Thursday, 3 December 2009

There is too much to tell you, how can I say it all?

1. I had an open class with Park Mi-Ran this Wednesday, which means: people watching me teach, all my co-teachers watching me teach, 3-4 other teachers watching me teach, the principal and vice-principal watching me teach, no parents watching me teach (for which I am infinitely grateful). Which means: forcibly inserting myself into Park Mi-Ran's good time, no longer waiting for her to make space for me as a leader of the classroom. Because if I wait for her to hand control over to me, she will take control and then the class will be over and no one will know I was there.

2. These days, my relationship with Park Mi-Ran reminds me of my relationship with my mom before I moved out of the house. She is maybe the most significant person in my life here. She arranges my schedule and protects me from unfair treatment and makes me feel so powerless sometimes. She has so much control over my life, she choreographs my entire life within the school and a significant amount of my extracurricular activities; I want to rail at her and assert my independence. But (instead of the explosive fights I had with my mom) the tension here remains all under the surface. Park Mi-Ran is my immediate boss; she has 30+ years of teaching under her belt. If I create a conflict with her, it would essentially guarantee that virtually the entire staff would be hostile towards me for the remainder of my contract. Irony of ironies: sometimes I feel as trapped here as I did during my days at Grandville High School.

3. I've been eating nothing but clementines for hours.

4. I know that it's December now, but I can't quite make myself believe it. No snow no snow no snow no familiar Christmas tunes no Christmas lights lining the streets. What will I do for my 3-day Christmas vacation? What will I send you for Christmas?

2 comments:

Jane said...

Wait, so how did your class turn out? Did Park Mi-Ran get upset?

menstrous said...

No, she didn't get upset. It's not like I did anything confrontational or anything, I just sometimes stepped up to take control of the activities before she had the chance to. But she still played a really active role in the class. I was just asserting myself a little more than usual.

And I think the open class went pretty okay. I get feedback on it over dinner with my co-teachers/principal/vice-principal sometime next week, eek.