dun dun dun...Work..

Work~finally.

I started working on Monday 5/2/11. I have a pretty sweet schedule. I work from 11:25 to 5:45 OR 7pm. Those few hours, however---feel longer (so far). My first day was nuts. I have a class that has kind of a bad reputation, which isn’t good when they are only 4 and 5 year olds. There are only 8 kids in the class, 6 girls and 2 boys. I have other classes of other levels throughout the day, but 2 to 3 classes in a row with them every day depending on the day. Ugh. I’m trying to get a hold of them. “Laying down the law” is kinda hard when communication is an issue AND they are 5. All the rest of the classes, the toughest thing is dealing with the middle schoolers that don’t wanna be there because they are just coming from regular public school, and have that age’s attitude, AND, following the book pages and getting all the pages and workbooks and stuff like that straight. I am co-teaching with a Korean teacher..so, I teach one or two pages in a book and the Korean teacher teaches the pages before or after the ones I taught. It’s just confusing. I hope I can get a grasp of it soon. Anyways…I worked Monday to Wednesday. Why only 3 days, do you ask? Because I came at a spectacular time when it is “Children’s day” on Thursday and for whatever reason we have Friday off too, which I am certainly not complaining about. Oh, and wait for it…I have never been so interested in Buddha, until I found out his birthday is Tuesday and we ALSO have that day off. Thanks Buddha! Happy Birthday to you. J (for the record I DO know that’s horrible) I DO however, want to see if I can get near or go to some temples that are nearby-ish. There has been decorated paper lanterns put up all over the city, so I am very intrigued. I hope I can witness something very interesting. I’m not sure if it’s possible, but I would love to learn more about stuff like that here. J Very different. Wednesday night I ran into something very cool. A girl I work with invited me to “girls night” which is every wed. So, I went. We ended up going to an International Food Festival at a campus really close to our apartments. Well, after having some Indonesian food, we went to the concert/afterparty for the birthday of the college (so it said on the banner, “Happy Birthday Kaist”) a.k.a—anniversary. Pretty good night…free beer, free concert and got to see a K-pop singer , that apparently is popular –G.NA- ill take it…whatever, it was fun. Anyways, for the break...I will stay at my apartment that I FINALLY moved into on Monday, and do some stuff/ hang out with one of my co-workers, Sarah, who isn’t going anywhere either. Should be fun.

Exploration

Exploring a little

So, the Sunday before working, I met up with a friend who has been here teaching English for 2 years. We met in a different part of the city, by me taking a bus to somewhere I didn’t know, and didn’t get lost J yay me! She introduced me to a couple of her friends and we hung out in a coffee place and then went to Karaoke. For those that don’t know, karaoke over here (at least in Korea and Japan), is much better (I think) than karaoke at home. At home, you are 1. singing in front of people you don’t know, 2. Listening to potentially bad singing by people you don’t know and 3. Have to be, usually, in a crowded bar. Here, you get a group of your friends together, go to a karaoke place, (which are plentiful) and kinda “rent” a room for a couple hours. I did this in Korean Town in NYC, but it was more fun here. You are only with your friends, you can bring in food or order drinks and food and just hang out and sing. It’s really cheap and really fun. I’m glad I got the chance to go early on. I’ll definitely be going again, soon.

Leave it to me...

So, my “start” of work was the Saturday before I started teaching classes… There was a father’s day get together at the school so that the kids and their dads could come to the school and do some cute/certain activities together. Well, it started out fine til I got dizzy and started throwing up in the bathroom for like an hour. That was fun. The director told me to go home and thought I had, but I stumbled into the office and sat down and ended up throwing up in the office (at least in a garbage can), so, the director/manager of the school both took me to the hospital…of course I cant communicate, so they answered all the questions and stuff. They gave me some meds. The meds are kinda packaged strangely here. There are small individual packs in what look like tiny wax paper bags. There was like 5 or 6 different colored pills and stuff…sketchy. The director and manager from the school were really nice and got me some food that they usually eat when they are sick, easy on the stomach, etc. After a few hours of sleeping, I felt much better. I don’t know what happened, but—leave it to me to have some weird sickness. If that wasn’t bad enough, I ended up having to go the doctor again because of some red hives on my face from god knows what. My boss again took me to the hospital for an appointment. Got some meds; got better immediately. Yay. After all that, I have been doing much better for the past 5/6 days. Seriously, I am pretty sure diseased/sicknesses/clumsiness/anything that is annoying or harmful is super attracted to me. What the efff?

KOREA

Welcome To KOREA!!!!!!
So, I arrived in Korea on the 21st of April after a 14 hour flight, (which by luck ended up being quite comfortable with no one in between me and another American guy) a 3 hour bus ride to my city where I was met by the director of my school and brought to my 'hotel'. I was unaware that it was a "Love Hotel"...It is actually situated in a nice part of the city, close to many shops and convenient stores and restaurants, and pretty close to my school.
Well...I crashed as soon as I got to my room, because I needed to be at school at 10am the next (friday) morning, for observation. I followed teachers around and observed their classes to get an idea of how I should or would be teaching them. I was so friggin tired that I was barely coherent. I met my other foreign teachers...with me, it makes 6, while there are also 6 Korean teachers. I ended up going to dinner with 2 of my foreign co-workers, which was really nice. The restaurant was right across, basically, from my hotel, so it was easy to just go back and do nothing. I got a massive plate of garlic fried rice and some other stuff for 4 dollars. It was really good (I would end up going there for lunch on Saturday because I was afraid to go to a restaurant by myself.) and I was lucky to have a little help ordering and whatnot because I was with friends.
That weekend I just kinda vegged. No responsibilities, nothing to do....went to the mini shop (E-mart) that is pretty much like a mix between a Walgreens and a gas station/711. It's really really "convenient"...kinda like a convenience store, I suppose :D
Monday, I walked to work by myself. Well, actually I got lost by myself. I made it there 15-20 minutes after I was supposed to be there, and actually they were going to send someone out to find me. Leave it to me. I wouldnt be ME if I didn't get lost. Yay for my horrible sense of direction. HOWEVER....during the day---it's one way..at night, OH MY GOSH...totally different. It is so lit up and crazy, it's difficult to recognize things you see everyday. I'll eventually get used to the city...I hope. :)
So, yeah...that's Daejeon for now. I've had some pretty good food. Some co-workers took me to dinner as a "welcome"..we had a bunch of different stuff...I can't even tell you the names, because I don't know..but it was delicious.

Interesting fact about Korea: There aren't garbage cans ANYWHERE...

Pre-Departure!

So, it is just about 8 days until I depart to Daejeon, Korea where I will teach English for at least a year! Whoa! So, the big question is: How can I pack everything I need/want into 2 suitcases?! Besides the ordeal of packing...I'll be mentally preparing myself for a country I (let's face it) know very little about. I have several Korean friends that I have learned a lot from and have gotten advice from and whatnot....but Korea! New language, new people, new culture, new environment, DELICIOUS, SPICY, AMAZING new Korean food, living on my own, teaching....I am SO EXCITED!
My self-teaching of Korean hasn't really gone very well so far, but I am hoping once I arrive and really try, I will be able to pick up and piece together some sentences relatively quickly. I'm very interested in the language, so I will try my hardest.
I've never taught before except for tutoring or helping foreign friends with their English. I am a certified TESOL/TEFL instructor, but that won't be useful until I'm thrown into a classroom. I have so many ideas about how to teach young children, I cannot wait to see how much flexibility I have and how willing the children are to learn. I'm trying to keep my mind WIDE open as to how this is going to pan out. The internet is great for a lot of stuff, especially the fact that I was able to find this job, BUT---it is also horrible for putting ideas into your mind about how things are going to work out. There is always good with bad and vice-versa.
Anyways, I'm ready to go, I'm ready for new challenges, meeting new people, making new friends and just experiencing something totally different. Departure is April 20th 10:02am. BRING IT ON!