so i arrived to seoul with no time delays or any traveling problems. i went through customs around 4:40 am and proceeded to find the shuttle bus i needed to board. before i left i had heard that not many koreans know much english, but i was suprised that every korean i spoke with on my trip knew english well enough to give me general directions.
when i arrived to cheongju the director of the school was there to pick me up. he showed me where my apartment was (it wasn't ready to move into yet) and took me to get breakfast at dunkin donuts. at first i thought it was going to be really gross, but they actually have really good bagels that remind me of bagel boy. i guess it's where all the native english speaking teachers hang out since it's about a block away from the school, so i ran into the head teacher right away. he also went to nebraska and recognized me by my tshirt.
i started school the first full day i was here and actually had my first lesson. so i was basically thrown into it, but i think it was better this way because i wouldn't have had anything else to do while the other teachers were in class. my students were all really cute and kind of shy, but i was told that won't last long. they call you "teacher" here and when they want something, they'll start saying "teacher, teacher, teacher!" sometimes they'll call you your name and add teacher to it, so i guess that makes me "erin teacher". i teach two middle school classes at the older school, and about four 1st grade language arts classes, and one 2nd grade science lab/math class. i'm not too excited about the science/math class. the school with the younger kids is an accelerated program which uses other studies to help them learn english. usually they will have done the lesson in their korean class a few months before we teach it to them in english. that way, they comprehend what they're learning making it easier for them to learn the english.
i lucked out on my apartment--i was given a huge wardrobe, table, tv, another set of drawers, and a (yay) mattress pad! even though my bed/mattress is western style, they are still really hard, but the mattress pad makes it a ton better. they also gave me a set of sheets which were hanging to dry in my laundry room when i came. the room kind of smells musty, so i'm trying to figure out how to fix that...
the weather here is very humid. it's so uncomfortable walking around in the mid afternoon. as soon as i get ready and walk out the door, my hair already starts to curl. even though there really is no point in straightening it at this point, i still do it every day. by last night, my hair was all curly.
a few things i've picked up on since i've been here:
-the cross walks are really weird. only one side of the square has a walking sign at once, which means you wait a loooong time, unless you just walk on the red. only americans walk on the red.
-the kids at the school through their toilet paper in the garbage instead of flushing it down the toilet...even though the area they live in and where the school is located has very good sewer pipes. this may somehow relate back to how they traditionally used to do it, i don't know, but i think it's really gross.
-when you're waiting for an elevator, koreans wait right at the door and try to get on right away. it's not just the kids, the adults do it too. it's like they forget that there are people riding on it and then they get all flustered when they have to back up to let others off of it before they get on.
i'm going to start take pictures soon. so more to come soon!
