Wow, I thought I would be so good at keeping up with the blogging but it has already been a week since my last post! I will try to write more often, at least a couple times a week. We have just been so busy lately getting settled in (even thought I still don’t even feel close to being all settled here) and learning the ways at school. So let me start again back last week!
So since the original school we were going to be teaching at, Brown English Language School, just recently got bought out my LCI (a chain English school in Korea), we haven’t started teaching our own classes. I have been observing teachers in the classroom all week as well as this week and helping out wherever I can. Brianna and Katie ended up taking over Kevin and Daniels schedules, the two guys we knew from WSU, since they left last weekend because their contracts were up. So this set of kids graduate in a week or so and after they graduate, we get a whole new set of kids enrolled for the LCI school. So starting in March we will each have our own classrooms that we get to set up and decorate, and our own kids we will have until their graduation. I am so excited to finally have my own class and meet all my kids! I know they will be extra cute and I’m going to try to make mine the smartest in the school haha.
So last week on Thursday, since Kevin and Daniel were leaving, all of the Korean teachers and all the English teachers (about 15 of us in all!) went out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. I guess it is a tradition whenever new teachers arrive and whenever old teachers leave to all go to dinner together here, and the whole meal is paid for by the school. I definitely filled up on my share of free appetizers and steak! I tried so hard to save room for dessert, since I mean it was all free, but we all ended up sharing so many appetizers and break that I couldn’t do it. They drip their bread in chocolate sauce here as an appetizer, it was soo good!!!!
A big group of us also went out for shabu-shabu the other night. It is a style of dinner where you have a big pot of spicy broth with vegetables and potatoes in the middle of the table and you add meat to it. The meat cooks, and you take the pieces out to eat them. It is fun because it is very interactive and you can share everything, which means I can eat other peoples’ food too! What’s better than that? It was a pretty traditional restaurant; we have to take our shoes off at the door. Stores and restaurants here never have public restrooms; the bathrooms are always located in the hallways of the buildings. So that makes it fun when you have to keep putting your shoes on and taking them off whenever you need to use the bathroom! I also tried to make spaghetti at my apartment for dinner the other night, I’m not sure if any of you understand how hard it is to eat noodles with chopsticks but it took me almost 45 minutes to eat my whole bowl of spaghetti! I am going to be a chopsticks pro by the time I get home.
So after a long week of exploring, observing at school, and getting a little settled, I think all of us were excited when the weekend finally came! The weeks go by so fast, everyone keeps saying that also. Before I even knew it I had been in Korea for a week and it was time to explore the nightlife. We went out in Dongtan for Kevin and Daniels last night out on Friday. It was really fun to meet their group of friends, especially since a lot of them will still be here after they leave so we know a few people! We caught a taxi after the WA Bar in Dongtan and headed about a 15 minute ride to a city called Suwon. It was so lit up and so busy, all a little overwhelming! We went to a couple other places. At one of them our other friends from WSU, Chase, Chris and Katelan, met up with us and it was so fun to see them! They live in Pyeongtaek and will be here until August next year so we will have lots of time with them!
On Saturday we just went out with the girls who have already been here. Ta-Leah and Rhonda, two of the teachers, have been here for 10 months already and the other two, Amy and Sarah, just hit their third month mark. So they were able to show us around a little bit, we just kinda followed them from place to place but had a fun time! We went to this one pub/restaurant place to wait for one of Ta-Leah’s friends and it was so weird when we walked in, it was like full of foreigners. We met a lot of Canadians there and a few people from other places in the US. It’s funny, whenever I see someone not of Asian descent on the street I feel the need to say hi or something since we both are foreigners in such a different country! It makes it really easy to meet new people though which has been fun.
Sunday was Valentine’s Day, and we went to Chase and Katelans apartment in Pyeongtaek to celebrate. Katie, Brianna and I took the subway for the first time and it was everything I remembered from my subway experiences in Europe! Very busy and bustling, loud, and dirty. Haha it is so nice though to be close to such a form of transportation because even though taxis are much cheaper here, it is faster to take the subway and trains. We just had a fun night out in Pyeongtaek that night, spent as each others’ Valentines! The reason we were able to travel all the way to Pyeongtaek on Sunday night was because we had Monday off of work for the Chinese New Year. So the three of us girls just spent Monday relaxing, setting up our rooms a little more, and watching movies. Back to work on Tuesday!
Speaking of the Chinese New Year, we had a chance to be a part of a very interesting traditional display. The New Year is a time for family and food for Koreans, and they perform a very traditional bow for the elders. In our case, we bowed for the Principal of the school, Jade’s mother. First you put your right hand over your left and hold it in front of your stomach. Then you raise your hands up to about your chin, slowly lower yourself onto your left knee, put the other knee down and your palms on the floor, and lower your head onto your palms into a bowing position and hold for 3 seconds. You then raise up, again with your left knee and keeping your hand together, and end in the standing position with a little bow of your head. I guess the tradition after that is for the elders to give you money, so the Principal gave us 30,000 won (about $26), kind of like an early bonus! It was very interesting and I thought it was kind of fun to be able to participate.
Well, so far this week it has just been back to work! I am still observing another teacher but she is letting me help her teach so it hasn’t been too boring yet. I am definitely ready for my own class by now though. I have lots of ideas for how to decorate the classroom and activities to do with the kids and I cant wait to meet the new kids with LCI. I think it will be so fun to see them all the way through the year until graduation and to see how much they improve because of my help. It seems like it will be a very satisfying job!
Well I will try to be better with my blogging, I want to keep everyone updated. It is just that sometimes when I sit down to do it there is just so much to talk about because I want you all to know everything and I just get overwhelmed! I will keep posting pictures as well because they help to tell my stories. We are still getting settled and setting up our rooms and not quite in a routine yet so im sure I will have lots more to write about soon. For now, love from Korea!
- Tia Teacher
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