April!

Wow, it's been almost exactly a month since I've written! I guess you could say I've been busy!

I am just starting to feel settled in here. We had some issues with our school and management for the better part of this month but I think everything finally settled out. I've mentioned briefly before about the switch from Brown English School to LCI, but we did not know quite the extent of what we would be dealing with. It turns out, Brown was bought out by LCI and we were basically helping this crew of Korean teachers get this new school up off the ground and running. Well and by helping them, I mean us foreign teachers did it ourselves. We put ridiculous hours in for a couple weeks. I'm talkin like 8:00am to 10:30pm some days. We really started from scratch once we found out that we would be working for LCI. We had to decorate entire classrooms, which doesn't sound like a lot but making cutesy calendars, welcome signs, star boards, name tags, etc takes a long time. In the first few weeks of classes, they also didn't have any of the books yet. We had like one copy of 15 different books and we had to make a ton of copies for our classes. It was up to us pretty much to figure out how to use these books and what kinds of activities to make up to go with the lessons. There were no teacher manuals and very little help from the Korean teachers. This was about the time of the Olympics so they would watch Yuna Kim on youtube all day while we were scrambling around them to get things together. We all must have looked like chickens with our heads cut off, it was really a big mess for a while. The most frustrating part about it all was the lack of appreciation from the Korean teachers, principal, and our director. One night our director bought us snacks while we were there late but that was the extent of it. We have since had a few meetings to discuss contract issues and how we are treated around here and things seem to have gotten a little better, for now. I have to keep reminding myself that things are very different here and I knew they would be. The Korean way to do business revolves around the fact that your boss says jump, you only ask how high. And throughout the whole work mess of March I tried to remember that, but some of the things going on were way past the cultural differences and had to be changed if they didnt want all of us foreign teacher to up and quit. At least 2 of the other foreign teachers were actively searching for other jobs during this time and Bri and I were talking about jobs in Seoul. Anyway, things seem to have settled out and are running smoothly for the time being. Oh, and we also finally have all of our books for the kids which helps a lot!

I also finally got everything for my apartment, I had been waiting on chairs, curtains, a drying rack, etc from our director. It is so nice to finally have curtains and be able to sleep in on the weekends! When the sun rises it is almost right outside my window in the morning, even if it turns out to be an overcast or rainy day the sun is still shining in the morning. I think we may finally be getting into some Spring weather, it snowed not that long ago and has been pretty rainy and gloomy out lately. Which sucks because all I hear of back home is beautiful warm weather! It is making me really look forward to our vacations. We found out the other day that our first week-long vacay will be the last week in July, over my birthday! We were originally planning on going to Guam, I have a good friend from school who is there and so we would have someone to show us around (and probably get a good deal on the resort he works at!) I also really want to go to Thailand for a week but we might save that trip until our December break. We will see!

So St Paddys was this last month, obviously not a very big holiday in Korea! All of us teachers dressed up in green and were pinching everyone in red and the Korean teachers thought we were crazy. There was a huuuuge St Paddys Day Parade and Festival in Seoul that Saturday, for all the foreigners I guess. Theres actually a surprising amount of Irish people in Korea! Anyway, we had every intention of going, especially to see the Korean U2 cover band (haha!) and Korean-Irish step dancers, but after a few subways and getting lost in Gangnam station, we missed the parade. We were meeting a huge group of people in Seoul and they all saw the parade. They told us it was not that exciting but I think they were just trying not to bum us out! We went to a few other places in Seoul that day, one of them being a bar called Dublin where we paid 50,000 won (about $44) for all you can eat and all you can drink. The food was delicious, it was a huge Enropean buffet with everything you could think of! Unfortunantly, the all you can drink part turned out to just be for Guiness which I am not the biggest fan of. But I definitely got my money's worth of food! Everything was very Irish-themed that day, Brianna even pretended to have an irish accent to everyone she talked to haha. I would hear her talking to someone and right when they asked where she was from, she would have to say Seattle in the most American accent haha. It was pretty funny. It was a good time and fun to celebrate something from home! The Koreans looked at us like we were just crazy all day though.

The three of us girls and another teacher, Rhonda, got a 3-month gym membership at the beginning of March. It was only 20,000 won a month, so about $50 total for the 3 months. The gym is pretty basic, treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, weights, balance balls, etc. There is however one machine that I just think is hilarious. It is like a little platform that you stand on and you put this fabric band around you, wherever you want to work the fat off, and you turn the machine on and it just jiggles really fast. I guess its supposed to just jiggle your problem areas away but it is too funny!!! Some of the Koreans swear by it and I tried it but it jiggles so fast that it almost itches or tickles or something. It is really weird! I go to the gym maybe 2 or 3 times a week, not all that often now because the weather is always so bad that I dont want to walk there after a long day at school. And we havent gotten our bicycles yet so it takes a good hour walking to and from. I am waiting until the Spring or Summer to try and get back into TaeKwonDo, I am still thinking it would be fun (and a good workout!). I havent been able to find a place where I could just do it recreationally so I will have to test back into the belts. I know 2 girls here that do it and they both really enjoy it, even though its hard for them to understand because nobody speaks English!

So I was able to name a few kids from one of my classes. They did not have English names yet so I got to name about 11 of them. I named one little boy John and one little boy Kathy (they would not let me do KathE!) and turns out they have the biggest crush on each other!! Kathy is a little firecracker and always hugs me when I get to class and leave, and John is by far the class clown who always has something to say! I just think it is so funny how John and Kathy interact, John is always bugging her and she always makes fun of him... the beginning signs of a big crush! Haha it makes me crack up everytime I am in the class.

Well it is lunch time here at school so thats all for now. It is Easter this weekend so I hear there is some kind of crazy dyed hard-boiled egg for lunch. That and some little dried fishes, of course!!!

Until later,
Tia Teacher