The Competition

Now competition is a word that describes Korean education as it is very competitive. However, what I'm going to tell you has nothing to do with education. While the kids in the classes are very competitive, I'm referring to an event for teachers and school staff. During the second week of classes, all the school staff gathered together in the gym to play a friendly game of volleyball. I figured yea this will be a good way to meet all the new teachers.

Some of the younger teachers greeted me and all of us were placed on teams. What I didn't know was that I would be on a team that couldn't lose. What I mean is I was on the team with the principal, which was very competitive. I mean I was one of the best players but he said to me, "you will need training" lol. I wasn't sure if he was joking or being serious.
It was funny watching the principal play though. He would always criticize the guys that missed a point or screwed up. But he would only criticize the men not the women, lol. He got on me a couple of times even which is never good. I couldn't let my team down so I made sure that we would win.

Our team ended up winning the match 3 games to 1. It was really funny to see some of the women teachers play. Some were really good while others didn't have any athletic talent. My co-teacher, Ji-young didn't really like sports but it was funny watching her try to hit the ball. I scored like 10 points for our team so I guess the principal was just wanting to win really bad. One of the guys on our team kept messing up and the principal would yell at him in Korean which I translated as to "What are you doing?" it wasn't but I could tell that's the message he was sending, lol.

After playing the game, there were snacks but to me it was like a feast, lol. There were rice cakes, chicken, vegetables from gimbap, grapes and much more. There was soda, beer, soju, and something called gamju, it had like rice in the drink. All the food was so delicious. And it was the first time I drank alcohol at school, lol. Sports and beer are ok in my book. Apparently it's a club at the school and we do activities like this every month. I'm considering joining the club.