(no subject)
Dear Mr. Lee and Kate:
I am writing to you regarding your request from yesterday. You asked me to "be nice" to Kathryn. I assumed from this phrase that you want me to hang out with her and invite her along to my social events. Yesterday I told you that this was fine and that I would try. After having time to think it over, my response is:
Haven't I already done enough?
Kathryn is a strange person. Maybe you can't notice it in Korea, maybe you think that many foreigners are like her. Trust me: they're not. Kathryn is strange. She is very different from me, and we have different interests. Besides that, she is not a particularly clean person, and neither is Naomi, for that matter. I feel that I have been generous in even agreeing to live in an apartment with her for as long as I have. To ask me to actually hang out and do things with her as well....that's not part of my job description. I'm here to teach. I'm not here to be the social coordinator for all foreign teachers at Oedae language school.
In addition to agreeing to living in this apt, I have also been working twelve hours a day for the past month. I have also agreed to work on every third Saturday, when weekend work is not in my contract. And in August, when Kathryn had not yet arrived due to visa problems, I generously took on all of her schedule in addition to mine. This was an exhausting task during my very first week in Korea.
So basically I just want to say, no, I am not going to go out of my way to "be nice" to Kathryn. I made an effort to include her in social activities in August and September. We both had the opportunity to meet other teachers in August. I took the initiative to call these teachers, and she did not. I cannot do the leg work for her. She is responsible for making her own friends, and moreover, she is responsible for her own happiness. I'm sorry that she is having a hard time right now, but it's really just not my problem. Thank you and good night.
I am writing to you regarding your request from yesterday. You asked me to "be nice" to Kathryn. I assumed from this phrase that you want me to hang out with her and invite her along to my social events. Yesterday I told you that this was fine and that I would try. After having time to think it over, my response is:
Haven't I already done enough?
Kathryn is a strange person. Maybe you can't notice it in Korea, maybe you think that many foreigners are like her. Trust me: they're not. Kathryn is strange. She is very different from me, and we have different interests. Besides that, she is not a particularly clean person, and neither is Naomi, for that matter. I feel that I have been generous in even agreeing to live in an apartment with her for as long as I have. To ask me to actually hang out and do things with her as well....that's not part of my job description. I'm here to teach. I'm not here to be the social coordinator for all foreign teachers at Oedae language school.
In addition to agreeing to living in this apt, I have also been working twelve hours a day for the past month. I have also agreed to work on every third Saturday, when weekend work is not in my contract. And in August, when Kathryn had not yet arrived due to visa problems, I generously took on all of her schedule in addition to mine. This was an exhausting task during my very first week in Korea.
So basically I just want to say, no, I am not going to go out of my way to "be nice" to Kathryn. I made an effort to include her in social activities in August and September. We both had the opportunity to meet other teachers in August. I took the initiative to call these teachers, and she did not. I cannot do the leg work for her. She is responsible for making her own friends, and moreover, she is responsible for her own happiness. I'm sorry that she is having a hard time right now, but it's really just not my problem. Thank you and good night.