The first day of school, or, Rocky Top solo

(Written 3/2, posted my 3/3) It was cold today! I was in a little bit of a rush compared to Tuesday morning, so I forgot to wear the scarf and hat my sister made for me. I’ll definitely wear one or the other tomorrow. Mr. Kim knocked on my door right on time and the walk to school felt much more familiar. What I ended up deciding appearance-wise for my first morning was still dressy-casual clothing (dress slacks and a nice sweater), but minimal makeup. Gosh, it was refreshing, and of course no one here knew the difference. I can always add makeup later, but it’s hard to go the other way!

At the very beginning of the day, Mr. Kim introduced me to one of the other English teachers (her English name is “Tina”) who was also at the school for the first year, and would be my go-to person for any number of details and any problems I might encounter. This is because Mr. Kim is actually sort of the department head for English (over 14 teachers including me) and he can’t be there at every minute. I also gather that I may end up having a different co-teacher in every classroom I teach in, but I’m not entirely sure if I understood that right. I’m pretty sure Mr. Kim won’t be following me to each of my 15 classes though. More updates on that later.

As soon as I settled in at my desk in the shared teacher space, the principal was ready to meet me. I was very apprehensive, but Mr. Kim translated easily between us, and the introduction went smoothly and quickly. The principal gave us both a small gift—a bottle of vitamin C water—and gave me a business card. I remembered my culture studies and looked thoroughly at the card before putting it away. I also presented him with the Gentleman Jack (wrapped). I didn’t see his response to the contents, but he seemed pleased to receive a gift.

Returning to my office (that happened a LOT today), I got set up with my school laptop, still bearing a large “Wales” flag sticker from the previous NET. The best part? That meant I had internet!! And so I did manage to make contact and see what I’d missed in the world of Facebook for the last few days. It was wonderful to make contact with friends and family, and by that early in the morning, it was still evening back home, so people could actually respond to me within minutes. I also got my textbook and activity book, and found that the previous teacher had left a folder on the computer of all his PowerPoint shows and many lesson plans, organized and well-labeled. Yay!

I did ask that all-important question of where the bathroom was. “Tina” showed me the way, and there’s a teacher bathroom (separate for men and women of course) apart from the students’ ones. Indeed, it contained…a squatty potty. And looking at the floor I came to discover one reason why you want to have different shoes for school. O.o At least the toilet was a flushing one, not one you have to dump water from a bucket to flush. The hand dryer didn’t work, so I just dried my clean hands on my sweater and was thankful that it was too dark-colored to tell.

Opening ceremonies began around 10 am, and Mr. Kim led the way. He asked me what the opposite of “commencement” was, and I wasn’t sure what to tell him aside from “opening ceremonies,” since commencement’s synonym is ‘beginning’; we just happen to use it at graduations. Hm, any thoughts? The first and second graders (freshmen and sophomore/juniors) were all there, so about 1,000 people plus 30 or more new teachers and another few dozen veteran teachers and administrators. For some reason, they students had to rehearse bowing before the ceremony actually began. I didn’t realize that’s what was happening until Mr. Kim said something about it. He didn’t think it made any sense and sort of considered it a silly thing. He told me one of the two vice principals would introduce me onstage to the entire assembly after all the other new teachers, by myself. Yikes! So he asked if I had some words in mind to say to the students—they would understand me if I spoke slowly—and I told him I’d come up with something.

When my turn came, the vice principal introduced me (they have trouble with my last name in Korea too, imagine…) and told where I had gone to school, and then handed me the microphone! I said something like this, “Hello everyone! In Tennessee, where I live, they sometimes have a different way of saying hello to friends. They might say, ‘Howdy, ya’ll!’ so howdy! Where I’m from, we have some beautiful mountains, and one point is known as Rocky Top. We have a song about that from Tennessee, so I’d like to sing the chorus of it to you.” And I proceeded to sing a rousing chorus of “Rocky Top” to the delighted assembly of teens, who started clapping along to the rhythm after a few notes, and cheered when I finished. I closed with expressing my thanks for the warm welcome and that I looked forward to seeing them in English class. The vice principal told me offstage afterward that I had done very well, and Mr. Kim said I was most impressive; none of the other English teachers had ever sung a song before in their opening remarks that he could recall. Good ol’ Rocky Top! Pretty crazy, and compared to the reserved nature I had demonstrated up to that point, I think I surprised more than a few people. But then, I surprised a lot of Whedonites back home the first time I entered a “maniacal laughter” competition at the Firefly/WhedonFest convention too… ;)

The day wasn’t boring, necessarily, but it was very long. There were too many little things to learn and translate and ask about for it to be boring. I got a map of the school written in Korean, a teacher phone directory written in Korean, and office signs all written in, guess what, Korean! I think they have been a little disappointed that I don’t know more Korean, so that’s definite motivation to get on the Hangeul learning as quickly as possible. I’m reading about as fast as a 3-year old.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Kim tried to prepare me ahead of time for the cafeteria food. I think cafeterias are universally not the greatest examples of food. He said Matt the former teacher genuinely liked the food, unlike all other foreign teachers they’d had, but he thought that’s because Matt was insatiably hungry. Well, it wasn’t the best food I’ve had yet, but it wasn’t the worst cafeteria food either. The menu consisted of:
Beef (?) meatballs in gravy
White rice
Cabbage kimchi
Fried tofu slabs
Spicy bean sprout/tofu/beef soup
Root vegetable (?) kimchi
Dried seaweed “crackles”
I guess Koreans don’t really drink water with their meals, at least not in the cafeteria, since there was absolutely nothing to drink with the spicy foods. I was glad I took a large portion of rice. The English teacher gals I ate with (keep in mind I’m the only Native English Speaker/NET here, so all other English teachers in my school context are Korean) were all extremely impressed by my chopstick skills, since I guess many NETs have trouble with that. One less thing to worry about! The meatballs were pretty good, the cabbage kimchi was decent, the rice was a mild contrast, and the seaweed crackles were delicious!! I finished almost every last bit of the seaweed. Now, I am NOT a fan of cooked seaweed, hot or cold, but this stuff had a great paper-thin crunch, was lightly salty, and reminded me more of potato chips than anything, despite being the color of canned spinach. I loved it. You know how, when you first try a food, each bite after the first you’re cautious because you might suddenly realize after the novelty wears off that you actually hate it? Well, that didn’t happen with the seaweed. The teachers around me looked at me like, “Okaaaaay…” when I expressed my enjoyment of it. The rest of the stuff…. Meh. Oh, and I forgot to bring a toothbrush to school today. They do (students and teachers alike) almost all brush their teeth after lunch.

The school day itself was filled with plenty of ups and downs, such as my new guardian not being aware that I wasn’t told to start teaching by myself until Monday (no one’s fault, just miscommunication). She got that sorted out, but I won’t be able to observe either because the teachers said it would be mostly in Korean and I wouldn’t really get anything out of observing (I would disagree, since I could at least watch student-teacher interactions and gestures and stuff, but that may have been a nice way of saying they preferred not to have me listening in on their classes). Instead I’m going to be watching a video they recorded of Matthew teaching a class, which may take up an hour if I’m lucky.

Facebook connected me to some of the other native English teachers in town, and 8 or 9 of them live in the same building (which I guessed was close, but I didn’t know where exactly). They were meeting up at 5 to hang out, which I didn’t think I could manage realistically since I didn’t know where they were. I did say I’d try to meet them tomorrow night at 10pm (awfully late for poor tired me…!) for drinks. That’ll be my first time to actually go to a bar, so we’ll see how that goes. Since I don’t have any money besides the bit of cash Mr. Kim loaned me today, I don’t think I’ll be buying a lot of drinks tomorrow. Supposedly my debit card will work, but I'm saving money by not testing it, right?

KorVia came through today (Wednesday) and sent an email about my prepaid phone (and number) which they said my co-teacher should have received. When I told him about the email, he apologized for completely forgetting about that, but he had put it out of mind since they hadn’t given him the phone number yet. That means I have a Korean cell phone now, for the next 60 or so days! It’s very used, but lightweight. It didn’t come with a charger though! Mr. Kim looked at the phone a minute and rummaged in a cabinet. Turned out the phone worked with a charger he used with a previous phone, so he just gave me that charger to use with the phone! Wonderful provision!

I also got my teaching schedule, the class times of which I proceeded to write down on their corresponding rooms on the school map I had been given. I was glad I took time to write them down, because I caught a few errors someone had typed into the time sheet that would have thrown me for a loop. These were easily fixed though once I asked for clarification, and both of them were errors that made the schedule better once fixed.

When I finally got home (forgetting to check how long the walk had taken me) I had a feeling like I had been psychologically hit by a train. My stomach hurt, I felt depressed, exhausted and antisocial, and I wondered how I’d be able to do this after all. This was just the first day, and I hadn’t even started teaching yet. But after pulling out the book The Art of Crossing Cultures and reassuring myself that what I was feeling was well within the typical bounds of “country shock” I felt oddly better. Warming up and sitting on my little couch helped too. I didn’t get home in time to meet the other foreign teachers—I had said I might not be able to since I didn’t know where the apartment tower where they live actually is—but after my brief reading reprieve, I decided I had better start figuring out my surroundings a little and widening the area out in which I felt comfortable venturing. Zipping on my coat’s outer layer helped a lot. :)

Turns out I’m living on the wealthier side of the city (whereas the school is on “the other side of the tracks”), so that’s nice because of atmosphere and because it opens up more shopping options. Within like… 2 blocks of my apartment, I found the McDonald's, a Dunkin Donuts, a local pizza place, a genuine 7-11, and numerous little retail and clothing stores. That made me feel a little better, even though I wasn’t really looking for the sake of buying anything. It’s a cute little area, and I was able to find the other teachers’ tower very easily for future reference, plus the bar they’ve invited me to tomorrow night. Heh, that’ll be interesting I’m sure! My next time out exploring, I’ll try to get some pictures, since there are all kinds of sights.

Addendum: For dinner, I planned on preparing a package of dumplings that Mr. Kim had said he personally liked. After trying a different (icky) variety of dumpling in the Lotte Mart when we were shopping, I was dubious, but I added it to the basket yesterday. Wow, was that just yesterday…? =\ It sounded better than last night’s microwave fare of frozen chicken particles and rice. I had cooking oil for frying the dumplings, but I didn’t have anything to push them around with apart from plastic forks which seemed like a bad plan. I decided there was no other way around dinner but to walk to the Home Plus express nearby and buy a spatula—my first purchase in Korea unaccompanied. I took the three-turns-around-my-building way instead of the one turn way. Timing worked out okay, because as I was trying to figure out which spice container held black pepper, a gal said, “Hi there!” in native English like she knew me. Turns out it was one of the British “veteran expats” who I had contacted on Facebook, and who had invited me and other newcomers out for drinks tomorrow night! I guess this gal hadn’t been with the group who met though, since she was just getting off work from her hagwon. I left the store encouraged and thoroughly enjoyed my delicious fried dumplings, and the day ended on a great note.