01.05.2008 Thursday
Pay Day. Its worthy of a mention. I countdown to it every month. And this one arrived one day before my holiday began. Noice!
02.05.2008 Friday
Last day at school. 12 days kid free!
03.05.2008 Saturday - DJ Festival begins.
The day began out at CJ's rooftop for some brunch and delicious Strawberry Daiquiris. It was a scorcher day, good vibes and some great team outfits. We had team singlets 'Minga Massive in Seoul', with our nicknames and country of origin on the back. See photo.
From Anyang, to the train, to a bus, to the campsite, we arrived for two days and two nights of music, shows and workshops. We set up camp, drunk some more and than donned the outfits for the night time activities. Full-body animal suits. Yours truly a monkey. See video.
The animal suits were fantastic! Super, super warm. Ultra comfy. Heaps of fun. Great conversation starter. And excellent for spotting your friends in a crowd of thousands of people. That momentary panic of 'Oh god, I just lost everyone' is quickly replaced with, 'wait no, there goes a frog! Schweet!' DJ Festival was full of some very fun times and some great quotes. I do think Westie was the one to out do all. It was a consistently hilarious 'Westie Show' throughout the whole weekend.
06.05.2008 Tuesday
My day to catch up on sleep, pack and get ready for the next mission. Doek Joek Do. My favourite place in South Korea to date. Slept too much though, ended up incredibly disorganised and very late to Jihee's farewell dinner. Dammit. Holiday mode snuck up on me before I knew it.
07.05.2008 Wednesday TO DOEK JOEK DO!!
Wednesday started early with a mission, with a lot of gear, out to Incheon Port and on to Doek Joek Do. Personally I was incredibly impressed that CJ and I managed to get out to the Port with time to spare and not a single problem. We even managed to buy things such as a torch and bottle opener at the shops opposite the Port. On the boat we meet Captain Kim who organised us a Taxi round to Seopori Beach where we were camping. Things were sailing smoothly. (Yes, I employed a terrible pun just then.) Things were off to a great start. We got the tent up, played some Frisbee, chilled out and had some beer. Life was grand.
08.05.2008 Thursday
Smooth sailing prevails to some problems. There are no shops on the island open. We didn't take any food over, didn't have any water, and our nourishment for day 2 consisted of Snakes Alive lollies, about 3 slices of bread and some tomatoes. After going for a 40 minute run up to the pagoda and getting back down to the beach in some hot sunshine - water was needed. Badly. We walked around Seopori Beach but no shops were open. And no mimbups/hotels had any food. Because it wasn't 'summer' nothing was opened Monday to Friday. Yikes.
Cut a long story short: One restaurant would open for us at night and close as soon as we finished. This meant we had to buy beer and water for all of the next day. We did not take into consideration however the possibility of us getting incredibly drunk one night (in our animal costumes) on red wine and drinking all the water we had. And then to wake up incredibly hung over. Cue my massive power chuck on the beach. Noice.
10.05.2008 Saturday
The rest of the crew arrives. WITH FOOD! And also alot of other people. Which bought the end to our solitude on the beach. But all good, impact players are great. Had some solid times in the sun playing Cricket, Touch, Volleyball and good old Cups. A great Frisbee game. Other events that featured; Backwards running race and Three legged race.
11.05.2008 Sunday and My Birthday
Welcomed my birthday in at midnight down on the beach sitting around a bonfire. It was sweet times. Sunday morning bought on a great breakfast brunch, more sunshine, and more alcohol. The day breezed past with joyous fun. I had the best birthday. Seriously. I am really glad I stuck around for my birthday now, because I know it was the only birthday I will have in Korea. And it was a great way to spend the day with all of my favourite and best mates over here. I couldn't have asked for a better weekend.
12.05.2008 Monday
Last day on Doek Joek Do. It was a long and drawn out return to Seoul. And a little weird to be back in my own company.
13.05.2008 Tuesday
My last day on holiday. I had dedicated the day to unpacking and writing my resume to apply for more jobs over here. It was actually a draining thing to do.. well, more so than usual. Mainly because I am in a bit of a weird head space at the moment about coming back. Should I? Shouldn't I? What should I do? What do I want to do? What's more important? I think you'll be getting the picture by now.
Got my resume done.
And then Kwonny called.
"We don't need you to come into work tomorrow. We have replacement teacher. Children miss you, they confused, you leave, you come back and then you leave again. Very hard on children. We must think of the children. We found replacement teacher, she observed last week. Yes, she very good. So no, no need to come to work tomorrow."
Cue: full body shakes, swearing, arguing, demands, a thorough read of my contract, emails sent, meeting demanded.
Demands: Pay me out or legal action.
Result post 2 hour meeting:
1) They would not pay me out. Not even to the end of May. Cheap bastards. Clearly it isn't the children they are thinking about. It was a satisfying comment to finish the meeting on.
2) After myself and my recruiter threatening legal action, I am finishing my contract under certain conditions. These being the following; 'you must be happier, no talking to teachers. Nooo, you must say no, I cannot talk to you if they start speaking to them. And you must not drink. And no friends at your house. You must have meetings away from house. You are a teacher. Yes. Very important.'
21.05.2008 Wednesday. Today.
And so now I wake every morning, dreading work more and find Monday to Friday all a little too depressing at the moment. Any desire and motivation to do anything that would benefit the school has gone. Which has included all my preparation work and lesson plans which results in some boring classes for both me and the children.
Weekends are being lived for even more. The countdown is down to 'working days' and at a total of only 27.
5.5 weeks. 27 working days. And then what???
