Wired again

Hey kids, ya know what I love? Really, really love? I love the Internet. I do. I just love it to bits. The whole friggin' goofy, irresponsible, everything-and-everybody mess of it. I just think it's grand. Ya know what else I love? My apartment. Yeah. It's tiny, it's weird, the dryer's tiny, and I'm plagued by mosquitoes, but hey, it's home, it's my own little (and I do mean little) sanctuary here on Planet Korea.

But what do I really love, I mean really, unabashedly, shout-it-from-the-rooftops, shiteating-grin, paroxysms-of-delight LOVE? The Internet in my apartment. Oh. My. God.

So like, guess where I am right now? I'll give you a hint: I ain't at the friggin' hagweon, that's for damn sure.

Dear god, it's nice. I'm sitting here in my shorts, with a mouth full of almonds and orange juice, Gershwin on my iTunes... and I can bitch and bitch and bitch about work without worrying about Andy glancing at it and deciding he hates me.

Andy, man. I told you there was some drama going down at work, right? Here's what happened: The week after my -- ahem -- "mishap," Ian Teacher came down with something. I come in one morning, Monday, and Ian's looking a bit poorly; his throat hurts, and he's rather pale. He thinks he has strep throat. Yikes. Turns out it's tonsillitis. Double yikes. And it's his bad luck that this comes at the beginning of the month, open house week, and we have to be looking all nice (like, in a tie and all) for new students. Short version: Ian works the whole week. Andy trucks him to the hospital once or twice, gets him some, I dunno what, pills, and tells him not to sleep with the air conditioner on. Wednesday, Ian, desperate and looking like Marley's ghost, comes in with a copy of the contract (detailing sick days) and a doctor's note. No dice. I told Andy he needed to send him home, and we'd work out coverage. Andy told me he was just as concerned about the guy as I was, but he was staying. Ian finally just gave up. He couldn't teach -- his voice was shot and he was delirious -- so he just spent two days playing Uno with everyone and trying not to die. He made it, toughed it out proper, but jeez.

Now, this has kinda become a turning point for me with the hagweon, or with Andy, at any rate. Now, when I broke my face, there was never a question about taking a day off afterward. America, even at my shitty Harvard job, I would've gotten a day off, no problem. But I'm willing to make an allowance for, ya know, cultural differences. But tonsillitis? And this is no "cultural difference," here. The Korean teachers, even the students were all a bit shocked that Ian was still there. And I've been having lunch with one of the teachers at a hagweon down the road, and she said people there don't usually take days off, but if it's serious...

There are two things about this that really piss me off. First of all, sick days are in the contract, and I kinda thought that if you have a contract, then you have to stick to the contract. That's, ya know, why they're contracts. But that's me being naive, of course. People break contracts all the time (though Americans at least try to find loopholes first). It's certainly easier to do when your employees are foreign and don't speak enough of the language to make any proper efforts to enforce them.

Secondly, Andy seems to have taken all this somehow personally. He's been busting on Ian ever since this whole thing. Every day, he has some "feedback" for him. And there are little bullshit things, too, like using the wrong pen for student evaluations (I'm not kidding). And Thursday, he called Haseyo and me in at the end of the day to tell us he was going out of town for the weekend and didn't want any "bad news calls." Like we're doing it to spite him or something. I dunno. I'm beginning to see why people don't stay here for more than a year.

At the risk of getting a bit preachy, I would like to point to this as one of those "learning experiences" I've been looking for out here. I don't want to be one of those sheltered pricks on the message boards who leave the country and moan when it's harder than they thought, but well, it's a little harder than I thought. And most of it is just being out of my comfort zone (which is, granted, fairly small). I mean, I've got a pretty decent job that pays pretty well -- probably better, all things considered, than anything I'd be looking at in the States -- and it wasn't even me who got sick. All the same, it's a bit alarming.

My point is that I have gained a wild new appreciation for immigrants. As I say, things are pretty decent here, drama aside. Beats being some poor Mexican who swims the river and hitchhikes up to Indiana for a lousy, cheap, dangerous job at a meat factory that pays squat and jacks his rights, and he doesn't even know what to fight for because he can't speak English.

So, be nice to immigrants, kids. Maybe learn a little Spanish or something. They're just people, and what they're doing is rough, believe me. Hell, it's hard enough just screwing around. I'd hate to have to do this for real.