The Rare Bad Day.

You may or may not remember the other subject teacher who works at my school who seems to think that her children's English education is more important than my existence as a human being. Well. She's just struck again. Tomorrow night is our first 회식 in ages. 회식 is an important time for me especially, because it's the time when I get to really sit and talk to the other subject teachers and show them that I'm not as odd or different or awkward to deal with as they might think. Plus, it's just a really nice time all around, and I like the chance to spend time talking with teachers who I don't normally get to see.

So. I'm sitting in my office this afternoon, already annoyed about this particular 회식 for a number of reasons, when my desk phone rings. It's the afore mentioned self-absorbed teacher. She's calling to ask if she can bring her daughter to the musical tomorrow night.

Why would she ask me that? Good question.

She goes on to explain that her mother has gone out of town to Japan, so her daughter would be left alone if she didn't bring her.

Awesome. Still nothing to do with me, right?

Well. Of course what she wants to know is if she brings her daughter to the musical, can I watch her? While speaking English, obviously.....

I only just managed to quit going to this woman's house for absolute hours every week sometime in April or May. It was leaving no time for me to meet my boyfriend or study Korean or do much of anything else, or, leaving me exhausted in the case that I decided to do all of those other things anyway. Since then, she has several times informed me that her daughter's English is getting worse. And then looked at me as though I were personally responsible.

So. Tomorrow night, during my 회식 with my coworkers, which I am missing out on seeing my boyfriend for possibly the entire weekend to attend, in order to spend some much-needed quality time with my coworkers, I will instead be babysitting her daughter for free.

You know what? I'm just not going. And I'm going to tell my old co teacher why I'm not going, which is that being put in that position makes me feel like I don't belong to the group, and like this teacher assumed I would have no other reason for being at 회식 to begin with, much as how she routinely assumes that I can't do things like shop or read Korean or go to the hospital on my own, because I'm a foreigner, and I just couldn't possibly fit in here. In any capacity.

And I'm going to let the miracle of the grapevine do its thing. And I hope, for once, that this teacher feels like shit when it gets back to her. Because I'm tired of her making me feel like every bitter stereotype I've ever read on Dave's is actually true, when it isn't -- it's just her.