Lemonade from lemons.

I really want to like it here. I really do.

And I do to some extent. I really like Korea. I like a chunk of the kids at my school. I like the food. I like my town.

I just don't like my school.

Let me explain.

I like the outside of the school and I like the area where visitors come in and that's what they see. It's absolutely beautiful, full of light and life and it smells nice to boot. But as you get deeper into the school, the areas where visitors don't venture to, it gets worse.

It gets dirtier. It gets darker. It gets grimy. The toilets are black inside. The sinks are often clogged and scummy. The floor tiles are missing. There's graffiti. There's a visible line of grey on the walls from the kids. There's chunks of plaster and paint missing too. Cracks run from ceiling to floor. There's an inch of dust in some spots. The windows are hard to see through because of how dirty they are. Kids have cut the whiteboards I use. They've peeled the wallpaper away in some spots. There's stick figures having sex on my ceiling.

It just depresses me as I get to my room to teach. I just don't like my school physically. I can decorate and open my windows and make it cheery in my room, but it's still a long sad walk to get anywhere else.

I feel a bit like I was hoodwinked. I got the lemon of placements. When I first got here it was messy due to summer cleanup and overhauling for the new term. I completely understood. It took me 5 days to scrub my classroom as clean as I could get it. It happens.

But three months into the term it's just gotten worse. It's as if everyone's given up. I just don't understand it. It drains me every day to just go in. When I see photos of other schools on social media I just want to weep. I feel like I'm in an inner city school in New York that has a budget amounting to a Navel Orange and three paperclips.

I just don't understand if it's my school or.... if this is normal. Based on the beautiful places I see in candid shots, I assume the answer is a resonating "No, this is not normal."

Just have to push through it, make the best I guess.

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