Their Passive Aggressive Monster Refuses to Hunt

As with most people, for most of my life, I've been told what to do. "Be a doctor," my mother used to dispense in an effort to direct my creative energies toward something that might help others, in her own mind. "Think more about others," was usually the whimper of those who, selfishly, wanted me to take care of their problems for them. Saddled with backpacks full of what I "should be" or "had potential of being" time passed. I got used to hearing it, tuned it out, and focused on who I knew I was and wanted/needed to be.

This continued throughout college where I encountered professors who thought they could "fix me". A project to be started and left on the table in the garage while other things took their time. Then, I graduated. I left school and started working. The whole time my heart swelled with a desire to write. I would give myself an hour during lunch or a few minutes here and there to get an idea out, write about my situation, or write a story. It kept me grounded in the reality of David instead of the half-formed and misunderstood world others created for me. It was bliss.

Now, we're in Korea again. I'm sitting at a computer in the teachers room of the "best school in Gangam", being watched by my bosses. A couple, though not 'together', who have found something broken in me, or more likely a fissure in themselves, that must be filled. A disorganized man that only they can repair in their own baffling self image. It sounds childish on both ends, and it is, but that does seem to be the situation.

I've been pulled aside several times and told that I haven't lived up to their expectations. That I was asked to teach the classes whose English was the most advance because I was "intelligent" and had "taught in Korea before". There was doubt in their voice as they said this. As if they weren't quite sure the guilt soaked words pouring forth were even real. Then, they would repeat these things as if I had disappointed them. Like parents angry with a child for not following the rules they hadn't bothered to outline.

As punishment, I have to write lesson plans for all my classes. This may not sound like a difficult task, and generally it wouldn't be, if not for the mountain of other work I am asked to take care of. I grade tests and quizes, star and correct sentences and homework, read through and correct paragraphs and essays, create new syllabi, decorate the classroom, and teach classes. Usually I stay at the school past 7 pm, making nearly all days either 10 or 11 hours each. I sneeze and have blown my nose for the last three weeks straight with little to no time to think about improving my health. I'm beholden to the work. Their little man who is their same age but under them in the hierarchy of the school system and therefore, less important and capable of handling simple tasks. They "remind me" not to do things I have never done. They speak passive aggressively, their accusatory rhetoric used like a scalpel to remove layer upon layer of my own personality in favor of their own skin grafts.

This reads dramatic. A disproportional retelling of things that I am blowing out of proportion. However, they're things I've been told by others. That I'm not "acting like myself". And it's true, I'm not. No hour spent getting thoughts down on a page, no time to heal or think about ideas or health. Just school.

My bosses talked about another teacher, now the soon-to-be head teacher and the stress he dealt with in his first few months. I thought about him as they spoke - his passive demeanor, the way his chin rested between atrophied pecks when they spoke - and considered that these comments were made as a way of grooming me. That, perhaps, they thought I would make a good head teacher someday. The thought has brought me back to a blog I haven't written in in four years.