I go to work...

...to work.

I don't go to work to make friends or to actively socialize. I have no problem with going out and socializing with people from work AFTER work, but my time between 9am and 5 pm is for getting stuff done.

It seems to me that Korean teachers like to form close relationships with their colleagues, and it seems that very often those bonds of friendship are created while at school.

I typically see lunch time (12:20pm to 1:40pm-- eat your hearts out, teachers at home) as a time to get work done, because I never know if my schedule is going to be moved around. In Korea especially, I like to be as far ahead on my work as possible. It happens way too often that homeroom teacher rearrange classes. I need to be really in top of my schedule because I have a few additional classes on top of my regular classes. I need to create about 170 minutes worth of lessons on top of the regular classes. It's likely that I have the most classroom hours out of all the teachers in the school.... which means I have the shortest prep time in relation to how many classes I teach.

I think Ms. Kim has more total classes than me AND she's at 2 schools AND she has different text books and grades levels at both schools. I'm pretty sure she's secretly Superwoman. I think I need to tell her I appreciate her more often.

I know I can be very straightforward and I don't really beat around the bush. Since Koreans are generally extremely non-confrontational, I come off as unfriendly because I would rather just put my head down and do my work. I would love to be able to be outwardly friendlier, but the truth is I just have too many lessons to plan and essays to edit to be social and bond with the teachers like they bond with each other.