I've been here in Vietnam for the last five days for a teaching job I applied for several weeks ago. I was fortunate enough to get it. I've managed to haul as much of my stuff as I can... err, as much as Cebu Pacific's baggage weight limit would allow.
I set off on this venture as one big adventure and it's only now that reality in its fullest has started to hit me. I'm okay with the unfamiliar food and my ho-hum living situation but I somehow just can't get over my mistake earlier today, the first day of classes.
I guess my days at the old company is still so very far behind me. I couldn't summon not-so-distant memories of my being a language teacher to Koreans. Or maybe was it because of nervousness?
I was caught unaware that I was to handle a class today and I frantically pored over the material the Center uses with what little time I had. I lingered in my hotel's restaurant after breakfast thinking the change of scenery will help me be inspired for the final push in writing the articles I am to submit to a boss I haven't even seen nor talked to over the phone; a boss that I only know by name and by e-mail address.
I was already in a lounging mood when I got word from the wifey of my geographically-close boss that I am to report to school today. I got her text message sometime 9:45 and I was expected in the Center 10:30. Thank goodness my hotel is only a 10-minute walk away; I still had the time to get a shower before I left for my first day at work.
Hours pass and finally it was time to step inside the classroom. I haven't felt this jittery since I graduated from my practicum classes barely a week ago. I do my best to wield control of the class but there must be something in me the kids can see or sense that I can't but just wreaks of a pushover or something akin to it. I recall the line the boss-within-my-immediate-proximity uttered about a little leeway paving the way for them to eat us alive and I'm desperately crossing my fingers that won't be the case. I struggle a bit and before I know it, it's dismissal time.
Quarter to eight as the boss-within-my-proximity and I were waiting for the co-worker to finish, he got called by the big boss and was gone for an awfully long time. Next time he reappeared in the faculty room, I got the news that two of the Korean mothers were complaining that we were too soft on their respective kids.
No names were mentioned but I really felt infinitesimally guilty because it I know it can only be me. At the back of my mind, I finally understand why Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in Asia. A nagging thought of 'no mercy' was the only thing that keeps playing over and over in my head and it only intensified with every bite of dinner that the big boss treated me, the co-worker and the boss-within-my-proximity to.
The guilt trip got even bigger seeing the disappointment on Mrs Big Boss' face and the gestures to demonstrate how huge of a headache she now has in dealing with the hard-to-please moms. The biggest guilt trip of all was when the Big Boss and the wifey good-naturedly insisted to drop me off at the hotel as it was along the route they are to take going home.
So many highly plausible rationalizations and strategizing on swift, decisive damage control were exchanged over the dinner table and generously sprinkled on the conversation throughout the entire meal but none can ever compensate in knowing how one has failed.
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