Thursday, June 15, 2017

"working for the man every night and day"

Ike and Tine, "Proud Mary" live

I've been in a really reflective mood lately about, well, pretty much everything.  (I blame inevitable Trump-initiated nuclear annihilation, but YMMV.)

So my job is "English teacher."  I mostly teach college students here at lovely Daegu Health College, but I also teach adults in a continuing education setting.

I usually have Friday afternoons off, but today I came in to do mock interviews with a group of students who are applying for jobs at a big new venture in Incheon (where the main airport is, near Seoul).  I actually do a lot of these kinds of things, and they're one of my favorite parts of the job.

Interacting with students outside of the classroom is always refreshing and usually positive, but these interviews really drive home what it means to be an English teacher abroad -- at best, you really are going to help some of these guys get jobs in new places.  And that means employment, which is always a good thing, but also new experiences, new girl- and boyfriends, new opportunities, and new vistas in general.

As mentioned, these students are applying for gigs near Seoul.  At other times of the year I do mock visa application interviews for students looking to study or work in Australia, Canada, or America.  Those are even more critical, and more satisfying for me.

So I guess this makes me the ultimate neoliberal shill or something, working to put cogs into place in the machinery of late global capitalism.

I can live with that.

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