he's a lemon

So the first teacher I hire turns out to be... incompetent. Not the worst thing in the world that could happen. It's just a drag that the gap I thought was filled with quality is actualy filled with something else, which I must dig out and replace by March 5th. Finding and hiring a trustworthy teacher at short notice is not as stressful as I thought it would be. Fingers crossed.

Aaaanyway, tonight is rehearsal for our final salsa class and then I'm either going up to Foxy with Jas or to a PC room to watch some Prison Break. Tomorrow, the only thing on is gym in the morning, the salsa performance in the evening and whatever the rest of the time.

pukish

Woke up today feeling totally wiped out and took an age to provoke myself out of bed thanks to a couple of sessions at the gym yesterday. Now the hell week's over I'll be getting in all I can. Nonesuch tonight though as there's salsa practice at 10:30 and I want to be pretty fresh for that.
Today I started observations of teachers. Last month I invited the national supervisor to come down and give our teachers a demonstration so he's asked me to provide him with some intel on the state of our human resources. It's my job anyway to make sure the guys are actually teaching and not just putting an foriegn face in a classroom for the students to practice english at. Should be an interesting week.

my saturday night

So after work I grabbed some chicken on a stick and strolled up to salsa class. I found out my partner for next week's "recital" happens to be the old lady (well, she's probably only 40). nice one.
After class I grabbed some yakitori skewers from this place near the practice space, bought some new headphones and came up here to my favourite PC room (it's well lit and not smoky) to watch internet videos. I've been sitting here nearly 2 hours enjoying the likes of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Wonder Showzen, Doug Stanhope and Joe Rogan. I was going to watch manufacturing consent but shit, that's boring and depressing. Oh and I found this neat little game where you can kill the whole planet. Go nuts.

blurrrr

Saturday at 3 o'clock.
Last night after work I met up with Jason and his friend John. We went out for shellfish and samgyopsal (pork strips bar-b-qued at your table) and drank a lot. We wound up at horrible old Foxy and drank some cocktails. John was enamoured of the place, with its high ratio of girls to guys, and the very attractive nature of those girls. As he is married he very eagerly pushed me to approach some girls, any girls. I felt no urge to do so for what must be about only the second time in my life and it was blissful.
So now I'm sitting here all torpid in a quite pleasant hangover buzz. I'm at work to do some interviews, as if anyone's going to come in. I'll probably be able to take off at 5 and go to salsa class on time.
I think I'll have an early night tonight (which means of course, sitting at the computer playing Civ until 10. I am tired now, but who knows what will change once the rice porridge I ate for lunch has digested.

diary day 1 Friday 02/02/07 1705hrs

Inspired by Henry Rollins, the hardest working guy I can think of, I'm gonna try and update this blog every day. Should be too hard seeing as I sit in front of this desk for at least 7 hours every day, so there's really no excuse. I expect I'll probably rip off his style to begin with. Never mind.

So today is the last day of Hell-week. Most of this week has been spent in my little glass monkey cage alternately interviewing student after student for level placement tests for the new session and making the teaching schedule for the month. On Wednesday I did my first ever fourteen hour shift. I kinda let the fatigue get on top of me and didn't make any effort to get to the gym, even this morning whenI woke upi at 5am I just allowed the luxury of warmth and comfort win out over hard work and reward. Too bad.
Today was just like the others this week. Interviews mostly, but I have made a strong start on a fresh list of questions that follow logically on from each other in both conversation and level assessment. I hope to have that done by at least next Tuesday, when Wonjang and I will be staging mock interviews for BK's Job Interview Preparation class.
Tonight I'm meeting JF and his university friend from Daegu for some soju and shellfish. It'll be nice to let off some steam from this stagnant week and meet some a new person in the bargain, but I want to be home at a reasonable hour because I want to do a lot of stuff tomorrow and can do without the hangover.