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.
