The Moon

I went to Itaewon on Monday to meet with a friend who returned to Korea for another teaching stint. We taught together at the same hagwon earlier this year. I use the word hagwon lightly as my previous employer did not actually have any classrooms of his own. Rather, he would provide teachers to schools all over Seoul until he needed these teachers on Jeju, where the real money is made. The camp on Jeju was called "Jeju International English Village", JIEV from herein. And why wouldn't they? According to The Bank of Korea, the private English education market accounts for 4 to 5 trillion won per year (That's 12 zeros. Equivalent to 5.06 to 6.34 billion AUD).

After catching up on what was happening back home in Sydney and reminiscing about our experiences working for JIEV, including but not limited to

1. Not being informed of the office's new location. The office changed location every three months. Apparently they were based in Suwon, Seocho, Bangbae and Bongchon in the space of a year.
2. Being taken to Jeju to teach at a camp, i.e., working 12-14 hour days. Legally, all any hagwon needs to do is pay a fee at the Immigration Office to change the teachers workplace. This was more annoying than anything else as we were told two days beforehand that we had to teach in Jeju. Apparently, they had lied to the schools about the teachers being ill for the time they were away from school (but at the camp).
3. Not having a return ticket booked for our flight to Seoul after my week at the camp. Firstly, they lied about the time of the flight (saying it had left at 9am when there was only one flight at 1:30pm) and then suggested we take a boat to Pusan and make our way to Seoul by train. This made me wonder how the company actually stays afloat as we were required to teach on Monday morning. It turns out they hadn't booked tickets anyway.
   

I noticed that the moon was moving very quickly. I like to think of myself as somewhat observant but I had never seen it move so fast.





This was the moon just about the left minaret of the mosque in Itaewon (a place I should visit while I'm here).



And this is the moon only 20 minutes later. Anyway, this inspired me to write

"Selene, what do you see?
  Witness to our grief and glee.
  Futile lovers, you and I.
  You had yours. Will I have mine?"