Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Desk Warming, a Sad Fact of Life

There have been many posts about desk warming in the blogosphere lately. Mainly because I don't know a single public school teacher who doesn't hate it. It's one thing to be tied to your desk when other people are and there is stuff to do...it's another thing when there are 2 other people in school and you are already a month ahead of schedule in lesson plans. Also, my co-teacher and I like to collaborate on all of the lesson plans so I really don't like to do them without her input.

Yesterday I did the all important:
-Read the Korea Times, the Korea Herald, the JoongAng Daily, the New York Times and the BBC.
-Every blog and web comic that I follow
-50 pages of Anna Karenina
-Watched 2 episodes of Eureka (older sci-fi channel show)
-Studied (a very small amount...have plans to do more today)
-Wrote down the starting and stopping times for the songs I'm doing during summer camp...at the end of next month.
-Made 3 cups of iced coffee.
-Filled the ice cube trays.
-Spent an inordinate amount of time on facebook.
-Started to lose my mind.

Talk about ennui. Most people would say that getting paid to do nothing is a luxury but I hate sitting still for hours at a time. I'm much more productive when I have smaller bits of time to work with. This is how lunch went (the 3 of us ordered in bibimbap): (Conversation has been translated from Korean to English).

Me (to new office worker, referred to as OW): Hi, what's your name?
O.W.: It's __________.
Me: ~repeats to clarify pronunciation.
O.W.: Yes.
Me: My name is Alex.
O.W.: nods.

~We go on eating in silence for a minute.~
O.W.: (to the music teacher) Where do you live?
Music teacher: I live in _________.
Me to OW: Where do you live?
OW: I live in ________ (name of apartment complex)
Me: Really? I live near there!
O.W.: ~Nods~

Then there was conversation between the two of them which got too complicated for me to follow. It is going to be a very lonely time until vacation. Last day of desk warming: JULY 27th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then I am off to Cambodia with a quick stop over in Malaysia until the 7th of August. Then some more desk warming until camp starts on the 16th. When I get back from vacation I will deep clean my classroom and decorate for camp. I'm doing a movie themed camp so I have lots of pictures and labels to put up. My lesson plan for 5 days over 9 pages, not including hand outs, examples, scripts and so forth. I need to script a few of the last days line by line (when teaching low level students it's super important to think about how you will say and present everything) but I'm going to save that work for after vacation since I will have far too much time on my hands when I get back.

Running update: No spaz attack yet. I've been very careful. I'm also inordinately sore. I refuse to ever go this long again without exercising. Getting back into shape is supremely painful.

Feel free to leave me the links of your blog or your favorite blogs to read in the comments. I'm so bored I'll check them all.

2 comments:

Jim and Rach said...

Hi,
I like your blog - the posts are far more detailed than mine. I just can't seem to find the time.
Anyway, I came across this great vid of Hitler having to desk warm. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

http://thewaygookeffect.blogspot.com/2010/07/hitler-has-to-desk-warm.html

p.s. I've added you to my blog feed
http://strange-lands.com/news-sites-blogs

Alex said...

Thanks Jim and Rach. I actually just started reading your blog earlier today!

I saw that Hitler desk warms video awhile ago, I think it went viral among Epik teachers. :-D