Some Thoughts

Yes, it has certainly been a while since I've written here. My life has been going on. I've been busy. I've been lazy. I've traveled, I've spent time at home.

On the work front:
Last I wrote, my first semester in the new department had just gotten under way. Now I'm about to start my second. I was really quite happy with the first one, though there are some differences in how I'll do things next year. And yes, I have to admit that my own studies did have an influence on my teaching; sadly not for the better. I was not able to devote as much time and energy as I'd like. I'm also sorry to say that I fear the same will be true in the semester that is about to start. I also feel a lot of pressure to outdo myself this semester. I was really happy with the curriculum that I came up with before and I have been struggling a little to come up with something better. Here's what I'm toying with for the follow-up: an extensive reading program to start the semester (and continue on in the background for the duration), a research project based on culture, and a debate based on a controversial issue. It doesn't sound like much for a 15-week course, but I'm aiming for depth rather than breadth. The culture project will be quite in-depth, with different groups focusing on certain aspects of a culture, then teach them to others. The debate will require a lot of knowledge about the issue, and they will have to demonstrate to me that they have that knowledge before the debate can start.

For the last five years, I've had my own office. I just learned that a Political Science professor will be moving in with me. The guy was the department chair at the University of  North Carolina, retired and came to Korea about 10 years ago. He's had his own office that whole time, but now he's moving in with me. I really am not looking forward to this. I've already filled all of the bookshelves and am pretty much taking up the whole office already. From what I remember, his office was quite full as well. Most of the foreign teachers share an office. None of the Korean ones do. I wonder if someone doesn't like us having our own office and are taking care of that. Maybe it is something else completely, like Mark (the poli-sci guy) is no longer going to be full-time and just needs a place for the two days a week he'll be coming in--and since my office used to belong to the political science department and they knew I moved in alone, they thought they could just stick him there with me. I actually thought he was leaving the university (and maybe even retiring again), so this scenario could be the case. Or he (or I) pissed off the wrong person. His wife used to work at the university (a Columbia U. PhD who taught in the business dept) and was asked to leave when the university president stepped down. She was a favorite of the president, but apparently the department chair did not like the fact that they were told to hire her. When the president left, so did Mark's wife. I've been expecting him to leave ever since, and I thought he was actually leaving this year. Dirty Politics.

My studies.
My first course was passed with no problems. It actually only took me about a week to write the paper, though I'd been doing a lot of reading for months and months leading up to that. The second course is another story. Let me put it this way: out of the 16 people who started in the cohort last summer, four quit, two passed outright, and 10 got a conditional pass on the research project--meaning they have changes to make and resubmit. You can guess where I am. I've got a few more weeks to get it done and submitted.

For most of us it was quite a shock. I was actually kind of expecting it. I planned to give a talk about it at the Busan Kotesol conference in June. I was in a minor taxi accident which made me miss my KTX to Busan. I was THAT guy who cancelled his presentation at the conference. I was really upset about it because it is just so unprofessional. The kind folks in the Seoul chapter let me do a July workshop instead. I took the 40-min talk and turned it into a 2-hour workshop. While I was preparing for the talk/workshop, I realized that there were some problems with my work. In late July when we got our work back, I was certainly not expecting to do as well as I had on the first one.

England
As alluded to above, I had courses this summer as part of my doctorate program. This summer, I started three courses. They each have a 7,000 word paper due at various times throughout the upcoming year. Once they are all completed (satisfactorily), I'll be able to start my thesis... dissertation... whatever it's called.  Needless to say, this year will be busy. I really don't know how much posting I'll be doing.