Recently in School Category

I think I'm going to sacrifice chronologicality for the most part since I've been doing such a bad job of making timely updates, and try to stick with more interesting anecdotal non-time-specific posts. Hopefully it turns out well.

Today at school 2 girls came up to me and communicated to me (poorly) that they wanted me to help them with some interview thing after school. I agreed, because, why not, and I like when the students realize that I can help them with their homework assignments because I'm good at English. So, after school rolled around and at 4-ish they came to the office to get me.

So, since I haven't written anything in a long time I guess this post will be a summary of January, February, March and April. I did Winter English Camp for the first couple weeks in January, it was good and since I had the experience from Summer Camp last year I was able to do it much better this time. I had a class of 6th graders from local elementary schools, only about 2 kids came every day so we were able to do a lot of fun stuff and it was a good time. I also had a class of 1st graders from my school and they were cool but a little bit more rowdy. Overall the camp experience this time around was much better the students were all happy with no complaints, probably because I played a lot of games with them. I had planned a 2-week course of lessons with comprehension tests every now and then but based on the students' reactions to the first week, which was not bad but they just didn't quite have the attention span, I trashed the 2nd week and replaced it with Jeopardy games and other fun stuff. 

The week following the airshow, I knew we had an all-school festival but I had no idea just how ridiculous it would be. I guess since Korean kids spend so much time studying that when they have a chance to have fun they go all out. The first thing I noticed when I got to school is the costumes. Each class of each grade had a class costume/uniform, in the photo above you can see 3-10 class is in pajamas, 3-9 is dressed like old women, etc.

The morning was taken up with physical activities. There was a relay race, tug-of-war, a race wearing scuba fins, jump-rope with giant ropes, and so on. Around lunchtime a whole heap of Lotteria burgers were delivered, which, by the way, are terrible, and then after lunch we moved into the gym for a talent show featuring a little talent and a lot of ridiculosity.

For those of you who aren't on Facebook, or for anyone who'd like to see things in a clear chronological order, here's a collection of a couple months worth of Facebook status updates related to my school. Some are funny, some are slightly vulgar, and some are a bit sad/offensive. Koreans aren't known for cultural awareness.

These should give you a pretty good sense of what my days at school are like. Eventually I'll go back and add ones from before September, too, but this is it for now. Enjoy.

As mentioned in my other post, I was back to school on August 19th for an office work day before classes started the next day. However, it turned out I didn't actually have to stay all day, so I took advantage and left early, probably a mistake. Returning to school Thursday, I wasn't quite prepared for classes and I was also feeling terrible. I took Friday, the following Tuesday and then Wednesday off to recover, before I got back to school and into a rhythm.

During these days before I settled, I was sorta freaking out. We had altered schedules and now I had sole possession of 2nd grade to go along with the whole 3rd grade which I already had, bringing my total up close to 800 students. This also meant I had less free time during the day to plan, and it being a new semester I wasn't sure where to start. This peaked on the night of Sunday, August 23, and I poured out my woes to Tim, who comforted me by pointing out that being a great teacher really isn't a major requirement of my job, just having something to fill the time is, and maybe teach a couple students something. My struggles were compounded by the fact that one of my coteachers could barely communicate with me in English, so trying to prepare for her classes especially was stressing me out.

When Nouth and I were first informed that we'd be teaching summer camp, they told us it would be a four week camp. We'd two two weeks with first grade and then two weeks with second grade, and that would take our entire summer vacation. We figured that wouldn't really be fun at all, so we said we could do both first and second grade at the same time and do 2 weeks and then have 2 weeks off. After a little deliberation, they agreed to this, and they also agreed to let us leave as soon as we were done teaching, as long as we made a lesson plan for every day we left before 4:30. Since Nouth lives in Pyeongnae and it takes her about 20 minutes by bus to school, she wanted to start at 9am like regular classes during the semester, instead of the proposed 8:30. They also agreed to this, and told us we'd be teaching from 9 until 12:30, and then we'd be free to go.

After the teacher workshop trip and a lazy weekend, we were back at school on Monday to start summer camp. We started at 9 and I had the first graders for the first two periods, and then we'd switch and I'd teach second for third and fourth period. there were about 12-14 first graders and 7-9 second graders. 

Day 2 started with a meeting in the yeogwan we stayed at., where the principal gave a little speech and then said a few words about different teachers, resulting in them standing up and bowing and us all clapping, even though I had no idea what was going on, and most of the Korean teachers looked hungover or half-asleep.

After this we walked to breakfast, on the way a couple of the older male teachers found some big beetles on the ground which they picked up and kept. At breakfast we had some bottles of Korean wine on the table and a bunch of the teachers were drinking that but at that point I wasn't interested in it at all. 

In the morning I quickly packed my stuff into my new bags and headed to school, glad that classes were done for the week and we'd soon be leaving to go experience some Korean culture. Things were looking good right away: one of the younger women teachers was wearing a purple shirt with Bomberman on it, which some of you may know is a classic Super Nintendo game that me and my roommates in Madison played a lot.

Around ten AM we put away our stuff at school and headed out to the bus. Arriving at an empty row near the back, I stepped over a box full of cans and sat down, pulling out my iPod and book and prepared to pass the time on the long bus ride. About 20 minutes later, my plans were spoiled. I noticed that the box of cans which I had assumed were sodas or juice or energy drinks or something, were actually Cass beer 12oz cans, stacked 2 high in a big box, and at about 10:30 one of the male teachers had already taken one and started drinking.

Shortly after that, one of the trip leaders got up and started talking a bunch in Korean over the bus' PA system, and then they fired up the TV in the front of the bus which turned out to be connected to a karaoke machine. Now it was closer to 11, and a couple teachers came to the back and started handing out beers to everyone, and soon the "noraebus" (singing bus) was in full swing. 

Being the last week of school, my coteachers said I could do whatever I wanted in class, so I decided to teach a lesson about Michael Jackson. My lesson began with the entire 13 minute Thriller video, after which I talked about the Jackson 5 while my coteacher translated, and then I played a live performance of "I Want You Back," when Michael was still young and cute. Then I talked a couple more minutes before getting to Thriller the album, at which point they see Billie Jean was one of the most popular songs from it and they start to demand I play it, which is exactly what I had planned.

I chose the live performance of Billie Jean from the Motown 25 concert, and multiple classes cheered and/or requested I play it "one more time!" when the video finished, and I would just show them the moonwalk part a couple more times. Then I moved on to Bad, and "Man in the Mirror", featuring a great montage of him performing to giant crowds and screaming women, as well as the words subtitled on the video karaoke-style. After that video the kids are super impressed by Michael's skills and I sum up his career and then play "We are the World" to end the class. In a couple classes where we had time, the kids requested "Dangerous," and a lot of kids knew and could sing along with the parts of the song where he says "dangerous," but a couple kids actually really knew the song and were humming along with the drum rolls and such.

Today (Thursday) was also a half day because of testing week, but instead of going home at 1, we all hung out until 2 and when all the students were gone the teachers gathered in the new gym to compete in a grueling multi-athlon of events like tossing hula hoops onto big orange cones as pictured above.

The teachers were divided into three teams: first grade, second grade, and third grade (my team). We started off with a little bit of group stretching and then prepared for the first event, tug-of-rope. This tug-of-rope involved three ropes laying on the center of the basketball court, and each time lined up behind the baselines, and when the whistle was blown you had to run out and grab the rope and pull 2 of the 3 to your side. To make it tricky, men could only touch the rope once a woman had. Our team actually lost this event to the first grade teachers, just barely. We got a little confused about our strategy on the final round and too many people ended up on one rope and they were able to take the other two easily. 

As I mentioned before, on Monday Hye-Hyun came to my apartment with the school engineer to install the new curtain/shade she ordered for me online. At the same time, the building manager came with us to look at my gas boiler and see what my issue was. She informed me that unplugging it and plugging it back in was the correct solution, I just shouldn't hit any buttons after doing that. I guess the thing is silent when it's on just the water setting, and I had been waiting to hear the noise of it starting and thought it wasn't working. That was just about all I did on Monday.

I did actually start teaching in my third grade classes this week, which was pleasantly surprising in a way because I was expecting them to be much more out of control than they were. One thing I noticed was some of the girls who were so loud outside of school were dead silent in class. This week I also experienced the zombie class, 210, where the excitement from the first week must have worn off because I didn't remember them being so silent before, but this time it was like teaching in a tomb. 

Monday morning I was able to regain hot water by unplugging and replugging the gas boiler, although the functioning has not returned to normal it gives me hot water so that's good.

Not really my first week of teaching considering I only did introduction/icebreaker stuff in my third grade classes, but I did teach for the first time this week. On Monday I had two third grade classes, and I had prepared a little bit of a lesson but before class the teacher I'd be with came up and told me that we could just do intro stuff and have the kids ask me questions about the mysterious nation I'm from.

The classes went fine, although my schedule was changed unexpectedly I still only had two classes. The kids all screamed and cheered when I walked in the room, and then when I said hi they screamed and cheered again (this behavior would be repeated by every single class). In all third grade classes throughout the week I did the same thing, and they all asked pretty much the same questions, from the I Love English handbook. "Where are you from?" "What is your hobby?" "What food do you like" "How long are you going to stay in Korea?" Etc... Some questions weren't always formed so well: "How tall are you?" usually came as "what centimeter?" or "centimeter what?" and "Do you have a girlfriend?" often was just "girlfriend?" Another one was "foot size?" By just reading out questions from the handbook I got asked some interesting ones as well, such as "what is the weather like today?" "why don't you have lunch with me today?" "what are you doing this afternoon?" "are you busy tonight?" and more.

Warning: This one is long.

Friday got off to a very inglorious start, my hot water didn't work. Trying my best to get as little water on myself as possible, I washed my hair in the icy stream as fast as I could and got out. A real shower would've been nice considering everything I had to do that day but when you're in Korea and you don't know your landlord's phone number and they probably don't speak English anyway, you have to wait until Hye-Hyeon can fix it for you.

I headed to school around 10:30 because I had to do my medical check-up stuff at the hospital, and Hye-Hyeon told me to be at school at 10:30 so we could go promptly when she finished class. On the way to the hospital we took an interesting shortcut through some streets/driveways/backyards(?) and I recognized the area where Sun Man and I had been lost driving on Monday night, and where the open-air market had been. Also in this area was a Nike store but Hye-Hyeon didn't really think I'd be able to find big enough clothes because we are *sort of* a small town. I suggested I ask the head teacher at my table in the teacher's office where he gets his clothes, because he is somewhat close to my size, and Hye-Hyeon began to teach me how to say "where clothes buy?" in Korean but it wasn't really working out for me. I also told her I had been able to read on the cable guy's truck that it said "di gi tal" in Korean characters, and on the street it said "tek si" (taxi) in the taxi lane. She said she was proud of me and impressed that I could already read after only being here a few days.

After some twists and turns and busy street crossings with no stop signs or crosswalks, we found ourselves at the hospital where we were directed to the 6th floor. This hospital was not exactly the peak of modern medicine by western standards, and after briefly filling out part of one form, we were told to sit and wait. At this point, Hye-Hyeon informed me that she had class at 11:45 and she would have to go, and she asked if I could make it back to school by myself. I tried to think over the way we had come in my head and I thought that yeah I could probably make it, but I don't think she was inspired by my answer because she gave me her cellphone so she could call me if I wasn't in the office when her class was done.

Luckily for me, at this time the lady at the desk came over to administer the first part of the medical check-up, consisting of me holding a metal spoon over each eye and reading numbers, Then things actually did get very advanced and I got to measure my height and weight simultaneously on a machine that did everything automatically. After this, they had me put my arm in the blood pressure/heart rate machine and it did its business automatically, and then she measured me around the chest, gave me a colorblindness test and we were done. Hye-Hyeon hadn't left yet because this part was turning out to be quicker than we thought, so she told me that I also had t have an x-ray, go to the dentist, and give a urine and blood sample (drug test and HIV test). [Interesting note: in the elevator leaving, a guy gets on by himself wearing a patient's gown and pushing an IV thing hooked into his arm, I also forgot to note in The Drive post that we passed this hospital a couple times while lost, and saw a man in a wheelchair in a patient's gown wheeling himself around the parking lot] The whole thing would cost 50,000W but Hye-Hyeon decided we should go because she was running late for getting back to class and we would come back and pay later.

On the way back to school, we talked about age and how I am 21 in the US but in Korea I am 23 because you start at 1yr old the day you are born (so 22) and then add 1 year on Jan 1 regardless of birthday (so 23), and I realized that this explained a lot about a conversation I had had with Nouth. She asked how old I was, and I said 21, and she said everyone else had said I was 23, and she thought I was lying/joking around with her. At the time, I knew about the Korean age difference (thanks to Culture Shock) but I forgot, so when Hye-Hyeon told me this I realized that everyone just said I was 23 because they knew I was born in 1987. This math is super confusing and is still blowing my mind but I think the best way to do it is to add 2 if it is before your birthday, and add 1 if it is after, within the calendar year.

I asked Hye-Hyeon how old she was and she told me to guess, so I guessed 25. She laughed and said "ok," apparently satisfied that I think she's 25, after a little more prodding she admitted she's 27 (in Korean years) so she may actually be 25 or 26 depending on when her birthday is.

When we got back to school, she told me to go eat lunch, and I started to go but I realized I couldn't because I hadn't done the blood draw and stuff yet (I don't know what you fast for and what you don't) so I went back to the teacher's lounge to continue to starve. At this point it was 24 hours since the last time I ate (since I went to bed so early on Thursday). I hung around on Gmail for a little bit until around 12:30 or so (I think) and it was time for Hye-Hyeon, Nouth and I to walk to Maseok Middle School to see a demo class. On the way there we looked around to see if maybe there was anywhere I could buy clothes; the answer seemed to be no. After getting a little confused, Hye-Hyeon asked someone directions and they pointed us in the right direction, which involved an underground pedestrian tunnel that was about 2 inches shorter than me. We eventually found a school area and I recognized another spot that Sun Man and I had driven by a couple times, and after asking another person for directions, we went through an elementary school and out the back door we finally saw our destination.

I think this was the first time since I got here that I saw another white person, and it was weird when I realized my instinct already was to bow. Ryley, the first other white man I saw, turns out to be from Ballard (Seattle, for the unenlightened), and has been here 3 weeks so he didn't think he'd be much help to me, but he said that he was starting to figure things out a little bit. At the demo class, there were some other english teachers but I didn't really get a chance to talk to anyone else since we were slightly late and the class started around 1:30.

Interestingly, and luckily I suppose, the demo class was on the exact lesson I was expected to teach to my second graders, so I actually did get a little bit of helpful training, in a way. The class was run by Graham Farmer, a New Zealander who's been here a couple years, and one of the things that most impressed me about it was that the room the class was in had an automatic sliding door, a giant HDTV embedded in the front wall, and six or seven super nice computers in the back. Automatic sliding door being the most awesome of all those features, by far. Nothing really notable happened during the class, except that Hye-Hyeon spilled her orange juice and the kids were exceptionally well behaved, which Graham admitted afterward was abnormal. Also, the kids were divided into teams for the activity and one team was named "Fart Mouse."

After class, we had a little gathering of all the English teachers in a different room where people from Maseok school gave little speeches and thanked us for coming and Graham talked about the demo class, and we all introduced ourselves. One of the teachers, from Florida, mentioned that he was surprised by the participation and obedience the kids showed, and Graham admitted that class is not normally like that. At this point I was still thinking the only way I'd be able to get the kids to obey me would be to hit them, considering theyve been so trained to respond to that.

After this little meeting I had a chance to ask Graham about discipline, and he said that he's never hit any student (phew!) and that I should just stop talking and glare at them, which was what I had been thinking I should try. He said yelling doesn't really work because 1) they might not understand what you say and 2) you can't yell over 40 kids. I asked him about clothes and he thought maybe I should go to Itaewon which is the foreigner-heavy part of Seoul, I guess, but he is lucky because he's shorter than me and small so he can probably find clothes that fit him around here. We also exchanged emails and he told me to Facebook him and I could get together with him and the other english teachers in the area when they go out. Hye-Hyeon and Nouth were getting antsy to leave so we snatched up all the snacks they gave us (for later, I still couldn't eat), and headed back.

Walking back, I had to try to explain what Seventh Day Adventists were because there was a church of theirs, but since I don't really know I don't think my explanation really explained anything. I also asked Hye-Hyeon if she ever went up into the mountains/hills around Namyangju and she said no, she's too busy, so I said what about the weekend? Apparently, she has better things to do on the weekend than come to Namyangju, at this time I still thought she lived somewhere nearby (hint: I find out later that she doesn't, if you didn't figure that out).

Back at school I still couldn't eat so I sat, starving, staring at my gmail inbox that continued to be absent of new messages, and waited for Hye-Hyeon to finish so we could go back to the hospital and then go to my apartment to look at the hot water situation. Also, she had got me a converter to try to use with my xbox so we were going to check and see if it would work or not.

On this, our second walk to the hospital, Hye-Hyeon told me that she could teach me Korean, and she looked at my schedule to find a time we both were free to "do the Korean thing" but I don't know if she figured out a time. Also on this walk I found out that she lives in Seoul with her parents because there's no reason to move out, and she commutes about an hour total with walking and bus ride every day to school. Also, we were walking behind someone smoking and she asked if I smoked, which of course I don't, and she said she tried it once but didn't like it so she never did it again. I think she was a little surprised when I told her I had never tried it. Also surprising, I haven't seen as much rampant smoking as some people thought there would be, maybe because I'm mostly around small children and women.

At the hospital, I paid my 50,000W and we headed over to the dentist next door, Hye-Hyeon continued to teach me what things meant, but I didn't really retain much of the information. We took off our shoes at the entrance to the dentist's office, and were provided with sandals which were of course too small for me, and then we sat in a chair and waited for a couple minutes. There were some nice massage chairs in the office and she said that's what she would do while she waited for me, but she didn't really get a chance because the dentist exam consisted of me walking up and he looked in my mouth for about 30 seconds, marked down "no problem" on our all-inclusive sheet and we were done. As we left, Hye-Hyeon said "I could've done that and put my stamp on there," and that "that's what I'll do next time" (with the next native teacher.

Back to the hospital for the xray, we got to sit in some crappy little chairs next to a crying woman on the phone and holding a baby, and no massage chairs. I pointed this out to her and she made a little "darn" expression and laughed. I asked her some more about her family and found out that her brother who is two years older than her also lives with their parents, and then I asked her why she wasn't married yet. [I asked this question because my Culture Shock book told me that older Koreans like to ask this question a lot, and I figured she had a decent enough grasp of english and humor that she would understand] She gave sort of an "I dunno" answer and I told her that my book told me that people ask that question a lot, and she says "oh that is so stressful! every time there is a birthday or something everyone always asks 'how old are you? do you have a boyfriend? how old is he? why aren't you married yet?' so that is why you ask me? because you want me to be stressful [sic]" I laughed and said yeah so she started to get up and says "so I can go now?"

Soon enough it was time to have the x-ray, and with Hye-Hyeon translating we got this done fairly quickly, just one xray of my chest. We went back out to the waiting area to wait for our little sheet saying "no problem" but I guess something went wrong so I had to go back in for another one and then they gave us the sheet and let us leave. Next up was the urine sample and blood draw.

We go into the next room, by now it feels like a treasure hunt of medical procedures, two buildings, different rooms, all with Hye-Hyeon leading the way with our sheet of "no problem" stamps. In this room there's a woman sitting at a somewhat dingy looking desk, and she hands me a paper cup. Apparently, this is what I have to give the urine sample in. I ask if there's a bathroom where I can do this, and I'm pointed down the hall to a public restroom. Hye-Hyeon tells me I need to fill the cup halfway. Great, so now I am about to walk down a crowded hospital hallway carrying a paper cup with no lid, half full of my own urine. Once in the bathroom, I find that there is nowhere in the stall for me to set the cup, so I have to fill it half full and execute the rest of my peeing procedure while holding this cup of urine. Also, the stall does not have a door but one of those accordion style screens that you pull across and latch with a little hook & eye latch like you have on a gate. After successfully completing the cup filling procedure, I wash my hands, which in retrospect seems completely pointless as immediately after doing this I pick up a cup of my own urine and walk down the hall back to the room, where I set it on a tray and just walk away, glad to have not spilled anything.

Up next is the drawing of blood, and I'm a little concerned that I might pass out or something, considering my history with blood draws, and that the Koreans might interpret said fainting as some sign of critical weakness and deport me from the country. Whether or not Koreans would actually think this I have no idea, but based on the hospital experience up until this point this is what I was thinking. Luckily for me, everything went smoothly and I did not pass out, I was mildly intrigued when the lady told me (via gestures) to hold the guaze on the spot for 2 minutes (via Hye-Hyeon) and didn't give me a bandaid, so I asked Hye-Hyeon about this and she got me two strips of thin medical tape and taped the guaze down on my arm, and we were ready to go.

Hye-Hyeon informed me that we were going to go a different way home than the way we came, and apparently I have not really figured out my relative location to things because I thought it was completely the wrong way but she assured me it was right. I then mentioned that the hospital procedure had been a little weird, especially the paper cup with no lid, and she acknowledged that maybe this hospital is a little bit rural. I told her my mom was a nurse and would be a little shocked by some of this, but it wasn't really so bad.

Then, while walking, Hye-Hyeon asked me if Hilary was coming to Korea because I came, and I explained that sort of yes but sort of no, because she already knew about it through her TEFL/TESOL professor, and she asked if I would've come to Korea if Hilary wasn't going to. Of course the answer to that is no, and I told her that Hilary spent 6 months in Spain and after doing that I don't really want to be apart for a year. Hye-Hyeon asked how long we've been together and when I told her "2 years 2 months and 6 days" she said "me too!" Her and her boyfriend have been together 2 years and 3 months, so not exactly the same, but close. I asked her what her boyfriend does, and guess what? He works at SAMSUNG!! I was so shocked to hear this I burst out laughing [note: not really shocked]. She also told me that she thinks she'll marry him, as long as her mom says ok. She also told me that she's going to Europe this summer for a couple weeks, to which I said "I hope nothing bad happens to me during that time," which she thought was funny. As you may have noticed, she's helped me do everything/done everything for me pretty much. I asked if she was going with her boyfriend and she said no because he's too busy (at Samsung) and she's going with some girl friends (who have already been to western Europe) to Croatia and Hungary and then meeting different friends (I think) to go to Italy (Venice, Florence, and Rome), and Paris I think and a couple other places I don't remember. When I asked where in Italy she said Firenze, but I taught her that the English name for it is Florence. She asked if I had been there and I then had to explain what "Focus Week" was, and I told her that I liked Florence the best.

Back to my apartment, she took a look at the hot water thing but couldn't figure anything out, and called the building owner who said there was a city-wide problem and they didn't know when it would be fixed. She also asked me if my TV was working fine and I told her I was watching baseball a lot and that I was proud of myself when I could read what the teams were, and she said she watches baseball a lot because her dad and brother watch it so she naturally watches with them, and that we should go to a baseball game together someday. We looked at the xbox power supply and saw I needed a bigger transformer than the one she had got. She had to buy it from a store in Seoul, I guess, so I couldn't go with her to get it and she joked that she'd be really tired on Monday after bringing it because the bigger one is actually a lot bigger and heavier. On her way out, she noticed the stack of delivery ads I was accumulating and told me that "Korea is very advanced in food delivery" and showed me some menus, to which I replied "But do they speak English?" which turned her smile upside down. After thinking a couple seconds, she suggested I call her when I want to order and tell her the number and what I want and then she will order it for me and tell them where to deliver it.

She was going to show me where to put my garbage to have it collected, but on the way out I found the electric bill in the mailbox, the charge being 1,000W or so, since it was for before I got here. The landlord had given me 15,000W on Wednesday to pay for the gas and electric charges for before me when the apartment was empty, so I didn't really have to actually pay it, but Hye-Hyeon said I should bring it to school next week and she would take me to the bank to help me pay it. Then we looked around for the garbage dumping spot but couldn't find it, and she took me to the 24 hr mart to buy the government sanctioned garbage bags, 5 food bags for 91W each I think and 5 garbage ones for 250W each. After this, she left and I went back to my apartment where I explored the TV some more and watched nothing happen in Gmail or Facebook because everyone I know was asleep. After enough of that, I decided to go to sleep myself, and thus ended the most eventful day I've had in Korea so far.

Thursday began with me once again waking up around 5 or 6am, but at least this time I had the internets to use until it was time to go to school at 12 for lunch. I decided to leave earlier than that anyways, and I showed up at school around 11:30 where I talked a little bit to Nouth and mostly gchatted and read blogs about teaching English in Korea. Around 12 I realized neither Hye-Hyeon nor Nouth were in the teacher's office anymore, and so I ventured down to the cafeteria by myself.

I don't really know what I ate this time either, as I didn't have Hye-Hyeon to explain it to me, but I got my rice and soup on the correct sides at least. I know there was kim chee, some vegetable type stuff and something else that I literally have no guess other than some sort of seafood but I didn't like it so I didn't eat much of it. The soup had pieces of fish in it and egg I think, it was actually pretty good and of course the rice was rice. The teacher who sits next to me in the teacher's room came down soon after me and sat down next to me, and I talked a little bit to them during lunch but mostly just to say where I'm from and how tall I am.

After lunch I found Hye-Hyeon in the teacher room and told her I had just ate lunch. She asked me what it was, and I told her rice, soup, kimchee and something else that I had no idea. She seemed surprised, maybe not that I didn't know but that I didn't know and I still ate it (I read on one blog someone saying that native teachers are portrayed by Korean media as being troublemakers because we complain about the food, among other things).

I had some more time to stare at my gmail inbox with no new messages until Nouth finished lunch and then I went with her to observe a 2nd grade class. Once again, the kids were really excited to see me in the classroom but managed to settle down around the time class started and once the Korean co-teacher for that class showed up she walked around the classroom mostly keeping kids on task but helping by translating every now and then when the kids seemed lost. The lesson was a review of cooking and camping vocabulary, and Nouth got one boy to sing a Korean camp song for the reward of a piece of candy, and he continued to sing more but everyone started laughing and the Korean teacher pointed out that his second song wasn't a camp song at all but was in fact Songra middle school's song.

I observed part of another class but Nouth said I could leave early because she was just teaching the exact same lesson over again, so I went back to the teacher's lounge and back to gmail. While waiting for Hye-Hyeon to be done teaching so I could ask her what was up with the bedding issue and stuff, I was entertained by some students who came in to tell me that "Kim teacher" (meaning Hye-Hyeon) is "very very terrible" and also "very very ugly." The boy who said she was terrible couldn't bring himself to say the second part, so he said something to the girl in Korean, and she turns to me and when she says "very very ugly" the boy nearly collapsed in laughter. I was also informed by another student that he likes Michael Jackson and Britney Spears, and told that I look like Tom Cruise. Then the kids who insulted Kim-Teacher came back to say they were joking and apologized.

Eventually Kim-Teacher herself showed up to explain that the school had a bully problem, and that's why she had been so busy, and it was time to go. At home, I watched the Yomiuri Giants play the Orix Blue Wave (if that's still their team name) in Nippon Probaseball, before once again going to sleep early.

On Tuesday morning, Ms. Kim came to get me from my apartment, I didn't realize we were actually going to school so I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, but she took the opportunity while I changed to look around my apartment and see if everything was ok. On the way to school, a 5-7 minute walk, she told my that I can call her by her first name, Hye-Hyeun (pronounced Hey Hon) because there are a lot of Kim's in school.

Once at school, we went straight to the principal's office, where I met the principal and vice-principal, and I was asked a couple short questions, the principal joked that I understand all Korean because my brother-in-law is Korean, and told me the kids will like me because I "look handsome." The vice-principal didn't seem to speak English very much but she and Hye-Hyeun talked a lot in Korean while I sat and drank tea and looked around the office. Being a Korean principal seems a lot more awesome than being an American principal, judging by office. The office was a large room, with the principal's desk and chair near the door, and a pretty large open area with some potted plants, and next to the desk area is the principal's recliner at the head of a long, low green table with large recliners for the guests stretching down either side, to a wall with a large flat-screen TV. He also had his own sink and counter area and the whole office seemed fairly luxurious.

Eventually the Korean conversation was finished and we could go, up to the teacher's office, a big room with 6 large tables/desk islands, 3 on each side and a central desk for the vice-principal. The English teacher table is currently full, so I'm at the next table over with the Japanese-language teacher, a printer, and two other teachers whose jobs I don't remember. I am back-to-back with the other native teacher, but I still hadn't met her. Then it was time to take a tour of the school.

I was informed that middle school means 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade and that means 14, 15, and 16 year old kids, and that I'd be teaching 2nd and 3rd graders. I was also told that 3rd graders are the most rowdy, and this was evident from the collective gasp from the first classroom I walked by followed by incoherent screaming. Apparently the school had been waiting for me for a while and it was kind of a big deal that I'm finally here, also, I'm the first male native teacher Songra has had. We decide to enter the screaming classroom and say hello, and the Korean teacher comes over and shakes my hand, which results in an eruption of oohs and aahs and cheering. I get the same reaction from the next class but we don't stop to go in, and pretty much every student that sees me gasps or otherwise freaks out at the sight of me.

On the stairs up to the third floor (3rd of 5 floors), a girl comes up to me and says "Hi, you are very handsome." I say thanks and keep going, but as we come out of the stairwell she shouts "handsome!" towards a group of girls and then as we walk away down the hallway she shouts again "handsome! handsome! handsome!" Either that's the only English adjective they know, or I'm amazingly handsome (probably the latter is true). Next, we run into another Korean English teacher, who is amazed by how tall I am, and while Hye-Hyeun is talking to her in Korean I hear "handsome" thrown in again. Moving on, we pass 2nd grade classes who are slightly less energetic in their amazement than the third graders, but nevertheless by the time we get back to the teacher lounge, kids are crowding at the door trying to get a glimpse of me.

I ask Hye-Hyeun if there's a computer I can use, and she takes me up to the now unused English lounge (unused because there are computers at every seat and the kids would never pay attention) where I am treated to a super old computer (Samsung of course, everything is Samsung) and Hye-Hyeun leaves me for about an hour and a half until lunchtime. Almost the entire time I'm in this room, students, mostly girls, can be seen peeking through the crack in the door, giggling and running away whenever I look over. Once, a boy shoved the door open while a girl was peeking through the crack and she, super embarrassed, said "you are very handsome" and ran away. Eventually, Hye-Hyeun returns and we go to eat lunch.

Lunch is kimchee, bean sprouts, chicken(?) with mustard, seaweed(?) soup and rice, and most of the Korean conversation around me seems to be about me, again Hye-Hyeun explains that they've been eagerly anticipating my arrival for months, and apparently people would come up to her all the time asking when I was getting here. After lunch, there's rampant teethbrushing, teachers and students everywhere brushing their teeth. I meet the other native teacher and we go into a meeting room to have a quick meeting about schedules and stuff, and there's constant people in and out using the sink in the meeting room to brush their teeth. The other native teacher's name is Nouth, she's been here for 3 months and teaches first grade and will split second grade with me, while I take third grade.

After the meeting, I sat around in the teachers' room looking at my textbooks for the next couple hours until Hye-Hyeon was done teaching, and we went back to my apartment where she showed me how to use the washing machine, rice cooker, microwave (there are no number buttons on it) and the water/heat again. She also went with me to the mart nearby so I could get shampoo, dish soap and a sponge, and then showed me the "PC Zone" in a nearby building and found out that it costs 1,200W for an hour on a computer there. Then I promptly went home and fell asleep.