Working myself buttless

Korea’s public school started winter vacation in December, bringing about another round of “intensive classes.” Of course, there’s really nothing intensive about them – they’re just designed to keep kids busy. It’s not bad, though. Parents don’t pressure the school to work the kids harder, and the management is more lenient about the length of the hourly breaks.

While the Scrooge, our school’s director, had in mind to start the classes on December 24 and make work at 10:00 Christmas morning, our manager (bless her soul) persuaded him to delay the start of these classes to December 27.

I was grateful for a moment, but then learned that it was only possible because he was able to reschedule all the classes we would have had that day. And I still had to come in at 10:00am on New Year’s Day.

There really are no holidays at CDI.

So with these intensive classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10am to 1pm, in addition to my nomal schedule (M,T,Th, F 4-10; W 4-7, S 2:30-5:30), I get to stand on my feet 36 hours a week.

That’s in addition to my other job and a proofreading project I worked on. I still tutor executives at PWC, so I wake up at 5am Monday through Friday for seven one-hour classes per week. It’s not easy, but the per-hour rate is higher and the work is a bit more stimulating than teaching kids. Plus, when I get home I can take a nap if I’m so inclined. [ha! a pun!]

Depending on what the PWC students want to do, I’ll proofread their writing, listen to Voice of America news tracks (www.voanews.com), or cover the language materials provided in the English language daily newspapers. Sometimes we just talk about culture and major news stories.

As for the afore-mentioned project, in the first week of January I proofread a Korean friend’s 100+ page dissertation. Given my schedule, which was already packed, that was rough. It requred an ocean of red ink on every page and about 20 total manhours of work – literally all my free time that week. I was so glad when I finished it.

So my butt has pretty much been completely worked off. The good news is that my efforts have been far from futile. From the three jobs and the intensive classes, I’ll take home more than $6,000 in one month for the first time.

The fruits of survival through January shall be sweet indeed.