Halle Berry's Sister

The weekend weather was sunny and a tad bit nippy [not altogether bad wetaher to have for my first weekend in SoKo]. KT's birthday bash was this weekend but I already had commitments to my alumni board. I was incredibly greatful that the board was willing to keep me on as a director given my distance geographically. The wonders of Skype. The meeting recapped a lot of the business that has happened on the campus since our last meeting via teleconference. Our school has been enduring many financial hardships and are continuing to fight them. We were informed of some leadership opportunities among other things. I felt like I was right there in the mix [the cherry kind]. The meeting lasted a good three hours but it did not interrupt my daily routine of cooking breakfast and reading. Mom has become quite enamered with my breakfast tastes. All my life, I had been the one to eat cereal in the morning for the mere reason- it was cold. Now I am unbiased to cold or hot foods in the morning. I figure when you're living on your own, there is no room to be picky- unless seafood is involved.

By the time the phone conference was over. We hotfooted it out to Songtan to go shopping for a bit. I got a nice pair of clothes from this side street store while Rhonda "broke the bank" with all of her purchases. We also ran into one of her old friends, Pamela Perry [please insert the Halle Berry dance move]. She galavanted around the military town of Songtan with us. It was somewhat refreshing to run into Westerners that looked like me. Being the only face in the crowd everyday wears on you.

On Sunday, Rhonda let me accompany her to church. We had to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn to get there on time. Remind you, we have to rely on public transportation for everything. I have already had a bad experience with the transportation system over here already, so I was pretty much "in Rhonda's hands." We took about 3 connecting buses to get to olur final destination in Suwon. Her church is just developing and has about 60+ members. The majority of the congregation are westerners. Once I entered into the church, I must have been introduced to everyone and their brother. People back home say that our church "feels like home" because everyone is so welcoming and inviting. Now I am able to understand exactly what they mean. The praise and worship was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits. Truth be told, I had started to feel a tad homesick and doubting myself to last an entire year without my family and friends from the states.
Looking holistically at everything after church, I realized that relying only on myself to get through this phase will result in my own destruction.

A Hard Welcome

This somewhat categorizes the remaining part of my first week here. Had to start summing things up to get caught up with present day stuff.
Throughout the remainder of the first week here, my sleep schedule has started to become more routine. The bad part about all of this is that my apartment smells like garbage. Not regular garbage- the ooze that seeps out of the garbage and all over your new shoes. I have managed to track the smell to my bathroom drain. This bathroom is weird in that The WHOLE room is the shower. There is a drain in the center of the bathroom that drains out all the water. So the OCD person living inside of me decided it would be best to combat the smell with an extra dose of bleach.

Ask me did it work. Negative.
My mother says it might be because we have a septic tank and the odor just travels upward and congregates to MY APARTMENT! I am going to ask my director if I can move into the apartment next to mine that doesnt have a smell like this one. My nose cannot take this for much longer.

While at school, during the morning hours, I have been observing the way Bri teachers her classes. Its refreshing to see someone so energetic and receptive to the kid's needs. She had never taught a day in her life before here so perhaps there is hope for me to improve. You would think the kids over here are so WELL BEHAVED given their ethnicity but that is not the case. They are like American kids through in through. So much so that when you bend over you might luck up and get a "butt grab" or a "butt dart." So the remedy for this is a good ol' smack of the hand and the fatherly-like glare. Ive started decorating my classroom to make it more kid-friendly. Unlike most teachers who started, I was able to get my hands on some classroom materials that previous teachers left behind. While I was putting up the calendar in my classroom, the chair slipped from underneath me and I took a hard tumble to the ground. What a great welome into the life of SoKo, right?

Starting next week I will start my full classload which challenges me to start floating around to other classes and teaching: Math, Science, Orda, Manners, and Physical Education [from 9:20-noon]
I can handle that.

The weather here has been cold for some odd reason. Christian told me that this has been a record low for April in the history of Korea. Im not a fan of the cold weather. Combine that with high winds and rain- bring on the illnesses.

Kimchi and esKapades

Alright. I know escapades is spelled with a "C" instead of a K, but somethings just deserve a change. I was waking up throughout the night: once at 3am and once at 5am. I just decided that I wouldnt go back to sleep at that point. My apartment needed to be cleaned badly so maybe the Lord wanted me to do that in addition to talking to him. I opened up my Bible to Isaiah 41 and started reading form there. My spiritual side needed some nourishing!Ive discovered that it is easier for me to get into a routine of showering and praying [linking a physical cleansing and a spiritual cleansing--thanks Shiflet].

In the states I thought I would be able to catch a cab to work every day for about 2 bucks- to my surprise, cabs do not really hang around my part of the city. Technically, I still live in the farmlands of my city. About 2 years ago, much of the city was still farmlands...it had not been until recently that it is developing into an urban community. Needless to say, I have started to become a pro at these 30 minute walks to work.

Once inside the school, I was introduced to all of the other teachers there. I work with 3 friends from Washington State [Bri, KT, and T], Andy, The Canadian Duo [Aim, and Sarah, and Rhonda. Jade, my school director surprised me with the information that I would be teaching classes on the first day. They would not be able to let me strictly observe. Wow.
Do they realize they are asking a guy who has no real exposure to kids- to teach??

The school I teach for is governed by the LCI [Language Clubs International]. It is a private English school where parents pay upwards $800 per month to send their kids there. We are also contracted to teach at the Korean Kindergarten School across the street. The LCI director's mom is the overseer for the Kindergarten. In their kindergarten alone, there are 600 kids. Who would have thought that would even be possible?

I teach 2 English classes [40 minutes each] in the Kindergarten across the street. Each class has 12 students. The first class are 7-year olds and the second class are 6-year olds. They were fairly well disciplined for my first day...maybe they were in shock that I was their new teacher. A male teacher. I have a helper teacher who stays in my class and makes sure the kids are well behaved and she speaks to them in Korean if they are not quite sure what I am trying to communicate to them. My topic for the month is feelings and emotions. We will hopefully be able to identify and spell the numerous emotions.

In LCI, I teach a group of eleven 8-year olds. They are more knowledgable than the kids in the kindergarten. We can have basic conversations and they exhibit understanding. We are going through a basic book called "I Can Swim" and they work on writing sentences and have spelling words each week. I will also teach them science. Over at LCI, I have a aprtner teacher who is paid by LCI. She is a Korean national who speaks Englsih and Korean fluently. She is responsible for teaching them phonics and grammar to the English language.

My day runs from about 7-8 everyday. Wow. Hopefully I will have the stamina to last through this schedule. I mean, Im used to running all the time anyway!
I pray the kids like me and are actually as well behaved as they are showing me today.

The Awakening

Who would have thought that I would have been able to get this far in the process? Leaving the US would by far be the hardest thing Ive done in my adult life. I thought going off to college was big but this takes the cake. While in the airport, it all finally caught up with me. Im not going to celebrate any holidays this coming year with my crew from back in AUG. I left my parents at the security check and no sooner had I walked past security, I ran into this lady who had just as much baggage as I did. We joked about how we did not know how to pack properly and about food. She invited me to dinner in the terminal and we got to know one another befour our flight. Come to find out, we were on the same flight to Chicago. {the Lord knew what he was doing- I would have been a sad story sitting there in the terminal by myself at that point in the process}

The flight to Chicago was very short compared to the upcoming flight to Korea. 2 hours vs. 13 hours. During my 4 hour layover in the airport, I caught up with some friends. It was a sad goodbye.

Over to Korea, the flight wasnt as bad as I had originally thought. The airlines provided you with several gifts in addition to the 3 meals during the flight. I got to watch Sherlock Holmes, Where the Wild THings Are, and Alvin 2. Not too bad, eh? Once I got off the flight- I breezed through customs and made my way to baggage check. My 2 suitcases were among the first to come out. Luckily for me I ran into another foreign englsih teacher, like myself, who looked somewhat lost. We helped each other through the process; however, the airlines lost her luggage along the way. We went over to the officials overseeing baggage check to see what measures could be done to recover the luggage and she was not pleased in the least. I have never respected my mother's words until that point: "Make sure you take an extra pair of clothes in your carry-on in the case where your luggage does not arrive on time." She had nothing in her carry-on besides several electronic items.
She decided to stay back while I progressed forward to meet my ride to take me to my apartment. [Please look at the video trying to find this man]