Saturday English Competition 8-31-13

5 PM: Went to school to practice my PowerPoint stuff and get a feel for the rooms I'll be teaching in. It was a good thing I went, too, because a lot of little elements of the room run differently than I thought they would.

For example; the students mostly stay in their homerooms and the subject teachers come in to see them. I think this may be more American elementary school-style, but in American high school, you're usually moving around from room to room, mixing with a different group of students each time. In Korea, you and your 25 or 30 classmates are together most of the day, which sets up a somewhat different class dynamic.

The lights and fans in the homerooms are also controlled by switches outside the classroom, so if I want the air turned on, I'll need to reach outside the door. And sometimes the PowerPoint doesn't work in the rooms, so I'll have to have constant back-up plans.

But being at the competition today was grand. Some of our boys were working in the computer room, and so were some girls from a nearby middle school. I sat in the back and worked on my lesson plans, just so I could get a feel for what Saturday competitions are like, since I'll be judging about one per month. The kids sat at computers and worked on essays and Powerpoint slides, and they also worked on poems which will be judged later.

One of my boys was really brave and walked all the way to the back of the computer room to ask me to edit his poem and his essay. He's the kid who noticed yesterday that I could understand some Korean, and his name is HH. His English is really good, and his poem was not far from being native-speaker quality--pretty impressive for a student working in his second language. I thought he might have lived in the States, like Byungyoon, but he said he hadn't.

And I met a beautiful first-grade boy named Deukhee. A teacher had him carry me a sandwich and a dixie cup with a banana milkshake in it, for lunch. I swear, the first-graders are made of stardust and unicorn tears--these children are too adorable.

Byunghyun the nice letter-writer was there today, but he was helping the other kids, not competing.

One girl named Yejin also had me help with her poem, and I loved it because she was rhyming in English. In an AAB, CCB, DDB rhyme scheme, no less. After the presentations, I left the school and one of the girls, Haneul, met me outside to say hi. I told her that I liked her presentation, and we exchanged a few sentences, enough to tell that we really get along. She said she'd see me at the competition next month, and she squeezed my hand. So sweet! In Korea, girls hold hands with their friends and even their teachers a lot, so I felt like Haneul was adopting me.

I have my 1st-grade lesson plan set, but still have to iron out the 2nd-graders' plan, and one activity for the 3rd-graders, and a theme for my 2 hours of afterschool class. ARGGHH. I've bought a week's supply of fruit and Coke Zero, so I'm staying in tonight and planning like the madness.

School Day #4

4:30- School was good. I finally have a school computer, though it's not hooked up to a printer yet. I have been preparing for days, but I still have so much lesson-planning to do. I've been in about 10 of B-Teacher's classes, observing what he does and trying to memorize some kids' faces. When I watched K-dramas with school scenes in them, the students always had nametags on. But when I arrived at my school, all the uniforms were blank. So I will be teaching about 500 of the boys during the course of a week, and I'll be tryying to learn who they are without nametags. You lied to me, K-dramas.

I only know a couple of names right now, and so far my favortite students' names start with "Byung". Byunghyun wrote me an encouraging letter yesterday, and today I met Byungyoon, who lived in California for a year and has a bit of a Cali accent. When I said hi to him in the hallway yesterday, he answered with something really natural like, "Hi, how's it goin?" I thought I was hearing things! So it may be a challenge to keep him from being bored in English class, since he's basically like any of my highschoolers back home.

I wrote Byunghyun a return letter today and delivered it to him when I sat in on B-Teacher's class. I think writing back was a good decision, because it's English practice for Byunghyun and the whole class thought it was hilarious. His best friends were chanting, "love letter, love letter!" and it was super cute.

One smart 2nd-grader also heard me laugh at a non-English joke and asked me if I understood Korean. I tried to evade the question, but different kids are figuring out that I know some of what they're saying. I was hoping to keep it hidden for a while longer, just so they try to communicate more in English instead of using Korean and hoping I understand.

I spoke Korean to one of the kids for the first time today. On the walk home from school, I saw a 1st-grader wipe out on his bike. It looked so painful, and he was a tiny child, too. He had to be 12, but he looked more like 9, and I helped him get his bike up. I asked if he was okay in English, then Korean, and he said he was, so I let him go on. The motherly instincts kick in pretty strong when someone young is hurt.

Vice Principal let me go home early again. He's really a lovely person.

Stopped by the church I want to go to on the way home. Sure enough, it looks like an English-free zone, so Sunday service should be completely over my head.

Tonight, I'm going to prepare, prepare, prepare my lesson plans, then tomorrow I'll walk to school to get in some Saturday practice, setting up my PowerPoint stuff. Monday, I teach one 1st-grade, two 2nd-grade, & one 3rd-grade class, plus two hours of the fun afterschool stuff. It's not a lot to do, hours-wise, but it represents a monumental amount of prep work. Off I go!

10 PM: Got dinner with two friends--our first Korean restaurant meal ordered all on our own. We ate at a samgyeopsal restaurant, and the waitress handed me the tongs, so I was in charge of grilling our food.

School Day #3

1:30 Rained this morning. Fortunately, I bought an umbrella two days ago, so I was boyscout-level prepared for the rain! Or not. Because my pants were roughly 5 inches too long, and they dragged in the water and nearly tripped me. And they made a sound when I took steps, like ka-flup, ka-flap-whup. I pretended like it was totally normal, and the boys didn’t seem to notice.

Also, I was further encumbered on my morning walk because I was juggling an umbrella, a laptop case, a purse, a bag full of presents for the office staff, AND three smoothies I accidentally purchased.

How does one accidentally buy a smoothie, let alone 3? Well, this morning I went to my closest coffee shop to buy 3 cookies. They were going to be for A-teacher, B-teacher, and JY-teacher, three people who have really helped me. But when I got into the shop, there were no cookies for sale, just cheesecake and breakfast sandwiches and plastic cups of fruit. So I gestured at three fruit cups, thinking they would make a decent present. Little did I know that I was not buying the fruit itself, but buying the fruit’s future identity as a smoothie. So once I had my orange, strawberry, and kiwi smoothies in a disposable case, I proceeded to take the 20-minute walk, hoping that the cardboard wouldn’t dissolve in the rain.

I got to school just fine. J I gave smoothies to A-Teacher and B-Teacher, but JY-Teacher was in class, so I drank her kiwi smoothie. I also got my 3 big presents to the three chief people—containers of my favorite brand of coffee from home given to my Principal, Vice-Principal, and main Co-Teacher. I had also read that you should bring snacks to the office some time, so I got some individually wrapped candies and set them out by the coffee pot for the whole staff—everyone seemed to like them.

5:00 I sat in on more classes today, and it was fun to see the class in action. I got ideas for how to change things up, too. After class, B-Teacher asked me where I planned to travel while I’m here, because he can list about 10 countries he’s toured. I said I wanted to see Japan, but right now I feel like it’s super ambitious to try to see Seoul next weekend, but that’s what I’m aiming for. This weekend is for lesson planning, and probably for trying out that church I saw on my way to school, even if there are no English services.

One of the younger male teachers told me that he saw me at my favorite coffee shop on Tuesday night. I didn’t see him, though, so either he was only walking by the window, or he was there and just didn’t say hello. I think he told me that he lives near my coffeeshop, too, but we were speaking Konglish, moving between the two languages, and specifics get lost easily.

KB-Teacher gave me my afterschool class schedule for next week, and I’m excited. Regular classes have to follow the textbook, mostly, but for afterschool classes, you have just a few kids with a relatively high English level, and you can add things like music, drawing, acting, anything fun you can think of. I’ve heard that your afterschool kids are the ones that are really yours because you learn their names and spend quality time with them each day.

I can’t wait to actually teach the boys. And apparently they’re excited for class too, because KB-Teacher said the kids have been bugging her for days, asking, When do Pretty-Teacher’s classes start? I presume they know that I have a name, but in the meantime, there are worse things to be called than Pretty-Teacher.

I take that back—one student definitely knows my name. He even spelled it correctly. In a full-length letter, written in English. This morning, I was shocked when a boy walked into my office space, handed me a little envelope and said, “This is for you.” The letter said that his name is Byounghyun. He said that the school was a little lonely when the last native teacher left, but maybe things will be better now that I’m here. He said that I shouldn’t be discouraged if his classmates are rude—that’s just the way they are, and he said that I am “maybe the first beautiful teacher we have had”. Aw.

He came back a few hours later to ask if I had read his letter. Read it? I memorized it, then tacked the envelope up on the wall of my cubicle! Because he’s the first student whose name I know. Byounghyun reminds me of my American students, who I loved tremendously, so this gives me encouragement that I can see my Korean students in the same way I saw my American ones—as delightful people who I have a chance to nudge along as they learn cool things.

I got two huge packages of stuff I’d ordered today—I got them delivered to the school because I knew that address before my apartment address. As I sat looking at the two massive boxes, wondering how I’d get them home, my Vice Principal noticed them and had one of the English teachers carry them and drive me to my apartment . And we left work an hour early, too! My Vice Principal is a really sweet man, and I’m just bursting with gratitude that he was not just perceptive enough to see my problem without me saying anything, but he worked out a solution for me as well. It’s a blessing to have someone looking out for you, let me tell you.

School Day #2

10:30 Sat in on an English class, to get a feel for what it’s like. The American teacher said that these second-grade boys are about the lowest level, so it was good to get a look at what that kind of class is like. We spent 45 whole minutes just learning the phrases “Have you ever____” and the responses “Yes, I have” and “No, I haven’t”. The boys were rowdy and sleepy at the same time, but they weren’t bad. One of them had me count his play-money for the game they were playing.

11:30 YH-Teacher bought me shoes! I have cute shoes to wear at school, now! They’re yellow and green with little flowers on the top. I had been wearing these worn, functional brown mens’ shoes that the school gives to visitors. YH-Teacher noticed, and she bought me my own pair of ladies shoes. I squealed a bit when I put them on, because it was such an unexpected surprise. I’m getting a present for YH-Teacher tomorrow, because she’s the best.

1:30 Had lunch outside of school with the other English teachers—it was a fish stew restaurant, and it was great. I swear I go into this mental happy place of idyllic food consumption at Korean restaurants—at mealtimes here I’m on cloud nine. In traditional Korean restaurants, they only specialize in a few dishes, so you pick a restaurant because you like the 6-8 things they serve, not because of their variety. It’s not like American food chains, where you can go to a steak restaurant and order steak, chicken, shrimp, and pork chops, and still get chicken nuggets and fries for the kids. But when each meal comes with about 9 side dishes, you don't lack for variety in taste.

For group outings to restaurants, whoever’s in charge orders food for everyone, then we all sit down on flat cushions at a low table. In the center of each table, there is a heating range, upon which sits a simmering pot of something. In my first day in Sejong, the pot was full of Korean beef stew. Today, I ate from two separate pots of tang (탕) or soup, each with a different kind of fish in it. After I’d eaten a bowl of each, further questioning revealed that bowl number one contained cod:

The Average Joe of Edible Fish.

And bowl two contained agu. When our eldest teacher couldn’t tell me and the other American the English word for agu, we looked it up on our phones. Brace yourself.

THIS IS AGU, DESTROYER OF WORLDS.

I'm glad I didn't see a picture of it before I ate it. It looks like sentient beef jerky, but it tastes pretty good. This is the most pleasant-looking picture I could find--Google "goosefish" for a more accurate idea of the fish's original form. We had super-strong, super-sweet coffee to finish dinner, and JY-Teacher tells me that this is Korean-style coffee---it’s basically exactly how I took my coffee at home. Then B-teacher bought a few of us ice cream, too. The ice cream comes in squeezy packets that keep your hands cold while you eat, which is a great product design choice for summertime.

I keep meeting faculty members with great English, though many of them didn’t speak to me on day 1. I have two brand new potential female friends in the office, including JY-Teacher, who may be able to help me find a post office. She and I had some great talks today

The boys are still yelling compliments at me, like it’s their mission in life to keep my self-esteem at 1000%. I want to tell them how precious they are, but I still don't know what's precisely appropriate to say to them. English teachers who have been here for a few years keep telling me to act tough and not smile and not be their friend when classes start, but I don't think that sort of dour attitude is very godly...there must be some way to be kind to a 12-year-old without acting as if you yourself were twelve. There must be a way to smile and laugh without being a pushover. I'll pray that the Lord helps me strike a balance.

                                                                                                     

Oh, and here's a picture of the juice bottle I was given yesterday for helping with a phone call.

First Full Day at School

9:00 The walk this morning was lovely. I thought it would take about 50 minutes, but it was only 20! And there were no hills and I was in sneakers, so it was fine. About 100 middle school boys walked by me on the way to school, so even if I got lost, I could just follow the trail of white polo shirts until I got to the school.

I’m figuring out school patterns, a little at a time. Walk in the front door, exchange sneakers for school slippers. I have to wear mens’ slippers because my feet won’t fit into the size 6 patent leather slippers for ladies. Turn left down the hall, and sit at my lime green rolly chair at my desk. This morning, I brought my laptop, but one teacher says that he may be able to find me a school computer to use.

I accidentally answered a question wrong this morning, due a difference in what a certain English word means in Korea. Being asked “do you have a schedule?” means “are you teaching today?” not “did you get a print-out of the activities you’ll be doing in the future?” A schedule is not a physical list of your proposed activities or even just a mental awareness of all you must accomplish and the timeframe within which you must accomplish it—a schedule is a thing you do. I once read an interview with Korean celebrity where she said her days were so busy, she once had twelve schedules in one day. She didn’t mean she had twelve separate pieces of paper, each of them with its own itinerary; she meant that she had 12 appointments or appearances to make.

My principal introduced me to a meeting of the teachers (there are 50+ of us, and we meet on Tuesday mornings for announcements, it seems). My principal is dignified and awesome, and my vice-principal is friendly and thoughtful—he speaks quite a bit of English, and he took the time to warn me that middle school boys can be very rude. He is the second person to warn me about these childrens’ rudeness, so I’m reaaaally curious about them, now.

Last night, the other Sejong girls knocked on my apartment door. Turns out, they’re really close nearby, and I thought they were stationed far away. I was too sleepy to go out with them, but I’m glad to know that there are familiar faces close to me.

12:00: I got to help someone, using English! One of the teachers on the upper floors was trying to transfer ownership of his cellphone to his son at university, but it was difficult because his son is in Canada and the phone company is American, and son speaks great English but the father only reads English, and we were negotiating a Skype video call, a headset, a smartphone and four people in total: father, son, customer service rep, and me. But I think we did it! Happy times.

12:30 Lunch was insanely good. Here I was worrying that I wouldn’t like Korean food, but I like it better than American food! I ate with some great ladies, and one of them is calling me, I believe, “Pretty-Teacher” (예쁜니 선생님...?) She has designated herself as my mom, and I love it. She even gave me this look for wasting food at lunch, but she smiled when I apologized in Korean. 

1:00 Went on a little post-lunch walk with A-Teacher, who only speaks a little English and is a darling woman. In our 15-minute exercise, we nearly exhausted the points on which our language skills allow for conversation, but I like A-Teacher immensely. She has two little children and makes coffee for the whole office and she teaches math--I bet her classes are great.

I'm still just seeing the boys in the halls, since I don't teach until next week. A few of them are totally chill, barely notice me passing by, though most are curious enough to stare, and some just shout “wow!” when I walk by. 30-ish have said hello, and 4 have ventured as far as asking  “where are you from?” They were all guessing Canada and seemed surprised to hear America.

5:00 Had to walk home among a crowd of 500 middle schoolers. Fortunately, I got lost about four times, so I took a lot of false turns and none of them know where I live. Until tomorrow, at least. One boy on a bike greeted me, then took the next natural conversational step after "hello" and said "I love you." I replied, "I love you, too!" which cracked him up and prompted his friends to tell me that he was crazy. He said, "I'm in B-ban, and I'm disabled!" The classes here run by ability level, and "ban" means "class," so A-ban means the top students, B-ban are the just-okay students. But still, the kid has to be a genius because he's the only student to say hello-iloveyou-i'm crazy-i'myourstudent-youteachme in under a minute. I think he's just got too much personality for A-ban.

Found a few 7-11's and loaded up on small supplies. Found a coffee shop one block from my apartment, where the iced mocha is killer and the wifi is up. It's been a good day and I'm geared up to be as sweet as possible to my co-workers and the kids tomorrow as I figure out what I'm going to be teaching.

Packing, Bus Ride, Boys' School, Apartment

8:30 PM: Got up at 5 to finish packing to leave. My roommate and I ran around, having dialogues with each other and with our own selves about whether we'd forgotten anything. Key returned? Bedding wrapped up? Floor swept, garbage emptied, drawers and closets checked for hidden belongings? Check yes to all. We dragged our stuff downstairs and waited in the cafeteria for a little over an hour as 100 girls got on various buses to leave for our provinces. I hugged a dozen people and tried to keep my sweet team assistant from crying, but it was no use--this was a bigger goodbye than a lot of us thought. I was happy to be moving, though. Adventures await!

A few of the Seoul people said I could stay with them some weekend, and I plan to remind them of it. Seoul is only an hour and a half away by the KTX train, so in a week or two I may try it, at least for a day trip. Also, the building that was being demolished in front of our dorm this week was 100% gone this morning. My roommate and I got our closure, watching a whole building convert into rubble in one week. That's the speed of progress in Korea!

Five of us girls got on a bus with the Chungnam people. Our luggage rode with us, and we were kind of stifled by it. It was a 2 and a half-hour ride that felt like 4 because I couldn't drink water and was revisiting the Thirst Dimension. But soon we were disembarking at the Office of education. From the bus, I could see a small group of nicely dressed Korean ladies, and I wondered if they were our co-teachers. They were! We all went to a restaurant where we sat on cushions at low tables and ate the best beef stew I've ever had. I didn't want to leave that stew.

My co-teacher is in her 40's and is very nice. She had to help me do so many things to day, and I know it wasn't a walk in the park. After lunch, Co-Teacher and I went to my new apartment, and I was thrilled to discover that it has air-con! (In Korea, it's "air-con," not A/C). I say this because I know of other teachers who don't have it. It's a blessing, for sure.

But not only do I have air-con, I have a big fridge, a gas range, a regular Western-style toilet, a laundry/drying nook, working cable tv, working internet, a building code for safety, an individual door code for safety, plus no stains, no mold, and no broken furniture! It's perfect.

After dropping off my stuff, we went to our school, a middle school for boys, ages 13, 14, 15. I was expecting them to be smaller than they are...I guess in my brain, I perceive "middle school" as more like 10, 11, and 12, for some reason. They're loud and energetic and adorable. When I told my co-teacher that they seemed darling, she said they could be very rude. And if my super-nice co-teacher thinks you're rude, you're probably a felon! But I told her I wouldn't be hurt by anything they said. I'm expecting the anything and everything unusual from them.

In school, we took off our shoes and put them in glass cases where we swap our outside shoes for school-slippers. So very neat! The women's bathroom has Western-style toilets, which is grrrreat. For propriety's sake, I won't describe the difference between a Western toilet and an Eastern one, but suffice it to say that there are plenty of the latter in this country, and you definitely want to have the former.

There's one other native English teacher at my school. He's American, been here a few years, and seems nice. I thought only one native speaker was allowed per school, but I think ours gets 2 teachers because it's a big school.

Some teachers in the office were very nice to me. One lady brought me water when I asked for mul (물), and directed me to the bathroom when I asked for hwajangshil (화장실). In Korean, I told this teacher my name and asked for her name. I tried to spell her name in hangul, and she corrected my spelling on one syllable, but I mostly guessed it right. In Korean, she asked if I could speak Korean and I replied "a little"(jogeum 조금). Then she said, yeongeoreul motaeyo (영어를 모태요), or "I can't speak any English at all!" We both laughed so hard at that, and I realized that I'd had a whole conversation in broken Korean, and that I'd understood a joke. Whee!

Co-teacher and I went to HomePlus (Korea's Wal-Mart...or rather, Korea's Target.) and got supplies. She went beyond the bounds of niceness by helping me cart everything to her car and then up 3 flights of stairs to my apartment. I got a massive supply of cereal and fruit. I've been craving fruit the past few days and I was so hungry from all the walking and lifting, I ate the entire bunch of six bananas within a half hour. Fruit addiction is not a pretty thing.

I unpacked all but one suitcase, and I'm getting mentally prepared for the walk to my school tomorrow morning. My co-teacher estimated the walk at 35 minutes, but I think it looks more like 50. Sneakers, don't fail me.

Had a long phone convo with family, answered an email from one of my beloved American students, and discovered that my cable tv has English channels as well and Korean ones, and has karaoke channels, too! May have to practice my singing, because I hear that everybody has to sing at company dinners. Just part of the job!

And though there have been challenges, I'm so happy to be here.

Also, guess who just figured out how to send photos from her phone to her computer? Two shots of my apartment:

PinkPinkPink.

Grand Central.

Orientation Day 7

I accidentally deleted part of a previous post, but the upshot of Sunday was, my lesson demonstration went fine, I'm assigned to teach at an all-boys middle school, and my city's educational supervisor is an amazing woman who I like a lot.

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7:30 PM, Sunday: So many feelings. We had our closing ceremony, and we listened to several farewell speeches from different officials. We watched a summing-up video that had pictures of all our field trips and classes, and we heard a couple of songs by a band from Hongdae. It was exactly like a mini-college graduation, complete with recaps of what we'd learned in the past and discussions of how we were going to impact the world in the future.

We got our certificates for completing the training, and also received our medical check results back, Mine says that my sight and hearing are normal, that I'm two centimeters shorter than I thought, and that I test negative for cocaine. Good to know.

Orientation, Day 6

1:30: Getting ready for taekwondo class! They say that the AC's off in the gym, so I''m expecting it to be pretty insanely warm.

Breakfast was good, and at lunch I took a bite of kimchi and unconsciously said out loud, "Oh, that's good..." just like I would over a really perfect cup of coffee. I think I've fallen off the kimchi ledge, for serious this time. It's got me.

Morning lectures were on PowerPoint presentations and classroom games. Both were super helpful and gave me a million ideas each.
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8:30: My teaching partner and I practiced our lesson plan within an inch of its life. Tomorrow, we present it in front of our peers, and everything's gonna be okay.

Taekwondo class happened. It was glorious. I mean glorious. I'm very seriously considering making this my new sport, if I can find a workable class in my city. We all got white robes and we lined up in rows for stretches, then pair work.

Our instructor said that we had to pay close attention to his words because he had  a black belt in taekwondo but only a green belt in English. But he didn't have any trouble making himself understood. I really liked his teaching style--we all respected him and listened up. It was an incredibly difficult 80 minutes, and I loved it all.

Except for the board-breaking bit. Our teacher told us to take a small board and write on it in a marker, putting down either some goals for the new year or some bad habits we'd like to break. I guess when we broke our boards it was going to be symbolically like breaking bad habits. On my board, I wrote: "I want to be more selfless. I want to put others first."

I held up my partner's board for her and she broke it. Then it was my turn. Set your stance, wind your arm back, do the yelling thing they taught us and just hit it.

My board didn't break.

I tried again. And then a third time. An assistant comes by to advise me on striking technique and to change the angle my partner is using to hold the board. 4th try--no break, and my hand is beginning to hurt.

5th try, the taekwondo instructor himself comes over to hold my board. I want to show him that I can do it, so I hit that board with everything I've got. No result. The instructor says that some boards are accidentally too thick for beginners to break, so he sent an assistant to get another one for me. By this time, all the other 39 people in my group have finished breaking things and are standing around watching me not break things, but in a supportive way, calling out encouragement.

The instructor holds out the new board to me. It's my 6th try, my hand is long since sore, and everyone is watching. He tells me to yell, and I don't produce a very convincing one, so he calls out to the whole class, "Everyone, yell to give her energy!" They did. If taekwondo class was a sports movie, this would be the moment where the slo-mo begins, an inspirational song plays, and the longshot finally accomplishes their goal.

On try number  six, I broke my board, and everyone cheered for a good half-minute. That was this afternoon--by now, the ache has faded but I'm bruised enough that I still can't shake anybody's hand. And it's all worth it because I BROKE THE BOARD. Yet if my life was a book, I'm sure there'd be some symbolic significance to the fact that I couldn't break the board that represented unselfishness. I guess it takes a lot of painful tries before you break an unworthy habit. :-)

Orientation, Day 5

1 PM: Lunch done. Caught myself rushing through eating other food so I could get to the kimchi, which is a first.

Outside my dorm window, there's a building being torn down. The day we arrived, the building was whole, then they started tearing it down on Monday. On Wednesday, the building was half gone and by today, there's only a third of it left. I kind of hope they finish demolishing it by the time we leave on Monday, just for closure's sake. My roommate takes a picture of it every morning, documenting its steady downfall, and our view actually gets better with every passing day because there's a lake behind the demolished building, so the less wall there is, the more lake we see.

Finally did laundry. There are only a few machines in the dorm basement, so I had to wait for a late-night chance to wash my laundry and even then, there were no dryers free. This morning, the two normal dryers were taken, so I decided to put my clothes in the weird-looking dryer. It turns out, the weird dryer was also a washer, so I washed everything again by accident. By the time another hour was done, my laundry still wasn't dry, but it was extra, extra clean. Everything's dry now, though, and there's an ironing board calling my name.
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4:30 PM: Finished the rudimentary lesson-planning with my teaching partner! We (mostly she) put together a lesson outline, then we (mostly she) put together a rough PowerPoint for teaching "shopping" expressions to Korean 4th graders. My partner has traditional teaching experience, whereas I do not--I taught a college class, then taught writing and literature in a very open and free school environment that didn't require 2-page lesson plans. I spent a lot of time planning for my classes, I just didn't have to hand in my plans to a supervisor, which I'll have to do now. It'll be okay--it's just a new habit for me to form. I do feel dreadful for not doing more of the work on the lesson, but I plan to give my partner a chocolate present. For chocolate rights all wrongs.

Got some tasty gimbap and canned coffee at the convenience store for a snack before dinner. I'm not sure that I've had canned coffee before, but here there are more cans of sweet, refrigerated coffee drinks than there are bottles. And the cans are smaller than in America--you can buy large drinks, but small cans are the norm and there are more to choose from. I can't find diet coke anywhere--it's strictly coffee, water, juice, and regular soda in the convenience stores on campus.

Also, the little stores I've been to don't provide plastic bags, so you have to estimate how much you can carry home  in your arms before making your purchase. Even at one of the nice museums in Seoul, I needed to pay about 50 cents to get a bag, so it's good info to file away for the future.

Our EPIK helpers are still amazing. I'm floored at how sweet, upbeat, and professional they are. The Korean girls who lead my group of 40 people are stunningly competent. They keep us from going crazy, and they never seem worried, no matter how difficult circumstances may be.
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Orientation, Day 4

6 AM: We're going on a field trip to Seoul today. We'll be seeing a palace and a traditional Korean village and a few other cool tourist sites like that. The photographers among us are really excited about the photo opportunities.

In a few days, I'll present a 15-minute lesson on shopping with a teaching partner from my group. My partner is really good at lesson plans, and I like to make presentations, so I hope it goes well. Everyone says not to stress about this lesson but I am starting to worry, so I'm listening to praise and worship music right now as a countermeasure. The vastness of God's goodness makes my concerns about lesson planning seem insignificant, which is how I should see things.

And I have a funny---my Advanced Korean class that was held entirely in Korean on Tuesday was entirely in English by Wednesday. :-) Our teacher knew we weren't keeping up, so she changed it to a discussion class on Korean culture. I learned a few new things about bus/subway culture. I knew that if you were sitting down on a full bus and an elderly person came on, you should offer them your seat, but a Korean American guy in my discussion group says that if the elderly person refuses to take your seat, you're supposed to take them by the hand, draw them toward the seat and plead with them to sit. That's good to know! I have to hear from others where the line between polite and pushy is, and the line falls in unusual places sometimes.

Also, in Korea, the questions "have you eaten?" and "where are you going?" are exactly like the English phrase "how are you?" You're always supposed to answer, "Yes, I've eaten" and something generic like "I'm going over this way" rather than giving actual details like "well, I had a big breakfast and a yogurt for brunch, but I haven't eaten my sandwich yet" or "I'm going to the grocery store by the park, then to the post office". The questions are just polite verbal filler, and you should respond with polite verbal filler.

If you're praying for me, please pray that I'll be a blessing to my fellow teachers on the trip today. I think it's easy for me to confuse having good conversations with people as being good to people, and I want to be more than just an energetic, talkative person. I want to be genuinely helpful.
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7:00 PM: Back from Seoul! Good trip. more later.

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9:00 PM: Ate a bit of octopus for dinner, the cooked kind, not the live kind. Because eating live octopus does happen in Korea, they're just not going to serve it to us in the cafeteria. Drank something that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike coffee. Met a lovely Scottish couple at dinner, too. I feel like I meet several nice new people with every meal I eat in the cafeteria. When we leave, I'll miss the experience.

Our bus left at 9 this morning for Seoul, and it took close to 2 hours to get there.We went to a traditional Korean village first, but instead of walking around and looking at the village like everyone else, I sat on a bench by a little decorative pond and wrote poetry. It was really hot outside and although I had packed my own water and snacks, I didn't want to risk getting tired and fainting--I used to faint a lot in college, but I've since learned how to avoid that. Also, tours and museums are really not my thing. I don't usually like going around and looking at cool stuff, unless it's an art museum.

I did have a great time sitting by the little green pond, though. There was a breeze and my bench was comfortable, and I could watch the giant slow-moving orange fish in the water. It was delightful for me in a way that looking at buildings could not be.

Also, while sitting on my bench  at the Korean traditional village, looking at the pond and feeling poetic, a Chinese family came up and took pictures with me. The college-age son asked in clear English if I could take a picture with his mother, and at first I thought he meant take a picture of his mother, but no, it was with. I found out they were Chinese because as the mother sat down by me on the bench, I asked her, "hanguk saram?" (한국 사람?) or "are you Korean?" She answered in something that was clearly Mandarin, so I said, "Jungguk?" (중국?) forgetting that I was asking with the Korean word for Chinese, and I didn't know the Chinese word for Chinese. So, we were at a linguistic impasse. But they were a lovely family, and now I'm probably appearing in some Mandarin version of facebook, in my EPIK t-shirt and Alabama cap (Roll Tide!).

Next, we went to a theatre to see a performance of traditional Korean dancing and old-style musical instruments. I was very dazzled by the whole performance, especially the drum-playing.

Then we had lunch at a formal Korean restaurant, sitting on cushions on the floor, eating at low tables. Each person had a giant bowl of bibimbap (mixed rice), and about 6 side dishes called banchan (반찬) each. I could eat everything but the purple radish with the chemical taste, and I used metal chopsticks the whole time. I've now grown to expect the taste of kimchi to balance out every meal. The girls at my table had a great discussion about our respective city assignments, the merits of having siblings vs. being an only child, and how much we love Backstreet Boys songs, despite lyrics like "sadness is beautiful/loneliness is tragical".

Next we went to the museum of Contemporary Korean history, and I appreciated it on a technical level, but I'm just not a museum person. Fortunately, it wasn't a guided tour--we just wandered from floor to floor, seeing everything at our own pace. I bought an old-fashioned fold-up fan in the gift shop, which was an invaluable purchase because when we had to walk outdoors in the heat, it circulated some much-needed air.

Finally, we went to a Joseon-era palace which was another popular tourist site. The weather report today said that with the humidity it felt like 107 degrees outside at the hottest point, and that certainly matches what we were feeling. I'd love to go back to that palace in October, when I'd be free to just take in the sights.

And I do feel like I was truly helpful to people today. That's what I wanted, and that's how the Lord let things work out. :-)
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Orientation, Day 2

12:00  Had my medical exam today, and they didn't want us to eat anything until afterward. I was planning to sleep in, but I was wide awake at 5 AM and I had to live in the Thirst Dimension again for 6 hours until the exam was over.

The medical exam was actually a great chance to meet people. I had a bit of a conversation with an older Korean lady who drew my blood, and it was awesome. She understood about every 10th word I said, and I understood about every 10th word she said. She told me to make a jumok(주먹) or "fist" and I told that I knew how to say "blood" in Korean. My preschool-level vocabulary is scoring brownie points for me! :-)

Seaweed and tofu soup for lunch was good, but I can't get use to this purple radish dish. It looks like melon and tastes like pickle, so I steer clear of it in the food line and go for kimchi instead.

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9:30 PM : My afternoon classes were great! One man did a 90-minute presentation on how to make your English comprehensible to your students. Mainly, you need to vary your pitch a lot as if you're reading a story to another person. Your tone and pitch give the students lots of verbal cues that help convey your meaning. He was very funny, too, which was much appreciated among a group of 50 jetlagged people striving to stay awake.

The second presentation was on After School Classes and Summer and Winter English camps--more on that in the future, but suffice it to say that regular classtime is dictated by the textbook while afterschool and vacation classes can be personalized by the teacher, which is what I enjoy most, designing a class.

I've discovered that the jet lag hits hardest between 3 and 6 PM. During parts of the lectures, even though I was riveted by the subject matter, I had a hard time staying alert and upright. Then after a few hours, I was fine. The tired feeling just dissolves.

Had my first Korean language class tonight. We took a placement test yesterday and I was somehow put in the advanced class. The entire class was in Korean. The teachers broke into English about 5% of the time when we needed an explanation, but it was a very heavy learning experience. In my class of 14-ish people, 10 of them requested to be moved down to Intermediate tomorrow. I told the teacher I want to stay because I like difficult things and I enjoyed the whole class very much.

I think being in the way-too-advanced-for-me Korean class will help me understand my students, too. By seeing what cues help me understand my teachers, I'll know how to make myself understood.

My teachers asked us what our favorite Korean food was and why, and I said gimbap because it's similar to sushi. Then they asked us what our "ideal type" was and I said someone with a good speaking voice because I couldn't remember the words for intelligent or funny. Then we got asked our blood type, because in Korea they have ideas about how your blood type affects your personality. I was one of the only people who knew their blood type. Mine is O, which according to the PowerPoint presentation, means I am social, active, glib and curious, yet disorganized. When asked what kind of food is popular in my hometown, I said bacon which is still "bacon" in Korean, then I tried to Koreanize it by calling it miguk-samgyeopsal (American grilled pork?). When asked why I picked Korea to travel to, I couldn't even remember the word for "learn" so I broke down into English and said because of the good community spirit.

And now I must sleep, though I want to study Korean for a few hours, just so I can show my teachers how sincere I am! I'm really longing to make a good impression in class.

Side note: I may be developing an addiction to orange juice. It flows freely here and is almost as common as water, so I've had two bottles a day since arriving. My vitamin C levels are so high, I will never fall prey to scurvy. Not that that was likely to happen in any case.
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The International Flight Story--Chicago to Seoul

Click "play" to hear me read the post.

6:45: I really shouldn't be awake so early (got up at 5-ish), but I my sleep schedule is still off. You'd think after that flight, I'd just be ready to sleep for 40 hours straight, but I keep waking up early, even so.

The flight was like nothing I've ever done before. The Huntsville to Chicago flight was 2 hours in a verrrry small plane, but my Dad went with me, so I had company. Then after a 3-hour wait, I got on the flight from Chicago to Seoul, which lasted 13 hours.

It was not wonderful.

But parts of it were quite nice. I flew with Asiana Airlines, who I believe are the top-ranked airline in Korea and the second-highest for all of Asia. I can see why--they really knew how to take care of passengers. The flight was painful because of the duration, but the accommodations were grand. The plane was huge, there was lots of legroom, each seat had a pillow and a blanket and a tv with 35 channels playing in-flight movies, one movie on each channel in an endless loop, like pay-per-view cable. I've only flown once before, Huntsville to New Orleans by way of Atlanta, so this was all very different for me.

About 1 hour in, we were served a meal that was very good. I chose bibimbap (비빔밥), which is rice with a lot of veggies mixed in. After the 4th hour, they asked us to close our windows, then they turned down the lights to simulate nighttime. At this point, most people tried to sleep. I tried to watch Les Miserables, but was bothered by the way they sang every single line instead of talking, then sliding into short musical numbers.

Soon, I began to really wish I had carried on a bottle of water, or four or five. I had read that long flights "dry you out," but I hadn't really understood what that meant. In practice, it meant accepting every glass of water, coffee, tea, or orange juice the stewardess offered, then rationing the cup until she came by again with more. I was in this dark Thirst Dimension where the plane was my own little Hunger Games arena and I was trying to survive on limited resources, not knowing if more would ever come.

Why no, I'm not inclined toward dramatics at all.

Actually, the stewardesses offered drinks very frequently, about every hour, but never again will I fly without my own vast supply of water. I will become a flight-camel.

Time passed slowly. At hour 6, my legs began to cramp up, then my arms.

Around about hour 8, I began to see visions.

Hour 9, I slept fitfully, curled over my dinner tray with a blanket pulled over my head and my headphones still on, connected to the 3rd showing of G.I. Two: Revenge of the Car Explosion.

At hour 10, I began to wonder if the process of labor--of actually giving birth to a genuine human baby--could possibly hurt as bad as flying across an ocean.

Hour 11, I cheered up, went for a walk to the back of the plane and brushed out my hair, feeling 100% better now that the windows were open again, the sun was shining in, and we were flying over Japan. We had another very filling in-flight meal and there was coffee to follow.

By the time the wheels actually touched the ground in Korea, I was energized and excited, ready to tackle customs and immigration and the baggage claim and the currency exchange and everything else.

At the Incheon airport, I handed my passport to about 5 different people for various confirmations. There were helpful signs in English everywhere, but I could read most of the signs in hangul, too.

At the baggage claim, I was super grateful that I had a black and white polka-dotted piece of luggage covered in stickers that my sisters had used to decorate, because it stood out and I was able to find it quickly among the 100 bags going around the carousel. Nobody else had a polka-dot suitcase covered in butterfly and turtle stickers!

I had almost brought another big suitcase with me, but as I was hauling my checked bag, carry-on bag, and personal bag around the airport, I was endlessly grateful that I hadn't brought it. Some other teachers were at the airport with 5+ pieces of luggage, wheeling them around on carts, but I could navigate faster without one.

Went to the currency exchange and got my dollars changed into won. I like won. They are not confusing to use. My first won-based purchase was a heart-shaped donut and a bottle of water from the airport's Dunkin Donuts. Not very exotic, I know, but it was still a special experience.

Next, I found the EPIK teaching booth and the Arrival Store station. The Arrival Store is a shop that handles purchases for foreigners coming to Korea, and I recommend them highly. American cellphones (and possibly all out-of-country cellphones?) don't work in Korea, something about the networks, so it's really hard to talk to your loved ones right away when you land. Some teachers have to wait a month or two to get a Korean cellphone plan, which I believe requires that you have a Korean friend co-sign with you. Too much hassle and too long of a wait.

The Arrival Store lets you buy used phones that will work immediately in Korea, and I had a nice little smartphone waiting for me when I got to the booth. Also, I picked up a big power transformer for my electronics, plus a new hairdryer, since Korean voltage is different and even if you use plug adapters for American hairdryers, they still won't work, so they say. When I get to my new apartment in Sejong, the Arrival Store will send the rest of the things I bought--pillows, blankets, coffeemaker, cleaning supplies, etc, so I don't have to go out and buy them myself, then cart them back to the apartment.

After getting my phone, I got on a bus to Daejin University, accompanied by 30 other EPIK teachers. It was a 2-hour drive, but it didn't seem too bad, because I had an aisle seat and there were plenty of sights to watch outside the bus windows. I could read all the signs; I just didn't know what all of them meant, because my reading ability is high, but my vocabulary is still very low.

At Daejin, 7:20 PM, we got to the female dorm. The cafeteria where we all eat is on the first floor, and my room is on the sixth. Dinner was supposed to be over at 7:40, so instead of getting cafeteria food, I ate some stuff I had packed, a power bar from my Dad, and a bagel from the welcome bag the EPIK staff gave me. I met my nice roommate, who showed me how to use my phone and how to hook my laptop up to the ethernet. I called my house, my Mom's phone, my Dad's phone (all unsuccessful), then my Grandma's house (successful!) to let my family know I was alive, then got to sleep early.

And thus went my flying-day.

Arrived!

7:00: I'm in Korea! Sitting in my dorm, about to walk down to breakfast at 7:30. We'll have a campus tour of the university we're at (Daejin), then we'll take some classes. My roommate is nice and she helped me figure out my new phone.

 I'm healthy, didn't lose anything, didn't meet with anything terribly unpleasant, and I'm so glad to be here! More later--I still have a 13-hour international flight to describe. :-)
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 9:00 update: Breakfast was good. They had sausage and eggs and orange juice, and also kimchi, but I skipped the kimchi because I still see it as a lunch/dinner food. I'm sure that will change quite quickly.

The cafeteria where we eat is in the female dorm, just downstairs for me, but the 7-11 store where you buy supplies is in the male dorm, so I went with one of the other girls and walked for 10 minutes uphill to get to the shop. Inside the store, they were playing obscure English music that gets no radio play, but which I have on Spotify playlists--it made me feel very at home.

Korea is more mountainous than Alabama by a LOT, so the views are beautiful, but the walks are steep. I'm never leaving my sneakers behind. Here, you need lots of foot protection and cushioning.

There are 120+ people at this orientation, mostly Americans, but I've met a few Canadians and South Africans, some Brits, and there's supposed to be an Irish person here, but I have not yet hunted them down.

Met one other Christian so far. She and I discussed where we might find a church service nearby, but we might not get to go during orientation.

Met one girl going to my city--Sejong. Our orientation name tags have the city we're going to printed on them, and I've seen 20 people going to Seoul, 20 for Gangwon province, and a few for Cheongbuk and Jeju Island, but Sejong must not be a commonly assigned city. Since it's a new city and hasn't been around for very long, I'm just assuming that there aren't many foreigners there. Which is fine!

Our elevator is very polite. It talks to you as the doors close and ends all its sentences in "imnida"(입니다), which is a very respectful verb ending. Thank you, nice elevator.
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11:00 update: I live on the surface of the sun. We went for a walking campus tour, and everyone was inhumanly warm and sweaty. But I met lots of cool people--the fiery walks were worth it for the chance to move around and meet new people. Inside the building, there's AC in my room and in the cafeteria downstairs, but not in the hallways or elevators. So. I'm trying to stay very well hydrated.

I've already been buying little things with Korean won, and it's fairly easy to calculate won because the 10,000 won note is roughly $10, the 5,000 is roughly $5, etc. The coins are cute and look like game tokens.

The EPIK staff have been super nice and helpful, so far. They're really thoughtful and patient with us as we figure everything out.

Talked to some girls who watch the same K-dramas I do. It was fun sharing this particular bit of geekery with people who knew what I was talking about. Met a few people who have already done taekwondo, and the more I hear about that sport, the more I want to try it. we're supposed to get a taekwondo lesson in a few days.

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1:00 PM update: Napped a little, had lunch: beef, veggies, rice, kimchi. Kimchi's already growing on me, which has got to bode well for the future. Feeling a bit of a headache, but we have medical exams tomorrow morning and they said that taking pain reliever can give you a false positive on the drug test, so I don't want to take any yet. Drinking lots of water, and preparing to go to the Opening Ceremony at 2:00.

My roommate likes John and Hank Green's "Crash Course History/Chemistry/Literature" videos on Youtube, like I do. We're talking about how to get streaming movies on our laptops since Netflix and a lot of other video services don't work overseas.

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