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!