Purgatory

03 Feb 2009
Posted by Marisa
Marisa's picture

I say purgatory since we are having a week of school in the middle of vacation, but despite the incredible pointlessness of the week, for me at least, the week has been a bit more like heaven than some other stage of the afterlife.  At least this is as close as my school gets to resembling heaven.

But first a note on the ridiculousness of the situation.  The students have been on vacation since Christmas; that was the end of the last semester.  They took their tests and depending on if they passed or failed got confirmation to move into the next grade.  This happened a month ago.  We said goodbye, we'll see you in March when the new school year begins.  However, for unknown reasons we have this random week of school in the middle of our vacation.  Not knowing what to expect I showed up bright and early on Monday morning and sat at my desk to try and figure out what was going on.  Everyone was bustling around as usual, in fact it looked like we hadn't been gone for a month.  So I sit around and try and determine what is going on, when finally the bell rings.  Since no one has told me what is going on, I grab my textbook and head to class as if this really is a normal Monday.  I meet Miss Doo in that hall and ask if we do indeed have class.  She confirms this, but points at the textbook and says, "the students don't have books."  The students don't have books?  What exactly are we doing here?  "We will play a game," Miss Doo tells me.  Play a game?  No books?  What is this, I ask myself.  It has not become clear to me.  I have been playing games in class and plan to spend the rest of the week watching Sponge Bob with my classes.  

The complete absurdity of the situation has made me question this culture we are living in.  What kind of people, since this a country-wide mandated by the government sort of thing, sit back and act like this is perfectly reasonable and not some insane, pointless waste of time.  No one is learning anything, no one is teaching anything, why are we here?  I have consoled myself with the thought that there must be things that are just as insane and pointless.  But here there is no outcry.  No one seems to complain.  They just accept that this is the way it is.

Despite the underlying craziness of the week, the two days I've had so far have been pretty great.  Yesterday was perhaps the best day ever.  It started with lunch, not normally my favorite part of the day, and yesterday looked to be more of the same weird stuff, until I got to the end of the food line and saw strawberriers and, to my complete astonishment, cheesecake!  I don't know where it came from, but it was tasty and everyone seemed to be enjoying it.  Since I was in such a good mood from the cake I then went to see Ms Park about a new computer which she said I could have since my old one was so slow a slug moves faster.  When we went to find the new one, we took a detour to see the new English room.  I knew they were remodling one of the classrooms to be extra fancy, Ms Park had shown me the plans to get my opinion, but I was completely shocked by the fanciness of the room.  Especially compared with the rest of the school which has a sort of run down sort of feel.  It even has an electronic whiteboard which I have to take a class for on Friday to learn how it works.  I've never even seen an electronic whiteboard before.  I'm not excactly sure what classes will be held in this new room, all I know is that it is for me and Ms Park to use.  But the best part was the small office at the back.  When she had shown me the plans, Ms Park had mentioned that there would be an office for the two of us.  Not wanting to get my hopes up about something so exciting I didn't think much of it, but when I saw it yesterday I was completely elated.  I can't wait to move out of the giant common office I'm in right now, where everyone walks right by my desk and stares at me or my computer screen.  Right now I'm just excited about having more space to myself, but it looks like I will have a classroom of my own where I will be able to do more exciting things with various groups of students come the start of school in March.

So now I sit happily typing on my new, fast computer, having come from a lunch where they served curry (the first time I walked into the cafeteria and thought it smelled good) and spaghetti (which we ate with our chopsticks).  Of course there were shells with some sort of animal in them (clams, mussels, oysters...) in the soup.  I guess I'm not quite out of purgatory yet.  

great cheesecake always

great cheesecake always available at Paris Baguette if you have that chain of bakeries in your area.


child sitting

Sounds like perhaps the govt. knows that by this time in the vacation, parents are pulling out their hair from having their kids at home, and are in need of a vacation themselves. Thus, the govt. organizes vacation school, a kind of child-sitting exercise to give the parents a break, and make sure the teachers are alive and active, not vegging somewhere and becoming rusty and unable to teach... That's my theory, based on the evidence you shared.