"Control Freak" by Copeland, Wednesday, February 17, 2021

I have to be in a certain mood to listen to tracks from Copeland's Eat, Sleep, Repeat. Today is the day. Artistically, Copeland's third record serves as a bridge between their rock/emo days and the band's future experimental days. Singer/lyricist Aaron Marsh tests out abstract lyricism on this record. While their latest album Blushing deals with some difficult subject matter, ESR is arguably Copeland's darkest record. This album was their only record on a major label, and "Control Freak" was the lead single. After this record, the band released a B-Side record and stopped touring for a while, and I feared we had seen the last of Copeland. Fortunately, the band returned in 2008 with the ear-candy record You Are My Sunshine, which I talked about last month. Copeland is a band that could have easily made it to the "love song" section of the month, as Marsh knows how to write an interesting love song. But as the song that I chose yesterday reminds us, the cold of winter can't all be candy hearts and boxes of chocolate. There are still bad days in February. And there are times when you're left "staring at the ceiling through the night."

DO YOU LOSE CONTROL WHEN YOU HOLD TO TIGHT? I didn't sleep well last night, as I don't sleep very well before important days. In December my supervisor asked my department to turn in our vacation plan, the days we were taking off. It was approved, but at the end of last week in February, my supervisor said that all teachers had to come in this week to prepare for school. It turns out my supervisor had given us the wrong dates. After some heated discussions, my department decided to come in just for today to renegotiate our contracts for the upcoming year. In Korea, school years start in March and many company employment terms begin in March as well due to college graduations happening in February. When we came in contracts weren't ready and no meetings were scheduled to sign. "What about tomorrow or Friday" was tossed around, but we were adamant on keeping the rest of our vacation in tact. We walked out with a signed contract just before lunch.

I'M IN LOVE WITH MY DOUBT. This is one of the downsides of working in Korea. There's a lot of top-down bullying. Schedules change or supervisors forget to tell you something until the last minute and you're expected to play along. I've found it's important to find a balance between taking one for the team and protecting your free time. I came to Korea with an open mind, but working with other native English speaker teachers and managing them has made me more of a union leader. It's a constant battle for control and "it's freaking me out."

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