The School Function from Hell

As the school year winds I find my calendar filling up with teacher’s lunches, conferences, and an end of the year dinner. I attended the latter this past Tuesday evening. To be frank, it was the oddest staff function I have ever been to. It was held at one of the hotels in town and the food spread was really quite swanky. However before we could help ourselves to the all-you-can-eat buffet, we held an hour long meeting discussing how the past year went at Dae-Sung Middle school. Let me tell you, if you think it is boring to listen to a dull speech in English, it was excruciatingly dull to listen to this dull, hour long speech in a language I didn’t understand. Once the speeches were over, I asked my friend Sue what it all was about. She said that each of the department heads, as well as the Vice Principal, spouted off a list of all the things the teachers did wrong this year and how they expect things to go more smoothly next year. Maybe not the way I would have handled the situation, but I digress.

After the berating was over, we were free to eat. The spread of the buffet was extensive; it had anything from egg salad sandwiches, kimchi, and fried chicken to raw fish and other finer Asian delicacies. During dinner a gift raffle was held by the principal. I found the whole idea of the raffle funny because rather than buy each teacher a small gift, he opted to buy just 15 gifts and raffle them off to the teachers; to each their own. Luckily, my name was drawn and I was given a cylindrical wrapped gift. I was excited at the prospect of opening it, not knowing what was inside. After I returned to the table, my principal told me through the microphone that is was a water bottle. Brilliant. But not just any old water bottle, but the “best water bottle in the world.” How exciting. He didn’t stop there, he demanded I open it in front of him so he could see how happy the water bottle would make me. So there I am, opening a gift which I already know what is inside, and I had to look excited, surprised, and grateful when I saw the water bottle. While it is a nice blue reusable water bottle, I’m not sure it is the best water bottle in the world.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder, a cake cutting ceremony was held. It was a three tiered cake, but the bottom two tiers were plastic, and all the tiers were separated by white columns; very 1970s. Furthermore, the ‘real’ top tier did not match the other tiers. It was real classy. To make things even more bizarre the cake was cut by both the vice principal and principal using a sword. Please do not confuse this with a long knife. I mean a three and a half foot, hilted sword. It was great. What was not great, was that us forty teachers had to share one nine inch round cake.

I’d like to tell you that was the end of my weird end-of-the-year meeting, but it wasn’t. While I was enjoying my small sliver of cake, the teacher next to me started asking me about my return to America. She wanted to know the exact dates, and times, I’d be moving back to Portland, where I would be living, and who I would be living with. I thought this was odd, and invasive, but told her I did not know for sure. All I knew was that I would be staying with friends for a bit while I looked for an apartment. I could not explain to her that I would ultimately be living with Eric because that concept just doesn’t exist for her because we are not married. I was curious where all of this was heading, so I asked her why she was asking. Well it turns out the daughter of another teacher at our school wants to finish college in America. Well the woman I was talking to, who will remain unnamed, convinced the daughter of this other teacher to go to Portland State University. Apparently the daughter has been accepted and is starting at PSU in March. After this background story, the woman I was talking to asked me if I would live with the other teacher’s daughter in Portland! Can you believe that?! I honestly did not know what to say. I was shocked that they would put me in this kind of position. Once I regained my ability to talk, I told her that wouldn’t work for me, but once I get a cell phone again I can email the daughter my phone number. This was met with the response, “Oh. Well I told the daughter you would have lunch with her on Thursday after school.” Again, I was at a loss for words. I told her this would be impossible because I have already made plans for Thursday afternoon. Who just volunteers another person’s time? After that I saw some other teachers leaving and I just made a break for it. Not the most mature way to handle the situation, but I did not know what else to do. While the food itself was nice, that was by far the most bizarre teacher’s function I have ever been to. I think it is safe to say that I will not miss those meetings when I leave.