A few random updates

The past few weeks have been rather busy at work getting ready for the kid's graduation presentation next Tuesday. Three of our classes are graduating (Apple, Orange, and Lemon), and moving on to elementary school. Some of these kids, though not as many as my boss had hoped, will be coming to EWAS in the afternoons now for 3-5 days a week. As much as I enjoy singing and dancing with my kids, the pressure put on both the teachers and the students in the past month has been rather unpleasant. The teachers are expected to determine which songs and stories the kids should memorize, and then choreograph the dances and practice with the students, while concurrently attempting to continue teaching the books the students have yet to complete. While I don't mind deciding which chapter from the book to memorize, or even assigning parts, I am not, nor have I ever been, a choreographer. Granted, I took ballet for quite a few years as a child, but extemporaneous dancing in my living room twenty years ago in a leotard while doing the laundry does not compare to full body movements and blocking for a group of eight 5-year olds and a group of nine 7-year olds, most of whom are still working on hand-eye coordination. You'd be surprised how hard it is to think of movements for a song like "I Just Called to Say I Love You". Thankfully my partner teacher did the motions for that one.

So we have just two more days with the older kids before they leave. This means that Wednesday through Friday of next week will be easier, as I'll have half as many classes in the morning. We're supposed to spend this time cleaning out the classrooms to get ready for the next year. The nice thing about starting a new year is that the schedules change. I'll be teaching Orange in March instead of Lemon, though I'm not sure which other class I'll have, since there won't be a Cherry next year (not enough baby kids signed up). I'll also be losing one class in the afternoons, so I'll only have one on Tuesday and Thursday (instead of two), and 4 MWF (instead of 5). It'll be really nice not to have to teach straight from 2:30-6:15 with no break anymore.

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This past weekend I visited with Dayna and her boyfriend, since she moved into Seoul and I haven't seen much of her lately. I went to Itaewon first to pick up a book I had ordered (Coraline - definitely looking forward to seeing the movie now) and to show my friend Chris where the store was. Chris and I then met Dayna and Hong in Itaewon for lunch at a Thai restaurant. During lunch Hong suggested that we go see a movie - specifically a Korean documentary with English subtitles about an 80-year old man and his ox. So we did. It was... interesting... though a bit repetitive. Afterwards Chris went to meet up with some of his friends in Gangnam for drinks, and I went with Dayna and Hong to do a bit of exploring around Meyongdong. We went to the large Catholic cathedral, which is beautiful at night, at which point I realized that I hadn't brought my camera with me.

After the cathedral we wandered around Meyongdong (which is in Seoul) looking for things to do. We ran across a street fortune teller, and Hong suggested I get my fortune read since he could translate what the person was saying for me. After asking me for my birthday, and examining my face and hands, he proceeded to tell me a lot of things I knew and a few things I didn't. He said I listen to, and believe, most of what I hear, which makes me susceptible to betrayal. Though I'm not nearly as gullible as I used to be, I still fall for things a bit more often than I would like. He also said that I shouldn't wear yellow or white, as it messes with my chi (or the Korean version of the chi). He said I should wear dark colors, like brown and deep purple. I like purple. At least, I've started liking it in the past 8 months. He also said that something changed me when I was about 20 years old, and I'm a different person now than I used to be. Now I'm a leader, and I used to be a follower. I can sort of see this (I started a group on Facebook for the ex-pats that live in Uijeongbu to make sure everyone knew where we were meeting each week for our dinners. Because of this, I've become the unofficial "leader" of the group, and certain non-vital decisions have begun to fall to me), though I still consider myself more of a follower. He also said that I shouldn't wear metal, as this messes with my chi, and checked my watch to see if there was metal on it (it passed inspection - I go for those cheap $7 Walmart plastic ones). He said I should take out my metal earrings as well. I thought about it, and later that night removed four of the five metal earrings I had in. My parents were highly pleased with this, and are probably wondering why they didn't send me to a fortune teller years ago and pay him to tell me that tattoos and piercings would mess with my chi and to stay far away from them. Nothing else was that noteworthy, other than the fact that when I'm 30, I won't envy anyone, and when I'm 50, even though I'll have plenty of money, I shouldn't lend it to anyone else. Oh yeah, and he said if I was approached by the media for a job I should take it because I'm creative and my personality would suit an on-camera personality.

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The forecast for today was a small chance of snow, and this afternoon we saw a few flakes before we left work. By the time I'd left my private lesson at 8:30, there was a thin covering of snow in some places, and in others it was melting. Snow still hasn't lost it's appeal to me - I still think it makes everything better. Kind of like a giant band-aid, or a hug from your mom. It also made me wonder about the chemistry of the streets and roads. Some parts of the sidewalk had a decent covering of snow, and some parts were completely melted. During the day n and the shade is.s sense because of where the sun and the shade is. But this was well after dark, and I couldn't see anything that would indicate a difference in the materials that would cause parts to melt and others not too. I suppose that's one of the many mysteries of Korea that I'll never know...

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I'm coming up on the end of my 9th month here in Korea. It really doesn't seem like I've been here that long, but I'm scheduled to come back home in just three short months. After all this mess with the graduations are over, I'm going to ask if I can stay an extra month and come home at the beginning of July instead of the beginning of June. Not that I wouldn't love to spend two whole months living in my parent's spare bedroom, but I'll still have bills to pay, and I won't be able to come back to Korea until August 1st. I'm just now starting to get a bit homesick. Not a lot, and mostly it's just because I haven't been able to see any of my family or friends back home. Skype has helped a bit, but I never realized how often I would travel home to see my parents or family. I've made some amazing life-long friends here, but nothing will ever replace the family I have back home. I'm one of the lucky few people I've ever known to have grown up in a loving, stable, healthy environment with parents who were able to prioritize and allow me to grow into my own person without letting me have the run-of-the-house. It wasn't idyllic, but I couldn't ask for anything better for my own future family.

I'm really looking forward to our family reunion cruise for a few reasons. One is it will make it a lot easier on me to see as many of my family members as possible before I come back to Korea. I'll have many of my relatives, some from out-of-state whom I rarely get to see as it is, all in one place. This way I won't have to try to travel to see any of them - we'll all be on the same boat (literally). I've also never been on a cruise before, and I've never been to the Bahamas. My passport expires in 2010, and I'll have to get a new one before I come back to Korea, so I'd like to get at least one more stamp in there before I retire it.

I'm here

It’s been quite an eventful few days. I got on the plane from Daytona on time, and transferred planes with no problem. The flight from San Francisco was very long, and a bit cramped. I had wanted to at least see the US for the last time as we were flying away, but it was overcast from the moment we got in the air until we hit Alaska. I did get to see a little bit of Russia before we got to Korea – seems like a vast wasteland of frozen tundra to me. I got off the plane, and got through customs with no problem. My bags were even at the baggage claim as soon as I got there. I found the limousine bus that I needed (they’re basically like charter busses) and got on it right away. The bus driver, however, didn’t speak English. The stops were announced in Korean, and then in English. But at the City Hall stop, it didn’t say that the next stop was in Uijeongbu. So I tried to ask the driver, since I had been told that my ride would meet me at the last stop in Uijeongbu. He didn’t understand what I was asking.


 

There was a family that got off at the stop with me, who had a little girl and a little boy. I guess the girl was taking English classes because she knew a few words and tried to find out where I was trying to go. But I had conveniently forgotten the name of the school, and I hadn’t written down any of the phone numbers that my boss had given me. So they drove me about a block to the city hall, where the night watchmen were nice enough to let me use their computers to find the phone number of Lee, who was supposed to pick me up. After we finally got a hold of him, they gave me come coffee (which is actually instant coffee sold in little packets, but it wasn’t bad), and we watched soccer until Lee, the director's husband, arrived.

He got my bags into the van, and drove me though downtown Uijeongbu, passed the school that I’ll be working at, and then showed me where my apartment is. It’s right off the main road, but on a little side street so there’s no traffic, and about 10 blocks or so from the school. My apartment is on the second floor, right above a flower shop. It’s a studio, with what passes for a kitchen, a bathroom, and a “porch” where the washer is that faces another apartment building under construction. The front door doesn’t have a key; it’s a number code so I don’t need to worry about loosing my keys anymore. The kitchen has a dorm-type fridge, a microwave, a sink, and a hot plate. There’s no closet, just a metal rack with some hangers on it. There’s a desk/table with two chairs, a place near the door to put your shoes, a small table that you have to sit on the ground to use, a tv with the cable already working (My options in English include the BBC and a movie channel. That's it.), a bed (which is apparently brand new but hard as a rock), and a cubby hole-type thing. The air conditioner has a remote, but it’s been cold enough here that I’ve just left the windows open. Apparently this is spring weather, and it’s going to get much hotter in the summer.
 

 


The area itself is beautiful. The mountains are right next to the city, walking distance actually, but you’d never know it if you’re in downtown because everything is so flat, and the high-rise buildings cover them up. Since the country is so small, everything has a small footprint and goes up ridiculously high. All the apartment buildings are higher than most hotels I’ve seen. Mine is an exception, as it’s only three stories, and has shops underneath it, including a flower/plant shop. The school is on the sixth floor of one of these buildings.


I’m a few blocks from Home Plus, which is like a 24 hour Walmart, mixed with a department store. The bottom floor is a food court and the designer clothes. Each section is separate, and you have to pay the cashier for the items you want in their section – most of them are separated by brand. The second floor is the grocery section. When they run out of something, they don’t re-stock it until 5am, so when I went there tonight, they were out of bread, bananas, and a few other things I had wanted to get. There’s a little section in the middle that’s kind of like a mini restaurant, so if you get hungry while you’re food shopping you can eat. And yes, deodorant is no-where to be found. This place is much more sanitary than the downtown market-place, which has every kind of meat and seafood (squid, manta-ray, octopus, etc.) lying out in the air with no ice and flies buzzing around. The third floor is the rest of the home-type things that you would normally find in a Walmart. Of course everything is in Korean, though there’s a lot more English than I thought there would be. There’s more English on things like shirts and ads, but I think most people that wear those shirts have no idea what they say. Tax is included in the price of everything, so the price listed is what you pay.

There’s also old money and new money, referring to bills and not to people. I tried to use one of my bills in a vending machine to get a drink, but they only take the new money. I should be able to trade out the rest of my US dollars sometime this week, when I set up a bank account. Cherita, one of the other teachers who showed me around today, thinks that I’ll get paid next week for half a paycheck. She said they take your bills, like electricity and cable, out of your check. There’s a wireless set up here, but I need the password for it, which I was told I’ll get tomorrow.
Cherita took me out to lunch today around 1. I didn’t wake up until noon when she knocked on my door – and I probably should be in bed right now since I have to be at work tomorrow at 9:15. She said there are three English teachers – myself, Cherita, and James- and three Korean teachers. It’s a private school, and apparently very expensive, as I only have 6 or 7 kids per class. I suppose I’ll find out tomorrow more of what that’s going to be like.