This week has been "interesting". Last week we had no English classes. Why? I don't know. This week we were supposed to have English. I taught on Monday. Then one of the grade five teachers left and we don't have a substitute, so my coteacher, Chan, was asked to sub. He says he's the only one who can because the other teachers all either a) have homerooms already or b) are specialty teachers, like us, in music and gym and don't have the right certification to be allowed to teach homerooms. So he was going to cancel English yesterday as well, but I said I'd teach alone, and did, and it was fine.

We had an assembly yesterday morning to say goodbye to our previous principal and another one today to welcome the new principal. Unlike assemblies at my Thai school, these are held indoors and there's no bullshit lighting candles for the King or laying flowers in front of pictures of the school founders. There was a little Pledge of Allegiance kinda thing, during which I put my hand on my heart (cause everyone else was doing it!) and then we declared ourselves proud citizens of Korea. Oops. Then the anthem. Then lots of speeches. It took up all of first period. Chan was in front of the grade five class he taught yesterday, so on my way out at 9:40 I asked if he was teaching them again today, and he said no.

Fast-forward to 9:50 with me in an empty classroom. Chan rushed in to tell me the newly hired substitute for grade five had found another job and cancelled, so he was teaching them again, and had already declared today to be English-free.

So here I am, sitting in the office alone, bored out of my freaking mind. Not that there isn't lots to do... I just can't seem to concentrate on anything. There's no actual work to do and sitting around looking foreign, while an easy job, does tend to get old after a while.

Story time: the special ed kids here eat at their own table next to the teachers' table, but for some reason it was all full of other kids the other day and so one of the special ed girls ended up sitting with the teachers. This was evidently WAY too exciting as she spent the whole meal commenting on the action at the table with all the enthusiasm of a Hispanic football announcer. "It's the GYM TEACHER! Hello, gym teacher! Ohh, the music teacher! Look, Mr. Park's eating kimchi! Where's Miss Kim going?" etc. Half endearing, half annoying.