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.
