First school week done!

School’s first week has concluded, at least for me. The kids and many of the Korean teachers still have to go to school on Saturdays, but my contract only requires me to appear on M-F. Today some of the grades are having student body elections, according to Tina, so maybe more staff than usual has to be present this Saturday in particular. I’m torn between wanting to mentally collapse in exhaustion and wanting to take full advantage of every minute I have on the weekend to explore and learn and accustom myself to the culture and surroundings.

While I never did get to sit in on a class, I got a lot of clarification about my duties from Tina. She is not only new to this school; she just earned her graduate degree 6 weeks ago and this is her first school, so that helps me modify my expectations a little (not necessarily raise or lower, just modify). She consulted with the other English teachers about what the NETs (Native English Teachers) usually do, and it turns out I don’t have to use the textbook I was given after all, unless I want it for some ideas. That’s good and bad I guess, but since Matt-the-former-teacher left so many great, non-textbook teaching materials, I’m kind of glad I don’t have to follow the textbook.

Also I learned that I will have 4 co-teachers for my 15 classes, so that will take some getting used to, I imagine. It seems like Mr. Kim is more of a supervisor and troubleshooter for me rather than a co-teacher, since he’s not just any English teacher but the chairman of the social and humanities dept. at the school. He has been so helpful though this first week—I really appreciate his understanding and experience. Thoroughly awesome. It helps that he has been around for the arrivals of at least 3 or 4 other NETs before me.

On Friday, I had several out-of-the-ordinary tasks to complete. For one thing, I had to get my mandatory medical exam. Sadly, I wasn’t informed that I should be fasting for the exam. That’s actually just as well because Tina and I didn’t get to the hospital until about 1pm, and I would have been famished. The exam, such as they could complete, consisted of filling out forms, hearing, vision, and colorblindness tests, blood pressure check, height and weight check, brief interview, and chest xray. It wasn’t too bad. Today (Saturday) I get to go back for the blood and drug test, yaaaay. I hate needles.

We had a heck of a time trying to get back to the school afterwards. A teacher I share a desk with had given us a ride there, but she had a class afterwards and couldn’t come pick us up. So Tina set out to find us a taxi. This proved to be a somewhat difficult task because not many were passing by, and all of them were already occupied. So we walked a few blocks to a street where a number of taxis were just lined up on the side of the road waiting for people to walk up to them. She told me that she’d heard taxis were hard to get in this province (which she is also new to), and in this city in particular they weren’t necessarily circling like vultures for customers. It was a little more scary riding in the taxi than in the initial call van from the airport, since we had (what looked to me like) a near collision. Tina seemed totally unconcerned though, so I guess it was just normal driving.

The other event on Friday was the opening staff meeting. I don’t have to attend any of these weekly meetings after this one, but I did have to go and be introduced to the rest of the faculty this time. No more singing demonstrations. :) I gathered that Korean teachers don’t like staff meetings any more than American ones do. It lasted over an hour, but Mr. Kim “rescued” me at about the hour mark and walked me back to the humanities office, haha. I collected the school handouts, which of course I couldn’t read, but it gave me something to look at during the meeting and more reading material to practice translating later.

I’m trying to make this entry quick so I can actually get it to school and post it when I go there to meet Tina, but I should mention that I did manage to meet up with some other foreign teachers on Thursday night at a bar across the street from my apartment. About 20 people showed up, which made seating arrangements interesting and close! Some were about to leave in a few days, and there were a couple of other newcomers like myself. One guy who lives on the south side of Siheung is actually from middle Tennessee and knows several people I went to school with! Pretty wild. :) Americans were in the minority, and many of the people were British. Several of the people actually live in the same building I do, apparently, and 8 or 9 live in another apartment tower about 2 blocks away.

I had a “Cass” beer I think, one of the Korean brands. It mostly tasted like a Budweiser. We were served a complimentary plate of fries (chips, as they said) at the beginning of the get-together. I did try some soju, but it mostly tasted like rubbing alcohol. Not my favorite thing ever. I left early since I work public school hours instead of hagwon hours, but it was a fun first outing. It also made me realize I got a really sweet deal of an apartment, since I think it’s bigger and better furnished than many of the other teachers’ ones were/are. I did manage to plan a weekend trip with one of the gals who needed to go into Bucheon (the nearest bigger city) for some supplies for her cat. She said she’d show me how to use the bus, where the E-Mart is (a fairly big supermarket/department store), show me the subway station, and get me a subway card charged up so I could use the subway on my own. My goal is to try to make it to the distant Seoul church this weekend, and I got the phone number of the English service pastor off the internet, so I’ll try to make contact there.

More in a few days!