Day 413: Even More Evil

I hate them! I fucking hate them! I seriously honestly really truly hate them!

GULMAEK IS SO EVIL!

Just when I thought they were evil enough already, that sinister hagwon across the street has made itself even more evil than before. They've gone and stolen two more of my students. Jim and Helen, two of my brightest and most chatty students in 6-1, have been swept away from me by those evil bastards who loom from across the street. No, they weren't satisfied enough with having stolen some of my students last year, now apparently they've got to steal even more of my prized class. Gulmaek needs to be destroyed!!

I honestly upset me so much today, as I kept wondering what the hell that does this school have that we don't? I mean, come on, we're POLY for Christ's sake. We're the creme de la creme. The belle of the ball. We're the #1 English Academy in Korea (as voted by readers of one of the major Korean newspapers last year)!!! In terms of English academies, our school is seriously the Harvard of them all. So why would anyone leave our school for...*cough* *spit* *choke on vomit*...T-H-E-M? I mean our school is so clearly obviously unabashedly better than their's, with our superior curriculam, our breathtaking dedication to our students' education and overall well-being, and the fact that they don't even have foreign teachers! What gives?

I went and talked to my bosses tonight to get the inside scoop. It turns out that Evil Gulmaek - *shudder* - does have an edge over us...in just two areas. They offer math and science classes for the older grades, which we do not, and they also gear their kids up for the TOEFL/TOEIC tests which we don't. They prep the kids for this ridiculously-intensive test that any kid needs to ace if they want to get into the best high schools, and then therefore the best universities. Basically it comes down to what the parents have in store for their child's future. If they plan on moving the family back to America or Canada or the UK or whatever one day, they keep their kids at POLY, as our overall English comprehension/transformation to fluency program is untouchably golden. And if they plan on staying here in Korea, they switch the kids over in Grade 6 to get them ready for the mountains of tests that the kids will be going through to get into the good schools. Ahhhh...now I get it.

It still sucks losing kids, but at least now I understand. Still...just because I understand it better now doesn't mean that I have to like it. I can still glare at that school from the inside of my classroom and hope that a random meteor blows up the school some day soon (but at night, of course, so that none of the students or less-than-mediocre staff are hurt!) ;-)