Just a matter of waiting now...

...waiting to see if John finds another job by the end of the week. He's been looking but hasn't had the greatest luck. The fact that he's 45 and has a family are both heavy strikes against him. It didn't help that the one time he gave the information of where he was currently working to the recruiter ended up being a HUGE mistake. It cost him dearly and it cost us the ONE family recruiter over there. I don't know what really happened as far as why his contract was terminated. I've been talking to a mom over there, a mom who is a teacher there herself and has been there for awhile with her husband and child. Unfortunately, there are both good and bad hagwons (private schools for ESL in Korea) and John was unfortunate enough to get a bad one. It could have been the lack of experience (especially as the director usually hired teachers with a teaching certification which John never had and she hired him knowing that), it could have been that he looked older than he liked (Koreans can be a bit prejudiced about that, they like them young). It also could have been the parents having a problem with a male teacher teaching kindergarten (a prejudice that is alive and well in this country too) or something as stupid as his hair not being short enough or his pants not pressed enough or something like that. He did have the flu at graduation time which was when the parents were all there. He, I guess, crossed his arms during the ceremony which I guess is frowned upon. Personally, I think John was hired out of desperation and the director was looking for a reason to get rid of him but it really ticks me off that she then ruins any chances of him being placed anywhere else with one recruiter.

On top of that, now one of the other foreign teachers there is being absolutely hostile to him. In all honesty, and this is sad but sadly, not surprising, ALL of the problems he has been having there have been due to females. The director is a female. The co-teacher John shares his classroom with is a female and not only that, is also the director's cousin. The foreign teacher who is now giving him issues is ALSO a female and not only that she's an African American from Florida SO... Yeah, maybe I'm stereotyping just a smidge but unfortunately, some people really play into certain stereotypes and that has definitely been the case in this situation. Unfortunately for John, he's not the typical male. He's not agreesive. He isn't even assertive in situations like these and I do think that didn't help with dealing with all of these women and sorry to say, I do think that women who are in a position of power tend to over-compensate for what they don't have, if you know what I mean. In other words, they tend to be nasty. I even talked to someone once who was working under a woman and ended up fired, all because the boss got her period and needed someone to take it out on. And this is not the first time that John has ended up fired while under a female supervisor. Maybe they're not afraid of him so feel they can treat him like crap because he is so easygoing? I don't know but it's annoying and it makes me feel like I have to go and protect him because well, I'm definitely not a passive person and most who know me can testify to that!

So for now, I'm just waiting to hear what is going to happen. He's got a couple of prospects and hopefully something will bite before the week ends. Otherwise, if he hasn't found anything by the 7th, we're going to start making plans for him to come home. And that is really going to be hard because we've gotten rid of so much stuff in anticipation of being gone for two years that we don't have everything we need and yeah, I can maybe get some of it back but it's going to be hard, especially anything that went to my older sister's. She's not good at giving stuff back. Usually, once she gets it, she keeps it. We would have to figure out where to live. We would have to find an apartment and John at least would have to get a job. I probably would need one as well. We would need a car, more than likely and we would have to get everything set up with whatever county we're in for assistance. There would be a TON of details we would have to work out and figure out and so I'm really hoping he finds something over there. The job situation in Wisconsin is not good. Where I'm at now, there are layoffs happening all over the place. Both my younger sister's husband and his brother have been layed off. Their dad may be as well and the plant could even close. Trane which is HUGE here, is having layoffs again. I'm not quite sure what to do. Places are closing, things are changing big time here and it scares me. I was really hoping to get out of here before it got REALLY bad and now, we might not be able to.

It makes me mad sometimes. This is something John really wanted to do. He had FINALLY figured out what he wanted to be when he grew up and his focus for the last FIVE YEARS has been convincing me to go there with him. He WANTS to be there to teach which is more than I can say about most of the kids that go over there. Most of them, are there for the money and ONLY the money. They're single, with no care in the world and spend most of their NON-teaching time drinking and complaining on the ESL cafe about how miserable it is over there and how much they hate it. And yet those people are more attactive to the schools than a man with a family who actually WANTS to be there to teach, sees it as his calling. It's sad and it really points out how screwed up the world is.

So, I don't know. I've been trying to stay optimistic and be hopeful that everything will turn out alright but I have my moments when I just want to cry because I really don't know what's going to happen and I'm scared that everything is just going to end up completely and totally screwed up. At least I'm in town right now and not staying with my older sister. The whole thing with the electricity was the final straw for me (and for Natalie). We're staying with my younger sister and I've been helping her out as much as I can, helping her with the two kids and making sure she eats and gets some rest (not easy). Her life has been upside down too but at least now maybe things will calm down a little for her. Her husband at least has finally told her that he does not want to come back, he wants to stay with the girlfriend and so they will be going through with the divorce. As bad as divorce is, I think it is the best thing for them because he was using her. He was leading her on while getting more and more involved with the other woman and he was basically setting the two women against each other. It was ugly. And it was really stressing my sister out. She was losing weight, she was having contractions (she's only 33 weeks pregnant), she was having trouble staying calm which the kids need her to be right now. It just wasn't good at all. And now, with it being over for sure, I think she can move on, put her focus where it needs to be which is on the kids, and do what she has to do to make a family with them. And her husband? Who knows what will happen. Personally, I don't really care as long as my sister is okay.

So that's what's going on with me right now and all I can say is that I will update more when I find out more which should hopefully be sometime before Monday. John's last day at the school he is at is February 13th. After that, I'm not even sure he can be in the country legally unless he has another position so we'll see what happens. I'm just glad we're not there right now because that would really be stressing me out and that wouldn't have done John any good. At least with us here, I'm calm for the most part and he's able to focus on what he needs to do which is find another job. So, we'll see what happens.