I'm an alien

I am now, officially, an alien. I have a green card. And as you can see, it's really green! I had to take another picture when I sent in my registration for it, and they wouldn't let me smile with my mouth open. I'm not really sure why. But, there it is.

Yesterday I went and saw Kung-Fu Panda with Cherita. It was a very familiar story line, but with a few different twists. I enjoyed it, and definately laughed out loud a few times. Afterwards, since we were already in downtown Uijeongbu, we tried to find Tom's Vill, a bar where one of Cherita's friends works. We found it, after wandering for about half an hour. It was packed full of army guys, who were very amusing to watch while they danced to american hip-hop/rap music, and then stopped dancing when the MPs came in to do head counts. Apparently military has a curfew of 12:45, and the Military Personnel make the rounds starting around 11:45 or so to see who's in the bars, and make sure everyone's out when it's getting close to curfew. James and a few of his friends joined us, and we went to a few different bars around downtown, including one that was on the 15th floor and had a great view of downtown at night. I was invited to a scavenger hunt today, that I'll be leaving for in a little bit. I'm not sure what kind of scavenger hunt it is, but hopefully it should be fun.

What do you mean there's no Tooth Fairy?

Three of my kids had loose teeth today, so I asked them if they were going to leave their teeth for the Tooth Fairy. They just kind of looked at me. So I asked on of the other teachers later if they have the Tooth Fairy here. Turns out that you throw your teeth over the roof for good luck - there's no money involved. How they throw them over the roof when they live in apartment buildings that are 15 stories tall, I have no clue.

I went to the immigration office on Thursday of last week. Lee had gotten my results back from my physical at the hospital (no diseases or any problems to speak of - clean bill of health all around), so we took them to the immigration office to apply for my alien card. I had to give them my passport, that I'll get back in about 2 weeks. In the meantime, they gave me a little white piece of paper that says I'm allowed to be in the country. At least, I think that's what it says. I'm looking into taking a class or doing a language exchange to learn Korean.

A trip to the hospital

I only had to teach three classes today, since I went to the hospital to get my physical so I can apply for my alien card. My first class, lemon, was from 9:45-10:30. They usually have snack then, so Julie Teacher took over for me while I went to the hospital (I'm Breanna Teacher to the kids, only they usually pronounce it teachah). Lee, Julie's husband, drove me there, and took care of all the paperwork. It was a lot of running around between floors 1, 3, 6, and 8. Some of the elevators only went to even floors and some went to odd floors and some went to all of them. Only some of them were labeled.

The first thing they did was the obligatory pee test, then 4 blood samples. There was a very long conversation between two nurses and Lee before they took my blood, and the only thing I caught was HIV, which they would be testing for. Lee couldn't translate any of it, partially because his English is basic at best, and I don't know that anyone but a fluent speaker in both languages could translate medical terminology. Then we went downstairs where I thought they would do a physical, but their version of it was asking me "Do you have health ok?". Then we went back upstairs, since apparently the first set of nurses had to go to lunch and didn't have time to do the rest of it while we were up there. We got another form, went back downstairs, where they checked my teeth (no cavities, no missing teeth). Then back upstairs they checked height, weight, blood pressure, hearing, sight (all of which are fine), and did an x-ray of my chest. And then we left.

By the time we got back, it was almost the end of lunch. So I had lunch in the kitchen with Lee and one of the kids. Everyday there's soup, kimchi, rice, and then two sides. I can't eat the kimchi - it's way too spicy. Lee told me there's something called pakimchi, which is similar only made without pepper, so it's milder. But most, if not all, restaurants only serve kimchi. I do, however, love dried seaweed and rice. It's my new favorite snack. I had some sort of little silver fish that had been cooked, had it's head and tail cut off, and covered/stuffed with some sort of vegetable sauce thing. It was a bit spicy, but pretty good. Lee also showed me how to correctly hold my chopsticks, which seemed to work for the first time. It still amazes me that the kids eat such spicy food, and not only don't mind it, but they love it (the teachers eat the same thing as the kids, just bigger portions).

Julie teacher even taught my class after lunch, so I only had my two apple classes to do, which are pretty easy because one class has three kids and one class has nine, and they all speak English fairly fluently. Even though my last class is over at 4 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'm not supposed to leave before 6pm (which isn't bad, considering my day starts at 9:45 and I get an hour break after lunch). So I spent the rest of the day working on my lesson plans for lemon and cherry for next week, and making sure I had all the materials I needed for the activities. They're pretty straight-forward, and everything is pretty much scripted for you from the teacher's book. They have songs that go along with storybooks, and activity books, and homework books, all relating to whatever story they're reading. I've learned such riveting songs as "Little Bear Lake", "Let's Go Camping", and "Hello, Ranger Joe". And tomorrow is Memorial Day, so Cherita, James and I are going out to downtown Uijeongbu (pronounced weejongboo) tonight since there's no school tomorrow. I did find out from Julie teacher that my birthday, which is the Korean Independance Day, is no longer a holiday off from school - apparently Korea has too many holidays and they changed it last year to a normal school day. :(

There's lots of little things here that I find facinating. Things like when you order pizza, they always tie it with a red ribbon to keep the box closed. Or how the cars have the right of way, not the pedestrians, and they can make a u-turn in the middle of the street, as long as there's no traffic going the other way. There doesn't seem to be any laws about where to park either, as people park in the street all the time with no permits. In their registers, they keep their money vertical, instead of laying down horizontal, and most bathrooms don't have toilet paper - you're supposed to bring your own.