More Annoyances; Rain

The rest of the day was a little better, but I'm still annoyed. Today was Annie's last day teaching the adults, but no one has said anything more about who is replacing her. I asked Miro about it, and she didn't realize that she'd be starting next week (someone had discussed it with her, just not specifics), so I asked Joelle, who said she'd talk to Miro. Also MBT (the new academy name) will have its own website, which we'll begin using on Tuesday. No one mentioned that to the foreign teachers, it's only written in Korean on the board. I understood most of it, but Joelle wrote the day of the week in the Korean version of Chinese, or hanja, so I couldn't understand when we were changing over. They sent home a paper explaining the name change with all the students today. Some of the older students commented how many times the academy has changed names: something, E-Champ, OSS, and now MBT.

As I was going home several guys in suits came in to look over the "new books" (as Joelle said when I asked her why they were at school). She acted like she didn't want to talk about it. What's this about new books????? One of the guys was the really irritating one from about a year ago who wanted the foreign teachers to evaluate EVERY SINGLE STUDENT on their pronunciation of various sounds ONCE A MONTH. If we did that, then we wouldn't have time to do anything else, like actually teach anything! His face looks so Chinese, with that plastered-on, artificial smile. Greeting him politely and making a small bow was incredibly difficult. Mr. Kim has been looking a little worried lately. Because of the economic situation in Korea, we continue to lose students, and changing franchise names is probably stressful.

Despite the rain, I decided to walk home to hopefully get rid of some of the stress. I was tired mentally, but not at all physically. It's about 3~4 miles, or an hour walking. I ran into Jennifer not too far from school. Because of the distance, she was surprised to hear I was walking home. Then I ran into Mi-ran on the bridge near church. She was going to take the bus to Busan with Shelly and Kendall tomorrow, but now, since we live on the same side of town, we're meeting to go together. That takes care of the issue of whether I should bring my CD player or not--she'll talk my ear off. Now I almost wish that I hadn't agreed to it, because I won't be able to enjoy reading on the way, she'll think it's odd that I'm leaving books at Starbuck's (Bookcrossing, again), and my people-watching will be limited.

The rain got harder as I walked, and what with walking fast and the wind blowing a bit, (and my small umbrella) I got pretty wet. By the time I got home my shoes and socks were wet, my pants were wet enough to wring water out of up to the knees, with the rest of my pants damp and water dripping off my arms. And that's even with an umbrella! But it did help to make me feel ready to sleep (several hours later).