the terrific-ness that is my schedule for the next 2 months

Ok all you out there in Canadialand, get ready to have some fierce jealously.

My schedule for the next two months is as follows:

Teach for the rest of this week.
Teach two classes next week (Wednesday).
Time off from school until January 2nd.
Teach 3 45-minute periods a day every day for the next month - starting at 9am, finishing by noon. Small classes, too, with no co-teacher, so things will be a bit more relaxed I think.
Time off from school from February 2nd to the 8th or 15th or something.
Teach one full week of classes.
Two weeks vacation (less a day) - Jess arrives and we're off to China! (Beijing and Harbin)...
And then, well, nose back to the grindstone. New school year starts on March 2nd (yes, a Friday).

So, woooo! I plan to use all of my extra time during the next month to do lots of cycling (the weather here is still great for cycling, my only problem is the daylight disappears at 5:30!) And study Korean hardcore. Today I began my mastery of the present tense. I can now make random sentences!

(Really I can only make random sentences if they involve a subject and a verb -- or if they involve a subject, a verb and the preposition "to/in/at".)

But one small leap for Katrina's brain is one giant leap towards actually being able to communicate beyond pointing and naming an object. I hope to master the past and future tenses during the grand amount of free time I have spanning the month of January.

If my schedule is making you _too_ envious, then pause for a moment, because right now I'm up to my eyeballs in work, planning 24 "writing and grammar" lessons. WOOT!

Also of note, most Korean teachers are actually off from school from 28-Dec to sometime in Feb. Winter break.

Strange things encountered today: my most meaningful and longest conversation of the day so far was with two kids in grade three (elementary school). We spoke half in Korean and half in English and got along just fine. Which makes me wonder, if I can communicate with the young'uns like this, why do the teachers at my school rarely speak to me (in any language)? It's not that they're not friendly, they're always smiling and offering me treats and being really nice, but not so much with the conversation, chatting, or, well, speaking. (With the exception of my co-teacher and one other English teacher - yes, even the English department doesn't really speak to me -- unless they're one-on-one and there's no one else around).

Someone asked me if I'm trying to learn Korean so I can communicate better with my co-workers and the answer to that is simply "no". I've been told that I should speak English at school (with few exceptions) and I see no reason why, when I know so much less Korean than (mostly) they know English, I should be putting myself out there to be laughed at for wrong word errors, grammatical flubs and whatever else. And then there's the potential of insulting someone - because Korean's based heavily on "honourifics" -- you conjugate verbs differently if you're talking to kids, equals or superiors... there's also an age thing, and that I'm a waygook (foreigner) makes it all tricky too... I'm learning it so that I can communicate here in general. Meet people, talk to them, a respect thing and also a making-life-easier thing. Am I sounding a bit bitter? I think perhaps. It amazes me how many people miss the idea that language is all about communication and between two interested parties, it doesn't need to be anything else... not an academic exercise, nor a grounds for any kind of judgement.

Ok, I'm off my soapbox now. If you were all here I'd give you hershey's kisses for listening to me. (That's the Christmas treat for the kids in this week's class - candy canes proved impossible to find at Costco in Daegu...)