What the be-cheese-us!?

A piece of research I was reading today for my MA (Hugh Starkey: Language Education, Identities and Citizenship: Developing Cosmopolitan Perspectives) spoke of language teachers being pigeon-holed according to their nationality. I'm sure that strikes a chord with other people living somewhere other than where they grew up. "Oh you're from Ireland? Ireland is bankrupt. Irish people love to drink. Irish food is like Korean food (!!??)." etc, etc. "Your friend is English? He must be a gentleman." Need I say more? As a result of this, I keep a weary eye on the news from home. Please don't do anything to embarrass us! The recent story of a judge sending a man on a pilgrimage who shouted abuse at a Garda, for example. That'll sort him out! However, that story almost becomes complimentary when compared to what I heard on bbc 5live earlier. In these times of financial hardship, government unpopularity on an unprecedented scale, rising emigration among the young who can't get qualification-appropriate work at home, and a general sense of apathy, the Irish government have come to an ingenious conclusion. They know just what is needed! Incredibly, Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith has just announced that 1 kilo blocks of cheese will be made available to the needy for free "in time for Christmas". Not only is it internationally embarrassing, it is an insult to the intelligence of people who have had a lot to endure over the last couple of years. I'm certainly not in any rush to get home. Where do I sign that contract extension?

My day started with some proofreading work being thrown on my desk at the last-minute before it was needed. What a shocker. It was actually quite fun because it was an end-of-term course evaluation form for the English Department on campus. Most of it was what you might expect, related to the level of preparedness of the professors, quality of class materials, etc, etc. However, just thrown in there was the question, "Is Confucius Korean?" I'm not quite sure what that has to do with anything... More alarming were the mentions of cheating during exams. "Would you say there was a lot of cheating during the exam?" Possible answers ranged from "a lot" to "not much". I got the impression that a certain amount of cheating was expected, maybe even acceptable. Last week I informed the office that having marked the exams of two of my five classes without anyone getting 100%, there were then FOUR together in the third class. A little suspicious... The girls in the office just had a bit of a giggle. I do sometimes think about the possibility of doing my PhD in Korea in the future. Some of the things I've seen since I started working here make me worry about how highly-regarded such a qualification might be elsewhere in the world.

Before I go, a quick shout out for "The Outside View" podcast, which was absolutely top-notch this week. I'm looking forward to their play-off preview next week and it's great seeing the strides the pod has made recently. I've decided that I'm going to have one focus per week for my blog which I'll be doing a bit of research into with the hope of creating something a bit more substantive once a week, at least. A lot of my co-workers seem to have been speculating about 'fan-death' recently, so I guess that's as good a starting point as anything. Have a good day everyone!