Alrighty, it’s been awhile!
But I know people want the skinny on the new digs and placement in Korea, so…
First things first:
My apartment is fairly good size and in a University area. All in all pretty nice except the Chinese restaurant scooters zipping back and forth kind of drives me a little nuts. It will probably be worse in the summer when I open the 3 layers of windows. There was an ant infestation when I first moved in but putting all trash in the freezer fixed that. The area is also convenient as it straddles two subway lines. There are a lot of parks nearby and restaurants and the biggest E-Mart (Korean Wal-Mart) I’ve ever seen. I think the shopping populace of that complex is equal to the whole population of Dogye, seriously.
Second things second:
I am working at an elementary. I have 19 regular classes a week grades 3-6, one special club class with grade 5&6 (English drama club) and recently acquired one class with the “daycare” kids after school with grades 1 & 2. I think my co-teacher thought I was a little kookoo for koco puffs at my happiness and agreeability to what equates to hell in the Korean school system. I don’t know much about class, as I don’t start teaching until next week. I get my own English room, which is nice. It has a working heater, which is even better. And a darling cleaning crew…
Third things third:
The students have a much higher level of English. I’m sure so far I’ve mostly met “the cream of the crop,” but so far they’ve been pretty good. I had one boy use ‘my’ and ‘your’ and ‘ours’ correctly! Oh wow, he can use pronouns! The girls were great too. I did trick some of my students. One of the younger students stuck their heads in and asked ‘is it a boy or a girl?’ in Korean. I looked over and responded in English that I was a girl, duh. Shocked the little boogers. They are now under the impression I am a master of Korean…
Forthly:
My main co-teacher is very nice and helpful. She’s very enthusiastic to have me around. It helps she’s just a few years older than I am. The rest of the staff is slowly warming up to me. I had a “tea party” which was maybe 30% English and 70% Korean with three of the women around my age. The surreal thing was that I understood a good 20% of the Korean, so I had almost a comprehension rate of almost half! And I’ve already been invited to two weddings.
In other news…
The Good:
~I bought an entire kitchen set up for $300. Arranging the mover was kind of a pain but it will be worth it. And I can resell to recoup the costs when I leave Korea.
~I won free tickets to a massive K-pop concert. I will be attending Sunday.
~I’ve reconnected with a bunch of friends and made a few new ones.
~I’ve almost gotten over the jetlag and am no longer waking up at 5 am.
~I am near Costco.
The bad:
~I’m burning through money ridiculously fast. Seoul is very expensive (although not really compared to London, Tokyo or NYC).
~The school lunches. Terrible. So many starches.
~I have about 500 students.
The Ugly:
~4.5 hours waiting at Immigration to fill out forms for my foreigner card. I still have to wait 2-3 weeks to receive it.
~Ongoing issues with the phone company, who I am paying, but they are refusing to give me service.
Please note this is my one happy, optimistic post for the year. Expect normal service to resume in the future.
Pictures to come. I've spent most of the week either sleeping off jetlag or socializing, so I haven't had a chance to explore and snap photos. Plus the house is a mess!
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