Kors + meetings = stick a fork in my eye

Kors came! Korstiaan Kors (or something like that) came to Aden this session, our Amideast office in Al Mukullah was shut down- Previously I wanted to go there, but it is in the highly lawless region of Hadramout, so clearly, that wasn’t going to happen. And also I discovered that the Al Mukullah “office” was really just Kors teaching four classes a day and running all the administrative duties as well… so okay, I’ll stay here. But I (in a completely uncharitable act that goes against my angelic, benevolent nature) decided that I was predisposed to not like him. EVERYTHING I had heard about him was overwhelmingly positive. “Oh Kors is the best teacher!” “He is so funny!” “He plays the guitar!” “He really knows what he’s doing, what a natural teacher! He just makes class alive!”
Oh barf. What a goody-goody. Matt reminded me that it was other people saying these things, not Kors himself. But still, no thanks. I choose not to like him.
The first time I met him was at the pre-session teachers meeting. Already a hellacious endeavor, Kors only exacerbated a dreadful, mind-numbingly boring situation by being APPALINGLY enthusiastic about teaching. He isn’t the only one, the amount of joy some people attain by discussing teaching theory, learning style, grammar instruction, and classroom methodology among other equally stimulating topics absolutely boggles my mind.
Everything really came to a head when someone mentioned spelling lists. It piqued my interest momentarily because I was all, huh? We are supposed to give them spelling lists before the tests? I just say if it’s in the book, if I write it on the board, learn it. Know it, it will be on the test. Verbal debate ensued about providing students with spelling and vocabulary lists prior to exams to aide studying (it promotes rote memorization vs. it helps the weaker students/multi-level classes succeed). People were getting downright heated, many a voice was raised with everyone shouting exuberantly at the same time, with no progress being made or end in sight. As the spelling list debate waged on (and on and on and on…) I doodled some pictures (swine flu, life under the sea), and made some bullet points on a piece of scratch paper:
- I am soooo young (this was in regards to starring around the circle of my colleagues realizing that besides Ben, I was the only one without multiple children, or even grandchildren)
- I cannot work here anymore (listening to even one more minute about teaching methodologies was going to put me perilously close to an explosion of some sort, probably involving loud yelling)
- Spoon analogy? Really? Get it together.(in regards to a horrible, misused analogy of spoon-feeding the students answers that was enthusiastically repeated over and over and over again)
- I need to work on my footwork for left-handed hooks (boxing)
Throughout this trying and traumatic ordeal Ben and I had many occurrences of burning eye contact and giving the secret “we gotta get the hell out of here” signal expressing mutual commiseration, horrification, and an undercurrent of nausea.

Eventually I had to meet Kors. I called him out on perpetuating the absurd spelling list debate, he manned up and apologized. He was forgiven. I apologised for making an unfounded snap-judgment of his character. I was forgiven. All is well.
He laughs at my jokes which is clearly a point in his favor, and it’s nice to have someone fun and young in the office. He teaches in the same room after me and sometimes I don’t wipe off my dry-erase board after class so I can wow him with my superior in-class time management, Pictionary-style teaching approach. And the frequency with which I jokingly teach my students a Spanish word instead of English. Yeah, I’m pretty good at my job.