Visa Walk, Stumble, and Run

Ok, so I'm sitting here in my hotel room in Fukuoka, hoping to dear God that I'll make it back tomorrow. I somehow forgot to get an itinerary before I left the office yesterday, but from what I understand, my flight is supposed to leave at 10:30 AM. The only problem is that the visa office doesn't open until 10, and it's a real crap shoot if my passport will be ready by then. The other issue is that my flight was with Japan Airlines, but operated through Korean Air, so there was no way to check my itinerary for tomorrow and change the flight today. We'll see what happens, and I'm going to just hope and pray that it all works out.
Today, however, has been a blast. I woke up on time, found a great taxi driver who was willing to attempt to communicate with me. I feel like such a nimrod sometimes, not knowing the language, but coming to Japan has shown me just how friendly Koreans are and how much I'm already getting their culture and understanding, if not words, at least sentiments and general ideas.
Once we got to Yeongdeungpo Station, the taxi driver pulled in front of the airport limousine, and blocked it so that I could make the 5:20 departure. It's called a limousine, but it's really just a nice bus with huge leather seats and great Air Con. I proceeded to sit and read most of the way to the airport as the sun rose and wound up getting there at about 6:25, give or take. The airport is way more intense going out than coming in, because there's so much more to do. Koreans LOVE duty free shopping, and since the terminal did not have any domestic flights whatsoever, they've built an entire duty free mall in the airport. Fortunately, I do not have an intense craving for duty free shopping as of yet, so I was able to slide by.
Once at the terminal, I met a few other ESL teachers doing the same thing I was and we got breakfast and started chatting about how long, where, and why we were in Korea. They were some pretty cool people and we all pretty much stuck together the whole day. One was just doing exit and entry (I think her name was Jen) and we split off from her around midday. We travelled to the embassy in a party of six, and I led the way because I had the most idiot-proof directions.
Once we got there, I realized that I hadn't brought my passport-size pictures, or rather, my school had neglected to give them to me. I sent them with my original documents back in July, and assumed that those would be the photos I'd take with me for the visa run. Fortunately, I was able to get my picture taken in the booth right inside the embassy for 600 yen. There were also plenty of other things I didn't really know, like my employer's phone number and my own address (I know, I've been promising to get it forever now). Fortunately, this isn't the strictest process in the world and they already have so much information on me by now that they probably know more about my contract, employment, and Korean habits than I do. All in good fun, I say.
So we dropped off our passports and headed across the street to check out the wonderful Hawks Town Mall, which included some great Western stores and an arcade place where we wound up going bowling. I won with a score of 78, so you can guess how pro we all were. We really just needed to kill time until 3 PM when we could check into hotels.
The cool thing about bowling in Japan is that you get shoes by depositing a token into the shoe-vending-locker-thingies. We had to give it a couple of goes because none of us knew our foot size in centimeters off-hand. We wound up doing alright and Carson, one of the guys with us, won a bag of spicy beef soup-flavored corn curls. I tried one. They are just as amazing as they sound, really, they are.
Shopping in Japan is really cool. I wound up buying nothing, but saw very few things I didn't like. I would have never thought I'd really want a hoodie from a Nike store, but the way design works in Japan is pretty amazing. I wanted a lot of things, but fortunately I've been spoiled by living in Korea, where most things are fairly inexpensive. Japan is anything but inexpensive.
So after bowling, we went to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe, where I had Macaroni and Cheese with Chicken and enjoyed an Alabama Slammer for old-times' sake. It was intensely filling and utterly bizarre to have a western sized portion set in front of me. We truly eat like pigs.
After the meal came the panic attack. As we walked up to pay, Rhiannon, a teacher from London, realized that her wallet was gone. The madness that ensued and the number of possible exit scenarios that played through my head were a bit overwhelming, but in the end, I wound up finding it on the bar where we'd waited for the table at Hard Rock. After, of course, running wildly back to the bowling alley and preparing to find the British consulate. Anyway, disaster averted, and international crisis held at bay for another day.
Finally, it was approaching 3, so we headed for the subway, which, by the way, is another supercool thing in Japan. Every subway stop has an avatar, so the Korean consulate is a piece of pottery, while another is a flower, and another a running anime boy, and so on. It's really cool, though, because it's almost impossible to miss where you're going or to get too far down the wrong track, which we would've done at one point today.
We got to the hotel and headed off to our rooms for naptime. Three in the afternoon is really late when you've woken up at five and hopped across the Sea of Japan, so we all passed out until around seven when we woke up to go exploring and find dinner. We wound up wandering for a while because none of us really knew what we were doing. Carson had been to Fukuoka before, but proved to be less of a resource than Rhiannon. Raechel and I were both newbies, so we just tagged along and I tried my best to keep them accountable to a compass at least.
We wound up on Canal Street, which is a bit like a red light district, but a lot less in-your-face about things. Since none of us were Japanese men in business suits, we were accepted as crazy foreigners wandering around. Japan is so much rougher than Korea for people who don't know the language, but we all used our masterful ESL skills to mime just about anything we needed and sought out restaurants with picture-menus. In the end we found a lovely Japanese noodle-shack and had a pretty good dinner. Mine wound up having more seafood in it than I'd expected from the lacquered model of the dish in the window, but was pretty decent nonetheless.
We wandered back to the subway and rode home to the hotel, and here I am. Carson and Rhiannon (who work for the same school but hadn't yet met) were booked in the same hotel by their school, and Raechel and I both were left to make our own reservations, so we got a room at the same place as the other two. It's definitely not home, and unlike Korea, there's nothing on TV in English. I also stupidly assumed that Japan would have the same plugs as Korea, but instead it has US plugs! There's also no wireless, so this won't be posted until tomorrow night (if I get home). There were PJs in the room and the pillow is, well, bizarre along with the bathroom. Unfortunately, the Air Con in the room is so dry that it's aggravated my cold.
Enough for now. Here are the pictures I took today with my cell phone (my American one–see? it's good for something...hah). If you want to know what the picture is, click it. They're labeled on photobucket.
Hope all is well,
Love,
Joe

Stuck in the middle outside

Wow. A lot can change in a week. I finally have time and energy to sit down and write (well, not as much as I'd like, but enough that I can respond to the outcry at over a week between posts). Reading last week's post makes me feel as though I'm on a different planet now, but I suppose that's how adjustment goes. I feel like I've been here loads longer, and really I have. I've gotten through homesickness and real sickness. I got strep last week, and now have developed some sort of cold. Here's hoping it's not going to continue getting worse, as I have to wake up at 5 AM tomorrow to get on a plane for Japan. If it's not better when I get back on Thursday, we're going to go to the doctor.
Tomorrow should prove an interesting day, as it will involve first getting a taxi at 5 AM, second getting to a bus station I've never been to, third getting a ticket from a guy on the street for the bus to the airport (this is one of the less certain parts of the trip), and then picking up the ticket at the airport (not sure how that's going to work either).
I'm sure all of this sounds incredibly rudimentary to all of you, but it's the idea of a timetable that frightens me. Throughout all of my adventures in Korea, the only thing I've had to do "on time" is get to work. These next few days are going to be pretty intense, because it's coping with a foreign culture on my own and on a timetable.
After all of the above is accomplished, the real fun starts. At that point, I'm actually going to a new country where they speak even less English to find the consulate for a country that is not my own. It will be the first time that I'm almost acting as a Korean, mostly because I will not be interacting with the US at any point on the trip. I'll drop my passport off at the korean consulate fairly early and then have to find a hotel, dinner, and whatever else I need to survive for the 24 hours that I'm there. We'll see how it goes. I'm sure it won't be too terrible.
Ok... now that we've covered the future... on with the past. This past week I've met a ton of new people, and had a lot of fun. I took my first ride on a motorcycle, which is kinda scary here because anything paved is pretty much a road. I explored even more neighborhoods. Saturday, I met a really cool guy named Jakub from Poland, and he was moving to London on Sunday, so he left me his cell phone. I tried to get it activated yesterday, but Sunday is a "day off" here, so I won't be able to get it done until after I get back from Fukuoka on Wednesday afternoon. Otherwise, I'll have to find a place around school to get it taken care of. Meeting more and more people, the cell phone is getting more necessary, and since rates are so cheap here, it's pretty great. I think it's $20 to set up and I have to put on at least $10 a month to keep the number active.
Last week I fell into a bit of a funk for some reason. It might've been fighting off strep and it might've been anything. I was wondering whether I'd taken the right job and wondering whether I should skip out on my contract and try to find something a little more satisfying before I went out of town to get my visa.
I think the worst part of my funks here has been that I haven't had the words to describe any of it. Everything is both between and outside of everything I've ever known as emotion. It's delicate to describe, but my loneliness is somehow a combination of wanting people near and wanting no one around at all. My excitement is both empty and chock full of meaning. I love the kids here, but at times feel as though I'm beating my head against a brick wall. Really it's probably that I haven't processed much of this so far, and it's finally coming through the filters.
The nice thing is that I'm reading Camus' The Plague, which describes a lot of my sentiments quite accurately. As the town deals with the plague outbreak, there are distinct phases. I'm currently getting through that first phase where I still believe that this is all temporary. Whether I mentally know I'm looking at a year here, my body still hasn't internalized it. It's still going through the first stages, seeing life as merely surviving until tomorrow and survival rather than planting roots and settling in.
I'm hoping some of what I've just written actually translates across the ocean, and should cap all of this off by saying that if I weren't sick right now, this would all be loads peppier. Really, I want my cold to go away. I also wouldn't mind getting to sleep at about 8 tonight. We'll see how it goes.

International Aftermath

Alright... so the homesickness has ebbed a little bit today, as I've learned to make tteokbokki and am again reminding myself of the things I'd already miss if I weren't here, among which are now Milkus, Korean efficiency, the subway system, the little gummy candies whose name I do not know, my students, eating things with chopsticks, tteokbokki, anything made with red bean paste, and more.

Last night, Thomas, Jason and I ate spaghetti again over at Jason's apartment and then watched Blood Diamond, which I must painfully admit was an excellent film. I was sort of hoping it would be terrible so that I could bar Jason from picking movies, but I've been forced to keep him on probation. His taste was in question for having me download Babel, which was possibly the worst movie I've ever watched for more reasons than I can name at present. If you haven't seen it, don't. If you have and wish to argue this point with me, don't. I will probably stop speaking to you. Hah. But Blood Diamond, really, see it.

So, speaking of contrived international calamities (Babel), I'm sure you've all been on the edge of your seats wondering how International Day went today. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so I have no pictures of my own, but I'll do my best to get the link to the Wonderland photo album as soon as possible. I was on my own with two classes (Cherry class and Tomato class), both of which I've had no contact with, for the first three periods of the day today. Having fresh kids was both great and terrible. It's almost impossible to control a child whose name you do not know, but the kids were also great new faces and very creative. They spent over an hour decorating their sombreros and headbands, and looked really cute in the costumes I made for them. Once Michelle got out of her special classes, she came up to help and was great. I enjoyed working with her quite a bit. She's creative, smart, and has a great grasp of how to keep kids in line without discipline, which is a skill I'm desperately seeking to acquire.
The culmination of today, just like the monthly birthday-day, was a photoshoot where the kids refuse to smile. They wind up looking like we'd forced them into the costumes and the facepaint and the whole experience, which, of course, we have. The interesting thing about working for a for-profit school is that we have to do a lot of things for appearances, and teach along the way, which is really not so bad, but makes discipline and grading rather unorthodox and keeps us doing some pretty ridiculous stuff from time to time.
All that said, I think I was the teacher having the most fun today. The other western teachers seemed pretty worn out by it all, but I really enjoyed dressing the kids up and doing arts and crafts all morning. It's probably because I'm new, but I think it's also my outlook. I'm along for the ride for most of this stuff, and the more fun I bring, the more fun there is. I'm not particularly worried about how it's all going to go or how I'll feel when it's done, I'm just trying to add a little fun and learning whenever I can get through.

So, since it's Friday, I'm going to recap what I've learned this week.

1. About my teaching style:
I teach everyone as though they were an adult, or maybe as though I were a child. Either way, it's both working wonderfully and not at all. I get very frustrated when I can't get through to a child. Harold is one of them. He doesn't know what "Ask" means and does the blank stare thing when I directly address him. I'm not so great at dealing with that yet. Michael 1 (that's what we call him since there are two Michaels) is another one like Harold. Michael 1 came in during an intensive session and must've learned nothing. Today I spent five minutes trying to show him how to make an "F" sound, which is one of the tough ones for these kids, and he kept completely zoning out. As much as I'm ADD, when I'm directly addressed, I'm engaged.

2. About me as a teacher:
I get to plan a lesson for Monday about "Earth," whatever that means. I decided that it means climate, so I'm teaching some earth science on monday about deserts and hurricanes and glaciers and I'm ridiculously excited. I really had a moment today when I caught myself getting giddy about my earth science lessons for the next two weeks. Anything that isn't two pages from a phonics book seems scintillating at this point, which probably means I need to refresh my approach to phonics. Honestly though, I'm loving what I do, and I'm apparently enjoying each day's work more than any of my western coworkers, who seem a little worn out with it. Maybe I'll be there a few months from now, but I hope not. I hope I teach like Laura (far better than I am now) and I have as much fun with it as I did today.

3. About me as an Ex-Pat
I adapt quickly. Today I was ready to order movie tickets online, on a site in Hangul, but Tom didn't trust me to do it. I hear more words I recognize each day and I'm learning to read the language much better. I think I was being impatient with myself. I also feel like I'm picking up the culture pretty quickly as well. Ricky (one of the Korean English teachers) asked me today how long I'd been here, and replied to my response that it seemed like I'd been here well over a month by the way I was acting. I think admitting that I was homesick yesterday served the same function as when I first admitted to myself I was in culture shock. I sat and processed the emotion and, once I'd seen it for what it was, started dealing with it. I miss home, and I've been missing it for a while, but now that it's on the surface, it's just like the next lesson I have to teach. I'm not completely sure how I'm going to get through, but my friends here and everyone at home are just like the kids, supportive and eagerly hoping I'll succeed at whatever I'm doing, so I'm definitely going to make it.

4. About me as a cook
Fact: I cannot tell a Korean butcher that I want only a chicken breast. Fact: I cannot cook an entire chicken, especially in the absence of an oven. These two factors combined this Monday to form a temporary rule: Chicken is only to be consumed at restaurants for the next month, while my Korean improves. I can, however, make tteokbokki with red chili paste, and mandu. Both are wonderful and really spicy and have become my staples for snacking Korean style at home. I hope to branch out to other dishes soon, but my cooking is very dependent on my Korean, so it might take me a little bit.

5. About my senses of adventure and direction.
Fact: I cannot tell where I am and how to get back after a cab ride, especially if it's to somewhere I haven't been, and especially if I've been hanging out with people I've just met. I'm adventurous, and I'm breaking out on my own so that I can build more of a life for myself here, but I wound up walking on my own trying to find a cab that could understand me for about a half an hour the other night. On the bright side, getting lost is wonderful for learning a city. When I finally figured out where I was, my brain had done a wonderful job of mapping the unknown so that I could put overlay it on the page. It's also wonderful that Korea is safe and its people patient. In America, a lost Korean with little to no knowledge of the English language would be SOL to say the least. Here I was able to walk around for quite a while, at night, alone, in a neighborhood I did not know, and eventually found a taxi driver who would listen while I fumblingly pronounced the name of my subway stop and pointed at the map. I hate seeming so culturally insensitive, but I'm learning much faster by submersion than by immersion, so I'm probably going to keep taking new plunges.

And that's it for now, my fingers and your eyes are likely very sore, and there are more adventures to be had. I hope all is well back home and love hearing from you all. I wish you could all come and visit, there's really so much to show you, so much more than what I can write that I want to share with you, but I'm learning that the disconnect is part of the beauty of life, and that it's phenomenal that you can even be a little bit here with me when the gulf between us is so wide.

Love and high hopes,
Joe

a few pictures with a broken camera

For those of you who don't know, my camera's broken. This should explain what's to follow, as the pictures aren't so hot and aren't so many. I'm also not much of a picture taker, because i feel like a voyeur or a tourist trapping images for consumption later. I also feel at times as though I'm perceived as some sort of inspector or critic of the world when I have a camera. I guess, in the end, that I'm just awkward with one, and it shows.
These pictures are in reverse order:
This is the wonderful fish-killing aquarium on the way to school (The crabs are huge-normous... I wouldn't want to be the one to pull them out)



This is a building that really just started being built around the time I got here. Gotta love Korean efficiency.



This is a view on the walk to school of the sidewalk ahead.


This is the view across the street from my apartment building.

>
This is the door to my apartment.




And that's it for now. I might post more after tomorrow, which is the ridiculous "International Day" where we dress kids up as stereotypes. Michelle (one of the Korean teachers) and I were going to do Mexico, but are doing Mexico and Native American because, as Sun put it, "Mexico is, for girls, you know, kind of ugly." So my girls are going to have their faces painted while my boys put on marx brothers mustaches and panchos. It should be interesting. I will sleep well knowing that my kids aren't going to be leprechauns from Ireland or girls in coconut bras from Iran (figure that one out, please?). It's all in good fun, however, and it's very interesting to see how their stereotypes work here.
The result of it all is that I spent three hours today making ponchos and hats, and tomorrow morning I'm going to try to convince children to decorate headbands and wear silly costumes without crying. All the while, they'll probably learn little to no English, but it's all in good fun.

On a more personal note, I'm starting to feel my first pangs of homesickness. Today I had a flashback to Mom singing all of the "I know"s in "Ain't No Sunshine" while we shopped in Big Lots. It's probably going to be a rough couple of weeks as I move out of honeymoon and into settling in, but I've already made it half a month and I've still got a ton of books to read and a ton of things to see, so it's all going to be fine, I'm sure.

Love to all, will write more soon,
Joe

PS- Thanks for all the comments. They make me feel like I'm actually in touch with all of you and make me feel less far than I am.

Strange things

Ok, so it's strange to be posting again today, but I have a few things to write down that I'm finding pretty fascinating and ought to capture in words while the sensations are still fresh.
First, I've discovered one thing that's pretty amazing. I know a ton more French than I thought. I think trying so desperately to learn Korean has activated the language center of my brain, causing my ears and my brain to reach so hard for meaning everywhere that today when I watched Gouttes D'Eau Sur Pierres Brulantes, a film from one of my favorite directors, I was able to understand almost all of it without subtitles. I know to some of you this seems like no big deal, but my ability to understand native-speaker speed French is a new development–a development that came about in an environment completely devoid of spoken French. The human brain is fascinating. This discovery has brought about a resurgence of my interest in the French language, and I'm listening to Carla Bruni as I write this. I'll admit, music is a little tougher than film, because context is lacking and the language is more tightly poetic.
I'm picking up little bits of Korean again, but it's very slow progress. The problem isn't that I don't understand--it's that my brain has somehow been set to dump anything that's not immediately useful. It takes days of recognition to pick up and start using each new phrase, because I have to make it functional, not merely present it to my consciousness. I've finally figured out Hello, Goodbye, Thank you, Do you speak English?, I speak a little Korean, Excuse me, and a few other phrases. I'm picking up some basic grammar points as well, but very little of what I've attained so far is there on the tip of my tongue when I need it. I can hear far more of it than I can produce verbally. The two things I need to work on in earnest are the numbers and alphabet. Once I can start reading the language, I'll be able to think in it a little better and I'm sure I'll pick it up much more quickly. Again, though, it's been impossible to learn the alphabet without making it functional. I've got to come up with some new study tactics.

On a completely unrelated note, I'm having far fewer "not in Kansas anymore, Toto" moments. For the first week, I kept wondering if I was dreaming that I'd come here, and reeling each time I tried to wrap my mind around the distance between here and there. Now, I feel myself adapting and settling in. My mind's starting to wrap itself around how far you all are from me (and it is far––one very long day's travel). When I went to karaoke (or whatever it's called here, maybe noribang?) it was so interesting to see the types of artists that have made it here. There was Keane and Keren Ann, but no Fiona Apple. For some reason, I stupidly thought that Korea was on the other side of some American filter, and that everything they got here was trickled down from us. That's not how it is though. Korea is its own filter, and its own market, even for the English language stuff. I'm slowly breaking my western thought habits––at least those I'm able to break, because I know that I'm fundamentally incapable of understanding their context here. I'm tied to my past and my culture, and everything I see here is filtered through the life I was born into. It is wonderful, however, to question the things I've taken for granted for so long, and to try to figure out why we do it the way we do it.
It's now occurring to me that I might've written all of this yesterday, but as there's no way to check while I'm at work, I'm going to keep writing and again tell you how immensely proud of myself I am for eating chocolate cake with chopsticks. It was one of those moments when I'm reminded that I'm in Oz or down the rabbit hole or something.

I went to the grocery store alone last night after I finished teaching. I was way too hungry to be there, and knowing as little Korean as I do, it was a really silly thing to do. I wound up buying a whole chicken (it was pretty cheap) because I didn't know how to ask the butcher to cut the breasts. I then proceeded to cook it pretty wretchedly and eating very little of it. Oh well, that's life, and it made me laugh at myself. I did, however, get some Korean spices that I'm very eager to experiment with, and some basic Korean food that I know I like.

Since I'm all about tangents today, I've also been having some really random dreams as my body adjusts to a completely different world. They run the gamut from waking up in America to this wonderfully Kafka-esque dream I had Sunday night, which woke me up at 5 AM Monday to write it down. It might or might not become a novel. I'm letting the images stew in my mind before I go back to it. Typically, I wake up a few times a night, but on the whole have found sleeping here, with all of its peculiarities, far more interesting than sleeping back at home.

For now, I'm kinda cruising through the day, wonderfully pleased with the knowledge that I don't have to work tomorrow, because it's Independence Day here. That means tonight can be another night of exploring and hopefully a good night for a run if it quits raining.

I'm going to run downstairs for some candy and maybe to take a few pictures because Dave's been harassing me.

Long awaited update

Alright, so it's Monday and I haven't posted in almost a week. Teaching's been going very well, and I think I'm getting better each day. The kids are wonderful, and I'm learning how to be stricter. i just really hope they're retaining what I teach, and I'm looking for new ways to make things interesting. The older kids, of course, are more responsive, and therefore I enjoy teaching them more. The younger kids are tougher for me, as I have yet to learn to fully restrict my language usage to words they already know. On the other hand, I've unconsciously begun using my hands when I talk, drawing pictures in the air for every word I use. It's both funny and scary how quickly the human organism will adapt to new surroundings and to what lengths it will go to be understood.
Life's been treating me pretty well, and I'm preparing for my trip to Japan next week for my visa run. I've finally adjusted to jetlag, and it's been wonderful getting into a new rhythm here. Last Wednesday night, I had my first feeling that this was home, and I've already tried and found several things that I know I'll miss when I've gone. Korea's such a brilliant country in so many ways, from their public transportation system to their recycling system to the fact that the shopping carts lock their wheels on the moving sidewalk. It's all pretty wonderful.
I'm learning to change the way I live, as well. I've learned that big towels are ridiculous, because they take ages to dry and there's really no need for them. Hand-size towels do quite nicely for drying off and take up so much less space. In general, things here and people here take up less space, and have a smaller footprint. Where we each require a separate dish at home and countless other individual allotments, life and other things are shared here in a way I'm not quite yet ready to describe. To steal words from Valentine Michael Smith, there are many things here that I don't yet grok in fullness yet, but waiting is.
For example, I do not yet know whether soju is from hell or heaven. It tastes wonderfully like kool-aid, but washes reality away as quickly as you drink it. I'm taking a break from soju for a while, I think. I went out with Jason this weekend, and discovered that I no longer have the alcohol tolerance I once possessed. This is a good thing, and I don't think I'm going to try to push it back up in the other direction.
I met a great guy named Travis, who's Korean and from the province to the east (the name of which I can't remember at the moment). He speaks great English and is a really cool guy. I feel like I have more in common with him than with the other teachers I work with, and he's willing to do something like a language exchange with me, where I learn Korean and we fine tune his English. I'm looking forward to it. What I've discovered in first meeting him are the things I take for granted as a westerner that are pretty fundamentally ridiculous. I will probably never buy a pair of shoes I can't slide off again. I've also developed a heightened sense of minimalism, and don't really see a need to have more than I'm going to immediately use. They also eat out a lot more here, but it's far cheaper. If the restaurant buys all of the food, fewer containers are needed, and less is wasted. It's a pretty interesting concept.
Some time soon, I'll have to explain Korean side dishes and tell you all about the pepper incident last week that turned me into a cartoon with steam shooting out of my ears, but for now I've got to go back to teaching. I hope all is well back home, and wish that I were closer sometimes so that you all could visit and discover the life I'm living now.
Love to all
Joe

TESOL- Solo Flight One

Ok... So here goes... Teaching in Korea
On Friday, approximately 39 hours after arriving in Korea, I started school, but mostly to observe. I'm responsible for nine forty minute sessions Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and seven on Tuesday and Thursday. I leave for work about 9:00 and get home around eight at night, which sounds like a long day, but I have a few one or two hour breaks in there that keep it feeling a little better.
Friday was both more and less scary than I thought it would be. Just like everything else, I've prepared for all the wrong things, which is teaching me to laugh at myself. In my head I was figuring out how to structure my lesson plan, which was intimidating, but in reality I'm taking two pages of material per class and figuring out how to stretch it into forty to eighty minutes. The toughest thing is realizing that it needs to take that long to teach the pages, and that hammering pronunciation into the minds of these kids might be the most important thing I do. I'm realizing that I'm not great at it, but that I'm alright and at least comfortable considering that I'm midway through my first full day of teaching.
On Friday, I was frustrated when I couldn't just take the reigns in the classroom. Today I keep thinking to myself that I'm missing something and I'll only realize halfway through the following class that I'd forgotten to review the homework in the first. Thankfully, the morning is all kindergarden and gave me a little practice before the afternoon. I've successfully learned all of my kindergarteners' names, which I was kinda worried about, and had my first student vomit in the middle of class this morning. I think I handled it pretty well, mostly because it didn't smell at all. i just felt bad because I didn't know where stuff to clean it was, and asking turned into one of the Korean kindergarten teachers cleaning it up for me, which made me feel like a snob.
Anyway, right now I have an hour and a half break before I teach the elementary-age students, who are far more interesting to me. The kids are kids, and great ones, but I enjoy the ones I can engage with a little more. It's a totally different experience.
I am, however, a little intimidated about this afternoon in at least one way. The class that had only three students on Friday will have about nine today. Last week was school holiday here, so many of the kids didn't show up for Friday because it was the only day of class all week. I pretty much taught my afternoon classes because Sun, the supervisor, was walking me through the afternoon, while the first half of the day was only observation. When Sun stepped out, I was able to take over pretty naturally, which is why I'm also less intimidated. The lessons I'm teaching are more like the French lessons I used to teach and feel more like language lessons than kindergarten pronunciation books. In other words, this afternoon will be easier in some ways and harder in others, just like everything.

Hah, just got some good news. I don't have to stay until 7:30 tonight. My private student doesn't come back until the 13th (if I'm reading the schedule correctly). I get to go home at six. The day is half done!

To cope with the long day and to compensate for jet-lag and culture shock, I've rediscovered coffee, but will, I hope, wean back off of it as soon as I've started running again. I'm hoping that'll happen tonight. It's just been hard to get motivated to do it with everything feeling a bit out of whack and not having my fuel-foods from home. If only I could make my protein shakes, ha! I'll figure it out soon, I'm sure.

Anwyay, since I'm at work, I won't be able to post this until tonight, at which point I'll have finished a full day of teaching solo. I just wanted to get my reactions down now while they were fresh and I had nothing else to do.
Now I'm off to prepare my afternoon lessons.

Alright... It's 6:15 Monday night and I'm back home. I love the afternoons, because I get to really challenge the kids and they understand SOOOO much more. Nice thing is that I don't have either of my late private lessons until the 13th, which is amazing because I get extra time to adjust and can really feel my way through this a little better.

Things I discovered about myself today:
I'm exacting, and almost cruel when it comes to potty time.
I understand very little Korean (i.e. the word for vomiting).
I am a pretty damn good explainer, but that doesn't carry over when the kids don't know what the words I'm using to explain things mean--also I'm fairly inventive.
Teaching the word "hug" is very rewarding and can make any bad day good.
Drawing things and inspiring competition will keep anyone involved.
I need to bring things that the kids can compete to get.
Korean kids know how to cheat.
Cheating will not help kids learn English AT ALL.
I hate myself a little when I recognize myself in the personality of students.

I think that's enough for me to have learned in one day. I also learned a few new words and am making my first teensy bit of progress with Korean. It's a tough language, which means that English is just as tough for these kids. I owe it to them to learn their language, if only so that I know what they're going through.

Anyway, all is well. I've survived a day of observing and a day of teaching. Life isn't half bad. Tonight we're thinking about making steak and potatoes because the meat market around the corner's pretty good and Jason's managed to acquire potatoes (no small feat, from what I understand).

Within five days, I have:
Learned a little Korean.
Navigated the subway and taxis alone.
Found a Catholic church with mass in English.
Visited five different "dong" (kinda like neighborhoods-- Somewhere between Chelsea or the East Village and Brooklyn or Manhattan).
Tried a lot of food I can't name.
Read a little C S Lewis.
Taught (kinda) two days of classes.
and made new friends.

Not bad, if I do say so myself.

If you have questions, post a comment. There's so much to cover, and I know I'm leaving out heaping chunks, so let me know what you want to know or if I'm being too long-winded.

Love to all,
Joe

Apartment Photos

Alright, so here's the apartment. Dave kindly uploaded the photos and has been a super help with all of this because I've been intimidated by the Korean buttons. I think the real issue is that I didn't know where to begin writing HTML. So here's my desk, complete with the speakers George left behind, which have come in super handy

Here's my bed, with the air conditioner above it.

Here's my kitchen area (note the box of protein bars, the boxes of fruitsnacks, etc). The bottle of orange stuff is my laundry detergent and the thing that looks to be a dishwasher in the lower right is my washing machine.

Here's inside the bathroom, a shot of the shower/sink for those of you who've never seen one.

This is my window, clothes drying rack, and TV (the TV here is great- Luke was right, they even televise Starcraft battles here, lol)



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All in all, the apartment's been pretty great so far. When I took the pictures last night, I was doing my first load of laundry, which is almost dry this morning. Laundry's just another way that time is redefining itself.
More on that later, when I talk about work and stuff. That post is really still coming, I promise.

Love to all
Joe

Koreans flying, driving, and staring at the crazy american

OK, so the real reason I haven't written a post in the past few days hasn't really been that I had a lack of time. It's that blogspot assumes that you want the menus in the language that fits your IP address and I've been intimidated by Hangul like it's my job. I found the right link by clicking most of the other ones first.
Really, I should've learned some Hangul (Korea's writing system) by now, but haven't because I've been blaming it on the fact that my Hangul-teaching program hasn't downloaded yet. I've really got to spend the time to learn this stuff.
So, wow, gotta go about two and three quarters days back to get you all caught up. The flight was pretty incredible and incredibly long. 15 hours in a plane is even longer than it sounds and my delirium (see previous post) did not really help me get any consistent sleep. I watched a few movies on the flight, three to be exact, and I got to pick which ones to watch because I had my own screen. I also had a video game controller but was restricted to a version of Brickles that didn't have very accurate physics, so I kept dying and playing the same levels over and over again. I think I played the pointless game for about two to three hours of the flight, if not more. Zodiac, howver, is a great film and I suggest it to all who can stand suspenseful mystery flicks. 23, on the other hand, was disappointing at best. I'm not entirely sure what other movies I watched, which I found humorous on the ride from the airport to my apartment with Paul, my recruiter. The rest of the flight was pretty wonky, but in a very good way. The stewardesses were dressed in white shirts and shiny mint green skirts and had what looked like those ribbons you wear to support a cause in their hair except they were longer, thinner, and pointed sideways so that each stewardess had mint green horns poking out of one side of her head. Pretty amazing, when seen.
These stewardesses served me about twelve drinks throughout the course of the flight, most of which were pineapple juice, which I didn't understand entirely. We got two big meals (don't eat the Korean Air beef, for god's sake), and several snacks, though I couldn't count them or describe to you exactly what they were. The food was food to me at that point, and I tried and continue to try just about everything someone puts in front of me. Other interesting things that were passed out included:
mint green socks, in case one wanted to remove ones shoes and socks for the duration of the flight
mint green eye masks, which I saw other people wearing, but was not offered myself. I think that I accidentally got socks instead
one wetnap, near the beginning of the flight, which was indicated for refreshing all exposed skin, and is also practiced at some nicer restaurants.
one steaming towel, delivered about midway through the flight, for relieving cramps and secondary refreshment
All in all, it wasn't a bad deal, just a really really long flight.
When I got in, I was a little paranoid about customs because I didn't want to have to declare my fruit snacks, nutty bars, and protein bars. I chose not to in order to avoid the complications that would ensue. I learned later that this was mostly a moot point, as Americans' bags are rarely checked at customs. I got through, and Paul grabbed me pretty quickly after I emerged from the baggage claim.
What happened next was pretty interesting. Driving in Korea is pretty strange and I doubt that I will ever attempt it. People drive ridiculously slow or ridiculously fast, but rarely at the same speed as other cars. They also try to stay as close to sideswiping one another as possible, and while they signal everywhere, they obey no traffic light that is not convenient. I never felt as though my life was threatened, but was continually glad that I was not the one driving. Paul, I believe, got lost on the way to the apartment and could not quite figure out how to make the air conditioning and the wipers work at the same time because it was so muggy out. I'm doing well so far at not stealing the reigns to show others how to do things, and getting better at finding other approaches interesting and unique, if not entirely functional.
Once I got to the apartment, I met Jason and Tom, my neighbors and coworkers at Dong Jack Wonderland. Jason is an Airforce vet from North Carolina who owns a mink coat and a Yorkshire Terrier named Oscar who is wonderful. Jason's a handful, but a great guy who is his own social lubricant. Tom's the guy I can discuss the otherness of the other with. He's a laid-back guy with a pretty liberal bent on life. The two of them could hardly be more polar opposites, but they seem to get along well.
So I got settled in a bit, showered, and we were off for galbi, which is like barbecue that you cook yourself at the table. The first think that strikes one about korean food is the massive quantity of side dishes that just come because you sit down. I'm glad I knew how to use chopsticks already, because otherwise I'd be SOL. However, the chopsticks here are metal and reusable, which makes them harder to eat rice with. The food's great, but spicier than I'm used to. It'll take some time for me to be up to eating kimchi regularly, but I'm going to try. After dinner in central Seoul, Tom and Jason took me to see Itaewon, which is the foreigner area of Seoul, jam packed full of hiphop clubs, dives, nice places (Helios was wonderful), and other things which will remain unspoken. It was a fun night, and a good taste of Seoul, but I wound up pretty exhausted.
Thursday was spent fighting jet lag and, well, sleeping. I went out to get a bottle of water since you can't drink the tap here and discovered that I did not know the door code for the outside entrance. It was an interesting fifteen minutes wondering how long it would take me to get back into my room before the mail guy came. I spent the day eating protein bars and fruit snacks because I couldn't muster the energy to go exploring, but Jason made some excellent spaghetti for dinner, so all in all it wasn't a bad day. I wound up meeting Laura as Jason, Tom, and I neared the end of Val Kilmer's epic film, The Saint, which we found to be utterly stimulating. She's a great girl and an amazing teacher and knows more about this than I will know by the time I leave, because she's been here longer than I will be. She certainly has my admiration.
Alright. Enough. I've typed more than a sane person would want to read, and there's a ton more still trapped inside my head. Because I'm new here, every experience is novel and I don't know which ones have narrative importance yet, so I'm cataloguing everything. I did have a full day of teaching today, but that narrative will have to wait until my fingers heal from this one. Maybe later tonight. We'll see.
For now, I hope all is well on the home front.
Much love,
Joe