Today is White Day, the day when the boys give the girls gifts (on Valentine's Day, the girls gave the boys gifts). I recently found out that there is a Black Day too, on April 14. On Black Day, boys and girls who DON'T have sig oths dress in black, meet each other to eat black food (no, not soul food, but black-colored food like jja jjang myun, a noodle dish in a black bean paste sauce) and drink black coffee. Heh. I like it.

The writing test is over and done with, and I'm sure I didn't fail. All ROIGHT!!!

Monday I have my speaking and listening/reading tests, and Tuesday my oral exam. I'm not too worried.

So, this freelance project I referred to in the past two entries. It's for a private educational institute here (there are tons and tons of them) called Ivy League. See, these institutes (hagwons) prey on the fears of parents that their kid won't get ahead in life, so that the parents walk like zombies to the phone and enlist their kid in afterschool classes in English and other subjects. It sucks for the kids, who have to frickin' do MORE school after school. It's great for North American expats, who are in high demand as native English teachers.

Last year, my dad noticed this particular hagwon in the paper and called them up to say, "Hey! My daughter is ALL about the Ivy League. Don't you need someone on your staff that is, like legit?"

So we met with an Important Person and 2 Teachers on a freezing cold winter night, and the meeting went like this:

Teacher: So...you're a teacher?
Me: Um, no.
Teacher: Do you have any teaching experience?
Me: Uh...oh yeah, yes. I taught LSAT once.
Teacher: Oh. How about with kids, have you ever taught kids?
Me: No, actually, I hate the little buggers. Oops, did I say that out loud? (Actually, I just said no.)
Teacher: I see.
[Silence.]
Dad: I don't know anything about your company, I just saw Ivy League and thought we could talk together.
Others: Uh huh.
[Silence.]
Dad: Okay, then! Just give us a call if you need us.

And that was that. Dad has a history of cooking up schemes like these, looking for money-making opportunities everywhere. I used to feel annoyed and embarrassed by it -- why couldn't he just have a 9 to 5 job like everyone else? This time I was slightly embarrassed, but mostly amused. It was pretty damn funny to be sitting around a table with four other people, none of whom knew why the hell they were there.

The really funny thing, though, is that that WASN'T that. Last week I got an email from one of the teachers, asking if I'd be interested in writing some textbook material for them. I met with her on Monday, and it looked interesting: three books about American history and culture, four lessons per book, five pages of text per lesson, 10 to 20 sentences per page. And since it was geared for elementary school kids, it would be simple enough that I could just dredge up facts from my brain or the internet.

I left the meeting thinking I'd do it, despite a really rotten schedule (the first book would be due two days after my exams).

When I got home, I talked it over with my dad, who was of the mind that they weren't going to pay enough, since I'd need at least 5 hours to write up each lesson. So I thought, oh, fuck it, I'm not going to do it. Besides, I don't want to be stressed about this over my spring break, I need to relax.

Early the next morning was when I was woken up at 5 am by the woman looking for her husband next door (see March 11 entry). I couldn't get back to sleep, so I decided, "What the hell. I'll see how long it takes me to write up one of the lessons in the first book."

It took me 2 hours.

I thought, "At this rate, I'd be crazy not to do this! I'll call and accept during break at school."

I went to my Korean writing class, where I got totally freaked out by the stuff I didn't know for the exam. "I can't do this project," I thought, panicked, "I need to study my ASS off!"

So I called the teacher and said, "Hey, I'm sorry, but I can't do this, the timing sucks." She said, "That's okay, I understand. Can you drop off the materials I gave you?" Sure, said I, and hung up.

One minute later: It's a chance to write creatively about history! What was I thinking?

55 minutes later: "Uh, hi, this is Helen again. I'm sorry to be so indecisive about this, but I thought it over again, and I'd like to do the project after all. Call or email me, okay?"

I am freakin' SPAZZ MACHINE.

But this did not seem to deter the teacher, who emailed me to say that she understood my hesitation and that if I could deliver the book by March 21, let's get started. All roight!

On Wednesday, I delivered the lesson I wrote on Tuesday morning (from 5-7 am). I need to shorten it, but otherwise it seems acceptable, which is GREAT. I'm psyched to do the stuff (it's fun, and worlds more interesting than my currently sucking-the-big-one parttime job). My sole complaint is that I have exams on Monday and Tuesday and then must deliver the rest of the chapters by the next day.

As the Koreans say, "Whiting!" which is how the rather bizarre choice of cheers -- "Fighting!" -- is pronounced.