Limbo

Two weeks ago a piece of my tooth disappeared. Probing it with my tongue in the evening I assumed that a filling had fallen out. In fact, my tooth had collapsed. The dentist explained that it had rotted away from the inside until one end caved in. I would require a root canal.

My second root canal in five months.

I have big gaps between my molars that I floss out every night. I pull out hunks of food larger than what you're imagining right now. The point though is that I am on top of this. I have identified the danger and am taking steps to correct. My teeth should not be disintegrating because that is a nightmare I have twice a year. That level of subconscious worry should really keep me safe. But

It is deskwarming season at public school. After vacation ended a week and a half ago, I had sixteen days of occupying space in Bummul Middle School. Then I leave the country, unlikely to return soon. The operative word when considering the benefit the school gains from my attendance is 'nothing'. However, you must remember that I am lucky.

The root canal and the four dentist appointments required to drill out my dental pulp and post and bracket and and and were the ammunition my co-teacher needed. She swam the proper channels, asked the gentlest of questions with the most polite case endings and over three days a question wormed its way through the administration and back out again. Could I not come to school? Yes. There was a meeting to attend on the 20th and my Principal and his Viceroy would like me to say goodbye before I leave, but I am free.

*          *          *

Today is the 20th. Diligent, I arrived. The office was dark, a new wall split the last third of the old office away. My desk is gone. On my last day of school, I have nowhere to sit. I get in contact with my talented handler. The meeting has been moved to tomorrow, but before I can walk out the Viceroy appears and bids me "come on". 

I am sitting at someone else's desk now as our office slowly fills up. After fourty minutes the office assistant found this person's password. By luck, it appears the person who's space I am filling is not coming in today. Perhaps, like a magic painting I was lured to touch, I have switched positions with this person and they're boarding the plane to the Philippines on Sunday. 

*          *          *

When Mrs. Park forged the deal for me she told me, "I think you don't have to come in any more." "The Vice Principal was vague, you will be alright to not come in I think." My status as a free agent was conditional on the fact that we did not ever have to say it was a fact. Only a possibility, a licence that will evaporate the minute the black helicopters of the Ministry of Education circle and zap strap us in a mid-morning raid. Not only will my licence be revoke but it will never have existed. The Vice Principal will never have given me leave for anything. 

This morning, I don't know if the spell is broken. If I walk out the door will it look as though I am walking out on the Viceroy? Will she stop me, or simply be offended that I didn't come on longer at my desk? She could even be silently urging me to leave, but unable to say "go on" with everyone here. Such direct words could be used against her.

*          *          *

6 more days in Korea.

Freedom, well that's just some people talking

It is the last day of school before my vacation.  I have spent the last fourteen work days at my desk from the hours of increasingly later than nine o'clock to four-thirty. I eaten many of the Twix that remained in my desk, I have reached spiritual enlightenment, I have occasionally shared the Twix but never the enlightenment. Today I ate squid and rice cakes because I am a very very polite boy.

Lets get to our feature presentations.

Wings

(Hey! You broke the blogger!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsM6-gPqkMI&feature=youtu.be

The only submission from a class peppered with assholes comes this gem. The boy wearing the wings made them himself and he told me they took about four hours of work. That's not four of your hours either, where at least one of them is spent on facebook but billed to the company as vital. These are four of the kind of hours that the kids back home are buying study drugs in the library just to get a chance at. 

Three Good Boys, Three Bad Boys

This video was the winner of the 9th grade wide vote on best boys video. It's not hard to see why. Handsome stars, one of whom is the lead singer for the school's only rock band, (hint: he's the one that looks like he's wearing eye makeup), solid premise, they got in a dumpster, they used 'Party Rock' and they included an outtakes reel. All the girls now have giant crushes on them. It's likely besides the voucher to the movie theatre, each of these boys has won holding a girl's hand over the winter break. This is what happens when the cool kids also work hard in school. It's largely not fair to the rest of us.

The Lonely Girl

The winner of the voting for Girl's best picture. This is a great movie, good idea, good execution, fantastic use of extras who are too shy to show their face on camera and the quickest turn of a violent scene to slapstick that I've ever seen. I shouldn't hold anything against this film, but I do. You see...

This Is The Film I Like Best

From the same class as the winner, these girls stayed after school for two hours one day to finish shooting their film. Where as the other group relied on repetition and slapstick, this group had wit, they had humour, they had an old woman music video selling Sun Chips. When it was time to announce the winner we went to their classroom and I realized that I should have created another prize, something like critics choice or best musical performance or anything because the girls' faces just fell when I told everyone the other group had won. I feel like I let them down, allowing them to work as hard as they did without getting any recognition. 

It's too late now, this was all weeks ago. An hour after the winners were announced school was out for the winter. Although they probably haven't thought about it since, and this is the emptiest of empty gestures, I post it here as my favourite with the vague idea that if you watch it and think "yeah, those girls were great," the net result of more people in the world believing they are ballin' can only be a good thing. 

I am now on vacation. 

I am growing a cyber-gut.

I cannot complain about my retirement. I sit on the sunny beach of this public school's main office every day from 9 until 4:30 as has always been my wish. I have staked several lucrative claims on virgin territory of the internet. I believe I may build a modest log cabin on Google's back forty. Yesterday I brought my laptop to school and played a Star Wars based mass multiplayer online game because it's the sort of extreme nerdity that I like to flaunt about now that I am retired. I order in lunch every day, and every day I get just what I want. I do not get my hair cut and I am considering wearing a toque. I have access to a very large box of mandarin oranges. 

And yet for all I have, there are still troubled thoughts that can roll in early in the day and leave me unable to youtube for hours. Is this really the meaning of life? Do we teach for two years till the ripe age of twenty-five just so that we can poke away our remaining months in Korea as kept men, (or women), of the public school system? It might be that there is more to this, but it is for the younger ones who come after me to discover it. I am already too deep in this dream.

Also, I still have more videos!

The Smoker Who Died

A tour de force from a group of boys who I in no way expected to actually complete this project. Filming some of the opening scenes, the boys absolutely kicked the shit out of the bathroom door. I couldn't even get mad at them, I was too excited they were speaking English. Expect to see these boys in the NBA.

Girls! Girls! Girls!

The most avant-guard of the films turned in for the Bummul Film Festival, 'Girls! Girls! Girls!' tells the story of a young boy driven mad by lust, his subsequent running afoul with a teacher, and then some stuff that I do not understand culminating in a beating. Despite repeatedly telling them that their movies might be shown to all of the 9th grade students, the male lead in this piece expressed extreme distress when he was told that the girls had seen his film. This simply goes to show that if you give a ninth grade boy a rope he'll embarrass himself in front of girls with it. 

Extra! Extra! Newspaper is incredible useful!

A great premise that ends in a glittery celebration of newspaper. The monks who shaved just the tops of their heads and started the printing press would be proud. Scandal rocked this video though as yet another student complained that it was terribly unfair that we were going to do what we said we'd do and show the boys classes their great work. A much better tactician than the boy above, she petitioned her Korean English teacher and pleaded extreme shyness. She won her case and we didn't show this video to the boys classes and I am not bitter at all no not at all. (It's the lead dancer, be sure to pay extra special attention to her.)

Next time - wrapping it up with the final four videos. Do you think I saved my favourite for last? I'll give you a hint:  

      Oh Yeah!