Mission Impossible

I love Korea but there are times when I just don't get it. Yesterday was one of these moments. In January and February I will be doing day camps for the students. I will start at 9 and finish at 12. It's going to be two glorious months of (non)work.

A few weeks ago my supervisor and I sat down and planned our camp out. For one of the weeks, I am supposed to be at another school down the road. This camp is different because I will be with the same kids for the whole three hours a day. This isn't a problem as there are a ton of things to do and it's better way to get to know the kids. I planned to bring in various games for them and we were also going to work on singing a pop song to help get our noses out of the books. Everything looked good for this camp until Mrs. Evil regional boss stepped in.

I didn't like this lady when I first met her (she carries herself funny) and now I've confirmed my distaste for her. On Monday she met with my supervisor and told her we needed something different for the camp at the other school. She wanted it to be like the multi-million dollar camp near Incheon where kids enter an English village. It's an immersion program of studying and living, her version translated into, "No books. Just daily topics." My boss then asked me to create this 20 hour camp with readings, worksheets, flashcards and games/activities supporting the preselected topics.

Korea has and always will be run in a last minute style. I know this and have come to accept this but sometimes it's just insane. Being told at lunch time and having only four free hours until my holidays start to complete this was impossible. Had she told me about this last week I'd of loved to of designed the camp but doing this at the last minute was unreal. I called my supervisor on this and told her I could not do this. She giggled in the way Koreans do when they are uncomfortable.

Traditionally you are not supposed to question the boss and should just get on doing what you're told. 90 percent of the time I do this but yesterday I just couldn't bring myself to follow the directions. In the end I'm the one left in the classroom with the kids and knowing I'd be ill prepared I couldn't accept it. We finally worked out a compromise of doing the camp half in the original way and half in the style of Mrs Evil.