Korean Job Discussion Forums

[some waygug-in]

Hi,
I'm not sure why I'm posting this, I've found that the more I stay away from this forum, the better my life seems. (perhaps that works both ways)
I am nearing the end of my "contract" and after doing a lot of fruitless searching for "that good next job" I am starting to seriously consider the possibility of staying where I am. Anyone who has followed my posts from previous months knows that I am a serious complainer and that I have pretty much hated my current job from day one. The reasons are too numerous to go into in this post. But the good things about my job are: I am getting paid on time without hassles, I have my own place (2 bedrooms all to my lonesome) the hours are reasonable.

The problems with my hagwan still make me cringe when I walk in on Mondays, but I am thinking that maybe it would be worth my while to stay for an extra 3 months or so.... even though I hate it. At least I know what I am dealing with and I have sort of figured out what I'm doing ( how to make things less miserable).

Am I freekin' NUTS!!! ?

Am I just being lazy? I don't really want to stay, but I don't want to get into something worse either. Like everything here in Korea, finding a job seems to be a crapshoot. Maybe I'd get lucky, but perhaps not.

Looking through the jobs, what on Earth can a guy/gal trust? Without knowing someone there who you can talk to, you really have no way to know if a place will be good or bad.

The universities all seem to hire about 6 days before the job starts, so that nobody really has time to check them out. How does one go about checking on a university job to see if it would be OK? (especially since the recruiter won't even give me the name of the university. It's somewhere in Kyungbuk province)

Am I crazy, or what? Any thoughts from someone who gives a damn would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Some waygug-in

[William Beckerson]

There's an old saying that fits working at a hagwon:
Expect the worst, hope for the best.

It's a really hard thing to accept your place at the bottom of the rung here in Korea. You're nothing but a performing chimp. A well pampered performing chimp, but a performing chimp none the less.

I'd suggest that you focus only on the money, save as much of it as you can, and then get out before the Stockholm Syndrome gets really pronunced.

[captain kirk]

that's it, i'm shaving my chest

[some waygug-in]

Thanks
(hey, where's the happy "monkey" face?)
It's not that I've become enamored with this place or anything like that, it's just that I would like to have more money in the bank before I have to start looking again.
Actually, my original plan was to finish here in August, then take a nice long vacation. But I am torn between the thought of getting out of here and the thought of "blowing all that hard earned dough" and then having to be stuck in a similar or perhaps worse situation next year.
Being at the bottom rung on the Korean "pecking order" doesn't bother me so much as just feeling useless from day to day at my job.

Sure, I have good days, but they are few and far between. It seems the harder I try to be a good teacher, the less effective I become. There's always something: kids bring a baby chick to school (nobody will do anything) wonjong nim changes the books after the first week of class (usually up 2 levels too high) new student joins the class with either no book or he is almost finished while the rest of the class is on page 10, I finally get a good book to work with, and then a new student joins the class and turns the whole class against me (nobody will do anything)

I could go on, but I've done that too many times already.
Anyway, thanks for your thoughts.
Perhaps I could enrol in a special school for "chimps", all the bananas I could eat........... hmmmm.
eeeeeekkkkkkk..............aaaahhhhhhkkkkk ........... ooooowwwkkkkkk.

[rapier]

Sometimes its like this, all your plans are wasted and that helpless feeling creeps in. theres not a lot you can do..
The longer you teach in this country, the better you get at handling it all. The next job is usually better than the last, for this reason alone.
Make the move to a new job and a new start. Take a holiday and come back fresh..and choose a job with more money..that may ultimately be the only real improvement you get...