SJCC Reprographics, you rocked..

Just a few signs that this may not be the most organized unit in the Army fighting for the eventual victory of the English language (just before Chinese swallows it whole).

1) I get up early to check out my classroom and, heeding the map which helpfully notes that the Woosong Tower is either building N or Q depending on what class you teach. I head to the tower where I discover that my first class, scheduled in Q-301, is therefore to be taught somewhere in the middle of the on-campus Post Office. This can't be, but I wander in slightly larger concentric circles and discover it must be. OK, I figure, I'll head over the WLI building and get this straightened out.

2) The packet I have received for my first class (the one in the PO) was mysteriously absent a syllabus. I head over to the syllabus office where the nice woman tells me there isn't a syllabus and there isn't about to be one and I should really just leave because I'm in the way. OK, I figure, I'll head over to the Director's office and get this straightened out.

I head to his office and ask him if I need to write my own syllabus for this class. He says, "no, just go up to the syllabus office and pick it up." I tell him my story and he asks if the nice lady said when the syllabus would show up. I reply that she seemed to be saying, never. He looks off into the middle distance, bemused. "That's odd, I just off the phone talking to her about his, she really shouldn't have told you that." Turns out this is a "new" class with a new textbook and the department was supposed to create a syllabus but apparently hasn't. This is interesting and there's nothing I can do. I grabbed an old (electronic at least) syllabus and mark "Draft" all over it and adjust what I can.

3) Then I ask the director about where the mysterious "Q" building is? I tell him that it is marked as the Woosong Tower and he looks at the map and asks, "where did you get this map from?" I respond that I tore it out of the orientation manual that he himself gave me at orientation. Once again he looks off into the middle distance. "Well, that's wrong." He pulls me over to a window and points to the Q building which is right across the street, but nowhere near its position on the map. Good enough. I've got that.

4) Then I go to get my office key. The office man grabs every single key he has (in an unsorted pile on the top of his desk) and heads up to the 7th floor where he tries them all individually. None of them fit. I wonder if I might mention that keys could be.. oh.. marked in some manner? But I know better. Finally, he sighs, pulls his master key and lets me in. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to lock up when I leave.

5) But it's ok. I fix the paper jam in the printer and print out the syllabus and a page of "In English We Think" $500 bills (I'll explain that later). I also have a two-sided assignment that I'm going to give the students while I conduct brief one-on-one interviews to assess them all. I head down to 'reprographics' and it is a small room in the basement with one B&W copying machine. It is also locked tight. When I go upstairs to inquire they say, "oh he's working off-site this morning."

On the first day of classes? Surely you might guess someone would need copying done on that day? But no, the inscrutable Korean mind does not see it that way and so a steady stream of professors wander into the office, lone sad copies in hand, and hear the news, "come back later."

So I shall. I sit and cultivate an asian attitude of resigned patience. And build grudges. Oh yes, I build grudges! ;-)