Dear Mama.... Love from Korea (My ARC Card is Here!)

October 18, 2013

B          R          E           A          K          I           N          G                          N             E          W          S

I received my ARC card on Friday!!!!!
I got ahead of myself and tried to finish setting up accounts without my co-teacher. I went to the bank after school and set up my online/mobile phone banking. I think that went well even though there was the language barrier. But then….

I tried to set up phone service by getting a prepaid USIM card (the KT Olleh SIMple plan). The data(internet) and talk minutes were prepaid and would expire in 30 days. I did not particularly want something that would expire so soon because it would be tedious to keep reloading it but I figured it was a cheap solution and I could get it right away….or so I thought. After me and the rep had a long session of miming to each other and jotting down numbers, I finally decided which plan I wanted to purchase. Once he put the SIM card in my phone, the phone calls worked but not the internet. He basically said, "Sometimes that happens…It works for mostly every other phone but sometimes there is that one phone it doesn't work for and that's yours!" Whaaaat?! So, I ended up canceling everything and left with nothing after spending over an hour in there. The search is on to see what SIM will actually work for me.

Wednesday and Thursday I had so many classes. I taught the fourth graders for the first time and got to work with the other co-teacher for the first time. She seems like a very prepared person that has her own ideas about how she would like class to run so she changed things from class to class. It was a little confusing for me but I just went with it. I am starting to feel like my biggest role as a Guest English Teacher is to prepare games and Powerpoints for the lesson. Now I am appreciating the "shadow" teacher more and more because I can do whatever I want to do in his class and he doesn't change it. The fourth graders were not as bad as everyone was making them out to be…they just are more energetic than the sixth graders and some of the fifth graders. They are also waaaaayyy took competitive. If a team wins a game, the other students who lost gang up on them or shout bad words. I don't think they have learned "sportsmanlike conduct" yet! To be fair, my games are not that great. I don't realize how bad they are until I see them in action lol. Sometimes I think I have a game that will take 10 or 15 minutes and students finish it in 3 minutes. On the other hand, sometimes I have a game that I think will take 3 minutes and the students take 10 minutes. It's really hard to plan games.

On Wednesday, I also went to the eye doctor. It was the first time I ever had an eye doctor say, "I'm going to cut into your eye." Huh? That sounded like major surgery to me but I guess it wasn't. He cut a really small area to make sure the spot that was on my eye did not have something lodged in it. Luckily, it was just a surface reaction to whatever got in my eye from the fireworks.

The two fifth grade classes I had on Friday were soooo bad. They are even less mature than the fourth graders and they yell, scream, talk over the teacher, all sorts of rudeness. The co-teacher does not have too much control so I end up being the bad guy…I don't think those classes like me very much. They hurt themselves by not paying attention because they fall behind the other fifth grade classes (I teach with the main co-teacher). They make me want to pull out my hair lol and I don't really know what I should do to get them to behave. I changed some students seats because they were disturbing the other kids in their group and they haaaated it. Oh well….

I learned that the sixth graders are going on an overnight field trip next week so I do not have any classes Monday and Tuesday. The fourth graders also have a field trip so I do not have classes Wednesday. All I have are Thursday and Friday classes with the fifth graders…Yay!! That gives me time to set up my internet and phone service at home and try to get my after school program approved. I really want to set up a pen pal program but my co-teachers are not being much help when it comes to getting my after school program approved by the after school director and on its way. If I could speak Korean, everything I wanted and needed would have been done by last week! It's so hard to rely on others, especially when you are in another country.

On a side note, I did not realize how helpful strangers in Korea can be until Friday. I was trying to find the phone company and asked a woman passing out flyers if she knew where the address written on my paper was. Instead of just saying "No" she actually walked me to the office. SO NICE. Then, because of my frustration leaving the phone company, I left my school bag. The sales rep ran to catch up to me to give it to me and I had already walked pretty far way. I had a little happy me time Friday where I went to Caffe Bene and had a scrumdeliumptious strawberry dessert. I also went to see Kick Ass 2. I thought the Korean subtitles would be distracting but surprisingly I didn't even notice them by the end of the movie!

Dear Mama.... Love from Korea (Seoul)

October 20, 2013

Yesterday was FUN! I finally got to go to Seoul. I went to try to get phone service at the Olleh store in Hongdae because they speak English but they did not sell the service I wanted on the weekends, so I just hung out with Anakaren (who I met in orientation). She was able to buy a new phone at the store but I am stubborn and want to keep my phone at all costs...well almost all costs. After we finished at the phone store we walked around Hongdae which is really cool. I thought Incheon was cool but now I KNOW Incheon has nothing on Seoul. In Incheon, I would get excited if I saw another "Westerner" because it was so rare, so I would always get excited and wave and shout "Hi!" In Seoul there were so many that it was pointless to get sooo excited. There was something happening on almost every street and musical performances on the sidewalks. I DEFINITELY will have to go to Seoul more often!!!

 

Dear Mama…. Love from Korea (Another Holiday!)

October 15, 2013

I have realized that my fellow co-teachers have the ability to change the schedule as they please….OK. Monday was a long day because instead of teaching 4 classes and finishing by 12pm, I had 5 and the last 2 classes were pushed back so I didn't finish until 2:40pm. I got a very special personalized gift from the female vice-principal, a handmade traditional fan! I went to say thank you but felt awkward to say thank you to only her because the male vice-principal also gave me a very nice gift the week before (a manicure set). I said thank you, left, told my co-teacher I felt awkward, then went back to say thank you to the male vice-principal too. My co-teacher said that it's better that I did that because now the other vice-principal won't hold a grudge against me! I could see that situation happening in, not only Korea, but also America. Tuesday, is yet another holiday, but it's the school's anniversary holiday so not everyone is off. Wednesday will be my first time teaching fourth grade since I have only taught fifth and sixth so far. Friday, is supposed to also be a special day because it is the Teacher's Club Day where we will go out to the Central Park and walk around and eat lunch. I am looking forward to interacting with the other teachers and principals outside of school but I am also a little nervous. I don't want to do or say anything that will be viewed as bad manners like pour drinks with the wrong hand. My co-teacher already told me that I will be eating fish that day so I am a little scared of how I will eat it. I am worried my facial expression will give away that I hate fish! I did not know I was coming to the land of soup and fish, my two worst enemies lol. Plus everyone has limited English skills. It will be interesting. My head co-teacher will, unfortunately, not be able to go so I will be with another co-teacher. I wonder if there will be drinking and if we will go to Norebang?!

On a side note, I have started cooking homemade meals and finally bought a CD so that I don't have to listen to Korean talk radio all day! I am so happy about my expensive CD purchase, Primary and the Messengers. It was worth it!

Dear Mama…. Love from Korea (Teaching and 1st Impressions of Korea)

October 12, 2013

Drama misconceptions:
Not everyone is really pale and skinny. They all have different looks. The people are not as prude as their TV shows make them out to be. They are extremely touchy-feely and there are couples everywhere exhibiting more PDA than I have ever seen in my life. Everything does not stay open late and food is not cheap (at least where I live)! Even the train stops running at 12am.

Recycling:
It's seems like people just leave their trash in the street. I have yet to see a garbage truck…I don't think they exist! They are really stingy when it comes to using paper or plastic. They separate food trash from other trash and you have to put it in a special bag. It's so confusing for me. Where do you put something like dog poop. It must confuse Koreans too because they just leave poop in the street. I don't think the system makes the city any cleaner (at least by looks).

Smells:
One minute you could walk past an area that smells like sweet bread and the next minute it smells like butt. Every other block will smell horrible. I am still shocked by what I will smell as I walk. I don't think there is a way to prepare for it. You can't even avoid smells from other buildings or apartments seeping into your room (but it's usually Korean food smells which can be good or bad).
 
School Lunch:
School lunch is surprisingly really good! There was only one day so far where they had fish and I just couldn't do it (It had to be on a day where a skipped breakfast and had a lot of classes before lunch).

Co-teaching:
I was hoping for a co-teaching experience where we either teach together and help each other out or one person teaches half the time and the other teaches the other half. What I got was totally different on my first day. One of my co-teachers has a "shadow" co-teaching style, which means he does nothing (like a shadow). He either sits in the back doing something else or he leaves the class or only stays for half. He also doesn't mind interrupting me while teaching….
The other teachers have a more co-operative teaching style, which allowed me to feel more relaxed and have more fun with the class.

Students:
All the students were eager to learn about me but the sixth graders were much less enthused about the lesson and showed less excitement, so it got boring with them. The fifth graders, on the other hand, show too much excitement at times and get unruly. Some are really funny but there are some students that stay with a blah face. The previous English teacher made it very hard for me because it's like I have to live up to her position. She did things that as a new teacher I find a little tedious like change the students seats every month. So students keep asking me to change their seats and I'm like "why?" lol I guess she was also more outgoing so the co-teachers keep comparing my personality to hers. There was nothing in the rule book that said I had to be "outgoing" to teach. Luckily, I used my design skills to prepare an intro video to sort of shield me from the students' glares. My Intro Video


So I slowly started realizing all the time left over after class to do nothing and stopped being scared to check my personal email and FB. I finally realized there was a FB group made for the Korean Horizons teachers. Once I joined that, I started getting more information about events that the other english teachers were having or going to. Why didn't anyone give me a heads up sooner?! Wednesday, was another holiday, Hangul Day, so a bunch of teachers were planning to meet up in my neighborhood Tuesday night. Unfortunately, that night I fell asleep early and missed it. That was the last time I heard from Mr.H on Kakao asking me if I was going to that. My Ramada roommate also said she was going to be in my neighborhood on Wednesday but when I went to meet up with her I could not find her because she did not answer…until the next day. Oh well, I guess I really need to start joining other groups where I can meet more people and make some friends.

Fortunately, the teacher I ran into over the weekend asked if I wanted to go to dinner Thursday and we met up. Although I don't think we clicked, it was nice to get out and eat with someone I could actually communicate with. I also was able to get in touch with Hyewon through FB and we planned to meet up Friday. Another guy from our tour group came and we had a nice dinner, drinks and NOREBANG! My first norebang experience. It was a fun night and Hyewon is really nice and fun. She invited us to hang out with her in Seoul the next weekend. Saturday, I met up with some of the english teachers from orientation to see a "musical" fireworks festival in Songdo. Before the show started, I decided to get a fat corn dog…and stood in line an hour to get it. Once, I got to the front of the line there were no more corn dogs so I had to get something else. After I got my food I ran over to where the other teachers were because the show had started and, of course, it seems like strange stuff always happens to me! The ash from the fireworks blew right in my eye. My eye was killing me the rest of the night into Sunday so I went straight home after the fireworks. It was still a great weekend…much better than the first one!

Once I got to work on Monday, I realized after checking my FB and email that a couple of teachers had come to my neighborhood for drinks. I missed them yet again!

Dear Mama…. Love from Korea (First Weekend)

October 5, 2013

When I got home from school, I tried to Kakao my Ramada roommate and Mr.H (and whoever else I could think of) to see what they were doing for the weekend. I was invited to meet up with my roommate, but once I got to the location I had no WiFi, so I could not find out exactly where to meet her. Mr. H invited me to another party but I wasn't too enthused by who was hosting it so I said I would pass. I even FB Messaged Kathy (my schoolmate from the College of New Rochelle). Unfortunately, I did not answer her in enough time on Saturday because she decided it was too late to meet at that point. She said she was going to be too "busy" and she would contact me when she had more time…ummm hmmm. I also sent a Kakao message to the tour guide Boram but she said she had a cold and would show me around when she felt better. So much for the Korean love. Needless to say, I spent my first weekend alone…and what do I do when I am alone? SHOP! Luckily, my school had already deposited my entrance allowance. I did not need to know how to speak Korean, all I needed to see on something I liked was the price. My eating situation wasn't as easy though! After orientation ended, my meals became few and in between. I even figured out how to ride the train which was really easy and I went to Bupyeong to do more shopping! I wanted to go to a jazz festival but was afraid I would get lost since I could not really read the address of the lounge it was at (it was in a brochure written in Korean) so I had to pass. Surprisingly, I ran into another teacher from orientation while walking on the street and added her to my Kakao. That summed up my first weekend.

I found a cute little cafe called Cafe 1450 (or 1950 because it has two conflicting signs) and it gives free WiFi. I really like the space but every now and then it smells like cigarettes because a lot of people come to smoke and drink coffee outside. I also feel obligated to buy something if I spend hours there using the internet so I don't go too often since the cheapest thing is iced tea for 3500 won (kinda pricey). While I was web surfing on my laptop I went on FB and realized that all the english teachers from orientation hang out together…I felt very left out! Somehow they can all communicate with each other, no problem, enough to meet up and hang out. So I know I missed two parties…but no one messaged me about anything else. Mr. H just invited me when I would reach out to him…in sort of an after thought. It's interesting that my situation in America is the same in South Korea.

Dear Mama…. Love from Korea (My Apartment and School)

October 1, 2013

The last day of orientation, we met our head co-teachers, played ice breakers, and left with them to our new apartments…Yay (or so I thought)! My co-teacher is an older mother of two who just started back teaching this year after being a stay at home mom. I really wanted a co-teacher around my age to hang out with but oh well. Most of the other english teachers didn't get that either so I didn't feel so bad. My apartment is in a wonderful area of Namdong-gu, surrounded by big department stores and lots of nightlife, bars, restaurants, etc. It's great, especially if you have friends or a lot of money, which I had neither of at this point. The area is really expensive, especially American products (for example, a bottle of Aveeno lotion is about $15)! I walked in the apartment and got smacked in the face with a foul smell. I opened the fridge and freezer and it smelled even worse. It was like a pile of dirty socks that someone poured vinegar on. I dropped off my luggage, we went to Lotte Department store next door to eat lunch and then, we took the route that the previous english teacher laid out for how to get to school. I had to take a bus…what! Not for just 10 or 15 minutes but for 25-30 minutes.

 When we got to the school I met the vice-principals and the male vice-principal gives me a tour with my head co-teacher. He is a very nice man and he said I remind him of his daughter because she went to America alone to learn English and I am here alone. After the tour, I met my other co-teachers who are generally nice. I have some mixed feelings about one (AKA not my favorite person)…

My first day, I recorded some audio clips and then my co-teacher gave me a ride home. Once, she dropped me off I really felt like I was in South Korea. I had no phone service, could not communicate with people to order food and did not know where certain stores were. I really wanted to clean my dusty smelly house but I did not know where the grocery store was. After further inspection, I realized I had seen this apartment before in a video blog (it was later confirmed that I had seen the previous teacher's videos and blog before). It stood out because the drain was under the sink outside the shower stall and I remember hoping I did not get an apartment like that. Congratulations to me! I also later realized that the window faced a brick wall lol…kind of a pointless window. To top it off, I had to go to work the next day. I tried cleaning up a little using the supplies the previous teacher left (Thanks so much Jen!) and then unpacking a little. I did not really sleep before heading off to school. That day, I did nothing until my co-teacher took me to apply for my alien resident card (ARC) and to go grocery shopping. I still came home and cleaned like crazy. Luckily, the next day was a holiday so there was no school and I could concentrate on cleaning and unpacking. I got it to a place that I am happy with (no really bad smell)!

On a side note, whenever I went outside and ran into FREE Wifi (iptime) I could Kakao with the teachers from orientation, talk to mom on Viber or Skype and check email. I would ask Mr. H questions and he would not really answer the question but instead start talking about going to some party. Ain't nobody got time for that….especially since I am new and don't know how to get around, can't really communicate with people because there is no stable WiFi (and forget about asking strangers for directions) and I wanted to get my house straight. This is where the drift really started. The next day, I figured I would not come to school as early as I did the first time because I was way too early (1 hour early). Unfortunately, I should know that doesn't work for me and I ended up being 10-15 minutes late. Late on my second day! When will I get it right smh. I learned my lesson and now come an hour early everyday! Luckily, that day most of the students were on a school trip so there was nothing to do. I still had not met my students but next week I would have to start teaching.

Dear Mama…. Love from Korea (Orientation)

September 26, 2013

It's me! As you know, I met up with Mr. H when my flight had a layover in San Francisco. We sat together on the plane to South Korea and kept each other busy on such a loooooong flight (12 hours). I even had to break out the UNO cards. Once we landed in Incheon and found our way to the arrival section, I looked around but no Alistair. Mr. H saw him first which was good because it would have taken me a while to find him considering he did not look exactly how I imagined. So, we sat down and met a couple of the other people waiting. Not too long later, Alistair took Mr. H and most of the other people back to the guesthouse. This process continued for 5 hours!….excuse me, but I just want to take a nap! I continued to wait and Alistair said that because of the way the guesthouse is situated, I was in a certain part that was different from the other people who got to leave before me. He wanted people in the same area to take the shuttle together. On top of that we were told that we would be sharing rooms and my roommate got there the day before (so I could pretty much expect someone who has already made themselves at home). The good thing is that I got to meet a lot of the other teachers at the airport. So finally, when it was my turn to go, we get there and guess what?! The guesthouse is just one large building lol! There were no separate sections or crazy order to it, so I was confused why I had to wait for so long because we were all in the same building. I stepped into the room and as I expected, my roommate had made herself real comfortable. She had already washed clothes and had them laid out on this large drying rack in front of the free bed. Wellll…

Then it was dinner time around an hour later but all I wanted to do was sleep. Funny though, that once the food was put in front of me I became hungry. I had a pork cutlet, which was good! I was not expecting to have Korean food so soon…I wanted to ween myself into it but here goes! After dinner, I actually talked to my roommate and she seemed pretty cool. She was from New Zealand (but Filipino). I forgot about that country existing because I never hear about it so I was like "ohhhh….yea, cool."

The next morning we had breakfast (at the same place), which I did not eat because they had an amended menu and it's going to take me a while to think of lunch/dinner food as breakfast! I went to the convenience store and grabbed a rice meat roll thingy. Then, it was on to the new hotel for the IMOE Orientation. Goodbye Guesthouse!

Guess what the new hotel was….A Ramada (surprise surprise) in Songdo! I did not think they would have a Ramada in Korea. Alistair said his goodbyes and we got our room assignments and met our new roommates. This time she was from somewhere I know…North Carolina!

 

For lunch, a bunch of us went searching around town for a good place to eat lunch. I had bulgogi for the first time which was good but in a kind of soup where I burnt my tongue. After that day everything started to taste the same and be unsatisfying (but that could have been the fact that most of it was soup). After settling in the room after lunch I took a nap (was knocked out) but dinner was supposed to be at a certain time. Just like me, I woke up at exactly the time dinner was supposed to start and my roommate was still sleeping too! We raced to put on "smart casual" clothes and go to dinner. My first day and I am already late to something! At dinner we met the other english teachers who came through the EPIK program.

 

The rest of orientation pretty much went: 1. breakfast, 2. long lecture, 3. lunch, 4. long lecture, 5. dinner, 6. long lecture. It was only different on the day we had the health check and the day we had the tour. The tour was the best day! My group had three tour guides and we went to Wolmido, which had an amusement park. Two of my guides, Lee Boram and Jeong Hyewon, I still keep in contact with through KakaoTalk (since I don't have phone service yet). They were all scared to get on the rides so I convinced Hyewon to face her fears and ride Disco Pang Pang! This ride made no sense and was like a large skillet that shakes people up. We had dinner after the tour with a host family, which was the best since I have been in Korea and soooo much food!

On a side note, Mr. H started to slowly disappear (make new friends) by the end of orientation. I thought I made a close friend, Miss Love, but by the end of orientation she also became cold and stand-offish.The last thing she said was, "We had fun last night. You should have came?" What? I don't remember being invited anywhere! Do I have some sort of friend repellant on?!

Dear Mama…. Love from Korea (All About My Decision)

September 25, 2013

It's me! I made it safely to Korea. It's day 1 and I am excited to meet the other English teachers, see the nearby sights and start orientation. I am so glad that I found my recruiter, Alistair Wery, with Korean Horizons. You know I had more obstacles in my way than most of the other teachers here, including renting out my house, and continuing to pay major bills like car insurance and my student loans, and the fact that I had no real teaching experience with young students. I quickly learned how selective the process was to teach in Korea when I started applying to recruiters and the EPIK program. EPIK may have turned me down but I kept trying and realized that was not the only way to go. Jumping from being a graphic designer (glued to my computer screen and rarely communicating with people) to a real teacher still has not hit me. I know once the first day of class comes, I will feel it and want to run. The change will be one of the hardest and scariest, especially for my introverted personality. I was not nervous or scared about moving to another country on the other side of the world but I am about teaching!

It was just a small idea that popped in my head after watching so many Korean TV dramas and realizing they have real trouble speaking English…understandable English. So I thought, if the big celebrity stars of South Korea can't speak English well, who can? So, yes, it all started with Korean TV dramas. At the time, you know that I was facing a layoff at my job, so I briefly looked into teaching English in Korea but it continued to stay in my mind. I continued to research about it more and more and found great websites that explained the whole process. Once I graduated from Full Sail University with my MFA, it was on! I decided to concentrate fully on trying to teach English in South Korea. In February, I gathered my documents to get my Bachelor's diploma and FBI Criminal Record Check apostilled. By March, I received the documents back apostilled and paid for my in-class and online TEFL classes. (Yet another class…) I completed the TEFL in-class course in April and met some great people that were also going to Korea. One, we'll call Mr.H and another we'll call Domi were people that I especially kept in contact with. Ironically, Mr.H was recruited for the same province as me and used the same recruiter (but we'll get into that later).

By May, I was applying and interviewing for teaching jobs in both South Korea and Taiwan. Taiwan was on my list because I also watch a lot of Taiwanese dramas and they have tropical weather. Although their English on the dramas were not nearly as bad as the actors in Korean dramas, I felt that by watching I was able to see various parts of how the country looked and their mannerisms. I eventually realized the benefits of working in South Korea greatly outweighed Taiwan and honed my focus back on South Korea. In May, I also started volunteering at Language ETC in Dupont Circle, DC. By the end of July, I completed my online TESOL course and volunteer teaching for the Spring 2013 semester. Then, I found Alistair through his job posting on Dave's ESL Cafe. He was super efficient which had me running around to gather all my materials to give to him. I had to get another apostilled FBI Criminal Record Check because the first one was about to expire and get my Master's notarized and apostilled. Other than that, it was a smooth relationship. Fast forward to September and here I am. I completed 5 years at NACDL and was sad to leave but glad that they were understanding and supportive. I found tenants (no matter how bad one may be) and I paid down as much debt as I could or paid them through to the end of the year. So now, let the experience begin!

The last week at home…..
I felt like there was not enough time in the world to do all the things I wanted to do before I left home. There were still people I wanted to see, places I wanted to go and things I wanted to do (like start a vlog!). All in all, it was great to round out the week with a beautiful dinner with family and friends. I am still waiting to see pictures that everyone took at the dinner because like a doofus I did not take any. So, I am still waiting…..