Sam's Five Things: Madness on a Monday

Hey blog! Long time, no see :)

I will be putting up a few select pictures of Japan here, and whole heap more on FaceBook when I manage to collect them all off Andy's phone. Suffice to say, Japan was awesome, but very extremely unpleasantly hot. But, the reason I haven't update my blog since I got back is there all this feeling a pressure to write about my holiday, but that's such a big job, it puts me off writing. So, instead, I'm not gonna. I'm just going to blog like normal.

Today's the first day back after my vacation (always sucks), and work tried to stick me with 32 hours of teaching in 4 days this week (note this is only teaching time, not the time I spend at work). My contract specifies I can only teach 20 during this two week period, with a maximum of 6 more hours paid over time. They were going to give me 12 extra hours, not give me over time, and never even asked if it was ok. I'm super bad at confrontation and feel really guilty about "not being a team player", but 32 hours is a crap ton of teaching. So, I talked to my co-teacher about it, and he changed it so quickly that I suspect he 100% knew he was violating my contract. So, Now I'm doing 16 this week and 16 next week, which is SO much better. And legal.

You know, if they'd talked to me, asked me beforehand, offered me the overtime pay I'm entitled to, I totally would have agreed and helped them out of a tight spot. But no, they try to get it past me and hope I won't notice they scheduled me for a week of ridiculous hell. I was hoping to re-sign at this school, but now... maybe not so much. He even tried to blame me, saying it was because I went on vacation. The vacation I'm contractually owed. Bah!

And now I feel bad and like no one will like me because I didn't do what they wanted. Which is stupid!

Anyway, funny story time. Yesterday, I went to the COEX mall, just for a wander and a browse. As I was coming through the main entrance an older Korean guy starts welcoming me to Korea. That's normal, happens fairly regularly. They don't ever ask how long you've been here, but love to say 'Welcome to Korea! Where are you from?". Well, this guy welcomed me and asked if I was American. I was not in the mood to talk. Sometimes I humour them, but I get a bit annoyed sometimes - I'd never stop a person and talk to them because they came from another country! - but anyway, I was like "No, New Zealand", and he goes "Oh, England". I said no, NZ, but he insisted that because we both have the union jack, NZ and England were 'the same-same".

Ok, fine.

Then it got interesting. He wanted to know what I did, and I said 'teacher'. The guy actually looked me up and down, with an expression of disbelief on his face and said "Oh. Not gentlemen?". Um, no you perv. My job is not 'gentlemen'.

Not sure what even gave him this idea, or if it was just wishful thinking. I was wearing no makeup, no jewellery (unless you count a digital watch), flip-flops, my hair was pulled back tight in a ponytail, and the dress I was wearing fell to mid-shin and showed no chest (as anyone who knows me would know). So, weird. I was just like, 'yeah, ok, bye', and walked away. He told me I was very beautiful and followed me. He wanted to know if I had one or two boyfriends. I took a sharp turn and he took the message and left. Good times.

So, it's 35 degrees, 56% humidity, and two hours until home time.
Here's a few random picture of Seoul yesterday: