So busy

I have been sooo busy this past month with all my classes. Every week I have to grade 18 1-2 page essays, 17 short essays, 12 story summaries, 12 character analyses, prepare two pages of in-depth discussion questions for two classes (questions such as, how does the author use chiaroscuro in the story, what is the purpose of parody, what are the conflict, plot events, and resolution of the story, how does the author use housework to illustrate the deeper meaning of the story etc.), grade 12 word tests that include spelling, part of speech, and sentences, etc, and that's only for 6 of my 13 classes. Those are my most work-heavy classes, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to the others. As I've mentioned before, I tend to get to work an hour or two early, stay 30 minutes, grab dinner, then grade papers for an hour or so, then go to bed. Now, in addition to all that, I have midterms to grade.

Today, however, I caught up...somehow. I have nothing big to grade this weekend, and my usual online overtime is smaller this week for various reasons. In short, I am relieved almost to the point of tears. I want to assign less work so I will have less work to grade, but if I do that the students won't learn as much.

I traveled to a nearby city and bought a used Xbox 360 from a guy. I had been debating over it for months, and finally decided to do it. I had been spending between $5-10 a week in internet cafes, playing Starcraft b/c I was bored (until I got so busy, that is). I bought the 360 and two games for around $200, and I probably won't be going to internet cafes anymore, so technically I kinda saved money. In addition, John is moving to China and it'll be nice to play Halo with him, in addition to Mike and Alex who are still in South Carolina. I don't have Halo yet, but I've been able to talk to both Mike and John while playing different games, so that's pretty cool.

I've been thinking a lot about extending my contract or not, and it basically boils down to a job. If I don't have a job setup in America when my contract is up, there's almost no point going home to the economy and trying to find one. However, I can't imagine a situation in which I would extend more than 6 months, so I'll almost certainly be back in the country before September 2010. My friend Austin, however, has been doing independent website design. He's been able to make pretty good money and, from what I can tell, keep pretty steadily employed. If I can manage to study some programming languages while I'm here, I could head back to America after my 1 year, assuming nothing keeps me here (primarily the proverbial girlfriend). Doing programming will also allow me the opportunity to travel and see the friends who will, by that time, scatter to the corners of America. The problem will be finding time. Therefore, I'm considering not doing the online overtime next semester, which will cost me ~$100/week, but will also give me ~5 hours/week. Knowing myself, however, those 5 hours may go towards things not productive. It's all very tentative, as you can see.

On a totally unrelated note, ThePirateBay.org is being bought out for just under 8mil and it will become subsidized. A horrible blow to those of us who believe information should be free. I have never thought much of what I am able to produce or give, and have always had trouble charging for it. For instance, I taught surf lessons for free through much of high school and college, even though they go for ~$30/hour for a private, and I taught flute lessons for almost 2 years for free. I also have a difficult time imagining teaching private lessons here in Korea for money. It upsets me to see some charge outrageous prices for, what amounts to, frivolity. Thus, in Korea where there are no ramifications, I shall pirate all the media I can, while I can.