Whoof!

It seems like every semester the workload here gets a little bit more ridiculous. This makes sense, really, but that doesn't make it any less annoying to have no free time. Although I've also signed up for a lot mer interesting time-fillers than I have in previous semesters. This last week, the student-taught crocheting class started up, and within the next couple weeks, the birdwatching class will start up too. I think the second half of my semester is going to be way more relaxed than the first half. Before spring break I still have to come up with a bunch of questions to ask of the people who live in the town we're studying (where there's a cooperative called Coopesilencio). My research goal is not at all clear yet, and it needs to be. That's what these next two weeks are for. Man! Time is going by so fast! The last two weeks were filled with lots of work too; the week before last, I was a bit screwed over as far as time goes because I had to read through the entire fantasy novel that Press is publishing, and that took pretty much the whole day, and so I didn't get any homework done. And last week was just constant preparation for the big debate project in the Costa Rica seminar. That led to some frustratingly sleep-lacking nights. But I think our team did pretty well in the debate. If you're interested, the topic was whether or not countries should try to be self-sufficient in food production. Our team had to argue that they shouldn't.

-I also did Imaginary Week in my journal, which you may recall is where I choose one week in February and make up a fictional week and write about that instead of what really happened. This year it involved me grabbing hold of a slow-moving train on a whim, intending to jump off after a few seconds, but not being able to get off, and having to go all around the midwest trying to get back to the college. It was fun, but it took up a lot of time that I didn't really have. Jeez, again with the too little time.

-How about something different? It's getting warmer; that's something. Oh! I built a whale out of snow. I guess I should get those pictures off my camera and put them here. [Several minutes later.] All right, well I can't find the cord, so I'll do that later. This is turning out to be a pretty boring post, so I'll get right down to what's been interesting me most lately.

-I talked last week with a guy named Drake, who told me about some ESL teaching things he's heard of that aren't JET. I wasn't aware that there was anything comparable to JET, because I figured the Japanese government was the only one filthy-rich enough to bring over college grads just to have a native English speaker for pronouncing words. That's probably true, actually,but these other programs aren't done by the government. One of them is called CELTA (which I mentioned in a comment on the last post), and it's a different concept: instead of applying for a placement somewhere, you just get a certificate for teaching English, and then everyone will clamor to hire you wherever you go in the non-English-speaking world. The other one, though, is the one that's got me yet more intrigued. It's a program called TESLK, Teach ESL in Korea. When I found their website and started reading it, I was enamored right away, because it's so much more personal than the JET Program ever gave an impression of being. (If you'd like to compare: JET, TESLK.) It starts out with a jolly introduction by the guy who started the program; he tells you his name, whereas I have no idea of anyone's name in JET. This guy and his small staff of other interested people work personally with every applicant to pick a school somewhere in South Korea that's a good match for them. You can apply at any time of the year and there's no bureaucracy to cut through, at least on the American end. I just did all this reading last night, and I'm already starting to lean a lot toward TESLK. It looks so much more enjoyable all around. And South Korea is an awesome country! I knew so little about it, but then I checked out Wikipedia. South Koreans invented metal type over 50 years before Gutenberg did—and this while they were still using Chinese characters, no less! And while North Korea has pretty much languished under its dictatorships, South Korea has gone from being third-world and ruled with an iron fist to being a fully modern country with a democracy and education and a great quality of life. South Korea is where Samsung and LG are both based. Also Daewoo, Hyundai, and Kia. Not that all these companies are good things—for example, for my debate I learned that in 2008 Daewoo made a shady deal with the government of Madagascar to take about a third of its arable land for basically no money, and they were going to plant a lot of corn there, until there was a coup in Madagascar and over 100 people died and the newleader of the country canceled the deal—but just saying: South Korea's a pretty solidly developed country these days. And the money? TESLK's website says that I could easily save up 1,000,000 won a month, by being just a little frugal, and they're actually probably being a lot less thrifty than I would be in their calculations. (Today, that's $878.) They say the cost of living is around 400,000 won, because the school you contract with pays your rent, and they allowed about 600,000 of the estimated monthly paycheck of 2,000,000 won for something vaguely labeled "entertainment"—something I'd probably do a lot cheaper than they've figured on. $10,000 over the course of a year or so doesn't sound like all that much when you compare it with the JET Program (you get a gross salary of about $39,000, but you have to pay for your housing), but that's probably around the minimum of what I'd save, and also Japan is (as a lot of people have pointed out to me) not a cheap place to live. So, we'll see what I think about these things in the months to come, but for the meantime, TESLK looks like a pretty sweet option. Pretty sweet indeed.