Leading the Meeting

It was a pretty interesting day.  I arrived at school at 11:45, but the meeting didn't start until after 12:30 because Terrence arrived late.  Nathan didn't come, and the Mugeo teachers are off traveling.  So the 3 Taehwa teachers and Terrence had a meeting!  It went smoothly, although we got off topic a few times.  Joelle was in mostly to observe, so that helped keep us on task for the most part.  Terrence has a really strong Australian accent, which doesn't help when he's talking about something completely unrelated to anything else that has been mentioned.  Joelle looked at me a couple of times as if to say, "What is he talking about?!" and I gave her a look in return, "I'm a native English speaker and I don't know, either!"
 
Terrence brought his Nigerian wife with him--his director drove them to our school.  His wife's tourist visa runs out as of Monday, and from what I understand, both Terrence and his director forgot about it until too late to do anything about it.  Because Korean immigration is as racist as it is, there's virtually no chance that they'll extend her tourist visa.  They assume that everyone from African countries is here to work illegally.  Terrence and his wife were married in Nigeria, which apparently has a lot of bogus documents, so all the Australian Embassy will do (according to Terrence) is provide a letter saying that a marriage between an Australian and a Nigerian is legal.  I'm no legal expert, but he should have gotten a marriage certificate from the Australian Embassy in Nigeria when they got married.  Terrence was very upset about his director not being able to do anything, even though he admitted that it took TEN MONTHS to obtain a spousal visa in Japan.  He kept saying that she had a spousal visa in Japan, and we all kept telling him that this is Korea.  I assume that Korea sees far fewer weird situations like this than Japan does, and everything in Korea takes more time because everyone has their own way of interpreting the law.  It's too bad for Terrence, but he's got to be patient and understanding of how things are done here.
 
I'm developing a real love/hate relationship with Joelle.  Yesterday she was the worst person that I knew, but today she wasn't so bad.  I led the meeting, but she chimed in supporting or confirming what I said from time to time.  I helped her and Terrence's director in trying to explain to him how things in Korea work. 
 
When we got out of the meeting a woman who struck me as a princess was hanging around.  I felt some tension from Joelle, but as usually happens, everyone walked around curious, but couldn't ask who the woman was.  (An unspoken cultural rule?)  Mona and Mina were talking in the lobby area, so I asked them who she was, and they said that she used to work at the school and wanted to see Mr. Kim.  Oh, really?  It must have been quite a long time ago, because I've been at the school for 2 years now!  Then Mona added that Joelle hated the woman, and then turned around with a guilty look on her face to make sure no one else had heard.  I later found out that it was 3 years ago that she worked there.  Either their standards in teachers weren't that high then, or she's forgotten all of what she used to know!  She brought a watermelon for the teachers, and after she cut it she told us foreign teachers, "Try!" as she motioned towards it.  Uh, I make my students talk in complete sentences.  Is that not possible for you?!  And, I have tried a watermelon before.  I think you mean, "Have some." 
 
Mr. Kim didn't show up until many hours later, so she didn't get to talk with him.  My first thought was that she wanted a job, but Joelle said she lives near Seoul now, so perhaps she just wanted to check in to leave the possibility of future favors open.  She acted like she owned the place!  Using the computers and the phone, sitting where she pleased, etc.  She commented to one of the Korean teachers about how many foreign teachers there were, and they explained that Terrence and his wife were only at our school for the meeting.  Apparently 3 foreign teachers still seemed like a lot to her, so she asked how many Korean teachers there were.  I understood all of it!
 
In my first class the 2nd-grade boys talked about the "balloon man" that was "very, very big."  I must admit, Terrence is a big guy.  They didn't pursue that subject for long.  Their next thing was copying everything I said for a good 10~15 minutes.  At first it was annoying, but then I just went with it--they were copying the words, the intonation, the stress....it was good practice for them.  In the next class Tomas did an excellent job of working with me on pronunciation.  He didn't lose patience, but continued trying until he finally got it.  All right, Tomas!
 
At that break Tanya clued me in on why Jane wasn't at school today (I hadn't noticed her absence).  She hit either a bicycle or a scooter/motorcycle at the Taehwa Rotary.  Either one could be very, very bad for her, depending on the circumstances.
 
The rest of the day was good, although my stomach continued to bother me.  I feel like I'm being eaten from the inside out.  I only ate about half of my lunch; a little more of dinner.
 
The middle school girls were especially happy and talkative, as they're now on summer vacation (for a month).  The Harry Potter movie started yesterday, so I was hoping to see it on Sunday.  However, they said that they tried to get tickets for tonight on July FIFTH and they were already sold out.  I guess that means I'll be waiting for several more weeks before I can see it!  Some of my students have already seen it from internet downloads, and they say it's really good.  Some of them even saw it in their elementary school classroom!
 
In the blogosphere, the latest on the censorship is that some people are considering paying the MIC office a visit.  I wish I could go!  But Seoul is too far away to make it during the week, and I'm pretty sure the government offices have completed the transition to the 5-day workweek.