Working Holiday

The summer continues to be hot.

I continue to work.

I would like to thank those of you who gave me some reading suggestions to me in the Help with books, please! post. I've got some good ideas to work with there, though I'm not sure about availability of all the titles you've suggested. My dear friend Melanie was enthused enough to send a whole email full of her ideas. Of course, those of you who know Melanie had probably already guessed that when she saw a word-limit for posting comments that she would find some other way to communicate. And for those of you who haven't talked with her since university, rest assured that she now almost always completes her thoughts before moving on to new ones.

I added a new class last Thursday. Our Department of Foreign Stuff office is a high quality group of people. Mr. Kim is in charge, and he works harder for us foreigners on his staff than any Korean manager I have known, or heard of for that matter. In addition, he lets us do our jobs. Very hands-off. His right-hand man is Joon. (I'm not actually sure if that's the English spelling he prefers, but I figure that "June" is usually a girls name, so "Joon" he is in my (digital phone) book.) Joon works like a slave for wages that could be carried home in cash by one man, even if paid in quarters. Canadian quarters. Joon is the man who showed up at our apartment on his day off after a hurricane had broken our floor-to-ceiling sliding glass window the night before. He has also shown his devotion in a number of small ways, from accommodating schedule requests to telling me up front when something is not possible.

So two weeks ago Joon starts asking me about teaching a two week class for some students who will be spending the next semester in Turkey on an exchange program. He had no idea when it would start, but he wanted three different teachers to teach one hour each. Last week he asked if I alone could teach four hours per day (on top of the two I'm already chugging out). I talked with Horyon, and we decided that earning an extra 3/4 pay check in two weeks would be worth the potential mental breakdown. Fortunately, Joon found another teacher, so I am teaching two hours per day, of reading and writing. The class has only four students, which is the only thing that makes it possible to teach a writing class that meets every day. The students are not bad. Their enthusiasm is high right now. It remains to be seen whether it will last the whole three weeks.

Oh, I forgot to mention. It became a three week class. The last class is a Wednesday, and I start the new semester the same Friday. It's gonna be a bit of a rough start for me.

But I'm coming home to this cheerleader:

GO!
DADDY!
So I'm OK with the whole thing.

Peace,

Rob