Coteachers

My coteachers are great. They are the perfect blend of hilarious, courteous, intelligent and crazy.

I share an office with my three English coteachers and three subject teachers. One of the coteachers is a huge Korean man that insists he is my "big brother". We communicate with each other through a series of one word sentences and grunts. He sometimes is a little creepy but he amuses me. The other teachers in the office secretly don't like him so I think he is trying to make an alliance with me. One day we were the only ones in the office. He called me over and opened his drawer to a six pack of Miller Lite. Miller Lite is a little hard to come in Korea so I was touched. But seeing that it was noon I had to refuse.

One of the classes I teach is an English training course for the teachers at our school. My coteachers make up the majority of the class. One of the first classes, we were conversing about Korean and Seoul culture. Deep in the conversation (well as deep as you can go with English learners), one of the subject teachers left very quickly. I immediately reviewed the exchange, scared that I had offended her. After racking my brain for two minutes while my colleagues resumed speaking, I leaned over and asked my 3rd/4th grade coteacher (Angie is her English name) why the teacher had left. Angie tried to find the words and sought another coteacher's vocabulary. After discussing another minute Angie finally turns to me and clarifies, "Jessica she, um, Jessica. It's...poop time." I thanked Angie for her translation and continued with the lesson.

My after school coteacher really bothered me at first. Within the first month of working together she told me my lessons were boring, left the class for long periods of time and texted me one night at 3 AM four times! We have definitely had our tough moments but like most crazy people I meet, she has really grown on me. Now I just smile at her bizarre antics and ideas. She went through a phase where she really wanted to go clubbing with me and my "foreign" friends. I usually would be all for it but she is 40 years old with two kids. Most recently she is convinced that I get sick because I do not have a boyfriend and confesses to me that she really wants an English boyfriend because she is tired of her husband.

Last week was a great week with the coteachers. I was telling my coteacher PK about my weekend and mentioned that I watched a marathon session of Weeds. He got really excited and told me that he loves that show and he was just talking to his friends about it. Then he said "Wow, have you ever smoke the marijuana?" I said no comment and he said, "I really want to smoke the marijuana." Our conversation continued and smirking, I listened to him tell me about the drug culture of Korea.

Later on that week, my coteachers and I were all pretty bored. It was a Friday afternoon; we were anxious to leave. A delivery man came with a plastic bag and Angie quickly paid the man and shooed him out the door. I just assumed it was food because my coteachers can do some serious eating. As I was about to leave Angie pulls out pitcher of beer and says, "Can you drink the alcohol, can you drink the beer?" with a huge smile on her face. I smiled too,"You have no idea."