”Don’t you have an English degree???”
Today was the first time I’ve ever been homesick in my life. After my first year of university I lived and worked alone in Brisbane, Australia for 4 months, and I didn’t feel even the slightest pang of sickness, aside from wanting a decent pie and an actual beer every day. But this time it was different. Here’s how it panned out…
To start with I was late to school by around 10 minutes due to sending my beloved lady Grenade a Valentines present in NZ. Needless to say at this stage my Korean language is still not so super, and I had all sorts of translation problems at the Post Shop. As this was my second attempt (yes, I had been there the day before as well and yes, I was late for school the day before also) I was hoping to whizz it through, but no such luck. Once I finally got the job done and the package was on its way, I taxied back to my school only to find that I was out of cash to pay the driver and that my card was not working in the ATM. Ridiculous. When I finally got up the lift to my school I got blasted like a little child for being late in front of all the staff. Fair enough as I WAS late, but still it was pretty harsh. What can I say - I’m a bit of a softie…
Later, after classes finished, I had a meeting with the head teacher as part of a monthly catch up to get feedback and ask questions as they come about. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that:
A - My handwriting was “way too messy” for the whiteboards.
B - I am too creative in class (eg. with the rap battling and my lack of DVD player use)
C - I ask too many questions of other teachers in front of the class which makes me seem unworthy of the position.
D - I don’t know the meaning of “PP” (post-progressive).
Now for those of you who are raising your left eyebrow at “PP” fear not, I am here to help. PP or post progressive is a grammatical term that all Korean’s learning AMERICAN English need to study. It is used for verbs that imply something is happening or is going to happen. For example, ‘Jump’ is a present-tense verb, ‘Jumped’ is past-tense, ‘Will Jump’ or ‘is going to Jump’ is future-tense, and ‘Jumping’ is present progressive. It usually applies to words that have ing added.
For the records, and I’m basing this on my own experience and memories of NZ school curriculum, I have no recollection of using or studying “PP” (sincere and humble apologies to my high school english teachers if we did cover PP - Mr Dowling, Finlay, Smith etc, you’re my boyss). So when I asked what it was and my head teacher replied “You don’t know?!….Don’t you have an English degree?!!”, needless to say I was quite offended. “No”, I said, “I don’t know what PP is, and Yes, I do happen to have an English degree - English literature to be exact - and I studied (beer), slaved (for beer) and sacrificed (my money to buy beer) away at it for four solid years of my life thank you very much madam”.
Thus I left work that day with a dose of the blues to rival the mediterranean sea, and started thinking how lonely it could get working here for a whole year. I soon understood the importance of keeping busy and distracted in the short term. And thank god for friends who have been there for a late night drunken yarn every so often (Renee, Wayne, Craig, Barley, Carter etc. etc. you know who you are). Sure it didn’t help that night that I had approximately $3 in my bank account but I coped. I sure will be good when Mr. Alistair Goodwin gets here; someone to drink with till dusk the next day and reminisce with about the good ol’ 50 cent mix days. God I miss the 50 cent mix. And I’m not talking about the rapper…
p.s… after all that kafuffle with the postage and being late for school etc, I called Grenade two days later around 10am NZ time to tell her the story, and blow-me-down the NZ courier delivered the parcel to her in her florist shop at precisely the same time. Without a word of a lie, on my mothers grave, that’s some cosmic shiz right there don’t you think?…
link