30 degrees

You want to know what really annoys me? When people adjust the temperature of a room and then leave very soon afterward. Often, very often, (just about every class period, really), I am sitting happily and comfortably in the English Zone when the screaming children arrive. Sure, I mean, I used to scream in between classes in middle school and chase my friends around and stuff. As nerve racking as this is, I deal with it. The teacher comes in a few minutes later, and it always amuses me to watch the students all of a sudden become silent and well behaved once their Korean teacher is in the room. Even though I was in the room the whole time, and they weren’t well behaved… I guess that that is a little foreigner racism thing or something. Anyways, two really funny things have happened recently.

The first of which was when one of my co-teachers arrived and immediately went over to the heater control pad. I called to her, “What are you doing?” not in an accusatory or aggressive tone, but she interpreted it that way because it was the first thing that I had said to her all day and I was kind of loud about it. Also, I am not good at faking things, and I’ve already said how it annoys me when people do that. She looked over at me, looking very surprised and a little scared, and told me that she was making the temperature colder. I told her that the students had asked me to turn the temperature up. After class I apologized for catching her off guard, and she said that she was surprised because I was “shouting at her”. I didn’t argue with her, but I told her that I didn’t mean it that way.

The other funny thing started a few weeks ago and ended tonight. I just went to a little “end of the year teachers eat and get drunk together and play noraebang (“singing room”, like karaoke)” thing. During one of the meals I was talking to one teacher who had surprisingly good English and I didn’t know it, yes I have been here for a while and I am just finding this out, I know. She teaches Home Economics, and was asking me to describe the Home Ec class in the USA and stuff. She told me that she likes to keep the temperature in her classroom at 28 degrees, and she asked me why I liked to keep the heater in my room at 23 degrees. She told me that the students always tell her to put the heater on 30 degrees.

A few weeks ago, a student got up before class and put the heater on 30 in my classroom. I made a big deal of it and told them that they were crazy for wanting the temperature that hot. I was cheerful, not rude about it, of course! Apparently he told that teacher about that experience and I guess she sided with him enough to ask me about it. 30 degrees c = 86 degrees f.