My first week of teaching in Korea is officially under my belt. Any regrets? None as of yet. I'm beginning to get used to the hours. Getting off at 9 or 10 every night takes a little getting used to. It's like ESE on steroids. Show up at the same hour, get off 3 and a half hours later, and follow a stricter protocol. I will say this though that this campus is a little more relaxed in their rigid interpretation of the time structure and understands that I'm taking time to make sure that the students are grasping the concepts that we're asking them to learn when others would be eating dinner. One of the other teachers responded Friday when I only had a two hour class at 7 instead of a 3 hour one. My response was I'm sorry that on your early nights you get a night off at 7 and my early night is 9. God Bless Fridays! She didn't have much to say after that. I think most of it was moodiness from being sick, although I don't care what country I'm in, I'm not stupid enough to call a woman moody.
I had two students in my class Saturday that weren't at the first part of their class Wednesday so I was introducing myself. With the younger kids there have been some funny interpretations of my name when I pronounce it before I write it out. Violin is the most common. These were older kids that I was writing it on the board for and one of them with a smile informs me that it's an unusual and unique name (in Korea, he's definitely got a point). I told him it was a family name and tried to explain to him what that meant, but we finally resolved that my name is unusual and unique and I'm ok with that. Most of the time it's "teacher, teacher" anyways so it's a moot point. The whole conversation made me laugh and reinforced the need for classroom decorations, one of them being a cool sign of my name.
My two girls in one of my upper level classes were excited when they got to class on Thursday and I asked why only to learn that they had seen and felt snowflakes on the way into school. Really?!?! It had only been a few hours prior that I had walked to work in rolled up sleeves. Now there are snow flurries? This sounded a lot like Texas weather, and sure enough on my walk home there were plenty of snow flurries. Luckily I had brought a jacket and a sweater. When riding the train up to visit Scott Saturday night after getting off work (yes I work on Saturdays too, see earlier) there were stations along the grip that were blanketing in a soft sheet of white.
Finally, when preparing for my train trip I knew that I'd want to eat dinner before getting on the train. I didn't know what the policy was for bringing food on the train (I now know you can) and I wasn't about to be the foreigner that everyone is yelling at on the train because I'm eating where I'm not supposed to. There is a delicious pizza place across from our school and so my plan was to eat a pizza there before taking a cab to the station (more to come on the cab ride later). The branch manager wanted to have a meeting after work, which was cool because I didn't have to be at the train station til 7:30. Then he put out the offer for taking everyone to dinner. I was tempted to try, but finally passed at the chance. Went and got my pizza and got a cab. My plan to eat the pizza at the pizza parlor didn't happen because I'd rather be earlier at the train station than arrive as I saw the train pulling away. I get to the station (which you'll soon find was a miracle within itself) and I pick up my tickets with about twenty minutes. I then proceed to make an entire pizza disappear (Koreans call it a large, but by American standards it was a halfway size between medium and large). I notice this elderly Korean woman is watching me. It's someone eating slices of pizzas with a box in his lap, surely this has happened before. She then is calling he son over and whispering in his ear and this continues on and on with a great deals of smiles and small laughs sent in my direction. When it's about time for my train I discard an empty box and this old woman is sitting there with her mouth agape and I throw her a smile. Glad I could give her a story to share with her grandkids.
Now for the cab story which has gained so much build up. I feel a calling to be a Korean cab driver. Not really, but this is definitely a job that ranks right up there with Top Gun fighter pilot for adrenaline junkies. My cab driver to the train station is honking at city buses, makes a movement to sideswipe a delivery scooter and proceeds to run not one but two red lights. The best part was it wasn't as if he sped up to make the light and it turned red, instead there are about 7-10 cars lined up in each lane waiting for the light to change and he goes into the opposing lane of traffic when he sees a lull in the cross traffic and honks his horn as he goes around everyone and threw the light. God Bless him! My guardian angel was working overtime while riding him because the entire time this is going on he's also watching a Korean sitcom on his GPS. Distracted driver or proficient multi-tasker?
No comments:
Post a Comment