during my first whole week of teaching

On Thursday I had the day off.  So I slept in til about 8:45, considering I've been waking up before 7 every day before that, that felt pretty good.  I hung around the apartment, made breakfast, and read a book untill around noon.  At noon I went to the nearby mountain / hill and hiked all the way up and around it, taking pictures.  It took about 4 hours in total, and was really pretty, and a good hike.  They had workout equipment along the trail in several spots.  The hike definitely taught me something about the area where I'm living.  It gave me a good view of the area around, and though I may be living in a city with 1.5 million people, the part i live in, and every part, is pretty much surrounded by hills.  So the city is split up into lots os small sections, so I can't really get lost in my section of the city, which is nice.  Also, the way the city is built, there are hills and undeveloped areas all around and in it.  It looks a lot better than just a vast expanse of developed land, and it’s nice having nature nearby.  The big apartment buildings just stop in places, and on the other side of the street is a small forest next to a 12 story apartment building, you can see what I mean in my pictures, I took an interest in one example of that in particular, and took pictures of it from many different angles as I walked around the hill.  There are a few pictures below, I will more on facebook if you are interested in viewing them all.

I had my first day of teaching Friday, as well as my first night on the town.   My day started out well, my first class was peachy, my second class a little harder to control, but I still managed.  It was my third and last class that gave me problems.  They are my youngest class, Korean 6 year olds, which is 4 and 5 year olds for us.  In Korea a kid is 1 when they are born, and turn 2 at new years.  The agenda for that class started out with some of the same course work I was doing with the seven year olds, so I figured I would teach it in the same way.  But their understanding of english was not good enough to comprehend it.  So I was caught a little off guard by that, and tried to accomodate, but found it difficult.  One of the kids decided to go to sleep, I tried to wake her and get her involved in the class, but I couldn't.  When I had them working on a workbook, one kid just couldn't do it, which it was a tracing letters exercise, so I don't understand why she couldn't... Whenever I sat next to her she could do it just fine, but the moment I turned away she would stop!  All the other students were done, so I had to check their work, and give them their stickers to put on their pages.  So I was dealing with 11 kids calling out "teacher teacher", trying to figure out their names so I could give them THEIR stickers, and get a student to do her work.  Then, the ones who I did give their stickers were yelling “teacher done, teacher done!”  so I had them read a book.  They finished their books pretty quick and started running around, grabbing markers and writing on the white board, or doing pretty much whatever they wanted.  I tried to get them settled, but I was still trying to check students' work and get the one girl to work on her workbook.  It was all I could do to keep myself from ripping my hair out.  But the 7 year old classes went much better.

Bad news for you mom, apparently bars in Korea don't close at night.  I went out to a good bye dinner for the teacher whose schedule I am taking over.  We went to a soju bar after (soju is like vodka but only 20% alcohol, and tastes better) and a noribong (karaoke bar with private rooms)  then I went downtown with a few of the teachers and went to a couple bars.  I had a good time, met some locals that spoke good english, and some foreigners living in the area, and made it home around 6 am, woke up around 2 pm. 

I moved into my new place on Sunday, it’s nice, though small.  The biggest difference between Korean and American apartments is the bathroom.  When I first went in my bathroom I was thinking “Where’s the shower!!??”  Their bathrooms just consist of a removable shower head for a shower, a toilet, a sink, and a small cupboard on the wall; so I didn’t see the shower head at first.  My Korean is developing very slowly, because I only speak English at work and usually only hang out with English speaking people outside of work.  But I can get around the town and get anything I need, directions to a cab driver, ask for something, whatever.  I’m going to take Korean classes when the new classes start at this local place that offers it, but that doesn’t start until the beginning of November.

I’m also eating a lot of different food.  We get free lunch in the cafeteria every day, and I haven’t had a main dish twice yet, though the veggies or gim chi is usually the same (I don’t like gim chi unless it’s cooked or in something, and the way they prepare the veggies isn’t usually very good either), but some of the main dishes have been really good, not that I know what most of them are!  I had pig skull the other day, which wasn’t bad at all.  I need to get going, so bye!

I'll post pictures of my hike soon