First Week of School

I know it's been like two weeks since my last post...but I FINALLY have Internet in my apartment! A lot has happened in these past two weeks so let's recap...

My first day of teaching was on Tuesday, September 1st. I was still staying in that motel at this time so my walk to school was less than 3 min which was really nice. I get to school about 8:30am, so it's not too bad. When I arrived, my co-teacher Johnson met me at the front door, I changed into my 'school' shoes and went immediately to a staff meeting where my introduction was going to take place. I was nervous. Johnson had given me about five sentences in Korean to say to the staff once the principal introduced me. I practiced about a hundred times in the hotel and a few times on the short walk to school. We sat at long tables in the schools library. We were the first ones there, and as the other teachers filed in, I began to doubt what little Korean speaking ability I had. Then a glimmer of hope...another American teacher walked in!! Her name is Tessah, she is my age and a recent grad from the University of Oregon. She works in the English center at the school. It was her first day too, so at least I wasn't alone. The principal introduced me, I said my little paragraph and everyone clapped...I'm sure it was a sympathy applause, but at least they weren't glaring.

Once all the introductions were over, Johnson and I went to our office and worked on some paper work. He seemed to be in and out all day...so I just sat and read over the teacher's manual and lesson plans. About noon we went to lunch. It's a little different to say the least. The trays are metal and resemble what I imagine prison trays to look like. Each lunch consists of a soup and rice, and three different side dishes. The food is actually really good. Everything is extremely spicy so I end up drinking my entire water bottle to try to keep my eyes from watering and my nose from running...it gets a bit embarrassing because no one else drinks anything with lunch. I am really trying to master the art of using chopsticks. I am terrible but I have improved. I catch the teachers laughing a little when I use them and I am always getting corrected...but I'm ok with it since they know what they are doing. The kids find it amusing to watch me eat as well.

After lunch Johnson told me that I can move into my apartment. So we went to the hotel and hauled all my stuff to my new apartment that is literally across the street from my school, which is so great. It's very small, but I got lucky with some of the amenities that were left from the previous owner. She left a stereo system, toaster oven, microwave, shelves and lots of other little useful items. The complex seems relatively new and it has a nice security system which I am quite fond of. When you walk through the front door you are immediately in the kitchen. It had a fridge, microwave, stove and sink. Just off the kitchen is the bathroom. Then I have the dinning room, bedroom, living room combo. And then that leads into the super small utility room where I have a washer and closet. It's quaint but I think it's going to work out just fine.

I found out that I have 22 different classes to teach. I have six classes of sixth grade, six classes of fifth grade, five classes of fourth grade and five classes of third grade. It's rather exhausting and the smallest class I have is 31 students! So it's about 700 students I have the pleasure of teaching a week!! But they are all so adorable and well behaved. When ever I walk down the hall they are always saying "Hello Sarah Teacher!" and bowing to me. I still am not used to the whole bowing thing. Korea is a culture that prides themselves on respect which is great...I'm just used to a good 'ole hand shake.

I left school around 5pm, and arrived home about 5:01pm :) I made a trip to Home Plus to get some hangers and a little bit of groceries. Came home and unpacked for literally about two hours just trying to get things organized!

Day two of school was more like a day of running errands. After looking for the nurses office for about 15 min to get my temperature checked (part of my daily routine), Johnson and I went to the bank so that I could deposit the money I had been carrying around as well as exchange some remaining US dollars. We ended up going to several different banks so that I could get a good exchange rate, which I appreciated, but it was still all kind of a pain in the butt. We went back to school to eat a delicious lunch and then we picked up Tessah so he could take us both to get our Alien Registration cards. We got lost on the way there but finally made it. We waited in a long line to register and then we had to wait a week for them to come in. I was so embarrassed to attach my passport photo to the registration form. I had to get one taken here since I didn't have anymore...and needless to say, it looks like a mug shot. The woman would not let me smile...she slicked my hair behind my ears and didn't even tell me when she was taking the picture...it's awful and I hope I never have to show the card to anyone. When my co-teacher saw the picture...he couldn't stop laughing.

On the way back from registering, instead of going right back to school, Johnson took us to a Whale museum right off of the port. It was pretty cool and some of the pictures they had from when Whaling was legal, were just amazing. It was a nice little cultural outing. Finally we got back to school and I showed Johnson the powerpoint that I made to introduce myself to the classes. He really liked it and when he saw the photo of some of my friends (Sarah Montgomery), he whispered that he really likes tall women! Haha...I thought you might like that Monty!

Thursday the 3rd was the first day that I actually got to begin introducing myself to the classes. I met with four of the fifth grade classes and showed them my powerpoint. Every picture they saw they would literally "ohhh and aww" over. After the slideshow, I give them the rest of the time to ask me questions. I got some of the strangest questions. The first two that I always got were how old I am and how tall I am. They think I am like this amazon woman when I tell them my height. Then I give them the height of the rest of my family and they can not believe it. They all just gasp...it's really cute. I have also been asked my blood type several times, (they all know theirs), my favorite type of clothing fabric, and just really odd questions...but it was kind of fun, until the 22nd time I had to do it. That's right...I had to introduce myself 22 freakin' times!!

Also, Thursday was the day that I noticed the kids clean the school themselves! They mop the floors, vacuum, clean the windows, bathrooms everything. It's actually a great idea because they keep it a lot cleaner during the day so they don't have as much work to do later.

School wise, Friday was pretty much identical to Thursday. Did some more introductions, went to lunch, worked on some activities for the students to do, sweat ed to death (there is no air conditioning), and went home. However Friday night, Andrew and I met Tessah at the bus stop where we went down to the Ulsan University area. She had been their several times but we hadn't. It's a very cool little bar strip and out door shops. We went to a western type bar for a little while and had Johnson meet us there. We saw several other EPIK people down there which was cool. Tessah had to leave to meet some friends so we just decided to walk around and feel the place out. There were several people dressed up as giant bottles of Soju (their vodka) and handing out bottles for free! Andrew and I managed to get six between the two of us so we called it a successful night. We thought Johnson was leading us out of the bar area and back to the bus stop but he had another agenda.

He took us to MyPark. It was a Karaoke place. I am not quite sure how to explain it. It was a building with a bunch of little rooms and I felt like it's what a brothel would be like. You walk up and down the hallways until a room is available. Andrew, Johnson and I crammed ourselves into a closet type room with a flat screen, two microphones and a song book. I just looked at Andrew like what the heck are we doing here. Johnson shoved the songbook in my lap and told me to go first. I was like ok...what the heck. I could hear the group next to us belting it out and they were just awful, so I felt a little more confident. Next was Andrew then Johnson. Johnson sang an old Carpenters song which was hilarious and actually pretty good, then Andrew and Johnson sang a duet to 'Take Me Home Country Road.'

Saturday and Sunday I just did tons of laundry and relaxed. I needed to prepare for my first full week of school.