Afternoon in a Haze

OMG. So I’m updating my blogs now in Word and transferring the whole thing over to Blogger because I don’t trust my school computer. Here are a few reasons why:

1.I am unable to select and hold a desktop background. Everytime I try to put a picture up or a nice rustic country scene the whole thing goes black within the hour. The school computer guy thinks I’m Goth or computer-retarded or something because whenever he comes in to look at something on my computer he sets a new pic for the background and tells my co-teacher, who informs me, that I can change the background if I want. It takes all my self control not to laugh helplessly in his face.


2.Explorer will only sometimes run certain websites like Facebook or blogger. Depending on the day I think. On Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays it will operate them with great efficiency. On Tuesdays and Thursdays it will refuse to operate the websites at all, and send me an “error” message instead. Every week day Mozilla will run everything slowly and laboriously, sometimes causing me to force quit the application.

3.My computer takes a good 3-5 minutes to start up every morning. The screen is black. When my co-teachers see this they come over and start clicking the mouse furiously as if this is the first time my computer is slow in getting started. I try to explain the fact that this is normal routine computer procedure and we just have to wait it out. I’m still not sure whether they just don’t understand me or they too think I’m computer retarded. The thing about Korea is, “do first, ask questions later.” (Click furiously, take time to dissect the foreign teacher’s ramblings later.) Another thing you could say about Korea is that the population as a whole (from what I’ve seen) has a much lower understanding of computer operating systems. For example, my co teachers frequently yank out my USB without properly ejecting it, causing me to cringe and ask if they could eject it next time. To which they nod agreeably, and then replicate the action next time. (What’s the foreign teacher saying again? Eh, whatever.)

4.There is a message that appears every so often that tells me there is a possibility I’m running a counterfeit copy of Windows and would I like to be a good PC user and purchase a real copy? I think this is where most of my problems stem. It seems that in their efforts to acquire an English operating system for my computer, they somehow acquired a copy instead of the real thing. The computer guy must have then unknowingly ran a system update which detected the fraud and injected the ‘EFF you illegal software user’ package onto my computer. Usually, I’m okay with this minor annoyance. But when my desktop disappears on my computer and all I’m left with is the current open windows I’m working out of, I get frustrated. I try to amp up my efforts to explain things to the computer guy. So far, I think he just thinks I’m a moron.

So now that you know the conditions I’m working under, I’ll begin with a somewhat quick update on my life.

School has now begun again in full swing. I had five classes today, three in the morning and two after lunch. Luckily, they’re all third graders. On Thursday and Friday I’ve got fifth and I have no idea how I’ll make it through the day. I have to give so much energy to speak and hold class attention for five hours. I’m dead tired now.

I hate this feeling because it hinders what I can accomplish outside of school. I’ve always got big plans post-school like working out, having dinner with friends, finally cleaning my bathroom. But I usually end up watching arrested development and making a sandwich, going to sleep and starting the whole thing all over again. NO wonder people hate working.

I’ve also started on a short story, and I hope I can keep working on that. Like I said earlier, I applied to MFA programs but I’m afraid I won’t get accepted to any schools and, as an effect, be discouraged in my quest to become a quality writer.

To conclude, here is a list of notable questions my third graders asked me today when I was introducing myself.

-Do you kiss your boyfriend?
-What is your blood type?
-How is it possible for your American mom to marry your Korean dad?
-How old is your dog? How old is that cat?
-The cat is big. (referring to Gary)
-Do they have computers in America?
-Do you know where Washington is?
-Are you married?
-Do you know Spongebob?
-What is your phone number?