doing here. Thanks for continuing to come and to pay attention. I'll do my best this week to keep the posts a-coming, but it is testing testing testing from here 'til Christmas. I'll throw something up about the finality of this new potential winter job as well as the new private student I meet next week. Until then, adieu.
This week is finals "week." I put week in quotations because it's a lie. I have my first paper due tomorrow morning, a paper on Tuesday, two essay tests, and the Korean final marathon. All in all it stretched into sometime in the middle of next next week. Ich.
As some of you have already heard, my contract on the job this winter fell through. There was more opposition at the embassy with getting us all work permits than the company had initially predicted, so we were essentially left high and dry. After a week of concern and fret, I applied and was accepted at a different winter camp for the same pay. This camp assures us that they deal with foreign work permits all the time, but we are no longer naive enough to get our hopes up. If it works out, then great. If it bombs, then I've already coped with the disappointment so it's no longer a big deal.
After two weeks of intense computer troubles I'm finally back online. My computer decided one day that it was going to block internet access of all the programs and websites I use in the order I use them most. By the end of it I had tried everything I knew how to do but had still watched one thing after another fade away. Gmail, Skype, MSN messenger, Yahoo mail and messenger, Blogger, Facebook, Myspace, and AIM were systematically refused access to the internet, leaving me with an expensive and cumbersome mp3 player. Thanks to the Kazakhstani down the hall and his windows boot disks and drivers, however, everything is now back in order. Good thing too, since I was on the verge of scrapping my much anticipated February trip to Japan in order to afford a new computer. Thanks Kazakhstan! You are so much more intelligent than Borat and prostitutes.
As far as Christmas, many of us lonely, family-less foreigners are preparing to gather and be sad together on the Eve. At said gathering will be decorations, gift exchange, a veritable feast, music, and no tears....no tears. It is general consensus among us that it doesn't even feel like December, much less a holiday season. The stealth with which Thanksgiving slipped by was astounding, and Christmas is but weeks away and I still don't feel anything. Is it coincidence, just maturation, merely a blossoming lack of interest in Christmas that coincides with being abroad? Maybe its that the rainy, dark, dead weather here is more reminiscent of Georgia Januaries and Februaries than of Decembers. Could it be that there isn't a family member in this hemisphere? I like to think that it's a little of all three, with a dash of way-to-busy-to-care.
Are you following closely the resumption of 6 party talks here between the Koreas? How about the fourth coup in Fiji in less than 20 years? Midterm election shakedown? I know I am. There are so many more interesting things in this world than what I'm doing here. Thanks for continuing to come and to pay attention. I'll do my best this week to keep the posts a-coming, but it is testing testing testing from here 'til Christmas. I'll throw something up about the finality of this new potential winter job as well as the new private student I meet next week. Until then, adieu.
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