A Runner, Pulled

Yesterday afternoon Tonya texted me and asked if I wanted to go to dinner with her and Anna and Kim, who is a Korean guy that Anna and Adeel are friends with, and who Tonya has now befriended. It was his (and Anna's) friend Heather's birthday dinner and they were going to make a huge spread. I went and it was really fun. It was at Heather's parent's apartment, but we all met at the grocery store and they bought lots of food to make dinner. We had fried and roasted chicken, salad, Korean salad (which was a bit too spicy for me), kiwi, roasted potatoes, and lots of wine. It was Anna, Tonya, Heather, Kim, Leah, and Erica, all of whom are Korean. The only person I had met before was Kim, but it was okay because Heather and Leah were really friendly, and Erica agreed to teach Tonya and I how to speak Korean, which is exciting. Tonya also agreed to teach me French, which could be cool. In exchange, I will go on Tuesdays to meet with them (they meet on both Tuesdays and Thursdays) for dinner and English language exchange. Their English is already excellent, but they want to perfect it and become completely fluent, and the only way to do that is to sit and talk with a native speaker. So Tonya and I agreed to meet with them and plan out topics and fun activities. They all seemed really nice, and Tonya and I agreed to make dinner for them next time. Something Western.

The big drama this morning is that Thor (one of the six year-old Kindergarten teachers here), who has two weeks left on his contract, didn't come in today or call in sick. He had to combine classes with Holly, which left her with about 25 kids, so I jumped downstairs to help out. This week I was supposed to shadow Anna, who I'm replacing, because it's her last week, and I need to get trained before picking her class up on Monday. It wouldn't be a big deal at all, except that Thor usually calls in sick and today he didn't. So everyone was a bit worried, and David, the school's owner, went over to Thor's apartment to make sure everything was okay.

Thor was gone. Not like, not there, he'll be back later, but like, all his stuff packed up, nothing left but the furniture and the trash, moved out of the country GONE. So for the next two weeks we are a teacher short. This means that today and tomorrow I have to pick up his classes rather than getting trained, which is annoying. This afternoon we all have to stay late today for a meeting to schedule out who is picking up the rest of his classes for the next two weeks until the new teachers get here. Like seriously, how the hell do you just pick up and leave? And technically, because he didn't complete his six months, they don't have to pay for his flight in, contractually, which means that he owes the school money that he isn't going to pay them. It's just really inconvenient for everyone who's left. I was supposed to get off early today and now I have to stay late.

Apparently, this is actually a pretty common thing to happen in Korea, and is commonly referred to among teachers as “pulling a runner.”  In order to avoid unnecessary drama and paying back the school money you owe them for not completing your contract, some teachers just pick up and leave.  Most often they have already arranged to leave the country, but sometimes they just move in with a friend for a little while before planning their next move.  The common thought with Thor is that he left and went to Taiwan, where he had been talking about teaching next. 

It’s kind of worrisome that something like that is common enough to have its own phrase.  It makes me wonder if teaching here is harder than it seems like it will be, or too difficult to deal with at all.  Am I in over my head?  I don’t think so, but who knows how I’ll feel in a few months.  A lot can happen and a lot can go wrong.  Hopefully things will go pretty smoothly here and I won’t even consider doing something that irresponsible and drastic.  But who knows.