Here are two things that happened to me today that might give you an idea of the degree of flexibility required for a job like mine:
1. Less than a minute before the bell rang for the 3:30 class I was about to teach, one of the desk teachers (staff) came and told me that our boss had called and told her to tell me to make a test for our class (my boss is my Korean co-teacher for this class) to take at 4:30. (This class always takes a test at 4:30 on Fridays, but usually my boss makes it. It's Lunar New Year's and she's out of town so I think maybe it slipped her mind until 3:30.) Obviously I was busy from 3:30 until 4:20 teaching, so that left me 10 minutes to prepare a test. Needless to say, I was a little late for my 4:30 class.
2. Because of Lunar New Year's, one of the major Korean holidays where everybody travels to go be with family, we have a four-day weekend. (Lunar New Year's Day itself is Monday, so Tuesday is a travel day.) On my way out today I happened to glance at the whiteboard calendar in the main teachers' room and noticed that Wednesday had been marked in red, a color usually reserved for holidays. I wondered if this was a mistake because the calendar in my room showed only a four-day weekend, not a five-day weekend. So I went upstairs and asked the desk teachers if we had Wednesday off. Apparently we do, and apparently somebody announced this somewhere at some point today (maybe this afternoon?), but there was no way I ever would have known if I hadn't happened to glance at the calendar on my way out. I'm not complaining about having an extra holiday, but it is a little frustrating to know I barely missed finding out about the holiday by being the only person to come in.
These kinds of situations are not that rare here. There often seems to be an underlying assumption that communication is superfluous because people will just magically come to know important things without any opportunity to be informed, or that preparation is unnecessary because things just magically get done in negative amounts of time rather than requiring someone to think about, plan for, and then do them.
This is Korea, and this is SLP.
But -
This is also Korea, and this is also SLP:
1. The staff at an Italian restaurant I frequent regularly giving me free drinks:
2. The owner at a place I frequently get takeout from giving me hot Korean street food on snowy days or giving me soup and vegetable drinks as a free bonus.
3. My students showering me with snacks, chocolate, cards, and pictures because it is Lunar New Year's Day - or because it is any day.
Sometimes life can get a little crazy here, but I'm so happy this is home.
