First Week

This week took a lot of adjustment. Living on an island, we don't have the same conveniences that I'm used to in the city. I made the mistake of not buying enough food before arriving, only to realize too late that there isn't really a grocery store here. The only place to buy food, outside of a couple restaurants, is one small convenience store. Most of the other co-teachers seem to stock up on food for the month and then travel to the mainland on the weekends. I plan to do the same thing, but due to the weather I wasn't able to travel back this weekend. Luckily, my co-teacher helped me get the food I needed by ordering online. I also didn't have wi-fi right away, so the first few nights found me huddled against the wall with my laptop plugged into the ethernet socket.

On the bright side, I had my first classes this week! I have a grand total of 41 students. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I teach at the elementary school and on Thursday and Friday I teach at the middle school. The ride to the middle school reminds me a lot of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland: you're packed into a car with a bunch of kids you don't know and the ride bounces you all over the place. It's mostly only one lane, so there's lots of mirrors along the road to see oncoming traffic. There's also a one-lane bridge (something I'd never seen before), and the driver explained to me that there is a stop light so you can tell if someone is on the bridge or not.

For my first few classes, I ran through the same introduction slide show for each class, trying to mix up the difficulty depending on the students' levels. There is a wide range of ability, even among students of the same age, so it's challenging to find activities that are challenging for the better English speakers, but not too tough for those who need more help. I'm excited for next week when I can start teaching new material. All of my classes have been fun so far and the students are really enthusiastic. There was one memorable class where I told the students my rank in Overwatch and two of them got up from their desks and kneeled in front of me, asking me to teach them how to be good at the game.

Otherwise, I've more or less to settled into a routine. I know my immediate area, and I've become a regular at the convenience store. I've also had a chance to meet all of my co-workers now and talked to them in English and Korean. Some of the teachers really want to practice their English with me since they don't have a chance to meet many foreigners on the island. I am also interested in finding those teachers who don't speak English so I can practice my Korean with them. I have the easiest time talking with the children in Korean, but since I'm their English teacher I'm encouraged to mainly speak to them in English. Since I want to help the students as much as I can, I'll stick to finding adults who don't speak English.

I've also gotten into the habit of channel surfing. There's so many different shows here that I always can find something I'm interested in. It seems like there's way more news channels and infomercials than in America. I mostly like to watch cartoons because I can understand them the best, but I've also gotten into watching older Korean dramas (pre-1990s). The style is so different from dramas nowadays, and it's a interesting look into Korean culture back in the day. My favorite one so far has been "Country Diaries" (전원일기).

As always, thank you for following along with my journey. I'd love to hear who's been reading these blogs, so feel free to leave a like or a comment.