T.G.I.F.

We've reached the end of four weeks (Day 26 of 365 for those of you counting). Even though we are having a great time for the most part, we have learned that being an ESL teacher in a foreign land is a lot of work and by Friday evening we are wiped out. T.G.I.F. applies as much in Korea as it does in Canada. This acronym has meaning again. It means 3 nights and 2 days of freedom from your job. As you all know, I chose to work at Chapters and Starbucks for the past 3 years and weekends didn't mean as much to me as they did when I was working a 9-5 desk job. Now Saturday and Sunday are the weekly Holy Grail once again. Jenn and I were in the same boat with our 2 jobs and even though we loved making triple grande soy no-foam vanilla lattes and harassing unsuspecting customers into buying our favourite books (I think Jenn sold a record number of The Little Prince), working at Chapters and Starbucks was unforgiving. A weekend off at Chapters meant we were most likely at Starbucks, and vice versa. And forget holidays. That mall we worked at rarely closed. National Statutory holidays in our country also stands for National Shopping holidays, so if you work in retail forget celebrating Canada Day or Boxing Day or any other prized civic holidays we have as Canadians. As for Starbucks, I think they are closed on Christmas Day and that's it. I remember last year, I was silly enough to assume I would have New Year's Day off, so I didn't bother writing in the time-off book. Of course, I was scheduled for a 7:00 a.m. shift after a night of New Year's Eve debauchery.
So here we are in a different type of job dealing with throngs of kids who don't understand us very well, realizing how wiped out we are on a Friday afternoon. Kids are kids no matter what language they are speaking (we often hear our names being rattled off amid a cluster of Korean gibberish - not knowing what is being said, but realizing that we are the topic of their conversation). And sometimes these kids tire us out way before it's time to go home. Just like anywhere in the world these kids run the gamut: there are studious kids, mischievous kids, ignorant kids, kind kids, violent kids, affectionate kids, intelligent kids, defiant kids, endearing kids, and a select few who are just plain fun kids. We deal with them on a daily basis and it has its moments of complete frustration, but overall it is proving to be rewarding. But we will relish our weekends. To prove it, we are off for a few pints with our Irish friends for the night and then are leaving early Saturday to spend the rest of the weekend in Seoul.