differences

i could be wrong here. i'm not sure.
there's a guy here in the same country i'm in & he blogs: http://walkingalongtherailways.wordpress.com

1 showed it to me the other day. he's an english teacher & has some interesting observations. one of which was about going to a convenience store & having a relative of one of his students recognize him buying something potentially embarrassing. not sure if it was in the same post or one nearby (trying to catch up to him so am reading a kazillion posts all at once & some get a little confused), but he also spoke about teachers not having to get up at the butt-crack of dawn to get to school on time. which therefore frees them up to have "adult time" more nights of the week than just friday & saturday. maybe it's just me but whenever i go out, the next half day is sponged up by recuperation time which is generally copious amounts of sleep. so butt-crack or not, i probably wouldn't be a most effective teacher on any morning where i went & partied down the night before.

and the point is... (man, i must be the tangent QUEEN!) it doesn't seem that teachers are held to the same "holier than thou" standard around here as they are in the states. it is probably just the culture. they take/eat/drink/snort (haven't really figured it out yet) ginseng which is supposed to be healthy, drink (i know this one!) vitamin drinks, don't seem to eat (hey 2 points!) as much fatty garbage as americans do (course McD's is probably going to change that) & i don't see an awful lot of fatties running around here. but they do smoke. oh they seem to love to smoke. all the time, everywhere. it doesn't appear that it has been illegalized anywhere here at this point. and nowhere seems to have a designated smoking section except on base (duh, it's american!). while i don't much care for the kids being exposed to smoke, i can keep them away from it for the most part. but if they want to do it, whatev. no skin off my nose. that & the whole soju thing. whoo hoo! drink another! we see it everywhere. it's the thing to drink. apparently teacher friend drinks a lot of it. whoopy doo again. he doesn't seem to have any concern about purchasing either of these items (although i'm not sure if he's a smoker or not) from his student's family members at the family mart.

i would think that as long as my child's teacher was doing his/her job TEACHING & not screwing my child up, i don't much worry about what they do after the bell rings. so long as it is not illegal, who cares? is what a teacher does on his private time going to affect my child? as long as it remains on their private time & not in the classroom, i think live & let live is a good philosophy to follow. i feel like in the states, teachers are scrutinized for every little thing. and, since they are guiding the young minds of tomorrow, perhaps they should be but within reason. they should not be forced to give up all of their private lives just because of their choice of profession. and i think it may have to do with all the governmental babysitting going on over there. it's almost as if no one can use their own brains anymore so they have to be told when & where & how often & how much. which curtails a good bit of free expression. and this goes for so many things in the states. it's a shame.

round here, though, it seems to be the attitude of "fork it up, your fault. don't fork up!" there aren't inspectors around to require safety restraints for high-rise workers, people all drive like bats out of hell, scooters are ridden everywhere but up walls, and it's everyone's own responsibility to watch their own ass. not expecting someone to watch it for them. so if a teacher gets a little too yippee ya hoo the night before, who cares? so long as they are ready & willing to do what they gotta do in the morning. and if you happen to purchase a bottle of soju from your student's uncle...does it really matter? careful about unveiling your best korean though as you might get invited to a drinking contest. and that would probably be best undertaken on the weekend.