Intensives

Intensives suck, plain and simple. There's no point in trying to sugarcoat or spin it, they just suck. Teaching three 3 hour classes for 20 days straight in the coldest month of the year is not fun. By the time day 20 finally arrives, you've already been stressed out, exhausted, and cranky for over a week. Here is what my schedule has been like this past month.
7:10 am - Alarm goes off. It's still dark outside. Reset alarm to sleep a little longer.
7:25 am - Get out of bed. Turn off the humidifier. Turn on the hot water. Put my towel on the floor so that the Korean floor heating system can warm it up while I take a shower.
7:50 am - Eat breakfast. Drink coffee.
8:25 am - Leave my apartment. Make sure I'm wearing coat, scarf, hat, and gloves so I don't freeze on the way to work.
8:40 am - Clock in at work; although it seems rather old fashioned, we all have a time card that we have to stick into a machine which prints the time and then spits the card back out.
9:00 am - First class (Middle School 3) starts. Still wear scarf and occasionally gloves while waiting for my classroom to heat up.
10:30 am - Break for 15 minutes.
12:00 pm - First class ends. Have prep time for the next 2 hours during which I mark essays and grammar quizzes, make photocopies, and look at the next day's lessons. Also, find time to eat lunch and drink more coffee.
2:00 pm - Second class (Senior 1) starts.
3:30 pm - Break for 10 minutes.
4:55 pm - Second class ends. Break for 10 minutes.
5:05 pm - Last class starts.
6:30 pm - Break for 15 minutes.
8:00 pm - Last class ends (Junior 5). Clock out as soon as possible and leave school.
8:20 pm - Get home. Remind myself that I really do want to go to the gym and work out instead of sit and watch TV. Usually go to the gym for about an hour.
9:30 pm - Eat dinner and watch Oprah. The best thing about Oprah in Korea is that when she says she'll be right back, she actually is. Thank goodness for no commercial breaks on Korean TV.
11:30 pm - Go to bed. Fall asleep happy that one more day of intensives is over.