Festivals

The day of the festival dawned sunny and warm. That's a lie. It was sunny but somewhere around -5ish most of the day.

It was a good time and refreshing to be outside the whole day. The problem was that after that day of no classes, and the next day of no classes, and Thursday a whole day off from school....that's just say the lessons didn't go so well this week....

Tug-o-war

I was peacefully working at my desk on a sunny Friday afternoon when my co-teacher grabbed her camera and her coat and asked "are you coming?"

I guess I was.

We marched down the stairs and outside, where it seemed like the entire student body was gathered on the field. It was, in fact, the majority of the students and most of the teachers as well.

My co-teacher explained that for the Sports day on Monday they were going to have a tug-o-war now. I couldn't find the logic in that but I wasn't going to complain about the chance to spend my afternoon outside instead of looking over the same lesson plan fifty times.

The students went in teams of sixty and I must say, it was a pretty impressive event. They all seemed pretty glad to get out of the classrooms and to have some leisure time.

It was quite the event. I'm pretty sure I have never seen anything quite like it. And really I was so happy to be outside and standing that I didn't mind almost getting hit by shoes, slippers, or soccer balls.

Remembrance and chocolate

On this day: Remembrance day in Canada, Veteran's day is the US, and Pepero day in Korea.

For myself, remembrance day was always very emotional. The last four years the Redeemer choir sang at the memorial service at the Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton and the songs we sang for that service have been going through my head all day. The pieces chosen for that event all seemed to touch my soul in a different way.

I listened to those pieces on my way to school this morning.


I arrived at school and I discovered it is Pepero day in South Korea today. A sort of valentines day where students give their teachers and each other a popular Korean snack called Pepero: a stick covered in chocolate. The students were flooding the office all morning to give their favourite teachers some pepero and every was happy and cheerful about this holiday.

Way to ruin the mood, Korea.

Relocation

It's Thursday of my first official week of teaching. It's been....an experience. The kids here are really great and the whole week has been pretty awesome. I've met other foreigners and even some Koreans who speak English, which is always good. Everything was going really well and then my co-teacher threw on me yesterday that I was going to be moved from my cozy little apartment into something....new.

I'm not going to lie I was a little freaked out. I wasn't really sure what was going to happen and I was finally feeling nice and comfy in my 'flat'.

My co-teacher took me for a drive to see if we could find the building. We trucked around a kind of sketchy part of town and I was getting more and more anxious. I was happy where I was but it was not possible to stay there because it was the higher-ups who decided this. Mrs. Shin gave trying to find the 'Seyoung' building and we started to head back to my apartment. And then she spotted it.

Let's just say I'm not so anxious anymore.

The building is new, and owned by the father of a student at the school. The apartment is bigger and, best of all, I think it even has an oven! Clearly the only thing lacking in my current space.

The big move will be in December, so I'm going to be packing my backs and heading South, a couple of blocks.

A busy, busy place

Seriously. The office is warm, but the hallway is frigid. And yet people keep leaving the door open.

And where did all these people come from!!!!

First day

It's my first day of school today. It's blowing my mind.

Ok. The mind is back.

I'm still waking up earlier than necessary although today I'm not sure if that was because I'm on the wrong time or because I was so bloody nervous for today. Either way, not a whole lot of sleep was acquired.

So I trotted off to school a little earlier than I would have preferred but it was a good thing I did as I would have been late if I had left when I originally planned.

The first teacher I met was standing outside the school gate. He was one of the Korean-English teachers. Nice guy. He directed me to find my co-teacher....just not very well. They do the whole no shoes thing here...you have to wear slippers instead, which are actually flip flops. Very comfortable but really not very warm, especially when EVERYWHERE I go it's cold, except outside. It's like they haven't come to grips with the fact that it is turning into winter and it's very cold at night which makes all the buildings freezing cold...including my apartment which still has no gas line and thus has no heat and only provides me with cold showers.

So I ran all over school trying to find Mrs Shin, was told by several different teachers that she was in several different places, before I finally ended up back in the main staff room with a nice warm cup of tea which wasn't so pleasant because now I was too warm from all my running up and down stairs (4 floors of them) and was directed to wait for Mrs Shin. Oh happy day.

Sitting in the teacher's room means that every teacher that walks past feels they need to introduce themselves to you , even though most of them speak very little English, no matter how hard they try, bless their little hearts. The only two that I remember, amid all the Kims and Lees was the vice-principal who informed me that she was the 'second teacher'. At the time I just smiled and nodded and she left me alone eventually. The other one was another male-type Korean English teacher. Beats me what their names are now though. Maybe I'll learn them eventually?

Eventually I met Brenda, the Irish lady I was told worked here. She's nice and makes her job look very easy which I don't know if I should take to mean it actually is easy or if she's just that good at it.

Mrs Shin showed up right after, led me upstairs to the third floor to 'my' office, or at least my desk, and rushed me off to observe a class. It was taught by Brenda and the co-teacher who had met me at the gate. It was also FULL of very hyper fifteen-ish year old boys. It was....an experience.

Which apparently needs to be repeated everyday this week, at least 3 times at day. Fun times.

Lunch was also an experience. It is the first time I've eaten in a cafeteria and it was...well let's just say I've never seen anything quite like it.

And hopefully never will again. Except on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday of every week.

And now I sit and wait for my day to be finished...in four hours.