I'm back in the U.S! Maybe I should explain.
One of the things I've tried to do in this blog is remain positive. Which is honestly pretty easy, as there's a lot of stuff to be positive about in Korea (the food, the good times, etc).
BUT.
A big part of living in Korea is, well, working in Korea. And honestly? I'm just not cut out to be a Kindergarten ESL teacher- it's just that this was the position I fell into. So when the opportunity to teach older students at the school in Incheon came up, I was quite excited.
Unfortunately, the school in Incheon wasn't very good. In Ilsan, I just had a bad fit at a good school- Ilsan wasn't the case. The building was cold and drafty, the curriculum was unorganized, and the teacher morale was really low. Furthermore, in the last couple of months, they'd gone through like four or five ESL teachers- a ridiculously high turnover rate. Heck, while I was there, one foreign teacher got fired and another quit.
Things were going bad, and I could see the writing on the wall they were going to get worse. Long shifts with no lunchbreaks, more classes, unpaid overtime. Now, I COULD have just toughed it out for a little while longer until my visa expired...but, after thinking about it, I didn't want to, especially with Christmas coming up.
And so, I caught a plane on Sunday, and now I'm back in St. Louis! Crazy stuff, I know. It's going to take some time to get used to life in the States again, but I'll manage. Ultimately, my Korean adventure is over. Would I go back? Maybe- but only if I could find a really good school (something that's becoming harder and harder to do these days).
Still, keep an eye on this blog! I'll be posting one or two retrospectives as I get ambitious, and I'll probably use this blog to post about other adventures down the line- I'm eyeballing Australia for another jaunt next, but we'll just have to see how things go back here, first!
