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.