Forlorn Little Tag-Alongs

First off: Let me just say, I don't even want to imagine what an entire year at my current place of employment will look like. But I can make a not-so-wild guess.

What a week (or two) it has been! The sweet little tykes I've been spending my mornings and afternoons with have simply zapped every ounce of energy I have ever possessed in my life. That's right: In.My.Life. How in the world can a child wake up at the crack of dawn, tolerate his/her mother getting them ready for the day (in ways that only crazy Korean mothers do), and still come bouncing through the school doors (still at the crack of dawn in my book) with more hyper-activity than the Energizer Bunny could ever compete with? And all of this without the assistance of coffee?? Children are truly amazing. And they truly make me want to climb back into bed and go back to sleep.

In a nutshell: I'm finding my current situation to be exhausting. I'm working from 9:30 to 5:30 (kind of like a real job!), which isn't a horrible thing within and of itself. But I'm spending the majority of those 8 hours with the aforementioned kiddos--who are as cute as buttons and as psychotic as... well, something that's really psychotic. But that's not the worst of it. The director of my new school is a sweet Korean woman who taught kindergarten for many years before opening her own school(s). She really cares about the education of our students--unlike the directors I've worked for in the past who were merely businessmen and, frankly, didn't care if the kids at their schools actually learned to speak English, so long as their parents were paying tuition. Those things said, however, Mrs. Lee (new director) is expecting quite a bit more out of the foreign teachers than what I'm accustomed to. Now, don't get me wrong: I don't mind work. In fact, I like working for a school that has a more structured teaching method, and I like preparing for classes knowing that my students will actually learn something. But dear Mrs. Lee is requiring a lot of overtime, which I can't honestly say that I like.

Our first week on the job, both Ken and I were required to accompany all of the students on a field trip to a space observatory after school was finished. We didn't actually call it a day until 10p.m. that night (that's right--a 12-and-a-half hour work day on top of jet-lag). Then last week, I came down with a flu that turned into the worst case of laryngitis I've ever had. To my school's credit, they pardoned me from accompanying the children on yet another field trip, and had me sit at the school doing absolutely nothing from 9:30 to 5:30. But come 6p.m., all of the students' parents came trickling in for a "camp" night that consisted of a catered dinner, games, and meeting the new foreign teachers. I was not pardoned from this activity and ended up having to host a game booth while meeting the parents of my new, tiny students. And, no, I didn't have a voice. And, no, the parents were not happy to learn that their child's new teacher was impaired. Once again, we didn't call it a day until after 10p.m. And guess what? We get to repeat the whole process again this coming Friday! (I just audibly groaned at the thought....) Beyond those overtime atrocities, we were just informed today that we may be required to work two Saturdays a month, starting next month. Of course, we get paid for the overtime hours we put in... but I don't know if I can physically or mentally handle the little monsters on Saturdays. Geez. Louise.

On top of the overtime expectations at my new school, some of the actual teaching expectations have been a bit... absurd. For example, I had to teach my four-year-olds the meaning of a "forlorn little tag-along" today. And yes, "forlorn" and "tag-along" are two of the vocabulary words they are to be focusing on for the remainder of the month. Seriously? I chuckled to myself numerous times during the lesson today as the kids just sat there staring at me blankly while I explained, "We all have times in our lives when we feel like 'forlorn little tag-alongs', but don't worry! It will get better!" (Hey, I tried, okay?) It made it even better when one of the little girls chose that particular moment to nod off and topple out of her little chair.

Yes.... This will be a long year.