MY NEW CLASS: Part Hanah

Last semester I taught 15 hours, including a brand new course which I had to write on the run, and created the new Convo 1 class. I was also hit with several massive editing jobs including the College Catalog which had beentranslated major by major. Some majors apparently got their text by taking scissors to a thesaurus, flying the tatters in front of a fan(death), covering themselves in honey and rolling in the shreds of paper to see what stuck. Then, apparently, their secretaries rolled them onto a scanner that used Albanian language OCR, and emailed the results off to me (in an un-openable on my computer .hwp file).

I got a bit behind on grading during those periods.

So I went and talked to my handler and said that if there were to be any large editing jobs next semester, I'd need to have a smaller course-load.

She understood, and dropped me to 12 hours and with no new classes. It's worth explaining that a "new" class in the Korean Uni context means no existing goals, syllabus, books, whatever. It's from scratch.

Then, last Tuesday, just before I was to head to Gwangju for some pre-wedding celebrations of a Korean friend (posts to follow), I got a call from my handler.

Handler: Hey, we had an idea.

Me (afeared): Ah.....

Handler: We wonder if you'd like to teach a graduate class in Korean Literature in Translation?

Me (perfectly aware one does not say 'no'): Uh.. ok...

Handler: Great, the department chair and I were talking and we wanted to do this.

Me: For Fall?

Handler: Yeah, isn't that great?

At this point I'm looking at the three weeks I have left before leaving for Thailand and wondering if I could get a job in a Hagwon teaching Ecclesiastic Latin to children with Down's syndrome... Then my handler adds the kicker.

Handler: Yeah, we're so excited about this that I'll be auditing the class and so will the department chair.

Ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

Now I'm terrified.

After changing my underwear I received a second call:


Handler: Oh yeah, and we like Venuti's "The Scandals of Translation."

Note to self - read that... whatever the fark that might be.

Wednesday spent cobbling together a kind of syllabus.....

Then it was off to Gwangju, head uneasy.....

TBC...........