502

Funny that I wrote yesterday about the noises in my apartment. Today there has been terrible noise from the apartment directly downstairs, #502.

It started this morning at 8:30am. Piano. LOUD piano. It must be electric, because it's not usually that loud. It woke me up. Now, I have a soft spot for kids practicing their instruments since I grew up playing the piano, but come on... This was loud enough to wake me and cause Grace to stir. And since it's electric, there's no excuse!

So I threw on a housecoat, went downstairs and rang the doorbell. No one answered. Then I saw the window start sliding open (there's a window that opens to the hallway), and a little girl peeks out. I can only imagine what she thought upon seeing me, a dishevelled foreign woman standing in the hallway in my pajamas. The piano stopped -- for a half an hour! She's lucky I was so tired and Grace was sleeping so deeply. I chose not to get up again.

1:00 pm. I finally got Grace to go for a nap. It took 20 minutes of effort, so I was very happy when she finally dozed off and I sat down to read The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. Suddenly there is the sound of scuffling, yelling, crying (I mean screaming crying!), slamming of doors, etc. It's 502 again! It sounds like there are a bunch of kids down there rough-housing. This goes on for about 10 minutes.

The only thing that kept me from going downstairs to ring the doorbell again (this time until they answered) was that Grace was still sleeping. Had she woken up, there would have been a scene.

I hope I don't sound like some parent who's all -- I-have-a-baby-so-everyone-should-be-quiet. Far from it. I've endured lots of noise before this with no complaining. And before I had Grace I tried to keep the noise down. I have an electric piano. I don't play it very often, but when I do I keep the volume down or I use headphones. I always keep the volume on the TV at a reasonable level. To me these are just things people should do when living in an apartment building.

Rant over!

Apartment life

I don't like living in an apartment building. In the city. I'm still not used to it after nearly 7 years. I don't like being able to hear other people. It's weird. I'm not going to miss this aspect of life in Korea when I move to Canada some day.

Here's a sampling of the sounds I hear in my apartment.

4:30 am daily, a man upstairs (I think), hacks, coughs, and spits for at least 15 minutes. It's really disgusting. He must set his alarm every day to do this. I think he should be in the hospital by the sound of his cough.

6:30 am (random days), there's a guy who sells tofu outside, alerting everyone to his presence with a megaphone. I don't know who needs to buy tofu at 6:30 in the morning, but I guess someone must.

8:30 am (maybe every other day), there's a guy who sells vegetables outside from his truck. He also uses a megaphone.

From 4:00 pm into the evening, the neighbors' kids go to hakwons (private schools), so they're in and out, slamming the door and talking in the hallway.

Then there's just random things, like one night last week when the neighbors were having a fight at 2am.

What prompted me to write this? Well, just another random thing. Someone is moving something upstairs and making loud noises. One of the rare nights I get Grace in bed early, she's woken up by this noise! She was also woken up yesterday afternoon from her nap by the neighbors' kids going to hakwon. They slammed the door pretty hard, hard enough for me to get a jolt, and of course Grace is fussing a few seconds later. Lucky for those kids, I was just in my tank top, so I didn't have time to put on my robe and catch them before they got in the elevator. If this happens again, I'm going to knock on their door. I'm sure a visit from a sleep deprived foreign woman in her bath robe speaking broken Korean would give them something to talk about for a while!

Or so I thought

I'm at the end of my rope with this project. The work just does not end. I've been working for days on end (even weekends) straight. I've finished nearly all the writing, but now I have to do the vocabulary test questions, which I was assured would be easy. I'm now in the process of writing 150 questions. Then I have to fill in some totally useless exercises called "listening tips" which don't even belong in these books. Then I'll have to put the units (36) in order of difficulty. Then I'll have to write the last unit because I couldn't bring myself to stay up past 2:30 a.m. yesterday. Then there will be something else that they'll email me with to do. Looks like it's another 3:00 a.m. bedtime!

Even worse than all this work is that I don't even believe in the books. I was not involved at all in the planning process, and do not agree with how the books are laid out. I expressed this concern to the project manager at the beginning, who basically said, "Yes, you're right, but this is what my boss wants, so let's just do it this way." I would have gladly gone into their office for a meeting or planning session. Instead, I lost interest in this project very early on because I don't see any teaching philosphy behind these books! I'm merely finishing them now so that I don't soil my name with this company.

On top of it all, the pay is not good. Actually, it sounded good in the beginning, and it might sound good if I were to tell you, but I was foolish when I signed the contract. I did not realize what a massive project this was. This kind of project would have been suitable for a team of writers, not one. I am being paid the same for this project as I was for the "I Can Speak English" series for grade one kids, and that series was a piece of cake to write -- mostly pictures!! I'd say these listening books are about 5 times the work of those books. I don't even want to think about money right now...

So I guess I've kind of missed deadline again, but I don't really care because I'm beside myself with anger right now. What are they going to do -- fire me and get another sucker to finish the project? Sure.

I'm going shopping tomorrow.