Hello all! So my first day of school was pretty good, but it looks like I am going to need to bring something to do each day. We must be there at 9:30 every day and on some days my first class is not until 1:45! I cannot come later in the day, I just have to sit in the office and plan, when I finish planning, I twiddle my thumbs! ( seriously, you can only plan for so long!) Also, I am going to have to find a way to make the classes stimulating for myself as well as for the children because all we do is go through a workbook, I read the page aloud and then the students repeat what I say, then I correct their pronunciation, then they all get out crayons and color the page. example," Ned and Ted are dogs. Ned and Ted run in the mud. Ned and Ted jump in the tub. Ned and Ted sit in the sun. Ned and Ted hop in bed." So there is an opportunity for me to use my creativity, as once we finish the lesson, I don't think I will have them color, like the current teacher does. Mybe we will do something else, like act it out. Some classes are very small, like three students, and there is no class larger than 6 students. They all wear uniforms and are very cute! I love my students already and don't want them to be bored!

Anyway, so meat is super expensive here, I got less than a pound and a half of ground beef and it was 10 dollars! So, i may very well be a vegetarian when I come home. I cooked it into a bowl of rice and then looked in the fridge for something that might give it some flavor, all I had was some pickle relish and strawberry jam, so I added a small spoonful of pickle relish to the pan thinking it might add a zing, and surely the meat flavor would overpower the pickle flavor.... NOPE! THE WHOLE DISH TASTES LIKE PICKLES! GRR!! Things not to do while cooking by Lauren Knabel
1. don't add chicken to a crockpot without deboning it first!
2. don't cook rice in a crockpot.... EVER!!!
3. don't add pickle relish to 10 dollar meat if you don't like pickles!!!
4. cinnamon is not a savory spice, don't add it to stew, unless you want to eat it all by yourself!
etc...

Anyway, I sat outside with several of the other teachers and they drank and smoked and talked while I listened. Most of the other foreign teachers are not nearly as clean cut as I am. They all have tattoos, drink, smoke, talk about their escapades with drugs in the past, etc... but they are nice people. So we were all sitting in the park talking and just enjoying the outdoor evening. And an old lady came up to sit on the bench next to us, suddenly there were two guys who ran up to her and started talking to her very fast in Korean. They took her away and happily settled her on the bench across the park from us. I guess the gist of what they were saying was don't sit next to the foreigners! HMM...

So I am still constantly waking up at 6 every morning. but maybe that will fade with time. I miss you all. Have a great day!

The first Post!

Here is my first post which will be neccesarily massive!! But the others won't be so long! Ok so I arrived in Korea the day before yesterday super late at night, but the director of my school came to pick me up at the airport. I got to fly business elite across the ocean and it was amazing of course, the food was incredible, I had some kind of ginger pork stir fry, the seat lay flat, but t was actually more comfortable to sleep on the non-flat setting. I watched two movies, X-Men Origins, Wolverine and My Life In Ruins. They were both great!! Tokyo airport is so beautiful!! It is calm and bright with plants and lots of glass and light! The gate agent was very apologetic when she called my name, it scared me, I thought she was gonna say, I'm sorry you've been bumped, but no, it was so interesting, She said, "I'm sorry, We can get you on the plane if you can go in economy, is that ok?" I said "of course!" The flight from Tokyo to Seoul was wonderful, I was in coach but it was fine. I had a great conversation with a soldier who was stationed there and then fell asleep so I had to rush to fill out my immigration forms before landing. So I arrived, and everything went as planned, Seoul airport is beautiful too!!! Look it up online, it is so gorgeous, but from the outside it looks like some kind of crazy alien mother ship!!! It's all made of glass!!! It was actually good that I stayed up on the plane because I would say that I am already acclimated to the time change. Since I arrived so late at night and I was SO tired when I arrived, it didn't matter that it was near noon at home, I just wanted to sleep and I did, I slept all night and woke up well rested for my first day in KOREA! The city I am in is way in the country, but it is interesting, It's a mixture of high rises and rice paddies, you will look out the window and see tall buildings but in between them is a random field with workers with traditional flat straw cone hats!!! Then off in the distance are beautiful mountans!! so interesting!!! spent the morning this morning at my directors house, just chillin and watching korean tv with the family. Then their kids put on cinderella 3, which is actually very cute!! And they put it on with english subtitles for me. Then the director took me to the store and got me a microwave and other home supplies, their store is JUST like ours, except it is five stories, and the escalators are more like moving sidewalks, but slanted steeply! to get to the next floor all you do is push your cart in front of you onto the slanted moving sidewalk and the cart automatically locks into place, i think it is magnetic!! It does not even move if it is full of stuff! Amazing that the cart does not roll off down the moving sidwalk, smashing into things. anyway, they have every food we have at home plus some really nice ones that we dont't, I ate three meals there yesterday, breakfast was cereal, lunch was noodle and seaweed soup, (DELICIOUS!) that was successfully eaten with chopsticks and a spoon! and dinner was a kind of black rice dumpling with pork and veggies inside, I managed to eat them with chopsticks too, but it was harder than the noodle soup, because the dumplings were so fragile, I kept poking holes in them and then the whole thing would unravel. I have found many things to eat that are not spicy! I woke this morning and a strange sense of loneliness, See, I have never woken up and been all by myself before, i mean except as a fluke. I am truly by myself in my apartment, which is kind of cool, because I get to make all the decisions about decorations and organization and when to go places and stuff, but also very weird because I don't get to go out to the kitchen in the morning and say hi to everyone. I am just on my own. HMMM, well it will be something to get used to. My apt is amazing, its so... asian!! two sliding doors with decorated frosted glass, a little depression by the front door where shoes go, shoes are not to be worn inside period!! and a little outdoor/indoor balcony thats really just an enclosed porch with a washer. I have never had a place that is wholly MINE! I love it!! The bathroom is weird!! There is no shower, only a shower head conected to the sink! You switch the water flow to the shower head on a hose attached to the sink and you just close the bathroom door and shower in there next to the toilet, It gets the bathroom all wet, so the floor is lowered to hold the water and there is a drain in the floor and apparently this is the traditional bathroom style because they consider the whole bathroom dirty and it is traditon to only enter the bathroom wearing special sandals. I'll get used to it! They also wear special slippers or bare feet to be inside the house and different shoes to walk outside!! MANY shoes!! I also have a low table that I sit on the floor to use my computer and a high table that I eat breakfast at. There is no closet, but there are two nice wardrobes. and all my clothes fit nicely in the first one, so I only use the outer one for storing the tv and my bathing suit and other things I won't be using often. The korean people love cute things! My bathroom/ shower is decorated with giant roses, my wardrobe is covered with flowers and the sliding panel doors are decorated, and the wallpaper has roses on it too! so cute! my director got me pretty pink bedding and my bed is fairly comfy. its all very new and strange and cool and exciting! OH guess what! internet is included with the apt! so I can use this high speed connection as much as I want, free of charge! My director is SUPER nice, Her name is Elly, and she is a young mom of two kids, both of whom attend the school I am teaching at. The only thing that is a little annoying is that my view out my window is a little depressing, just grey city and a few construction sites. I am in a different part of the city than my director's beautiful place of course. I guess thats what you get when you live in a city. It is raining today and the sky is grey, maybe that is why everything looks grey and gross. I'll see what it looks like tomorrow. But in any case I am having an AMAZING time!! And I can't wait to tell you all all about how cool my school is! And I am going to post some photos of my apartment.