So here's the plan. I have yet to suss out the details of my leaving the school early with the head teacher. It's Tuesday, and I should talk to him before Thursday if I have any hope of an answer by Monday. I need to find out what the details of my salary will be, when I will be paid, and whether or not the school will give me anything for my bonus (supposed to be given to a teacher who completes a year contract) or my airfare (one way due to the teacher after each six months of teaching).

When Toby left, they kind of kept a chunk of his cash for "taxes". There is some (I think bogus) tax that this collects every year, even though we pay 5% of our salary into it every month. 5% is the maximum tax rate on foreigners working in Korea. So I want the school to deduct the extra taxes off this month's pay instead of my last pay so that I'm here to argue if I think it's unfair. I also want to ask if they will pay me any portion of my bonus or my airfare, even though it's pretty clear in my contract that I'm not eligible. The last (and most important) thing that I'm looking for, is to have my date of payment moved up from March 10th (by which time I will be in Ottawa celebrating Toby's birthday - no I didn't get the date wrong, I'm working with time zones) to March 1st.

So here's my strategy. I ask for the tax thing to happen directly. It shouldn't be too much of a big deal, especially since they just calculated Toby's a few weeks ago. Then, I will ask to be paid early. Then I will tell the head teacher that I would like to talk about receiving half of my bonus. If not my bonus, then my airfare. I fully expect the response to be that they will do the taxes off the last cheque, that they won't give me any part of my bonus or airfare (which I guess I don't technically qualify for), but that since they're saying no to the other two, they'll pay me early. Not on March 1st, but before the banks close on March 2 (the 1st is a holiday). So lets see how close I come. The head teacher doesn't look too too busy now...

In other news, great work to the folks at CASA. They've been working for years on getting some movement on more than just student loan reform, and the Prime Minister seems to be delivering. Congratulations! I can't wait to see those parental contributions details. How many years of student leaders have been asking about that?????