After an awesome weekend with Suzi, Emily and crew I had to start work. The school is super cute and there are tons of cute pictures, decorations, sayings ("A good book is same as good friend" ohhh korean english) and books and games to play with. I show up day one at 9:15 and Hanna, the head teacher, tells Joel and I about our schedules and classes for a couple of minutes. She says "any questions" and lets us go. 9:50 and I am officially teaching my first class. The kids are 6-7 and I think that's in Korean years which means they are actually 5-6 (they count gestation period as a year of life. I'm going with they don't believe in abortion here). The first day was pretty taxing because I'm not used to working from 9-6, or at all for that matter. I learn that I am the Cedar class teacher, yet all of the classes switch every 35 minutes. The kids are so cute and I already have my favorites. Joshua (they all have English names) is really cute and just always has this down trodden look on his face that makes me want to pick him up and hug him! And then there are the bad kids. Harry is the one that sticks out, but he's also one of my favorites because he's so cute and understands English pretty well for a 6 year old! I have 8 or 9 classes a day and usually have lunch with my Cedar class except on T/T when I have lunch with Spruce, who are younger. Lunch is presented on site and I have to serve it to the kids, and clean it up, which honestly hasn't been that bad so far. I found out today that every other month I teach the special cooking class. So in October I need to figure out a dish to prepare with kids. Suggestions? The kitchen is so cute and I'll have to post pictures soon. If I can find the school's website I will post it. But it's in Korean so it's not that easy to find on google....see goal 2 below.
It's pretty laid back and I definitely have some leigh way as to how much I prepare or don't prepare. Not going to lie business school and working for the past 3 years has not set me up well to deal with little children. I miss you Laganas!!!!
I love all of my new co-teachers which has made everything so easy! Joel is the Candian who lives downstairs. He's very pleasant and easy to talk to aboot anything. The 4+ Korean teachers have made me feel so welcome and have answered all of my questions immediately and without judgement (I need to clean this up? where's the AC remote?) Teacher Jasmine is always dressed to the 9s. She's so cute and keeps me informed about where to go for dinner, to find a cell phone, to find better blankets (they don't believe in down or memory foam here, so the first person to come visit I will give you $500,000 to bring me these things. screwyou overstock.com) and Jay teacher, who teaches the second session of my afternoon class, is awesome as well. They both seem very smart, fun, and interested in helping me, which is huge. I think they were all good friends with Brad and Nick (the old Joel and Lauren) so I'm hoping we can keep this tradition going...Claire teacher is awesome and is my partner in school. She helps me with so much and is nothing but friendly! And it turns out my first day in Korea I met Brad, who I replaced, which I didn't realize until tonight. While at the Hamilton pool with Emily and her friends a couple of weeks ago I met a Brad. It was his last day in Korea and he was going back to Indianapolis. Tonight I went out with Jasmine and she was telling me about Brad, how he went back to Indy, and how he was at the Hamilton his last day....holy shit I met him and had no idea I am the new him!
After Dr. FIsh, I met my first Korean friends outside of work.
First off, Dr. Fish is a cafe where you can get your feet sucked/eaten by fish. It's totally amazing and at the same time totally disturbing because it tickles like nothing I have ever felt. I don' t think I have laughed that hard ever!! There were four of us going into the fish pool and guess who's feet they went after the most.? yeah mine. i had probably 3/4 of the tank sucking on my nasty runner's toes. And at the end of it they didn't look any better. Although I felt like i had just had the best foot massage ever,,,,ahh fish feet. So on my way home from Gangnum (pronounced Kangnum) I stopped at a convenience store to play online and post pictures and whatnot. As I'm sitting these three guys approach, one of whom speaks English, and the others just go inside to buy beer. Andre, the one who speaks English, informs me that he only has 3 international friends and wants to make more. His international friends consist of 2 Chinese and one Japanese guy. I totally agree to be his American friend and they become my new Korean friends!, Andre, Ocean, and Blue. Andre was the only one who spoke English so he gave his other friends names; Blue is in businessman and Ocean is a chef. I love the randomness of Korea. He sent me an email today:
subject: Beautiful Lauren
I really like to treat you to delicious Korean dinner. I hope not to disturb you. I put you at ease...haha and it went on like this for a while. So I think I'll take him up on it next week.
Tomorrow running begins again. Since my 6 day bender in NY/DE/NJ, and moving to SoKo, I haven't run or done much of anything except eat and drink. Tomorrow I'm meeting Susan and we'll probably do 5k. There's also a gym right by my work that has yoga classes, so I think I will sign up for that too. Koreans don't seem too big on the gym scene, so hopefully it won't be crowded.
And my second goal: Because I can't read anything or talk to basically anyone, I have decided to learn Korean. I would feel pretty shitty about myself if I lived in a city for months and didn't know the language. So startying today I wrote down the alphabet and will be able to write it and read it soon. Then I will have my co-teachers teach me to speak Korean. Game. Set. Match.
I just got my phone all hooked up so please call when you have a chance. It's 010 5814 6266. Miss you all :)
philly cheesesteaks
ReplyDelete