blogging it real

Dentist line of the day: "I'm going to stick a cord in your gum, it will hurt a little". My response was to laugh, though not too hard as I had contraptions in my mouth. The days damage was severe (416 NZ dollars) but I think that might cover me for my 6th and final visit as well.

Well after being on the verge of a mental meltdown over the weekend, crushed by the sheer weight of my classes, I have recovered somewhat (if only in spirit). The day started as they often do with me lately ... with a trip to the dentist at the arse crack of dawn. Losing your sunglasses doesn't help much when it's radiantly beautiful weather and you have pretty blue eyes like mine. Though not as pretty as bluebeardnz's. But after getting home around lunchtime, catching a cheeky 15 minutes sleep and then hauling my arse to school before I would be late things got better. Firstly I managed to talk my school into letting me out of the nine morning classes spread over three days (I was teaching them as a favour anyway) that I have to do every second week. Secondly my two teachers classes scheduled for tomorrow morning were cancelled after one of the teachers took pity on me (or rather saw how well I was grovelling) and invoked the mercy rule on my behalf. Also my class tonight was cancelled at the last minute when it was discovered I'd already taught them 8 times this month and that's all they want me to do.

So I'll only have 24 classes this week which is verging on bliss compared to what I've been doing lately. I asked today how many classes regular teachers at public primary schools do here. The answer was roughly 20 classes if you are a specialist teacher such as English or P.E. while the regular 'form teachers' do about 25-30 depending on how many specialist teachers come in and take their classes for them. The classes are 40 minutes long. Though they do have to handle 42 students to their credit. Though they can actually speak the same language and therefore discipline them easily to their advantage. Though they are usually female while 60% of the students are male. Though they ... dunno anymore though's.

But since the vast majority of my classes are 50 minutes to an hour I was scheduled to do the equivalent of 39 classes this week (last week I did 39 equivalent classes in 4 days!!) and now it's down to the equivalent of 32 classes by friday before I race out to Incheon Airport to go to Tokyo for two nights before coming back on Sunday around midday. When you work so many classes you can't plan, can't rest, can't think coherently and can't control your students. Basically the kids get away with murder, learn no english and you are left wondering what the fuck you are even bothering for?! When you have something equating to freetime you can plan, get refreshed, pull a convincing impression of a fascist dictator in your classroom and walk out the door feeling satisfied that you have accomplished something positive in this world. And for a few fleeting seconds you almost feel like you actually like children. Actually I like the kids always, even the naughty buggers (and I hate them as well).

Elsewhere in the News, Russell Brown is on fucking fire as usual. The SST (Severely Shitty Trash) being manhandled before the NZHerald gets bitch slapped on outta here.

And here's a nice picture of Seoul (the capital of Korea with 10 million inhabitants) thrown in just for fun.