No news is - the absence of news

Having received a contract on Wednesday, I posted it on the contract review thread on Dave’s ESL Café. And got some off-putting comments on it. The person commenting concluded, ‘I needed a really good laugh and this was it. Terrible terrible contract. Run! No amount of correction will change that. Move on.’

The thing about the ESL Café is that some of the most prolific posters are rather cynical. I worried about it for a while, and settled on two opposite opinions: a badly written contract isn’t a good augur, and yet it may only be a symptom of inept contract-writing and the feedback I had from the foreign teacher at the hagwon is perhaps a better guide. Being in two minds, I didn’t want to either accept it unconditionally or reject it out of hand.

So late last night I wrote an e-mail to my recruiter, Mi Young, pointing out some of the problems and suggesting improvements. It’s been nearly 24 hours now, and I’ve had no response. Presumably, she forward my comments to the hagwon and they haven’t given a response yet. No other news to report.

Except that I bought a couple of pairs of shoes yesterday. My primary footwear for the last few months are the cheap boots that served me well in Canada and India, but are getting increasingly worn away on the bottom - so much so, that the water that’s entered through the holes in the soles provides an almost permanent squelch. So I got a new pair of boots - brown, laceless - and a pair of blue sneakers. The latter I’ve tied loosely enough that I can put them on and take them off without bothering with the laces - this will be especially useful in Korea, where taking your shoes off is a way of life.