Sunday, August 29, 2010
I'll update about my weekend of soju, Western bars, and Korean baseball later. But for now, I'll tell you that I would be starving without 7 Eleven. Without a kitchen and/or anyone to eat with at 9:45 at night, I've resorted to cookies, crackers and kim bop triangles (which are a delicious piece of giant sushi).
Friday, August 27, 2010
Post dated, this is from August 26, I will post more about the 27th and 28th soon!
Wow, only a day and a half without an entry and I already have so much to update! I’ve taught two classes so far, the first one was really rough. The kids were disorderly and off task, although I think that a big part of this is because of how the teacher I’m taking over for runs her classroom. She’s very lax and casual, and she gives the students free time even though the classes are very short. This isn’t how I want to run my classroom and I think I made that clear in the class I taught today. I’m working with five different groups of kids and they all have very different personalities, though, so things will keep changing, it will always be different.
Some thoughts:
-Every Korean, no matter their age, has a cell phone, and not just a cell phone, a fancy new impressive cell phone. There are five-year-olds walking around with technology more impressive than iPhones here. I got my international cell phone from the school yesterday. I think it says something that they took care of getting me a phone before taking care of my housing. The phone is a hand-me-down, so it’s at least a year old, but it’s more tricked out than a lot of US phones. I can video-call on it! It’s like the Jetsons or something.
-It’s hot here. It’s not just hot; it’s ridiculously humid. The air is so hot and thick that it hits you like a microwaved sponge when you walk out of an air-conditioned room. All of the rooms in buildings are airconditioned (luckily) but the common spaces and hallways are not, so when I walk into the restroom at work everything is dewy and damp, and it’s impossible to know if it is clean. The air outside sticks to your skin and clings on your clothes. It’s not possible to stay dry; every inch of skin is constantly sweating. Luckily, we got a small reprieve from the impossible humidity today: monsoon season reared it’s water logged head. In a matter of minutes it had rained enough to produce foot-deem puddles by the curb, and for twenty minutes their were more flashes of lightning than I’ve seen in my entire life combined! The thunder was quiet, though, far off and non-impactful. After the sudden flood from the sky, the sun came out for the first time since I arrived. There were blue skies and the pavement dried almost instantly.
-Even though Daejeon is a large city, millions of crickets and cicadas still call it home. In the nighttime, the crickets chirp their familiar tunes. The cicadas pop and crinkle in an erratic rhythm. It can become deafening as you cross the path between two trees.
I did norebong last night. Norebong is Korean karaoke, but it’s somewhat different. Norebongs rent out small, private rooms to their patrons. In the rooms, you and five to nine of your closest friends can watch dvds, play wii, play board games, and of course sing. The rooms are all decorated in the absurd styles of pop-culture Asia: like a small child’s over-grown dream. The norebong we went to is called Smile and it’s located in the Time World area of Daejeon. Time World is supposed to be something like Time Square. It’s where a lot of the expensive and reasonable shopping is, there are many bars, restaurants, and clubs, including some Western-style bars, and it’s home to some norebongs.
I feel happy and content with how today went. I started with reading at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Time World, then Mallory and I got a wapple and caught a cab through the rainstorm; I went to work and got to observe many the other foreign teachers and take notes on their styles, and then I got to teach a rather successful writing class. The internet in my motel is no longer working, so this entry will be post-dated once I get the chance to load it, but I found out where the post office is today so I’ll be able to send some mail tomorrow! I’m so excited for that!
Some thoughts:
-Every Korean, no matter their age, has a cell phone, and not just a cell phone, a fancy new impressive cell phone. There are five-year-olds walking around with technology more impressive than iPhones here. I got my international cell phone from the school yesterday. I think it says something that they took care of getting me a phone before taking care of my housing. The phone is a hand-me-down, so it’s at least a year old, but it’s more tricked out than a lot of US phones. I can video-call on it! It’s like the Jetsons or something.
-It’s hot here. It’s not just hot; it’s ridiculously humid. The air is so hot and thick that it hits you like a microwaved sponge when you walk out of an air-conditioned room. All of the rooms in buildings are airconditioned (luckily) but the common spaces and hallways are not, so when I walk into the restroom at work everything is dewy and damp, and it’s impossible to know if it is clean. The air outside sticks to your skin and clings on your clothes. It’s not possible to stay dry; every inch of skin is constantly sweating. Luckily, we got a small reprieve from the impossible humidity today: monsoon season reared it’s water logged head. In a matter of minutes it had rained enough to produce foot-deem puddles by the curb, and for twenty minutes their were more flashes of lightning than I’ve seen in my entire life combined! The thunder was quiet, though, far off and non-impactful. After the sudden flood from the sky, the sun came out for the first time since I arrived. There were blue skies and the pavement dried almost instantly.
-Even though Daejeon is a large city, millions of crickets and cicadas still call it home. In the nighttime, the crickets chirp their familiar tunes. The cicadas pop and crinkle in an erratic rhythm. It can become deafening as you cross the path between two trees.
I did norebong last night. Norebong is Korean karaoke, but it’s somewhat different. Norebongs rent out small, private rooms to their patrons. In the rooms, you and five to nine of your closest friends can watch dvds, play wii, play board games, and of course sing. The rooms are all decorated in the absurd styles of pop-culture Asia: like a small child’s over-grown dream. The norebong we went to is called Smile and it’s located in the Time World area of Daejeon. Time World is supposed to be something like Time Square. It’s where a lot of the expensive and reasonable shopping is, there are many bars, restaurants, and clubs, including some Western-style bars, and it’s home to some norebongs.
I feel happy and content with how today went. I started with reading at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Time World, then Mallory and I got a wapple and caught a cab through the rainstorm; I went to work and got to observe many the other foreign teachers and take notes on their styles, and then I got to teach a rather successful writing class. The internet in my motel is no longer working, so this entry will be post-dated once I get the chance to load it, but I found out where the post office is today so I’ll be able to send some mail tomorrow! I’m so excited for that!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
What happens if it loses an arm? It grows a new arm!
Yesterday was so busy for my first full day here! I woke up with a full night's sleep (luckily) and went to have coffee with Brenda, another English teacher who arrived with me and is staying at the motel with me. It's so nice to have her around. She was born in Korea and moved to the USA when she was 10 so she still knows some Korean. She helped me order at the coffee shop, perhaps one of the funniest moments of the day. I asked how to order a muffin and she said when in doubt just order with a Korean accent: "One muffin, please" I tried. The barista looked at me like I was nuts, "Uhh...one muppin, please?" I asked a second time, "Aaaah! Yes one muppin!"And he warmed it up for me. Every fast food place or coffee shop gives you one of those buzzers you get a the Cheesecake factory to let you know that your food is ready...even though it's only about three minutes of waiting. It's really nice though and they serve you everything on trays and make it feel very fancy.
After coffee Tommy (who picked me up at the bus station the night before and takes care of driving us around when we need to go to appointments and stuff...he's like a liason for the school but speaks very little English) brought me to the hospital. Brenda didn't have to go because she worked in Korea last year for a few months. She's also taught English in Italy for the last four years, so she's an excellent resource! Anyway, hospital observations:
-All the older people were walking around in funny hospital pjs. The women in pink with a tie at the waist, the men in blue with buttons! I wasn't given a pari so I didn't feel part of the club.
-They had me give them a urine sample and gave me a cup and two tubes to pour the urine into from the cup. I thought this was the strangest thing! It was my job to walk the samples from the restroom to the sample rack? Then when they took my blood there was no concern about blood contamination. No rubber gloves, not even bandaids. They had me hold a swab to my bleeding arm (and I bleed a lot), when I dropped the swab the nurse just picked it up with her bare hands and used the same swab to mop up some of the spilt blood! Sorry if this makes you queezy, but I couldn't get over the non existent fear of contamination! I talked with Mallory (another English teacher whom I knew from Seattle) about it and she said there's not fear of HIV hear in Korea which is one of the reasons that the treatment of bodily fluids is so casual...
-Little boys love my bug necklace. In the middle of all my testing a little boy spotted my bug necklace. For any of you who haven't seen it, it's become a bit of Spruce Street School emblem. It's a rectangle of clear plastic with a glow in the dark background and shine green and blue beetle in it. The little boy kept tapping the plastic trying to wake up the beetle then saying, "It's dead! It's dead," in Korean.
After the hospital I wen to my first day of work a the hagwon (which is the Korean name for an English school that teaches classes after regular school). The kids here go to school for SO LONG every day. First they have a regular 7-hour school day, then a lot of them go to hagwon 2-3 days per week for 3 more hours! Some of them only sleep about five hours per night! I feel sad for them, but most of the English teachers try to make their time in the Hagwon fun. Most of the kids are very sweet, some are troublesome but not in any truly unmanagble way, so I'm optimistic that I'll be able to make teaching fun and interesting this year! The curriculum I'll be teaching is straight out of a work book and we teach for quarterly exams when the students move up a level or have to remain at the same level for another year.
I learned that in Korea, they say that you are one year old when you are born, so when students give me their ages, I have to mentally subtract a year to understand when they really are. I was shocked when I heard that one class was 11 and 12-year-olds because they seemed so much younger! When you're that age, a year means a whole lot!
I should explain the title of this post, when I was observing one of the youngest leveled classes that I'll be teaching this year, the focus of the unit they were learning was "A Trip to the Aquarium." One of the vocabular terms was, "grows a new arm"! I thought this was hilarious. In the recorded dialogue, the English speakers had a conversation about starfish growing a new arm, but hearing a whole class of new English speakers repeat the phrase "grows a new arm" was pretty funny as an isolated moment!
I have more to say but it's time to head to work, and this post is too long already. Hope everyone is well and happy!
After coffee Tommy (who picked me up at the bus station the night before and takes care of driving us around when we need to go to appointments and stuff...he's like a liason for the school but speaks very little English) brought me to the hospital. Brenda didn't have to go because she worked in Korea last year for a few months. She's also taught English in Italy for the last four years, so she's an excellent resource! Anyway, hospital observations:
-All the older people were walking around in funny hospital pjs. The women in pink with a tie at the waist, the men in blue with buttons! I wasn't given a pari so I didn't feel part of the club.
-They had me give them a urine sample and gave me a cup and two tubes to pour the urine into from the cup. I thought this was the strangest thing! It was my job to walk the samples from the restroom to the sample rack? Then when they took my blood there was no concern about blood contamination. No rubber gloves, not even bandaids. They had me hold a swab to my bleeding arm (and I bleed a lot), when I dropped the swab the nurse just picked it up with her bare hands and used the same swab to mop up some of the spilt blood! Sorry if this makes you queezy, but I couldn't get over the non existent fear of contamination! I talked with Mallory (another English teacher whom I knew from Seattle) about it and she said there's not fear of HIV hear in Korea which is one of the reasons that the treatment of bodily fluids is so casual...
-Little boys love my bug necklace. In the middle of all my testing a little boy spotted my bug necklace. For any of you who haven't seen it, it's become a bit of Spruce Street School emblem. It's a rectangle of clear plastic with a glow in the dark background and shine green and blue beetle in it. The little boy kept tapping the plastic trying to wake up the beetle then saying, "It's dead! It's dead," in Korean.
After the hospital I wen to my first day of work a the hagwon (which is the Korean name for an English school that teaches classes after regular school). The kids here go to school for SO LONG every day. First they have a regular 7-hour school day, then a lot of them go to hagwon 2-3 days per week for 3 more hours! Some of them only sleep about five hours per night! I feel sad for them, but most of the English teachers try to make their time in the Hagwon fun. Most of the kids are very sweet, some are troublesome but not in any truly unmanagble way, so I'm optimistic that I'll be able to make teaching fun and interesting this year! The curriculum I'll be teaching is straight out of a work book and we teach for quarterly exams when the students move up a level or have to remain at the same level for another year.
I learned that in Korea, they say that you are one year old when you are born, so when students give me their ages, I have to mentally subtract a year to understand when they really are. I was shocked when I heard that one class was 11 and 12-year-olds because they seemed so much younger! When you're that age, a year means a whole lot!
I should explain the title of this post, when I was observing one of the youngest leveled classes that I'll be teaching this year, the focus of the unit they were learning was "A Trip to the Aquarium." One of the vocabular terms was, "grows a new arm"! I thought this was hilarious. In the recorded dialogue, the English speakers had a conversation about starfish growing a new arm, but hearing a whole class of new English speakers repeat the phrase "grows a new arm" was pretty funny as an isolated moment!
I have more to say but it's time to head to work, and this post is too long already. Hope everyone is well and happy!
Monday, August 23, 2010
Here I am
I have arrived in Korea! I got in last night, the 23 at about 7 pm local time. I met a couple of representatives from the recruiting agency I went through and they helped me get on a bus to Daejeon where I'll be living and working. I'd just missed a bus so I had to wait about two hours for the next one. By the time I finally got on the bus, I could hardly keep my eyes open.
Some initial thoughts and observations on Korea:
-Police officers walk around with rifles. Not guns, but giant rifles, taller than an eight year old if you stood one up. At one point at the airport, I saw two officers walk by a child, the tip of the rifle almost touched the child's chest. It was so casual, as if the contact was normal. My heart almost stopped.
-Korea is quieter than the United States. I feel like in the US there is a constant drone of noise. There's almost always music playing in the background, people are constantly speaking to one another, or on cell phones. Here, people generally speak in quieter voices than I'm used to, and when waiting for my bags at the airport, that huge space was almost silent. A baggage claim carousel in the US is hardly ever quiet, as I remember.
-Everything is new. The buildings are covered in neon signs. The streets are new. The restaurants are new. I knew this coming here. Korea was developed in the 60s, 70s and so on, but I didn't know how strange it would be to look at a place that feels like it has not history in the buildings...
-There was a TV on the bus as well as decorations that looked like Christmas holly: green leaves and berry vines and some things that sparkled. There's also a small Christmas tree looking thing in the hotel where I'm staying...
Time to find coffee.
Some initial thoughts and observations on Korea:
-Police officers walk around with rifles. Not guns, but giant rifles, taller than an eight year old if you stood one up. At one point at the airport, I saw two officers walk by a child, the tip of the rifle almost touched the child's chest. It was so casual, as if the contact was normal. My heart almost stopped.
-Korea is quieter than the United States. I feel like in the US there is a constant drone of noise. There's almost always music playing in the background, people are constantly speaking to one another, or on cell phones. Here, people generally speak in quieter voices than I'm used to, and when waiting for my bags at the airport, that huge space was almost silent. A baggage claim carousel in the US is hardly ever quiet, as I remember.
-Everything is new. The buildings are covered in neon signs. The streets are new. The restaurants are new. I knew this coming here. Korea was developed in the 60s, 70s and so on, but I didn't know how strange it would be to look at a place that feels like it has not history in the buildings...
-There was a TV on the bus as well as decorations that looked like Christmas holly: green leaves and berry vines and some things that sparkled. There's also a small Christmas tree looking thing in the hotel where I'm staying...
Time to find coffee.
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