Orientation

Thankfully the weather has been considerately milling about the 0+ degree mark lately, not that I was able to enjoy it today with another Saturday occupied by school-related activities.

This weekend saw the long awaited "Orientation Day" - the hour when the children come in, meet their new teachers in preparation for the new academic year, and the parents get a briefing of the teaching program.

The last week has been horrendously hectic with stressed Korean teachers running around cleaning and decorating their classrooms with a healthy dose of whining in between. On Wednesday we were informed we the English teachers had to follow suit - something we'd not been told before despite insistence that we had. It was thus that much furniture moving, poster sticking and laminating has taken place in the last two days, only to find that the classrooms were not going to be used. Sigh!

Lauren and I were required to make a formal speech detailing our wonderful English classes with the purpose of encouraging parents to sign their kids up for extra lessons, however since the audience was predominantly Korean-only speakers, we felt we could probably have insulted the parents with a smile on our faces and got away with it. Especially since the 'translation' seemed to last three times as long as what we'd actually said, we kind of thought the boss had made up her own speech anyway and pretended that's what we'd just told them.

For all we know the parents are still at school now. However despite putting in the obligatory, "Do not hesitate to ask any questions," line, we received little need for attendance and ran home. Still, roll on that day off to compensate for our missed weekends...