Weeks 2, 3, and 4

These were my first three full weeks of teaching my own classes….and definitely the biggest learning phase I’ve had in a while. It was a bit of a rough start because…well..I haven’t had a full time job in a while, they were pretty long days between prepping and the actual teaching, and kids are flipping tiring! I mean, overall they are good kids, but there’s one or two who can’t handle having a bad day or they like to entertain the others. Obviously, I know kids are tiring. After babysitting someone else’s kids for a few hours it’s kind of nice to be able to give them back. I guess I gave myself a little too much credit going into this by thinking I could breeze into this no problem….8 classes of kids 5 days a week…HA..nothing to it!

In my earlier messages to some of you I mentioned how cool the school was. It’s set up so that each room has a theme such as: Jurassic Park, Universe, kitchen, McDonalds, bedroom, village. This theme is only relating to the decor, not what is taught in the classroom. My room is “The Kitchen” which is quite nice and fairly big. Another cool feature is the ramp to go up to the second floor. It’s just a carpeted ramp, but for some reason it makes a big difference..gives it more of a playhouse feel. We’re supposed to enforce the no running rule, but the kids love running down this ramp so much that I haven’t really got onto it. The walls are covered in colourful pads so they won’t really get hurt. Sometimes they’ve come around the corner and smacked into my basket of supplies in my hand, but they just walk it off. I thought the bell was neat at the beginning too…now it’s just a bit much. It’s a recognizable childhood tune, but I don’t know the name of it….still beats an actual bell.

OK, enough school talk. Outside of school, the main social outing seems to be eating for Koreans and foreigners both. This process is lengthened by how much the group is talking, but it’s certainly never held up by the service! Shortly after you sit down, an array of side dishes are placed in front of you faster than you can say “array of side dishes”. Most places are dedicated to a certain kind of meat and everything is done as a group so all you have to choose is the amount of meat you want. Everything for the cooking part is brought and away you go. Part way through the cooking they’ll often come over and take the tongs and spoon away from you because apparently we can’t stir…. Oh, they have these buttons too where you just press it (instead of trying to flag a server down) and they come running over. Honestly last night we were in a nicer restaurant that one of the Korean teachers took us and we pushed the button only to hear the poor girl running in her high heels to get to us asap!
Besides eating, we’ve been bowling, to the movies, to a Wii bong, and to a bar called “Elvis” that is kind of aimed at “westerners”. The Wii bong is prob my favourite. You pay about $1.50/hour and you get to play any Wii/playstation game you want on big screen TV in the privacy of your own little nook with a couch. It kind of makes Wii more exciting to me just because it’s an actual outing. “Bong” just means room so there are nori bongs (karaoke), Soju bongs (Soju is their very own hard liquor), and there’s another bong that is basically a public bath/spa I guess…anyways everyone’s naked.

This Saturday, we’re going to Busan. I am super duper pumped to see another city. Busan is about an hour and half bus ride to the east. It’s right on the coast near Japan and has very nice beaches, an aquarium and a really wonderful Indian restaurant sooo we’re going to hit all of those places. Since it’s not crazy far away we’re just going for the day although I kind of plan on taking note of other spots I’d like to visit in Busan and come back for a full weekend or two in the summer.