Sunday Evening Blues

It’s become lovely here in Korea.

The sun is out, the air is crisp, and the leaves are poised to change colors, but holding off for just a little while so that we can enjoy the anticipation. The only thing is, I’ve been working all day, so the perfect weather does nothing but sharpen my angst. It’s been a difficult day of self-pity, after I realized this morning that an erratic school schedule for the week (PSAT testing, computer training and a Friday inservice) was robbing me of 5 hours of planning time (roughly all I have). Of course, unless I’m ready to start playing movies and ignoring my classes (I’m not, at least not yet), those 5 hours have to come from somewhere, either from my Sunday or the weeknights I already spend grading. And every hour seems claimed to begin with. Is this the stage of adulthood when I start holding my breath and counting the days until retirement? It seems like it’s a little early for that.

This is nothing new. Teaching is too much work during the school year, but pays off with many vacations, including a long summer. We shouldn’t whine. I’ve been doing this for five years with a minimum of whining, so why start now? I guess it’s because we’re surrounded by newness that we feel compelled to absorb – language, culture, food, countryside – and work seems like an unfair obstacle to our process of adjustment. But then again, work paid for our plane tickets, and pays for our housing and our taxes, not to mention all of our expenses and travel extravagance, with some savings left over.

When I think about it that way, I know that despite the stress and a workload that sometimes seems unfair, we’re getting a very good deal. We just finalized our reservations for three weeks in lovely New Zealand at Christmas. I found the time last week to compare different dive shops in the Philippines so I could pick the best scuba certification course in February. And Sunday we hiked 20k or so in beautiful forest ridges just east of Seoul. This is a good life, and I am enjoying so much of it; I guess all the new experiences have begun to make me greedy.

Parent teacher conferences were a little intense, but generally positive. My overall assessment is that Korean parents are less crazy than their American counterparts – wait, let me narrow that down: affluent, suburban, Korean parents are slightly less crazy than affluent Catholic suburban parents in the U.S. They do seem to put too much pressure on their children: a friend told us that the father of one of her best 7th-grade math students said to her, “He’ll never get into MIT with these grades!” The student has a 94% in her class. What grades was he referring to? Also, parents of the handful of kids who are in real academic trouble are intensely embarrassed here. The father of one of my ‘F’ students had to get up and leave the table abruptly – I had the impression that he was about to cry.

Unlike some of the unhappier moments I can recall at Eastside Catholic conferences (my all-time favorite: “Spanish used to be our son’s favorite class. He wanted to major in it in college. But this year in your class, that all changed. Now he HATES Spanish!!”), I never felt that these parents blamed me for their children’s struggles in my classes. And some of the kids are definitely struggling, after last year’s “Fiesta & Siesta”-style Spanish teaching. On the contrary, I scored some odd but entertaining compliments. In the course of explaining why her daughter was enjoying Spanish II this year, one mother said, “Well, she really appreciates attractive people. And you’re good-looking, so she likes your class very much.” Another remarked in a confidential whisper as she left my table, “I just love your voice.” This may go without saying, but NO one loves my voice, and I can guarantee that in five years at Eastside, not a single kid went home and said to his or her mom, “Yeah, Spanish is great this year, because Ms Barga is just so good-looking." This must be a cultural thing, because a guy we met on the hiking trail yesterday also told Chris while nodding very vigorously, “Handsome face . . , you have very handsome face!” (See the photo of Chris and his admirer, the self-appointed but much-appreciated hiking guide we picked up along the way, to the left.) If this type of positive feedback keeps coming, we may have to stay here forever.

Well, after this and last weekend’s blog ramble, I’m starting to worry that the whole project is turning into a forum for some serious whining and very little substance on my part. I promise to turn the trend around and go back to photographing Chinese men in their underwear! I will also encourage Chris to finish his entry about Korean women and their Darth Vader visors. For those concerned about sun exposure, the Korean ladies have some fashionable tips. We are working on the subtle photography (here's a sneak preview, on the left) needed to accompany that exposé. Oh, the other photo -- Geoff, we took this one for you, hoping that the ruggedness of the K2 model would be visible in the photo (this really doesn't do him justice). Don't worry, along with The Redface and Kolon Sports, your company seems to have great a presence here. You all should have heard the fit the Korean hikers were throwing about us wearing sandals to hike! (The word for 'sandal' is apparently almost the same in all languages, from 'sandalia' in Spanish to 'sandal-sshi' in Korean.) This may be because, in order to hike up a gentle hill on a mild autumn day, the average Korean requires every article of gear and clothing from the Himalaya Extreme section of the REI Catalog.

Good night,
Jess