Blogger Notes

Korea – Week 3

This week started off with a stunted attempt to go to church. I wanted to visit Yeoido Full Gospel Church an Assemblies of God congregation with the world’s largest membership. For no good reason, the church doesn’t have exact directions on their English website. I guess, like, you know, they’re the biggest so of course everybody knows where it is, right? Right. Cut to act three, even if they do know, they can’t explain it in English if you get off the wrong subway stop! I spent a few hours at Yeoido community park watching people enjoy the summer afternoon. Further attempts to resume next week…

My first week of a real teaching schedule was quite an adventure. I had my lesson plans for the 1^st and 2^nd grades (US 10th/11th) worked out pretty well so those classes went pretty smoothly. However, Monday was my first teachers’ class. Basically, most of the non-English teachers haven’t had to use English since college and they thought it would be fabulous if I led a conversation class for them…except they weren’t really ready for conversation. In an American classroom, you typically jump in and ask people to challenge themselves from day one. Until recently (and still only 50% of the time) that wasn’t the case in Korea. My “fun” lesson plan fell flat. I’ll have something boring for them next week. ; )

I only had three days of teaching the girls this week because of special activities on Thursday and Friday. I think in general, most of us in the West buy into Asian countries’ PR campaign about how well mannered and studious the kids are. This would be a good time to point out that I’ve never seen so many kids going god-knows-where all times of the night on public transport on a weeknight (except NYCity.) I had the misfortune of teaching one of my classes without my co-teacher and quickly discovered that students have no qualms about brushing their hair, chatting and texting during lessons! I’m still deciding if I’m more impressed at their gall or offended that my lesson wasn't keeping their attention…

Wednesday night, Liz and I met another teacher living in our building. He’s a (tall) Mexican kid from Chicago who in four days of living here already figured how to get rid of his trash! While this may be an issue of common sense in the States, Korea has an elaborate trash disposal system a step down from Japan’s, in which food, recyclables (categorized by type) and general trash have to be placed separately. This, in addition to purchasing approved trash bags!

Thursday was my school’s anniversary. For some reason in Korea, that’s a cause for celebration. The girls were off the hook for a day. Students from different programs came up with activity areas. Student art and sculptures were on display. Some classes sold snacks. I spent some “free-speaking” time with the English Club. Some art design students offered nail painting with detailed designs. Japanese class students had a Japanese area. The hospitality industry girls were acting as waitresses and mixing cocktails. Yup, cocktails. Our school is serious about the hospitality! We have a mock hotel reception area, bedroom, ballroom and cocktail bar. (See Exhibit A.)

All in all, it was a pretty wild day at school. The only American comparison I could think of is an afterprom party. I decided to go ahead and leave at 415 or so. From what I understand, I missed the dance team, cheerleaders and teachers’ performances! Maybe next year. lol!

Friday was physical fitness day. Anybody else remember those horrid Presidential Fitness Tests we had back in the day? Same concept except they only have to run 50 meters! Once again, I had no classes. I spent most of the day hanging out with one of my co-teachers and occasionally timing the girls as they did push-ups. Since it was the day before Chuseok, the most major Korean holiday all year, we had a half day.

My super cool thirty-something coworkers treated me to lunch at T.G.I. Friday’s (again!) Thank God I love that place…then off to the movies to see Mama Mia. I was beginning to get a sore throat but I still felt ok.

On Saturday, I traversed down to check out a palace and be touristy. It was…touristy. Basically, there were very old buildings. And a conservatory built in the 1800’s or so. The most interesting thing to me was observing how the modern city of Seoul has built up around the palace site. Directly across the street is a large private hospital. Around the corner are several convenience stores. The contrast was notable.

Other than that, I spent Saturday warding off a flu/cold combination and wishing I was out having fun! I’m (95%) better now but “I was sick” was pretty much my resounding refrain for “What did you do over the holiday?”

And on that note, I’ll wrap it up. ; ) More to come!

Love and hugs,

-taryn

[This is a copy of an email I sent to family and friends back home.]

Korea - Day 14

Week two was pretty light. I'm SO fortunate to have a school where I was encouraged to do planning rather than be thrown into teaching on day one.

The first couple of days were filled with greeting: greeting the principal of my school and our sister school, greeting the other teachers, greeting the students, meeting the church pastor.

I also had to get a health check (as per government requirements). It was nothing physically invasive but answering, "Do you have any communicable diseases?" etc. when the little man who was asking the questions looked like he was embarrassed for me, was quite an experience.

So far, I've only eaten cafeteria food once and that only for posterity's sake. (I get the feeling the principal had something to do with that since he asked what I thought of it!) Every other day so far, one or more of my coworkers has taken me out and treated me. I think I'm going to owe a lot of people lunch when I get paid!

I'm still adjusting to my small living space but I'm hoping it'll teach me how not to accumulate useless stuff. Liz (the other teacher in my building) and I met up with a couple of other English teachers in our neighborhood for dinner a couple of times last week. One of the other girls is having a tough time with her head teacher and it reminded me how truly blessed I am.

On last Wednesday, Liz and I were invited to an orchestra concert by one of my coworkers. His daughter was performing. Unfortunately, what we thought would be a 1-hour subway ride turned into nearly two hours of transport! We were extremely late to the concert (45 minutes) and after watching the performance on monitors for 15 minutes, we decided to make our way home since it was already after 9pm! That's when things got interesting.

I should point out that our neighborhood is pretty calm for a major metropolis. We actually have tree-lined streets and a little park with hiking trails around the corner. Downtown Seoul is a completely different story. We transferred trains to one of the most central lines at around 1015pm and experienced rush hour traffic!

Liz and I missed the first two trains that came by because we chickened out. Basically, the train was like that video of rush hour Tokyo without the professional pushers. After the second train, we bolstered up, got near the front of the line and got shoved all the way into the train! We rode shoulder to shoulder with random strangers for 15-20 minutes before the train emptied out enough where we had some room. Still, we were standing up until our next transfer.

All in all, my second week in Korea was interesting but mostly uneventful. Shopping has been quite a challenge because of the language barrier and made worse by limited selection. Trying to stock my apartment with basic necessities feels like a part-time job most days. (At this point it would be appropriate to mention that after being so excited about my local KyoChon chicken, they did duly disappoint. Seriously, their chicken wings were winglets! I think they killed the little guys before they hit maturity. *sigh*)

My school has asked me to spend 4 of my working hours doing an afterschool English club in addition to 3 hours of teachers' conversation class. They're definitely trying to squeeze out every penny's worth of work from me. I feel like a one woman English academy! Various teachers randomly stop me in the hall to ask for correct pronunciation and grammar, no joke!

Next week (the week I'm writing this) is my first week of teaching so there'll be a few more interesting details then. Sometime between now and October 1, I'll be settled in [and begin to finish tackling my screenplay!]

Hope everyone's doing well.

Love and hugs,
-taryn

p.s. Just thought I'd include the photo of my bathroom for kicks. Yes, you too can wash clothes, take a shower and use the toilet all at the same time, courtesy of a connection from your sink---that is if the mildew and gaudy mirror decor don't attack you first! :p

[This is a copy of an email I sent to family and friends back home...]

Korea – Day 7

I finally got my apartment. I won't lie. It's ghetto. Fortunately, I've had worse accommodations so I'll be over it soon. It's basically a dorm room with a tiled area functioning as a bathroom.

The cool thing is my neighborhood. Downstairs there's a Dunkin Donuts, 7-11, KyoChon chicken shack. Up the street there's a park with a walking trail, badminton nets and exercise area. Last night there was an open air concert but I missed it because I went shopping at Nonghyup Hanaro Mart for groceries instead. The subway is one minute from our apartment door and the bus stop is maybe two minutes. There are some things I don't like but overall, my impression is favorable.

After I landed in Korea, I was whisked off to the Hyundai Learning Center where I and 200 other foreigner teachers were held for training captive for the week. The area is beautiful and had a wonderful view of the surrounding mountains. Being with English speakers all week was a bit more like being on a guided tour than actually experiencing Korea.

We had all sorts of training exercises and workshops about our future lives as public school conversation teachers. Most of it was useful. Some of it was actually interesting and engaging. The highlight was getting to meet other folks in the same position as newcomers to Korea soon to be immersed in the culture as full-time teachers.

With that in mind, I have to give testimony to a little miracle God performed. As some of you know, I missed my initial flight. I was scheduled to fly out of the states on August 23 and to arrive in Korea on August 24. Try as I might, I woke up later than intended the morning of my departure and was further slowed down by my precious mother who insisted that we stop along the way so she could give me some travel money. At 6 a.m. the line to check in was atrociously long. I was stuck behind a 20-person group booked on an international flight in addition to a few stray folks behind them.

I had only slept 2.5 hours the night before and was definitely cranky. I had been waiting nearly an hour and was next in line when a lady cut me. She parlayed right up to the front and was like, "Oh, I didn't know you were next." I didn't even get a chance to say anything because my mom and the lady behind me took her on. lol! Mind you, this was just minutes after another woman had attempted to storm the front of the line and got fussed out by some people that had been waiting since 5 a.m.

That said, miracle #1: vindication.
The lady that cut got checked in and was on her way a good 10-15 minutes before me. I tried to stay calm. I let her pass and figured everything would work itself out. When I finally got to the boarding area (after nearly losing my passport), who's standing there but Cut-in-Line Lady? The plane is parked but the walkway was pulled away. She and her daughter were trying to convince airline staff to let them on the plane. While they pretended not to see me, I couldn't help but chuckle. I was quite amused until I remembered that my luggage, like theirs, was on the plane…without me.

After calling my family back to the airport to pick me up and starting over the next day in the same outfit (eww!), I began my travels again, this time with the international portion booked on Korean Air rather than Delta. That was a mini-blessing in disguise. Korean Air stewardesses actually work for their money. They're so attentive it's mildly frightening.

Then comes miracle #2a: Having missed my flight the day before, my two pieces of luggage and 52-lb cardboard box made it Seoul at the same time I did. No delays. No problems.

Miracle #2b is the kicker: After getting off the plane, making my way through customs and loading my luggage on a free—rental cost $3 in the US—rolling cart, a girl turns to me and asks, "Are you a teacher?" I guess my style doesn't really say 'military.' lol. She then asks, "Did you come with Footprints?" which is my recruiting company! With both questions answered, we agreed to stick together, since we were in the same boat.

The two of us clicked pretty well and we're only 2 years apart in age. During orientation week, we were just down the hall from one another and were worried that after becoming friends, our chances of being 'stationed' together out of 200 other teachers was quite slim. Fast forward to the end of the week, not only are we stationed in the same district, we were placed in the same building and our schools are across the street from each other!

Naturally, I had been preparing myself to go it alone and to face the mental and emotional exhaustion of trying to communicate far beyond my Korean language ability. As it so happens, my fellow teacher is Korean American and was SUCH a big help when we went shopping for home items yesterday. I'm really blessed to have a friend and language helper.

Miracle #3: I'm teaching at an all girls Christian school! I didn't know that there were single-sex public schools in Korea and I had certainly had no idea that public schools in Korea (heck anywhere) could be Christian! Having grown up with 2 sisters, if there's one thing I know, it's girls. I'm excited. All of the coworkers I've met so far are really nice. We have chapel on Wednesday mornings. And my classroom is AMAZING.

Next week I'll write about my first week at school. I've been told I won't have to do any teaching this week but I certainly want to be prepared for next week!

Love and hugs!
-taryn