september 30th-october 2nd - "work week one"

I road in Mister Park's car to work that morning. He tried to make small talk but I mostly stared out the window. I wasn't sure if I should be paying attention to how to get there or not. Shortly there after I was lead to the "faculty room" where I quickly jumped at the chance to check my facespaces and gmail and let some people know I had arrived safely. There was a girl in the room, Liz, who introduced herself. She was another foreign teacher. She then told me she was working and asked me to be quiet.

Over the next hour or so I met fifteen or so other teachers, probably about ten foreign: American, Canadian, British, and South African. One teacher, Lizelle, from South Africa, came up to me while I was still gmailing and said, "When you get a minute, come talk to me and I can let you know what you'll be teaching today." I almost choked. I looked at her dumbfoundedly. You've got to be kidding me. Remember, I got off the plane less than 8 hours previous. She proceeded to give me multiple packets of papers, all equally confusing to my delirious mind. "Ben Teacher" (whom I replaced) wrote the lesson plans for the following month. You would think that would be awesome, but they're really overwhelmingly detailed and they're so many of them!

During the second class that day, I ran out of the class room and threw up. I cried at least once every day that school week. Everyone kept saying, you just need to get on Korean time and equally unhelpful stuff like that. I had no problem being on Korean time as I missed almost three nights of sleep! I ate a total of one meal, two bowls of soup, and a granola bar in the first 5 days I was there. So I was basically a starving, sleep-deprived, deer-in-headlights the whole first week.

I spent two nights at the Hotel Regency and was then moved into my flat. I miss the Hotel Regency. Nothing says "Welcome to Korea" better than a nice hotel and a jacuzzi with detachable shower head. Can't say I have anything quite like that now. Remember how I joked: I wonder if they have detachable shower heads in Korea? Well, it turns out that's ALL they have! What I should have asked is if they have showers... That would be "no." Well, I'm sure some people do, but most don't. I spray the entire damn bathroom down with water when I shower. It's tricky to remember to leave your towel outside of the room before you enter, takes some getting used to. Also, I'm not allowed to wear shoes in my apartment, according to the school. It "hurts the flooring." Very delicate floors if you ask me. My apartment is not so bad really. It has one main room with single bed, tv, dresser, wardrobe, desk, old stuffed pleather chair, a small table with two chairs, and separate tiny kitchen and bathroom. I have a washing machine which I'm pumped about. It's nice not to have to go to the laundry mat like I've been doing. No one uses dryers here, just giant drying racks. You'll see them outside of peoples apartments too

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Misc. Details from my first week:

I have cable, a few channels are US, in English, so have been watching House, Law and Order, CSI, Heroes quite a bit.

Women do not smoke on the street here, only men. A teacher told me she got hit over the head by some old woman (agama?) the other day for doing just that in public.

I am sick already.

I have one friend, Jen. Who likes me!

The teachers are in various buildings around the school area, all within quick walking distance, two of the female South African teachers are in my building and one married dude.

I teach IK (Intensive Kindergarten, very accurately named) in the AM, two different classes, and two different ones in the afternoon too, along with a "Returning class." Returning class, meaning kids that went there for Kindergarten that now attend Korean school and come back in the afternoon to stay up on their English.

Kindergarten in Korea is three years of schooling before 1st grade, ages 5-8 about. But when a Koren child says they are five they are really only 4 or younger in Western age. I have mostly third year student classes who are very proficient in their English, in my opinion. The returnees in the afternoon I am supposed to teach grammar, writing, debate, and science to! I had no idea I would be teaching anything but strictly English before I came here. I also have an afternoon kindergarten class that are first year students. One of the kid's names is Elvis, well, that's the English name his parents gave him. He literally ran out of class my second time with him. I felt pretty silly running around the school calling "Elvis, come back here! ELVIS!"

If kids make "really bad choices", we send them down to the Korean teachers because they can be more strict speaking to them in Korean and threatening to call their parents which they can actually do. The Korean teachers are "partner teachers" and basically act as spies as far as I can tell. They are paid to teach grammar rules, like punctuation, in Korean and a few other classes, but then also to observe the foreign teachers' classes and call home to the parents to report, aka "tattletale." Awesome.

All in all, it was a pretty terrible start.