Listed

Well, I got my listing on the Korean Blog List. It's cool, I guess. I've already gotten some traffic from it. Although, I'm not even sure why I care. It's not like I'll ever put any ads on here or try to sell anything.

Nothing much has been happening lately. The new term started at my hagwon (academy), so I've just been busy with classes and getting to know my new students. It's too bad that we are only with each class for three months. I don't think that's really enough time to get to know the kids. I'm a much better teacher when I have kids who've been in my classes for a term or two. That way I know the methods that suit those particular kids the best.

Hagwons can be a little bit like fast food sometimes. Get them in and out quick, punch the little hamburger button on the cash register, and move them along to make way for the next customer. Sometimes I wonder if the average kid is learning as much as they could. The best students will always learn, but the average kids suffer. They get pushed through the levels to keep their parents happy, even though they should be staying at the same level.

We have to make it appear as though the kids are actually learning, even if they aren't. So we push them up a level if the parents bitch enough. It results in kids who are reading shit that's college level English, when they're barely high school level, sometimes even lower.

Anyways, I'll bitch about Korean education some other time.

This weekend my girlfriend was all pissed. For once she wasn't pissed off at me though. That was actually nice, to have her pissed off at someone other than me.

She's pissed off at her parents, and she's pissed off at her brother. Her brother is getting married in January. His fiance's parents want them to get a nice apartment after they get married. The way it works in Korea is that the guy has to pay for the apartment and the girl buys the furniture. It's all bullshit if you ask me, but hey, it's their traditions, who the hell am I to tell them the way they should live their lives.

The apartment the girls parents want them to get is like $80,000USD. A pretty fucking hefty chunk of change for a 29 year old Korean guy to come up with. I think he's only actually had a job for about a year. The 28 year prior to that he just lived off his parents.

This brings us to the reason why my girlfriend is pissed off. Her parents are giving them $50,000USD. Because of this, they have to move out of the apartment they now live in and move to a smaller place in Dongnae. My girlfriend loves her culture, but she understands how fucking stupid this is. She said to me "It's Korean tradition, but why the fuck do they have to give him the money?" Yeah, she even said 'fuck'.

So she's pissed. We'll get $0.00USD from her parents when we get married. And personally I don't give a shit. The last thing I want is to be indebted to her parents. I wouldn't want it even if they did offer anything like that. But it bothers her. She's upset with her parents, in part because it means that she has to move also, and because they're following the retarded tradition that the first born son is king of the shit heap. She wants her parents to treat her equally, and I don't blame her. And she's pissed off at her brother, because he's receiving this gift that causes his parents the hassle of having to sell their apartment and find a smaller one. And she hates his fiance because she thinks she's a greedy bitch.

Anyways, that's the conversation we had this weekend on our way to church. Then we left church early because the 4 year old kid in front of us kept getting up and down, and spinning around in the aisle. The little pain was so antsy that my girlfriend got so dizzy watching him that we had to leave because she thought she was going to get sick.