Post-131: Oppressive Heat. Oppressive End of Semester Work.

Every day, now, exceeds 90 Fahrenheit (32 C) during the day, easily so if counting by the “heat index”.

At the language-institute (hagwon) at which I’ve worked the past two years, each classroom is a sealed-off box with a junky old window or two that barely opens; some rooms have no window. The classrooms are, resultantly, stuffy and oppressive by U.S. standards. There are ACs in each room, but they are single units hanging on the wall, not a central ventilation/air system.

Maybe that’s why these temperatures, not so different from those in my hometown in the USA about now, seem harder to bear in Korea. I remember, with some fondness, the luxury of a central ventilation/AC system within a building. That seems to create a much more pleasant atmosphere than what is normal in South Korea (but maybe that is just “the grass was greener in the past” thinking).

I also have, this week, a Damoclean burden more distressing than the heat. No matter the temperature of the room, thinking about it makes my head get hot.

I need to write up comments for every student (184 as of this writing) and finish up the semester’s essays (100+ to go). The semester for the 7th, 8th, and 9th graders ends this week. For 5th and 6th graders, it ends next week. In most of August, I had a 9:30 AM to 6:30 PM schedule (due to students’ vacation from school), but now it’s back to 2-10 PM.

The hours of comment-writing will hurt. I try to approach them seriously, though, and write meaningful and true comments. The purpose of the comments is for the Korean homeroom teacher to report on students’ progress with the mothers over the phone. Since these will be my last, I’ve tried to do an especially thorough job. And partly they are for my successor: All comments from all teachers at all times are input on the website onto a kind of “student page”, a kind of digital “permanent-record” that all (and only) teachers can see, including those who come later.