March 2nd-March 8th

Hello everyone! I am sorry it has taken nearly two weeks since I have last posted. As you all know (if you read my last post) I started real work with the new students on March 2nd. The days have been long but that's only because I don't know what a 9-5 job is. Now that we are two weeks through, I have begun to get my feet on the ground and a steady schedule that fits my needs with work. All I can say is there is not much going on during the week for me. Pretty much our first week of school was getting the kids situated in each class and then allowing them to get comfortable with foreigners as their teachers and us foreigners adjusting to not only the Korean kids but teaching them (I never thought once that I would be a teacher). For my schedule, I show up for work at 9 AM via bike (rain, snow, hail, monsoons, hills; both ways, you know the drill) and do not have my first class until 11:40 in the morning. I probably have the most downtime in the morning compared to my other employees but once I start at 11:40, I do not stop until about 4:45 in the afternoon. My first class is supposed to be the smartest of all the kids at the school. They are the 7 year olds and I have six of them in my class. Each class is different meaning we teach from different books depending on how advanced they are. I teach that class from 11:40-12:20 and then eat lunch with them from 12:20-1:00. Once lunch is over, I stay with that class to do a class that is called "Activity Class." Each day of the week we do something different. Monday is science day where we will build something. For instance, in the first week we showed the kids how electricity works. Some of the projects are fun and some are tedious. The kids need so much help doing them that sometimes I feel I am doing everyone's science projects. Then on Tuesday it is called DVD day and us teachers choose a DVD to watch (usually something that is helpful for learning) and then create a questionnaire for the kids to answer from. On Wednesday we have Art day, Thursday is this thing called ORDA and it’s pretty similar to art day. Then on Friday, the kids have P.E. and that is pretty much free time for us. After the activity class ends for me at 1:40 I have class with 6 year olds that I teach and they barely understand what I am saying the whole time. One thing I never thought about is that children do not have English names. It is rare if someone has an English name. So for my six year old class, it is all of their first time going to school and they only have their Korean names. It was my job to take all 16 of my students and rename them with English names. I thought and still think it is wild that we had to name them. Now that it has been 2 weeks of teaching them everyday, they have caught onto their names and we should begin work from their curriculum this week. We will see. That class ends at 2:40 and I go and teach a different group of 7 year olds (which is my worst class by far. The kids don't listen to anything that I say). That class ends at 3:20 where I then begin my next class at 3:30 which is elementary school and the kids are all very smart and we do much more advanced work. These kids go to a Korean school all day and then show up at 3:30 to 4:45 and learn English. These are really dedicated kids but mainly because their parents force them. From 3:30-4:45, this is two different classes but with the same kids. I actually only teach both of those classes Tuesday's and Thursday's. On Monday/Wednesday/Friday I only teach the second of the two where my Korean teaching partner teaches it. The schedule is not too bad actually but the days can become very long at times. I think that is normal for any real jobs and I am very optimistic that as the weeks keep going by, the weeks will all be good weeks.

I have always heard the phrase "TGIF" (thanks god it’s Friday) but never really cared to use the phrase because for one, I have never had a real job and for college, that time was too much fun to ever worry about what day of the week it was unless you had an exam. I now know the true meaning of TGIF and I think all of us were very thankful it was Friday. It was Friday and we also got our first paychecks (party time right!!?). Now that I had a little money and could have some fun, we thought it was time to go to Seoul on Friday night and wild out. Daniel, Jillian, Tate and I headed up to Seoul with the intention of having a good time. We planned on going to a club. One thing you need to understand is that in most countries other than the U.S., the clubs are open into the early morning. Most of the clubs in Korea are open until 6 AM and we wanted to try that. After work on Friday, we went home and napped until it was time to go. We took the bus from Dongtan to Seoul at 10:40 PM to arrive in Seoul at 11:20. We then walked to the subway and took the subway to a city within Seoul that was about 40 minutes away. It was called Hong Dae and known for clubs and a good time. We got to Hong Dae around 12:30 and went to a bar where we hung out and had some drinks before the club. The club was called M2 and we showed up around 2 AM and it was HUGE. There could have been anywhere from 700-1000 people. It was all techno music and the music never stopped. We danced the whole night away and probably had one of the best times I have ever had being at a club. Truthfully, I am not much of a clubber and prefer low key but I knew going into this, I needed to have a good time with it. There were times where I was on the stage all by myself with the DJ's just dancing in front of all the people. I cannot dance as you have all seen in the videos I posted and now just imagine me at a club in front of so many people. It was a great experience and can’t wait until the next time. The time flew the whole night and sooner than we knew it, the lights were coming on in the club. After we left the club around 6, the streets were flooded with people leaving the clubs and we decided to get some burger king before we headed home. We decided to just take a taxi cab home from Hong Dae and it was about an hour and a half cab ride that only cost 40,000 won. In the states, that is about only $34.00. We could not believe a cab ride that long and that far could be so cheap. We definitely all fell asleep in the taxi and the next thing I knew, I woke up and we were home. I think all of us ran up the stairs and jumped into bed. Saturday was pretty much a wasted day because none of us wanted to do much other than chill and sleep.

On Sunday, Jillian, Tate, Daniel, Dave and myself all took the subway to a city near by called Suwon and went to the mall and just walked around the city. It is a lot different than Dongtan. We saw the movie, "Watchmen" that is about all the comic book heroes and it was actually really good. And yes, it was in English! We stayed there all day and went to the batting cages and just enjoyed ourselves before we had to go back to work the next day. I have pictures from this whole week that I will post after this blog to hopefully give you a better feel for what we have been doing this past week. Again, I am sorry it has taken me so long to post and I will get better at this. I miss you all!!