Annyong Haseo

So, we've been here a week, and it feels like we've lived here a good two months. Time, of course, has been completely screwy from the jet-lag. The first four or five days, I woke up at 2 a.m. and then 5 a.m. regardless of the time I went to bed. We're adjusted, though. Finally.

We arrived here on Wednesday (25th), and on Thursday and Friday we observed other teachers in the classroom. Observing was really our only formal training. When we came in on Monday, we were given a (giant) stack of books and sent to tame GKI's hoardes of unruly Korean children. If I've learned anything in the past week, it's that every day is different. Tuesday I might go in and all my kids will be agreeable and eager to please Justin Teacher, then Wednesday, all of them will be pissed about English and the fact that I am forcing them to learn it. For the most part, though, they're all really good kids. If I didn't have to teach them anything, I'd like to just sit around and talk to them. They're really nice. And fun. And, actually, I feel bad for them a lot of times, because Korean culture demands so much of them. Yesterday, I asked my last class what they were doing after GKI let out, and most of them looked up wearily and mumbled, "study." A few kids had to go to another hagwan after GKI and wouldn't get home until like 11 p.m. (sidebar: GKI is a hagwan, a kind of private school that specializes in a subject. GKI is an English hagwan, but it shares a building with a math hagwan. There are sports hagwans even.) They're some good kids, though, so I try to make their English learning as comfortable as possible.

We teach kids of all ages, which is good and bad. I like getting to interact with so many different ages, but I hate trying to teach the younger kids. They're insane. Lovable, but insane. Joy mostly teaches Kindergarten (four hours in the morning), but also some older kids (I think second graders for two hours in the afternoon). I teach across the whole spectrum. I have kindergarten in the morning, first and third grade in the early afternoon, and sixth/seventh grade in the late afternoon/early evening. We work from like 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. everyday.

Some of you have probably heard about the protests in Seoul over their president's decision to allow American beef into the country. People are going bananas over here because they swear American beef is infected with mad cow disease. It's nuts. Our kids are so adamant that they'll get mad cow if they eat meat from the US. We argue with them like everyday, and always it's, "Teacher, teacher, noooo! Crazy Cow. Is bad meat!" Weird. We try to explain that we were eating that meat like ten days ago, but they just won't listen. It's pretty intense. Here's one of the funny protest posters you'll see around the neighborhood.

They have some other funny superstitions over here besides the beef thing, too. Take fan death, for instance. The other teachers tell me that newspapers have actually reported on fan death - it's that believed in. Fan death occurs when a person goes to sleep with a fan on in their room but with all the doors and windows closed. That's it. If you leave a fan on with no windows or doors open, you will die. And they believe this. And newspapers report on it. And it makes me so, so happy. I also heard they believe if rain falls on your head you'll go bald. I love it.

Sooo.... we've been having a lot of fun, so far. Work is exhausting, but it's far from terrible. I enjoy it. I love the kids, and its definitely preferable to a job making someone's coffee in the States. We have everything we need just a few minutes travel around us. The food is delicious and plentiful and cheap, cheap, cheap. Our apartment is not luxury, but it's not infested. It's a good little home only a few minutes walk from GKI. All things considered, we're settling in nicely, and it'll be great once people start coming to visit. I'm making a list of all the foods I want you to eat and the places I want to take you, so get ready.

We'll report again, soon. Maybe an all-photo post. Until then.

(The pics are 1. our meal at a Korean BBQ 2. the protest poster 3. a korean restaurant sign by GKI 4. our bathroom window)