Lip service
My immediate superior has a cell phone whose ring is the sort of thing you'd hear piped in at a day spa - calming "peaceful" anti-stress type piano music, with trickling water and chirpy bird sound effects. She keeps her ringer volume permanently on 11, which gives it this unintended distortion. And it rings constantly when she's not around. On 11.
Perhaps the best thing about my new job is reminding myself that in my role, I'm not responsible for most anything that goes wrong. I'm mostly just a piece of legitimizing window dressing. And in the two months since I arrived, I've become a piece of window dressing with fewer bags under my eyes, a few less pounds, and cuter shoes.
It's been about sixteen years since I've taught this age range of 3 - 14. This time around, the youngest ones are my favourites. Probably because they're too young to have had their natural spazziness beaten out of them.
That said, one of my favourite students is actually about 9. She's naturally sharp, and often this comes out in her wit and comedic timing. But she hates practicing her pronunciation. It's boring. She'd rather learn something new, than spend time perfecting technique. I can relate to this all too well. Nonetheless, I feel responsible as her native English-speaking, western teacher for reminding her that she must practice repeating "th-" words until her mouth stops turning them into "d-" words. I reinforced this one criticism on her monthly evaluation, and it sent her into silent and totally unstoppable tears. Lots of kids cry, but this is one of those who comes off as a tough cookie most of the time. Shocked, I sent her only classmate out of the room to fetch something from the office and tried to hug her and reassure her that she was an excellent student in all other respects. That's when I noticed a sour green mark on her cheekbone. I found out later on from another teacher that if the mother of this kid finds out her kid is not #1 in ALL areas, that the kid gets it. A lot. In the face. I wish I'd known that before I'd written an honest-but-encouraging evaluation.
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The Canadian Taxpayers allowed me to make a small film last year. Even though the tax-filing deadline has come (and has just about gone), I'm still totalling my expense receipts to prove that their money was appropriately spent. Yes, I really did need four relatively pricey hole-punchers, OK? And yes, it actually was very important to purchase 15 bottles of Wet n' Wild sparkly nailpolish #477A. It's part of how I contributed to an on-going dialogue about seeking emotional closeness through media technology, OK? Why the scrutiny? Just back off, OK?
(Suddenly, a former Canadian Mint Director's declaration of being entitled to entitlements feels dangerously close to springing from my lips.)
Of course it's not my God-given right to spend your money on making little weird films, but hey, who else has the time? Everyone else seems too wrapped up in their careers and making some kind of "living" or whatever, so they might as well throw in about $3 to the pot so that someone else can do this for them. After all, making art is the job most Canadians don't want to do, so they have to let immigrants like me do it. Ha.
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My Korean language abilities are rapidly improving, thanks to my ability to embarrass myself in front of locals by speaking the wrong words and speaking them poorly. Actually, my abilities aren't improving all that much, just my desire to have them improve. Nowhere was this feeling more acute than when I encountered a room full of photographically-inclined folks attending a seminar in the back of a local art gallery this weekend. I sat in on a lecture for 40 minutes, hoping to gain some insight into what kinds of stuff people here were interested in shooting - and could only make out the Konglish 포도삽 (or, "potochop"). In too many instances afterward, I was forced to explain that I actually didn't know any Korean, even though I'd sat through most of a lecture, furiously scribbling notes.
Perhaps the best thing about my new job is reminding myself that in my role, I'm not responsible for most anything that goes wrong. I'm mostly just a piece of legitimizing window dressing. And in the two months since I arrived, I've become a piece of window dressing with fewer bags under my eyes, a few less pounds, and cuter shoes.
It's been about sixteen years since I've taught this age range of 3 - 14. This time around, the youngest ones are my favourites. Probably because they're too young to have had their natural spazziness beaten out of them.
That said, one of my favourite students is actually about 9. She's naturally sharp, and often this comes out in her wit and comedic timing. But she hates practicing her pronunciation. It's boring. She'd rather learn something new, than spend time perfecting technique. I can relate to this all too well. Nonetheless, I feel responsible as her native English-speaking, western teacher for reminding her that she must practice repeating "th-" words until her mouth stops turning them into "d-" words. I reinforced this one criticism on her monthly evaluation, and it sent her into silent and totally unstoppable tears. Lots of kids cry, but this is one of those who comes off as a tough cookie most of the time. Shocked, I sent her only classmate out of the room to fetch something from the office and tried to hug her and reassure her that she was an excellent student in all other respects. That's when I noticed a sour green mark on her cheekbone. I found out later on from another teacher that if the mother of this kid finds out her kid is not #1 in ALL areas, that the kid gets it. A lot. In the face. I wish I'd known that before I'd written an honest-but-encouraging evaluation.
********************************************
The Canadian Taxpayers allowed me to make a small film last year. Even though the tax-filing deadline has come (and has just about gone), I'm still totalling my expense receipts to prove that their money was appropriately spent. Yes, I really did need four relatively pricey hole-punchers, OK? And yes, it actually was very important to purchase 15 bottles of Wet n' Wild sparkly nailpolish #477A. It's part of how I contributed to an on-going dialogue about seeking emotional closeness through media technology, OK? Why the scrutiny? Just back off, OK?
(Suddenly, a former Canadian Mint Director's declaration of being entitled to entitlements feels dangerously close to springing from my lips.)
Of course it's not my God-given right to spend your money on making little weird films, but hey, who else has the time? Everyone else seems too wrapped up in their careers and making some kind of "living" or whatever, so they might as well throw in about $3 to the pot so that someone else can do this for them. After all, making art is the job most Canadians don't want to do, so they have to let immigrants like me do it. Ha.
*******************************************
My Korean language abilities are rapidly improving, thanks to my ability to embarrass myself in front of locals by speaking the wrong words and speaking them poorly. Actually, my abilities aren't improving all that much, just my desire to have them improve. Nowhere was this feeling more acute than when I encountered a room full of photographically-inclined folks attending a seminar in the back of a local art gallery this weekend. I sat in on a lecture for 40 minutes, hoping to gain some insight into what kinds of stuff people here were interested in shooting - and could only make out the Konglish 포도삽 (or, "potochop"). In too many instances afterward, I was forced to explain that I actually didn't know any Korean, even though I'd sat through most of a lecture, furiously scribbling notes.