::A Geek in Korea::

Today, if things were right with the world,would have been Arbor Day in Korea. I say “would have been” because two years ago the South Korean government wiped it’s holiday status as a concession to businesses for officially moving to a five day work week. While it’s still technically celebrated, it’s not celebrated in the “close the banks and schools” manner that gives me a day off work. It’s more of a “Groundhog Day” sort of holiday now.This was my “issue” of the day. I managed to bring it up in each class no matter the age or relevancy. Any time a student was late, I’d ask them nonsensical questions relating to the holiday. I did my best pundit spin on the issue to try to stir up controversy.

“Did you just get back from planting a tree, is that why you were late?”

“Uh, no teacher. That’s not why we…”

“Oh, you were you to busy stepping on flowers and burning down forests to come to class on time? Is that it?

“Why do you hate trees so much!? Knock it off! Be quiet! Stop crying! Where’s your homework?”

I’d have cut their microphones too, but they don’t wear any. They call me a bully, but I think I got my point across in a condescending and intimidating manner that made it very clear everyone should agree with me or face intensive punishment and lots of homework.

The entire day I was asking students if they were aware of the whole “missing holiday” issue. Most of them had a “It sucks, but what are we going to do about it?” attitude. Typical “surrender all your holidays to people that hate your free time,” behavior.

One student jokingly told me that there were actually so many cases of accidental forest fires caused by people smoking in parks and on previous Arbor Days that there might have been a net loss of trees. He said it might be a good idea to keep people at work if we wanted to save trees on Arbor Day.

Forest fires be damned, I plan to launch an extensive smear campaign against him and his kind that spread lies about the nature of Arbor Day. The War on Arbor Day must end!

I heard he likes to eat dogs, but that’s not a rumor I can confirm at this time. It’s just a preliminary report that I’m sure we’ll hear about later. People that hate holidays like to eat adorable puppies while burning trees in National Parks.

This sort of puppy kicking defeatist attitude leads to the loss of holidays. What’s next? No more Children’s Day because children don’t get all the gifts they want from their parents? There is no time to talk about how many trees we’ve lost to accidental forest fires when we’ve got my afternoon to save.

Just so you know, I’m the guy that complains about Day Light Savings making me wake up an hour earlier. I’ve been on the front lines of this sort of confrontation before. If the farmers want to get more done, let them adjusts their alarm clocks, or failing that, train their roosters to wake them up earlier. I shouldn’t have to change my habit of sleeping in for someone else. I’ll fight to the death for my right to sleep in, and anyone that doesn’t agree with that doesn’t deserve a clock to change!

Of course, they don’t have Day Light Savings in Korea, so I can’t make a big deal out how “time hugging farmers” are ruining people’s lives. This lack of Arbor Day might only be a single day on the calendar, but the principal must be defended! There is a war against public holidays in the country and someone has to take a stand for everyone that loves freedom (from school)!