Guess whose back? Tell a friend...

Well after 20 hours in the air, and a total journey time of just over 24 hours we landed back in Manchester to the same grey day I took off too. We were worried about gting through customs with all our stuff, and getting landed with a C&E bill of a few thousand pounds but we just breezed through the gate to meet my grandad.

When we did get back we sorted the bed out and planned to crash for an hour or so and then go out for a drink, but like most plans, it turned into 14 and the next thing we knew it was 5:30am and we were wide awake. I ended up at the local shop buying things for an English breakfast (yes, including black pudding Hayley, and it was yummy!) and the whole thing was delicious! A nice cup of proper tea for the first time in 6 months went down a treat!

So after breakfast we proceeded to sort out our room from the bags of clothing we'd left to the clothes we bought to sell on eBay and alike for a few hours and some how I ended up in the garage tidying half of that up for an hour or so. We took three bags of clothes to the charity shop, all of it brand new stuff that was to inexpensive to justify selling on eBay thanks to their ridiculously overpriced fees on small items, and Royal Mails increases in postage costs, it didnt even warrant the time taken to list them... so Age Concern have bagged probably a few hundred quid easily, and although there are better "causes" of charity in the square, Age Concern is the best place to buy clothes!

We hit "Spoons" for a beer and a burger at lunch for £3.99 each, and tried to get the won changed, but all the exchanges were giving us rates of close to 2000 won to the pound, and although its "only" £10, it damn well is nearly £10 difference so I held on to them for the time being. I knew I shouldve changed them at the airport but after getting off the plane, it was the last thing on my mind. I may be sending them back to Mike to pick me up some games at Yong San over changing them for £10 difference - the postage costs would be the same as the fees and Id feel like that £10 was doing something other than lining some slimeballs pockets.

But I digress! We hit up the Legion to see Ken, but he wasnt working until 5 so we then went to the Cricket Club to meet Amys parents before finally ending up in the Links for the footy and a few more beers. We caught Dax coming home from work on the way to the CC, but he was practically on deaths door so we left him to have a kip! Phils fan belt snapped and he ended up not being able to make it, Dax was still KOed from the previous night and Jonny didnt show up in the end! It was only Adam and Heather (Amys brother and girlfriend) and Stef that came out, and Chris who was working behind the bar anyway. England drew in a soccer friendly against Holland, but I wasnt really watching it at all.

All in all, Im back and it still feels like the same old town I knew from 6 months ago. A few changes here or there, but in essence, nothing has changed. Whether thats a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen, but for now, Ill be happy to be back. I guess I havent seen my mates yet so I wont be thrilled to be back until I do, but Ill peak up when "the boys are back in town"!

Again, if anyone has mailed me at my hotmail account and I havent replied, please resend it, or try to my Yahoo email (delmorphacease@yah00.co.uk with o's instead of 0's in yahoo, damn spam monkeys ) - Im getting paranoid about my mail not arriving, or not getting to me now!

More comical Wonderland BS as my time draws to an end here

All you can do is laugh it off and keep your head down as this crap is going on but for the second time in the last week period we have had a "fire drill" in our lunchbreak, neither of which were warned of to the teachers that the stupid woman was just going to randomly set it off.

This may sound like me complaining over nothing but its just another example of complete disregard for teachers at this place. The first time we were pretty pissed, none of us have had the fire procedures explained to us, and the fire alarm sounds like a bomb syren so you can imagine the panic and chaos when it was set off the first time, but today we were steaming. As Richard said, some tall buildings have special procedures for fire situations, like placing things over your head as you go down the stairs, and we havent even been told about any of this.

The other annoyance was that both were in lunchtime, at a time where were doing our unpaid duty of feeding the kids. With them now drilling twice at the same time it shows the mentality of this hell hole, just wanting to screw the staff out of every ounce of energy they can, so long as theyre not getting paid for it too. Theyre even telling us that we now have to spend 15 minutes in that 50 minute lunck BREAK to make the children read workbooks!

Well F them... my time here is drawing to a close, and not a moment too soon really. I will give a further lowdown to you all when I get home, and a blog post about my full ordeal in Wonderland over a few beers sometime soon. My website, www.wonderlandsucks.com will be live shortly after my return!

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To anyone that may or may be pissed at me for not replying to emails they have sent please let me apologise. It would appear that I havent been receiving all the emails I should've to my Hotmail account as my grandad has sent me several that I havent received, so its plausable that I may have others too. I spoke to him last night and he has sent me at least 3 that I know of that I havent received, even in my Junkmail folder. So if you read this before I get back then please accept my apologies and Ill speak to you soon!

All we can do is laugh

Sometimes you just have to blog these things as a reminder of the shite we have to put up with as teachers in a hogwon in Korea... there has been so many of them that I havent that in the dying period I have left I probably should get as many down on the virtual paper as possible. Today, thus far, has been one of them!

We had to be at the school for 9:15 for a mystery schedule change that we hadnt been informed of until leaving on the Friday, so it put a downer on the day. We all arrive to find we now have 2 block sessions in the morning for 80 minutes before lunch with the same class which is just hell. I had Berkeley first, the UC "HELL" A, a class that in my 6 months tenure as teacher, I havent taught once. To add insult to injury, the "lesson plan" is vague at best, so as soon as we find this out we're trying to form plans of action.

But before we can even get to the photocopier, the moody bitch tells us that we have to go down to greet the children as the get off the shuttle bus. Theres 6 teachers greeting 4 buses, plus the teachers/assistants as they get off the bus. Common sense isn't a Korean strong point. Its another dogs dinner of a decision, and more of the bull shit we didnt sign up for.

In any case, Berkeley were great and UCLA were a nightmare.. that class must die in a fire. I started to make a wildlife scene with Berkeley which was fun, and spent 80 minutes beating kids with my stick in UCLA. Then lunch, then the next piece of crap, another mystery art lesson...

I have 8 kids in Cornell and I was told that each one of them had a seperate art project to do in 40 minutes. What a crock of shit.. this "art" lesson includes finger paints, craft paper, scissors etc in a random amount for each child, and I have to help each one of them do something completely different! Oh the joys!! At least I had the oldest children, poor Hayley and Michael had 11 kids each in younger classes!

It was a painfully slow 40 minutes, and now, at 1:40pm I have my first break of the day.. lunch doesnt count as I have to work through that too. Stupid Wonderland...

A painfully tepid week...

This week has been one almighty suckfest... its just crawled throughout and I have nothing interesting to report other than being bored out of my skull. My only saving grace is the thoughts of getting drunk tonight and playing some NHL07 with Mike, as otherwise its been pretty mindnumbing.

I seem to have aquired more frees than usual this week, that or time has been slowing down in the ones Ive had as Im quite literally bored of surfing the net. I find myself perusing the same sites over and over in the bleak hope for something interest but to no avail; Im surfing for surfings sake, and I cant really do anything "constructive" on this machine to kill time. I should really start bringing my PSP to kill time...

In any case, Im glad my time teaching is coming to a close... Ive given it a go and you know what, I hate it! I can hear the "I told you so"s now but to be honest I really am not bothered in the slightest. I had to give it a go, if anything just to say Ive done it rather than just dismissing it as "I could never do that" or alike. Some people take a year or so out after graduation seeing the world... Ive spent 2 years clearing my head of the coulda-should-wouldas and now I can look forward to the start of my career.

Whether thats a future in the UK is yet to be seen... it most certainly is for a brief spell at least, but the pursuit of my career is now my number one priority when I get back. Ive been "out of the game (s industry)" for a while now but after some intensive personal training I think Ill be ready to punch above my graduate weight again... I may have even learnt a few new tricks in the process!

I have a few things to chase up on the job front when I get back, and hopefully will have enough money to keep my head above water until I find a "decent" job. Sitting on my arse all day coding has never seemed so appealing until now!!

Im looking forward to seeing friends and family on the 14th or thereafter and will be in the pub before you know it!