You know, surgery would be a great souvenir...

A couple of articles from the New York Times online edition, one from today and one that is almost a year old, inspired this post. The article "Ambitious South Korean Parents See Tall as All" was published today and is about a “growing conviction” among South Korean parents that being tall is a key factor in their child’s future success. This conviction is fueling a new industry – ‘growth clinics.’ Some Korean parents spend the equivalent of hundreds of dollars per month for their children to visit growth clinics, which provide “growth hormone shots, Eastern herbal medicine and special exercises to ensure that young clients will be the ones looking down, not the ones looked down upon.” And, as you’ll realize if you read the full article, by ‘young clients’ they mean as young as five years old!

The emphasis on appearance is something I noticed right away when I got to Korea. Almost everyone I see on the streets is very put together; girls and women are in heels and skirts more often than jeans, most of the men are in suits, everyone has matching bags and shoes, the whole nine yards. I very rarely see a Korean in sweatpants, and when the weather was warm enough I never saw flip-flops on the streets. Koreans, men and women, take their image very seriously. There also seem to be a lot more mirrors here than in America (Jeil Middle School, for example, has mirrors in every hallway and even quite a few of the classrooms), and Koreans are never ashamed of checking themselves out. While out with friends at a restaurant last week we saw a girl at the next table over, holding her chopsticks in one hand and a mirror in the other, inspecting herself over her food. I've seen people, as they are walking down the street, stop in front of parked cars to check themselves out and adjust their hair or makeup in the window, or just pull out a mirror while walking around downtown with friends. In Western culture we would probably smirk and call this self-centeredness, but in Korea a little bit (or a lot) of vanity is perfectly acceptable.

On one hand, I think that attention to your appearance is nice and respectful, but sometimes it can be seriously annoying, and even a little scary. Besides the newer growth clinics, South Korea is also famous for plastic surgery. According to the second article I read today, “Economy Blunts Korea’s Appetite for Plastic Surgery,” many Koreans value physical attractiveness for the same reasons they value height – for “providing an edge in this high-pressure society’s intense competition for jobs, education and marriage partners.”

In one of my classes I asked students to plan and write a schedule for a one-week 'dream vacation,’ in which they could go anywhere, meet anyone, and do anything they wanted. Several girls stated quite seriously that they would use one or two days of their vacation to get plastic surgery. And last week when we wrote letters to Santa Claus, several girls asked Santa for plastic surgery. Middle school girls!

But I guess I can't blame them, because like I said, it seems to be ingrained in the culture. One of my coteachers told me that on job applications and resumes, Koreans not only attach a photo of themselves but also list things like their height, weight, and vision. So it’s no wonder that “an estimated 30 percent of Korean women aged 20 to 50, or some 2.4 million women, had surgical or nonsurgical cosmetic procedures last year, with many having more than one procedure.” 30%!!! In one year!!! It definitely makes me wonder – I have four female coteachers, which could mean that at least one or two of them are looking a little bit different now than they would have if I’d gotten here a year earlier.

This article is actually about the effect of the recession on the plastic surgery industry, and cites one woman, “typical of South Korea’s more frugal patients” who has had to choose cheaper, nonsurgical procedures like Botox over her usual surgeries, as well as reduce her visits to the plastic surgeon from twice a year to just once. This just shows again how common these procedures are, and how necessary they seem to women here – even in a recession, it’s not something you give up!

If you read this article, also note the types of surgeries Koreans are getting – “…the wider eyes, whiter skin and higher nose bridges that define beauty for many here” - basically, procedures to make them look more Western and less Korean. Before coming to Korea, I had never in my life gotten compliments on my nose, but according to my students it’s really high and beautiful. Another question I get a lot (right after, “Do you like kimchi?”) is “Are your eyelashes real?” Seriously?

“Ambitious South Korean Parents See Tall as All” by Choe Sang-Hun, published December 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/world/asia/23seoul.html?_r=1&hp

“Economy Blunts Korea’s Appetite for Plastic Surgery” by Martin Fackler, published January 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/business/worldbusiness/02plastic.html?_r=1&ref=world

Holiday Plans

I definitely got a lesson in humility on Saturday, the four-month anniversary of my arrival in Korea. It came from my amazing friend and co-teacher Bosun, and was definitely something that I needed to hear.

She texted me early in the day (Saturday). She had to be at school that morning and wanted to let me know not to go see the new movie Avatar, because the principal had decided that all the teachers and students will see it together next Monday, the 28th. Because of the swine flu, the school canceled this semester’s festival and sports days, so they decided to take a school-wide field trip downtown to see Avatar instead.

My initial reaction was to get angry. I knew it was a long shot, but I had been really hopeful for a long time that I would be able to go home for Christmas. I desperately wanted to, and I really didn’t see why I shouldn’t. The last week of school is a hodge-podge of exams, special end-of-year ceremonies, the one-day Christmas vacation, and even an overnight field trip just for the teachers. We’ve finished teaching from the textbooks and the students don’t want to listen anymore anyway.

I also felt like I should be able to go home because it seems like Christmas is so much more meaningful and ‘important’ to Americans than it is to Koreans. Bosun told me that gifts are only exchanged between couples or given to small children; I know that Christmas in general has less religious significance for Koreans than for Americans; and besides, they only get one day off from school! How important can it be?

So between all of the end-of-year shenanigans going on around this time, and the difference in attitude about Christmas, it seemed obvious (to me) that my school wouldn’t miss me at all, and it would mean a lot more to me to be able to go home than it would for them to have me there. But it was impossible because there is only one day off for Christmas, and my contract doesn’t allow vacation or personal time except during actual school vacation periods. So when I heard that yet another day of what could have been my precious Christmas time at home, had been devoted to hauling 400+ kids downtown to see a freaking movie, I was so, so upset.

So I immediately fired back a text to Bosun, basically something along the lines of ‘Seriously?!?! I can’t go home for Christmas because I have to be at school on ‘school days,’ and then we all decide to go to the movies together! This sucks!’ Not my most mature or thoughtful moment, considering that: 1. We’d already discussed this whole situation, and she knew exactly how I felt and has been very sympathetic; and 2. All the other teachers work two Saturdays a month, so she was working while I was at home, watching TV and subjecting her to my crabby texts.

Anyway, here’s the response she sent me:

This is how things go at school in Korea. 28th’s movie trip is also kinda school schedule, and 29-30th teacher trip, too. Most people who work for company and school can’t use their vacation. Especially, teachers can’t go anywhere during official school days, even though there is no class to teach. I know how much you get angry, but you have to understand it. Sorry for your Christmas.

So that definitely brought me down a peg or two, especially since she was reminding me of stuff that I already knew or should have known. I’m a teacher like all the other teachers at Jeil, and even though as a foreigner I very often get special treatment, it doesn’t and shouldn’t extend to every issue. Also, Koreans, and Korean teachers especially, are very hard workers and their attitude toward Christmas vacation is just a cultural difference. Lastly, I volunteered to work in Korea, and I knew when I made that decision that this might happen, and that signing a one-year contract might very well mean that I don’t go home for one year.

Now that a few days have passed and I’ve cooled down, I’m starting to actually get a little excited for Christmas in Daegu. I’ll be spending Christmas Eve with friends – we’re doing a Secret Santa and a potluck dinner. And Avatar should actually be pretty cool – we’ll meet at 9:20am at the movie theater downtown, so I can sleep in an hour; the movie itself is in 3D; and after the movie we’ll go back to school for lunch and then the students go home! And the teacher’s trip sounds like it’ll be fantastic – I’m still not sure exactly where we’re going, and the itinerary I was given is in Korean, but I think it’s several hours away, near the shore somewhere, and will involve a ferry ride, some really amazing decadent meals (raw fish!), and an actual budget for snacks and beer. Definitely my kind of trip.

Stuff Korean People Like

I've had a pretty quiet week, so instead of writing about it I thought I'd post this link instead: It's an article called "Stuff Korean People Like" from the Walrus Blog (from The Walrus, a Canadian magazine). It's pretty funny and I can personally attest to some of the stuff on this list!

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/blogs/2008/04/10/stuff-korean-people-like/

Make sure you check out the link to the 'public sculptures' in item number one - I won't ruin the surprise, but I've definitely seen stickers, doodles, and even a kid's plastic coin bank of the same thing!

Dang, I sort of lost track of the time this month. I didn't realize it had been so long since my last post! I don't even have the excuse of any exciting or time-consuming adventures - the last few weeks have been relatively quiet.

After a really beautiful fall, it's definitely gotten cold here. It's still sunny most days and very dry here - I think it's only rained once or twice the entire time I've been in Daegu. Even though it's pretty nice and not even very cold, I might still buy another coat - in school, the teacher's room and classrooms are (usually) heated, but the hallways and bathrooms are not. Everyone just wears coats everywhere - even to teach or work at their desks in. I don't really like it - it's uncomfortable and weird for me to eat and work in a coat, but I'm sure it's much cheaper and more efficient than heating the entire building. Koreans also have a thing for fresh air - outside doors and windows are left wide open in the hallways, even though it's cold, and sometimes there's even a window left open in the heated teachers room. Have I mentioned that everyone wears sandals indoors? Yeah, it's cold.

On the 9th I had my open class. Every native English teacher has to teach a class for at least one supervisor and two other native teachers. I was a bit nervous, but it really wasn't that stressful - Carrie and I chose a lesson that I had already done with my first-graders, and the supervisor and two native teacher were the only people that showed up (my principal didn't even stick around for the whole class). It's all pretty fake - I guess at most schools they take the best students, stick them in the fanciest classroom, and teach an easy lesson. It's definitely not representative of my normal classes or teaching ability!

November 11th was "Pepero Day" in South Korea. Pepero are long skinny cookies that are dipped in chocolate or some other flavor, and since the date is 11/11 and the 1's look like pepero, children exchange it. It's kind of interesting - Pepero Day is a very young holiday, maybe only twenty years old, and in Korea pepero is manufactured by only one company, a huge corporation called Lotte. So a lot of people believe that Lotte started this holiday on purpose to increase their sales! But it really caught on, and at school teachers and students were giving each other pepero (couples often exchange it as well). Like our Valentine's Day, only cheaper and with less pressure.

Last Saturday, the 21st, Mark, Jayson, Vince, Jeannine and I headed to the city of Gwangju to visit some fellow EPIKers there. After a three-hour bus ride we met our host Amanda (the same Amanda that went with us to Busan), and after dropping off our stuff and hanging out at her apartment for awhile, we hit the town for a night out. Gwangju is a smaller than Daegu, but we still managed to keep ourselves occupied until 5:30 Sunday morning! We ate a fantastic Korean meal, hit up a few bars, danced for a few hours at Club Houze, and of course a night out isn't complete without an hour or two of noraebang. We left Gwangju at 6:40 Sunday morning after being up all night, and I slept for the entire bus ride home and most of the rest of Sunday!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I taught my students a little bit about it (they loved pictures from the Internet of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade) and had Italian food on the day of with my 'family' here - other EPIKers in Daegu. It wasn't quite the same as being at home but I'm definitely thankful for having such a solid group here.

My new goal here is to write shorter posts more often so it's not such a project anymore (for me to write and you to read!). Thanks for reading, check back soon and keep in touch!

I can now say I've lived in a Yellow Submarine

I have a lot to catch up on, and despite my repeated promises I still haven't managed to update or organize my photos. All I can say is that I haven't forgotten and it will be worth the wait!

Halloween was pretty sweet; I never really celebrated it in college, so I was super excited this year. It's not that big of a deal in Korea, unless you're in a town with a large Westerner population! I had a fun lesson plan about Halloween and Thanksgiving with all my classes, and on Halloween day five of us from Daegu (Jeannine, Mark, Jayson, and Vince - most of the same people I went to Busan with) took a KTX train up to Seoul! I was so excited to finally see Seoul, even though I knew we wouldn't be doing much sight-seeing :) It was raining when we arrived, and we bought or loaded up our T-Money cards for the subway and set off to find our hostel.

We stayed and partied in the Hongdae neighborhood of Seoul. Hongdae is known for and named after the university there, and besides the university there are a ton of bars, restaurants, shops and clubs - it's a really popular area with foreigners and tourists as well as students. Our hostel was called The Yellow Submarine, and the outside was actually yellow. Despite the weird name, it was actually the nicest hostel I've ever stayed in. It was really more like a bed-and-breakfast, just a big house with a few rooms, a nice big bathroom on each floor, and breakfast and coffee in the morning. The hostels I visited in Europe were much bigger and more institutional, so I had low expectations, but the Yellow Submarine was downright cozy. We all stayed in one room, and there were even extra beds. No one had to sleep on the floor and we didn't have any strangers staying with us (which have also been my previous experiences in hostels).

We dropped off our stuff around 3:30 and went looking for food. Mark had been to Seoul several times before and knew his way around, so we found a samgyupsal restaurant pretty quickly. After eating, we went back to our room and napped for the rest of the afternoon until 7pm (most of us had been out late the night before in Daegu). After dressing up and getting ready, we hit the town! We went for pretty simple costumes - Jeannine and I just wore masks and dresses, Mark had these really nasty fake teeth, Jayson was a one of the JabbaWockeeZ (male dance group), and Vince dressed up like a Korean student in a school uniform.

Hongdae was absolutely crawling with foreigners, and even some Koreans, in costumes. We kept meeting up with other people we knew, that were either living in Seoul or had traveled there for the weekend like us. We went to a few bars whose names I don't remember, and then a club called NB, for Noise Basement. That's a pretty accurate description of the club- it was literally a dirty, noisy basement. It was big but insanely crowded, I mean wall to wall, to the point where you couldn't move or turn around. And since you can drink and smoke on the dance floors in Korean clubs, cups and ash were flying and spilling everywhere (the feathers on my Mardi Gras mask ended up soaked in gin, it's pretty much a lost cause). When we were ready to leave after a few hours, we pretty much had to plow through or literally climb over people to get to the coat check and then the door. It was like the subways in Busan all over again, only darker and full of foreigners in weird costumes ;)

After that craziness we got some street food (gyros) and then hit up a noraebang club to relax a little. The singing rooms were really nice - our 'room' had two floors and two TVs, with pillows on the ground floor and a ladder going up to a loft! There were even free snacks. It felt really good to be able to sit and relax after running around outside in the cold and rain all night or being crushed by the sea of humanity in NB.

I don't remember exactly when we got back to the Submarine on Sunday morning, maybe around 5am. We slept for a few hours and most of us were up by ten to shower and get ready to check out by noon. We checked our bags at the Seoul train station and then headed to another area of Seoul called Myeongdong. It's really well-known as a shopping area, as well as the oldest Catholic cathedral in Korea (we walked to the Cathedral and looked at the outside just to say we've seen it). It had stopped raining by then but was still pretty cold, and I bought two scarves and a big sweater. We also ate in a restaurant whose name I can't remember; we had to wait in line awhile to be seated, but once you're seated you choose from the four items on the menu and get your food in 30 seconds!

Our last adventure in Seoul was the infamous Korean photo sticker booth. Photo sticker booths are really popular here but I had never been to one, and in Myeongdong we found a store that had a bunch of different booths. We found one big enough for the six of us (we had been joined by another EPIK-er from Seoul for the afternoon) and chose from the selection of different backgrounds or settings (everything from ballrooms to stripper poles). We had a few seconds between each picture to pose, and then moved over to the computers to choose from our best shots and decorate them! On the computer you can put different stamps, pictures, backgrounds, borders, word bubbles, and colors over your pictures before printing them off as tiny stickers. It was fun, if you're with some friends and you see a photo sticker booth you should definitely try it!

So Seoul was really fun, and I really liked the little corner of it that I did see. I definitely need to go back at some point, to stay longer than 24 hours and see a little more of the city besides the insides of bars and clubs!

Road Trippin' to Andong

I was able to get out of Daegu again this last weekend (that sounds terrible, like I just count the days until I can leave Daegu – but really I just get very excited for the weekends and the chance to do something a little different). A lady from my school got married Sunday in the city of Andong, and the principal decided to turn it into a cultural experience for me! She’s very thoughtful that way (she’s the same lady who let me tag along to see Jekyll and Hyde at the school’s expense). Sunday morning Bosun, the principal, one of the gym teachers, another lady who works at the school, and I met at Jeil Middle School and drove to Andong in the gym teacher’s car.

My experience of the wedding was very funny to me, and fit right in with Korea’s typical quick-and-dirty methods of making things happen (Korea is dynamic, remember?). Koreans usually get married in a “wedding hall” rather than a church, and they also like to get married on special days that they consider lucky. So yesterday being a lucky day, there were at least two weddings happening every hour in the wedding hall of Andong. The ceremony itself only lasts about 20 minutes – not that I would know, because my group waited for a while in a little lobby of the hall, made quick eye contact with the bride as she was being photographed, and then trooped down to the hall’s cafeteria with our meal tickets to eat at the huge buffet line, along with the friends and family of every other couple who was being married in that time slot! Bosun informed me that this is common if you don’t know the couple that well – just make an appearance and skip the ceremony to make sure you get a seat and some food while it’s still warm!

The others returned to Daegu after our meal, but they dropped Bosun and I off at Andong’s bus terminal on their way out. As I said, the principal was kind enough to turn the wedding trip into an opportunity for me to see more of Andong, at the school’s expense. The city is famous for maintaining a lot of Korea’s culture and traditions, most notably in the form of ancient buildings and folk customs like the mask dances (it’s also famous for its own type of soju and steamed chicken!). Bosun and I took a forty minute bus ride from Andong to Hahoe Village. It’s a traditional village that was built in the 16th and 17th century, and a lot of the original buildings are still standing and people continue to live in them! The village was beautiful – a river wraps around it almost entirely, there’s a large cliff called Buyungdae overlooking the whole thing, and we also had great weather and a beautiful sunset to enjoy it in.

But my favorite part of the day was watching a performance of the Hahoe Mask Dance Drama. I read about mask dances before I even left the States, and was disappointed that I missed the annual Mask Dance Festival at the end of September (cancelled because of stupid swine flu!). So I was really excited to hear that I would be able to see this performance. According to the booklet I bought there, “Hahoe Pyolshin-gut T’ al-Nori is one of Korea’s most traditional folk plays [and] has been performed for centuries as a village ritual…The drama combines shaman rituals and popular entertainment. The village ritual was intended to please the local goddess and exorcise evil spirits…The whole village took part in the event and enjoyed the satirical story revealed in the drama…Each of these characters represents a social class. Conflicts among different classes and individuals were satirized to relieve social tensions among the families in the village.” Pardon my terrible quotation job, but they summarize it better than I can! The show was in a circular outdoor theater and was so cool – I didn’t understand much because it was in Korean and I didn’t buy the booklet until after the show, but it was funny and the actors interacted with the crowd. Not to mention I was watching something that has been maintained and handed down for centuries, not only the stories but the masks and costumes as well. I also loved the live music that accompanied the show – there were drums and some sort of horn that emphasized certain dialogs or the end or beginning of a scene. Not to mention the free concessions – men and women walked along the bottom of the stands passing along warm rice cakes to the crowd, or hurling them at anyone who had their hand out but was sitting too high up to reach (I brushed rice cake crumbs out of my hair that night and shook them out of my purse).

So anyway, Andong was great! I know that reading this without visual aids just isn’t the same, but I killed my camera battery taking too many pictures. I WILL put up pictures of Busan and Andong soon! Thanks for reading these ridiculously long posts and keep in touch! I miss you all!

Don't Mess With Busan

Last Saturday people from all over Korea converged on the city of Busan for the Fireworks Festival. This included a group of six of us – Jeannine, Mark, Peter, Dave, Amanda, and I – who traveled together from Daegu. Busan is about an hour southeast of Daegu by the KTX train, or an hour and forty minutes by the slow train. It’s the second-largest city in Korea and right on the coast; although the organization of the trip was last-minute, I was really excited to finally visit. Busan is famous for beaches, mountains, and awesome festivals – the International Film Festival was the weekend just before the Fireworks Festival.

Busan did not disappoint. We got off to a rocky start – of the six of us, Dave barely made it onto the train that morning (he was literally still standing when it started moving) and Mark missed it completely. However, he managed to get a later train and arrived in Busan very soon after we did. We bought our day passes for the subway system and took a long ride to one of Busan’s famous beaches, Hyundae Beach. It was absolutely beautiful, especially after being in all the dirt, noise, and concrete of downtown Daegu for so long. The weather was cloudy and breezy but warm, and we all took our shoes and socks off to wade in the chilly water, take pictures, and collect some seashells. Just that hour (or less) that we spent at the beach made me fall in love with Busan, and I can’t wait to go back – next spring when I can actually lay out at the beach!

Even though the Hyundae was great, the adventures did not end there. We were all hungry, and like any coastal city Busan is famous not only for beaches but seafood! So we found a great restaurant on the 13th floor of a building overlooking the beach. Besides the great view, we had an amazing meal – the waitresses grilled abalone, shrimp, and pork at our table, along with the usual garlic and side dishes. Abalone is a rare and very expensive shellfish, at least in the States, but we had as much as we could eat, plus beer, for about $20 per person. And the abalone was still alive when they brought it to our table! We watched it squirm on the grill and then ate it right out of the shell – a little disgusting but soooo delicious, and again considering the price, probably not something I’ll do often after I leave Korea!

After our meal it was back on the subway to another beach, Gwangalli Beach, for the fireworks show. It was a beautiful setting – Gwangalli Beach is in a little cove, with the Gwangan Bridge stretching across the water in front of it. The bridge was lighted once the sun went down, and there were small boats with giant TV screens placed along it facing the beach. The crowd was unreal – 1.5 million people on a beach less than a mile long – but luckily we had some connections with people who held spots for us. We had just enough room for everyone to sit down, close to the water right in the middle of the beach. And the show was absolutely stunning. It was set to music as well as words and pictures on the TV screens, and just so over-the-top compared to shows that I’ve seen in the States. The pictures don’t do it justice.

Getting back to the train station in Busan after the fireworks was pretty scary. 1.5 million people all left at the same time, making their way for a select few subway stations. The six of us clung to each other and formed a chain, and Mark led the way through masses of cars, vendors, mopeds, and people. There were cops at the subway entrances, and we barely got into one before they started shutting them down! Underground the crowd was just awful – people wall to wall, pushing and yelling and trying to get through the turnstiles with their tickets, and then we had to line up to get into the subway cars, which were also packed. We were going through the turnstile, after having fought our way to the front of that crowd, when Mark realized he had lost his wallet on the beach! Dave went with him to look for it and we agreed to all try to find each other at the train station. Miraculously, our friend Chris, who stayed behind at the beach, actually found Mark’s wallet right after we left, and Mark and Dave also somehow managed to make it through the crowd to find us at the train station in time for our train.

And it was lucky that they did, because we were booked on the very last train out of Busan that night – 11pm. We were in our seats waiting for the train to leave, and for some reason that we couldn’t figure out, Koreans kept coming up to us and trying to take our seats. We argued with them until one passenger looked at our tickets and pointed out that the date on the ticket was for the 16th. And yes, last Saturday was the 17th. Jeannine had accidentally purchased the tickets for the wrong day! The conductor came up and wanted us to get off the train – which was the last train of the day back to Daegu, and just seconds away from departing – to purchase standing-room tickets. It never would have worked, and we would have been sleeping on the beach that night had not Dave been along. He luckily can speak Korean, and he convinced the conductor that we had purchased our tickets just that day, and the ticket office must have made a mistake. The conductor left us alone and we spent an hour and forty minutes riding the rails Great Depression-style – in a compartment between two cars, sitting on the floor and sipping soju from a shared bottle. Jeannine was upset by her mistake but it was honestly pretty fun, not to mention the fact that we were all so grateful just to be on that train in any way, shape or form. Never have so many things going wrong – Mark missing the first train, then losing his wallet, almost being crushed by a major crowd both above and below ground, barely getting a ride home, and the boys also dropping and smashing a glass bottle in a convenience store – provided such an amazing day. We were thankful to make it back to Daegu in one piece, but we also can’t wait to see Busan again!

Work Work Work

Whew. I feel like I haven't taken a breath since last Wednesday. I also feel like I start almost every post here with a sentence about how the time is flying, but I honestly mean it. I've been so, so busy, at work and outside of it, that I just blinked and a whole week went by.

Work has been an emotional roller coaster lately. I think I've mentioned this before, but I have a lot of lesson-planning to do every week. I can never get it all done at school, so I'm often working at home nights and weekends. It's been getting pretty stressful; I'm always tired after eight or ten hours at school, and I have the pressure of constant deadlines too - I have to have 5-9 new lessons every single week, and I can never get ahead. So there have been some really late nights when I've been racking my brain for hours, trying to think of activities and games that are purposeful and match the textbook's target vocabulary, as well as new and interesting enough to make 20-35 middle schoolers forget how cool they're trying to be and actually listen to me. Anyway, there have been some of those nights lately when I really hate this job, and get really homesick, and consider starting a prison-style tally system on the wall by my bed to count down the days until my contract is over.

However, as I said it is a roller coaster so there are parts of my job that I do really enjoy. I've gotten some nice compliments from some of my co-teachers about some of my recent lesson plans and classroom activities, and that they and the principal noticed that I'm working really hard and putting a lot of effort into my classes. It's really uplifting to hear something like that, especially when you're struggling.

My students often make my day too. They definitely don't always like to listen or behave in class, but outside of it they are really friendly and interested in me, because I'm new and different. I'm even enjoying my harder classes more now. I don't usually look forward to the C-level (lowest level) classes, because neither their behavior nor their English comprehension are great; but I'm getting more comfortable and confident with teaching now, so even they have been a little better lately. Jeil Middle School has also started an English Club during the lunch hour every day - my co-teacher Bosun is in charge of it and I sometimes go and hang around too. At first I was afraid it would mean more work and lesson planning, but I basically play cards and gossip with the girls, and we listen to English music or watch Sponge Bob Square Pants on the big screen. The students are super funny and I learn a lot from being around them, and they are forced to practice their English with me, so it's a win-win situation.

So anyway, that's how work has been lately. As I said, I've been staying busy outside of work as well. My co-teacher Sook-hee is in charge of a club at school where the students meet after classes or on weekends to do different activities, like hike or see movies. I had mentioned to the principal earlier that I like going to musicals and concerts and the opera, and last week this club went to see the musical Jekyll and Hyde so I was invited along! The performance was in English (with Korean subtitles), by an American company, at a nice new theater at Keimyung University. Bosun went too. We had a nice meal brought in to the school around 6pm, and we all ate together and then left for the theater. It was such a cool, fun thing to do with my coworkers and students, and the school paid for it!

I have other things to talk about (I'm a little behind on my blogging) but this is long enough for now! I'll try to get caught up here and put up more pictures in a few days, so come back soon!

Dynamic Korea

At the EPIK orientation the lecturers kept telling us that "Korea is dynamic," which basically means that growth and change have become a way of life here, as the country has developed and entered the global economy so quickly. The word 'dynamic' makes everything sound really fun and exciting, and sometimes it is, but - to rant for just a moment - it's also used as an excuse for what seems like last-minute planning and changes. A good, or at least not annoying, example of dynamic Korea is the rate of construction. When I first moved to Daegu and was learning my way around, there was a certain building on the corner of my alley that I always looked for, so I knew where to turn to find my studio. One morning I left for school and everything was quiet and normal. However, as I was walking home that day I thought for a moment that I had gone the wrong direction, because where the building used to be there was now just an empty lot and some people standing around watching a bulldozer scrape the bare ground. They flattened a multiple-story building in one day. They've already started construction on the new building that will take its place, and I have no doubt that it will be finished and in use by winter.

There have also been a few annoying examples of dynamic Korea: Like how I found out at 11pm Tuesday night that there was an essay contest re-scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, so every class period on Wednesday would be shortened, and there were also some classroom changes, so I actually wouldn't be teaching my third-period class at all. Or like Thursday, when I finished teaching my first class of the day and that co-teacher informed me that we had to hurry up, because now it was time to take yearbook pictures (I wouldn't have come to school in jeans and a ponytail had I been aware). I'm sure that some of this, or at least my impression of it, is due to my ignorance of the Korean language. There is a messenger system on every computer, and I get several messages every day, but they're all in Korean so I never even look at them. I'm not making excuses or asking for special treatment, but living and working in Korea is definitely a lesson in flexibility!

Anyway, it's almost time for another weekend. The weeks go so quickly here. I'm just so busy trying to keep my head above water every day as far as lesson planning and work go, that it's all over before I know it. I didn't end up traveling for the Chuseok holiday last weekend (I just waited too long to figure things out and make plans) but I did have a really nice weekend. I didn't have to work Friday or Monday, and I spent time with other people that were hanging around Daegu for the weekend. Hyun Joo and I had dinner Thursday night, and we also tried the 'Super Rider' 4D motion theater. It's just a little place downtown with a waiting room and a tiny theater. The only thing in the theater is a screen and little roller coaster-cart (not sure what they're called) for four people. For 3,000 won you can choose from eight or ten different 'rides,' sit in the cart, pull the bar down across your chest, put on special 4D glasses and enjoy the ride! It's very realistic - Hyun Joo and I chose one that simulated sledding through a steep mountain valley, and the cart actually bumps you and throws you around like it's really happening! We were all screaming and shrieking but it was really fun.

I also met up with one of my co-teachers, Bosun. On Friday we ate lunch at an Indian restaurant, and on Saturday night she introduced me to one of her friends and we had dinner and went to noraebong, or karaoke. At first I wasn't sure I would like it but it was really fun - instead of being on a stage like with karaoke, for noraebong you rent small private rooms for just you and your friends. The singing club was really nice - they all have couches and tambourines, and you can buy snacks and drinks. I went again last night with a bunch of other native teachers - there were nine of us so we got a bigger room that had 3 or 4 TV screens!

The next big event that's coming up is Halloween! Since it's on a Saturday this year I have to start looking for a costume because there's sure to be a lot of parties. I don't think it's really a big deal for Koreans, but of course there will be a lot of Westerners out. I might be tagging along with a group of people going to Seoul to party, which is really exciting! I haven't been out of Daegu since I got here and I really want to visit Seoul a few times this year.

Be sure to look at my pictures and keep in touch!

Look At My Pictures!

So I've finally gotten a start to organizing my pictures. I don't take very many so it wasn't too difficult, but I'm still very proud of myself because this is something that I normally don't do until several years after a trip ends. I'm using Picasa Web Albums because I already have a Google account; I've never tried it before so I don't know how well it'll work for everyone, but it seems pretty good - it's free, easy to organize and label my pictures, and even shows a map of album locations (in Korean, of course, but still kind of cool). I haven't had time to comment on many pictures but the albums are labeled so you can figure it out.

The "Korea so far" album is mostly the random pictures that don't belong anywhere or that I haven't gotten around to organizing yet...you can look if you want but it's mostly food or random stuff from around Daegu. Make sure you look at the Donghwasa Temple album, as well as My Studio in Daegu if you want to feel better about your own house.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/MyStudioInDaegu?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/DonghwasaTemple?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/WoobangLandAndDaeguTower?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/InternationalBodypaintingFestival?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/HanokVillageInJeonju?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/KeumsanTemple?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/OrientationJeonjuUniversity?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/KoreaSoFar?feat=directlink

These are all links to individual albums. Please comment here, email or Facebook me to let me know if this works or if you have problems viewing my pictures!

Mid-term Weekend

I can’t believe it’s already October! This month completely snuck up on me. Having such a weird work schedule this last week really threw me off, and I was shocked when I woke up this morning and checked the date. Last weekend (9/26-9/27) was pretty quiet for me, compared to the last few. I got really paranoid because it seemed like every single one of my friends was getting sick, so I’ve been making sure to get plenty of sleep. I went out for dinner and drinks both Friday and Saturday night, but was home and in bed by midnight.
As I mentioned before, my school didn’t have any classes on Monday or Tuesday because the students had midterms. Monday morning I ran some errands around town, and finally took the subway by myself for the first time! It’s a little sad that it took me a month to do it, but that’s one of the drawbacks of living in the middle of everything – I’ve never had to go very far for anything, except when Carrie was there to drive me around. I was really glad that I could read in Korean – some signs underground are in English but not all, and I would never have found the right place if I couldn’t sound out the words. My subway stop is the big downtown transfer station, so I was nervous even though there are only two lines in Daegu!

Anyway, I met all the other teachers at school around lunchtime (everyone except me had to come in at the normal time) and every teacher in the school went out for lunch. It was delicious and huge – we had galbi with duck meat. As far as I can understand, eating galbi in a restaurant is usually beef, and at a restaurant it’s grilled right at your table. I’ve had beef and chicken galbi, and the duck was really good too. As I said, the meal was huge – we grilled two different types of duck, and then there was something that tasted like ham, and then a type of rice stew, a beef soup, a bowl of cold noodles, and finally dessert. The waitresses just kept bringing out more and more trays of food. Afterwards three of my co-teachers and I went out for coffee at an Italian restaurant. Then Carrie and I drove downtown and she helped me pay my bills. In Korea you don’t send checks to companies or receive paychecks; it’s much more common to either have automatic withdrawals and deposits (I do for my cell phone bill and my paycheck) or to go to one of your bank’s ATMs and electronically transfer the funds yourself using account numbers the companies give you.

So Carrie helped me do that for my gas bill, and then we drove out to Woobang Land. It’s the amusement park here in Daegu, and also the site of the Daegu Tower. We wandered around Woobang Land for awhile, not going on any rides but just enjoying the views (it’s a little higher than the rest of Daegu) and the scenery. It was actually a little creepy; since it was a Monday night very few people were there, and so even though it was getting dark only a few rides and stands were lighted up and operating. When it got darker we went into Daegu Tower and rode the elevator up 80+ floors, and there we could walk around and see a 360 degree view of the city at night. The lights were pretty but I don’t think the skyline is as scenic as most big cities in America – even though Daegu is the 3rd or 4th largest city in Korea, it has very few skyscrapers or architecturally fancy buildings; most condos are 20-30 floors and the clusters of them are pretty much the biggest buildings. Most others that I’ve seen or been in aren’t higher than 3-4 floors, even downtown.

On Tuesday I made lesson plans in the morning and met Carrie at school around lunchtime again. We drove to the “guarding mountain” of Daegu, Palgongsan, which, according to Carrie, is famous for three things: food and restaurants, hotels, and cultural or historical sites. We ate a really delicious lunch with two types of soup/stew, rice, rice water, and more than 15 side dishes, eaten on the floor, all for $10-11 apiece. Then we drove to Donghwasa Temple. It was similar to the Buddhist temple we visited in Jeonju with EPIK, but I liked Donghwasa better because it was up on a mountain and a lot cooler, there were far fewer people around (Tuesday afternoon), and the statues were amazing. The temple was founded in AD 493 and is still active – monks live and study there. The best part of the temple was “The Great Pharmaceutical Stone Buddha for Unification,” built in 1992. I’m not really sure what the ‘pharmaceutical’ in the name means or if that’s the best translation, but the statue was amazing. It’s a huge standing Buddha, 33 meter’s high, standing in the middle of a sort of circular courtyard. It’s hard to find a straight answer, but some websites I’ve searched through say it’s the largest standing Buddha in Korea, and some say it’s the largest in the world. It’s meant to represent hope for the reunification of North and South Korea. Some people were praying or taking pictures, and we walked around it three times to look at all the smaller stone carvings that surround the main statue. You could see the mountains and trees in the background and it was so beautiful.

After Donghwasa Temple we drove to Bongmu Park, also on Palgongsan Mountain. It’s just a recreational area around a small lake, Bongmu Lake; I saw people picnicking and hiking, and there are outdoor playgrounds and tennis courts. It sort of reminded me of a campground – there was even someone water skiing on the lake! We walked around for a few minutes and visited a small museum that was all about butterflies; they had hundreds of different species of butterflies pinned in cases with maps about where they were from; some of them were really big and beautiful. There was also a small greenhouse – lots of plants, obviously, and some more (live) butterflies, as well as a few cases full of gigantic scary beetles. It was a very long day with a lot of walking but I saw so much in one afternoon!

One Down, Eleven to Go

I’ve been in Korea for five weeks now, and tomorrow will be the one-month milestone for my time in Daegu (as well as my first payday). It’s incredible to me that I’ve already fulfilled 1/12 of my contract. I’m feeling pretty comfortable here these days; I know where to go to buy anything I need, and I think I finally have most of the little quirks of my studio figured out, or at least the ones I can’t ignore (the latest issue was last weekend when I thought my washing machine was broken. My landlords happened to be wall-papering next door, so I called them in and we all had a good laugh when they discovered that the water valve going into the machine had been turned off. They blame me, and I blame the hot-water mechanic). Now I need to work on expanding my comfort zone – I have yet to use the subway by myself, and I also want to figure out the country-wide bus and express-train system so I can start moving around and see a bit more of Korea outside of Daegu.

For the first time, I’ve been feeling a little homesick over the past few days. Since my Internet is working I talked to some people from home for the first time last weekend – my friends Michele and Erika, my sister Jessica, and my parents. School this week was also difficult and just dragged on. The kids are stressed about mid-terms next week and don’t feel like listening to me just now, and while sometimes I really like my lesson topics and it’s easy to think of explanations and activities, sometimes I’m just at a loss for interesting things to do – and that happened with every one of my classes this week. So I’ve just been trying to get more sleep (it’s a constant game of catch-up from the weekends) and stay active – I had dinner with Hyun Joo last night, and tonight a bunch of the EPIK teachers are meeting downtown for Indian food. There’s also talk of visiting an amusement park this weekend, which by definition should cheer me up J

My school schedule for the next few days is also sure to cheer me up. As I mentioned before, next week the students have midterms on Monday and Tuesday. Even though there aren’t any classes, all the teachers have to come to school until around noon, except me (this has happened to me before – a few weeks ago I had a random Friday off, because the students were being tested for physical fitness all day instead of having normal classes. All the other teachers had to be at school to help with the testing, except they told me not to come. I’m not sure really sure why, but I’m telling myself that they’re just being nice). Anyway, so I have Monday and Tuesday off, and then next Friday and the following Monday schools are closed for Chuseok. Chuseok is a Korean harvest festival – like Thanksgiving – and most Koreans eat a big traditional meal and visit their families and ancestral hometowns – again, like Thanksgiving. I’m really looking forward to having the time off and maybe traveling somewhere over Chuseok. I have no ideas yet, but since most places will be closed, and most people will be gone, I’d rather not sit at home alone for four days.

My fellow EPIK teachers are really fun and awesome support, but I owe my non-EPIK friends so much for making me feel comfortable and welcome here. All the teachers at Jeil, even the ones who don’t speak English or that I don’t teach with, are so friendly and considerate, and bring me little treats or coffee and try to include me in things. My co-teachers have been wonderful – Carrie and Bosun are so helpful all the time, even with stuff that falls outside their job duties like making phone calls for me, driving me around, or helping me with my studio. And all four of my co-teachers are very patient with my attempts at teaching and creating lesson plans – I learn so much just from watching them and taking in their feedback.

Hyun Joo, or Jessica (her English name) has also been amazing. I’m so, so glad I met her. She’s taken me around to different restaurants and tea/coffee shops, shown me a market near our building that gives you a free garbage bag if you spend \10,000, shown me another big bookstore with a great English-language section, introduced me to some of her friends, and overall has been very thoughtful, kind, and a great source of information. She told me that she worries about me – when I mentioned that I don’t like to cook she brought me some sweet potatoes and yogurt, and when I mentioned that I had been feeling homesick this week she bought me a little miniature tree from a florist!

Thanks for reading and stay in touch! Email or message me on Skype if you want to set up a time to talk – I can also call land-line phones for about 2 cents a minute, so don’t hesitate to ask!

I Live for the Weekends

The weekends here are so much fun, and so busy. I’ve met a really cool core group of people, and we usually meet downtown Fridays and Saturdays to eat, drink, dance, unwind and talk about how fun/strange/annoying Korea can be. We always find other people we know too, since most of us foreigners tend to hang out at a lot of the same places. The downtown area in Daegu is awesome because 1: It’s a ten-minute walk from my studio and 2: It’s very concentrated. Hundreds of bars, clubs, shops, restaurants, karaoke places and department stores are crammed into a few square blocks, and it’s busy every day and night of the week. This makes it very easy to move around but very difficult to find anything specific – it’s like a maze in there, and all the streets still look the same to me. I have to constantly keep in mind which direction I came from, and which way is out, so I can find my way home! There are a lot of expats in Daegu, so there’s always something happening like beer pong tournaments or a bar crawl or a band playing somewhere; it’s like going to college in a small town, where everyone has the same social life as everyone else and you can be sure of running into people you know. I also sometimes see my co-teacher Carrie on the weekends – she invited me to lunch with her husband, son, and in-laws on my first Sunday in Daegu, and last Sunday while they were all out hiking, we went to lunch again.

This past weekend I actually had Friday off, and during the day I was wandering around in the subway (sounds weird, but the subways here are like underground malls – they have multiple floors with food courts and every imaginable kind of store; people here also cross the main streets underground, because the traffic is so heavy) and I actually met a Korean girl that is close to my age and lives in my building. Her name is Hyun Joo, and she just graduated from university and is studying English full time. I was so happy to get to know her – weekdays I’m busy at school, and weekend nights I’m with my Western friends, but anytime I’m in my studio I feel really isolated and even lonely – my landlords don’t even live here, so I didn’t have anyone. It’s so nice to know now that if anything were to happen, there’s someone living down the hall that I can run to. Hyun Joo and I went out Friday and I introduced her to some of my friends. Hopefully I’ll see a lot more of her!

Last Saturday several of the EPIK teachers headed to Duryu Park for the International Bodypainting Festival. It was really cool. We arrived in the late afternoon, paid 10,000 won ($8-9) entrance fee, and wandered around for several hours, watching the models get painted in their tents and enjoying the freebies (a tee shirt, face-painting, henna, manicures, and makeup). We watched the show (each of the models just walked around to music for about a minute), got some supper, and headed downtown again.

Just wanted to throw something in here about my landlords. They’re a very nice older couple, and they’ve been very apologetic about all the mess with my hot water. They speak a few words of English and have brought in their son, Thomas, a few times because he's fluent. Thomas even gave me his cell phone number and told me to call or text if I have any problems so he can tell his parents. Thomas told me that his parents are very happy to have me, because the wife actually taught at Jeil Middle School for four years and also because they’re Catholic. The first day my landlords met me they asked my religion and were really happy to hear that I’m Catholic too. They immediately asked me my Catholic name, and now they call me Victoria! Last Monday they came over and brought me a gift-wrapped crucifix, and on Tuesday they brought tools over and nailed it to the wall! Thomas told me that they want me to come over to dinner sometime and also go to church with them.

I have Internet in my apartment now, so add me to Skype if you have it! Looking forward to hearing from everyone, so keep in touch and thanks for reading!

So I'm a Teacher Now...

The 2 ½ weeks since I arrived in Daegu have just flown by; I’m still a little bewildered by the fact that I’ve moved into – actually settled into – a new apartment in a new city, as well as started a new job. I still find it hard to believe that I’m really doing this, really going into middle-school classes every day with my own lesson plans, and then coming home to this apartment every night.

My first day at school was Monday, August 31st, but for the first three days I didn’t teach. I sat at my desk in the teacher’s room (teachers don’t have their own classrooms at Jeil. They move around to different rooms for each period and have desk space in a common room), started putting some lesson plans together, tried to familiarize myself with everything, and met my co-teachers. Jeil Middle School has three grades (in Korea they say middle school grades 1, 2, and 3, but it’s the same as grades 7, 8, and 9 in the States). Grades 1 and 3 are divided into three levels for English classes, with C being the lowest, B being intermediate, and A being the highest. Grade 2 English classes have mixed levels. I teach several of each type of class each week, as well as two after-school conversation classes (I didn’t have a choice about doing them, but I do get paid extra because it’s outside normal working hours). So in total I have 22 class hours each week, of nine different types or levels, and I see over 440 different students every week.

Carrie is my co-teacher for all the A-level students; my B-level co-teacher is Um Soo; my C-level co-teacher is Bosun; and Sook Hee is my co-teacher for all the grade 2 classes. They’re all very nice and helpful women. They tell me what topic or chapter to teach, I make the lesson plans, and they help me in class with discipline, translating directions or phrases, and modeling games or activities. I have a lot less interaction with all the other teachers at Jeil, but they also seem very nice. The P.E. teacher sits to my left and knows a few words of English, and a man who teaches Korean sits across from me. He’s always working on his English, and I often look up to see him reading the grade 1 English textbook and listening to the textbook’s CD! Sometimes I get questions from other teachers (and even the principal once) about how to say something correctly in English, or requests to proofread something. I don’t mind doing it at all – it’s nice to be the expert on something when I can’t even do basic things like read the ‘on/off’ button for the printer or operate the water filterer.

Bosun sits right next to me in the teacher’s room, and she is the closest to my age. She also helps me outside of school – she went with me to the Immigration Office to apply for my Alien Registration Card, and is coming over when the Internet/cable guy comes to my studio to set up the Internet this week. The ARC is just an ID card for foreigners, and you generally can’t transfer money or get cable TV, Internet, a cell phone or a bank account without it. EPIK very conveniently took care of our cell phones and bank accounts for us at orientation, and for some reason the cable/Internet guy came to my studio two weeks ago and agreed to hook up the cable without an ARC, but not the Internet. But I just got the ARC today, so the plan is to have Internet by Wednesday. And the hot water is FINALLY fixed, after three visits from the mechanic and two weeks of cold showers (luckily the weather’s been hot!). I continue to kill a lot of strange insects but overall I am very satisfied with my studio.

Teaching is REALLY hard work. At first I thought I would just set up a few lesson plans at the beginning of each week and then do them over and over again, but it definitely does not work like that. I’m still trying to get a handle on all the different grades and levels that I’m responsible for, what each class is capable of, what is possible within a forty-five minute period, and what activities work or don’t work. Some of my lessons have gone really well, and others have totally bombed. I find myself making adjustments after almost every class, until I finally feel like I have it down and then it’s the last day of the week and I’m already behind in planning lessons for the next one. It’s draining and time-consuming – I often take work home with me nights and weekends – but I’m already beginning to feel how rewarding this can be. I really like the challenge of appealing to the different demands that go along with the varying abilities of the students, and when a class goes really well and the kids have fun and actually understand me, it’s so empowering.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written, and since my original goal was to write once a week and I still have quite a bit to say, I’ll try to write a few more shorter posts over the next few days to catch up on everything. So keep coming back! And please email me, Facebook me, leave comments here, or whatever – I do have Internet at school and I can’t say enough times how much it means to me to hear from everyone.

First Days in Daegu

On Thursday, after months of waiting, we were finally given more details about our future jobs and homes. I was assigned to Jeil Middle School, a co-ed school very close to downtown Daegu. I wasn't particular about what kind of school I wanted to teach at, but I was very happy to hear that I would be so close to the downtown area, and also that I only have one school so far - it's not uncommon for teachers to have to commute between two or three schools.

Our last evening and morning at Jeonju University included some more cultural performances (really beautiful fan dances and drumming, I'll try to put up links to some videos), a closing banquet, and a closing ceremony. Friday morning we loaded our luggage into buses and set out for our respective cities and provinces. The Daegu buses stopped at a wayside for an amazing lunch of bibimbap, eaten in the traditional Korean style of sitting on the floor at a low table (which, with eight people at a small table, takes some practice and flexibility!). We arrived at the Daegu Provincial Office of Education, and were brought up on a stage and introduced to our co-teachers.

My main co-teacher (or handler, as one of our lecturers in Jeonju put it) is Carrie. I'll be teaching English with several other Korean co-teachers, but Carrie is in charge of me and my go-to person for any problems. A lot of English-speaking Koreans choose English names for themselves, and she told me later that she loves the show "Sex and the City" and that's how she chose her name. She was with another employee of the school who works in administration, and the three of us managed to load up all my luggage into Carrie's tiny car. We stopped at Jeil so we could follow some superintendent to my apartment, and he helped us haul everything up to my room.

My apartment is on the second floor of a small building. It's one room, with a bathroom, a small scary-looking boiler room, and a tiny little enclosed patio with a washing machine. The room itself is big but there isn't any storage area at all - just a small table with two chairs, a shallow musty-smelling closet, a bed against one wall and the kitchen against the opposite wall. One thing that I do like about Korean storage is the fact that there is usually a big cupboard or rack for shoes right next to the door, because shoes are never worn inside the apartment - so that's one thing I do have enough room for! There are cupboards in the kitchen area, so I think a lot of my clothes and books will end up going in there! The bathroom has a very common type of Korean shower - just a shower head hooked to the wall and a drain on the floor, with no specific, designated shower area. The shower head sits at about chest-level, so you have to hold it in your hand to use it, and aim very carefully so you don't spray water everywhere. It's very efficient as far as the use of space and water goes.

I wasn't very happy with the room at first - the whole thing smelled very musty and old; almost everything was dirty and mildewy (I have to scrub out every cupboard and line it with paper before I put anything in it); the refrigerator smells awful; there's no hot water, Internet, or cable; I have nowhere to put my stuff; and I've killed one cockroach so far. However, as I've been unpacking and moving around it a little, the smells are starting to go away (except in the refrigerator) and the whole thing is starting to grow on me. I haven't found any more bugs so far, there is air-conditioning, and you can't beat the location - I'm within easy walking distance of both my school and the downtown area.

Carrie has also been awesome in helping me get settled. After we dropped off all my stuff on Friday, we walked to Jeil Middle School so I would have a rough idea of how to get there and what kind of shops are around. Then we drove to a giant E-Mart, which is kind of like Wal-Mart only a little nicer. I bought cleaning supplies, garbage cans, kitchen stuff like a pot, pan, cutting board and knife, a few groceries and some other basics. Carrie gave me a bunch of stuff out of her own house - laundry detergent and fabric softener, toilet paper and paper towels, clothes hangers, some kitchen supplies, and probably other stuff I'm not remembering. She also bought me some flowers and Mandarin oranges at the E-Mart, as well as dinner that first night. Carrie's English is really good, and she mentioned that she studied for two months in San Diego and was really confused about how to do things like order at restaurants or shop, so she knows just how I feel! I'm so lucky to have her helping me out.

I slept in on Saturday, and then spent most of the day cleaning and organizing my apartment. A lot of my clothes are still just sitting in my suitcase, where they will stay until I'm ambitious enough to finish scrubbing out the rest of those nasty cupboards or break down and buy some sort of shelving unit. I also haven't figured out what to do with my garbage yet - in Daegu you have to buy specific garbage bags depending on the district you live in, and separate out paper, plastics, food garbage, and garbage to be burned. That's all fine, except that I haven't actually seen a dumpster or large trash cans outside where I can take my garbage. Carrie bought me these little plastic bags for food waste, and I'm just keeping that stuff in my freezer until I figure out what to do with it!

Carrie met me again Saturday night and we walked downtown. I told her that I liked reading and books, and she showed me a huge bookstore, Kyobo, which is famous in Daegu. It has a big English-language section and a Starbucks, and I think I'll be spending a lot of time there. I've already bought one book and signed up for a frequent-buyer card! Carrie bought me dinner again, which was excellent - I'm liking the food here more and more every day.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Internet, cable television, and hot water sometime in the next few days. I'm also going to work on finding the other native English teachers that are around here, and get involved in some activities or classes of some sort; the lecturers at orientation told us that we should be able to get all of our lesson planning and school stuff done during the work day, and I really don't want to just go home and sit in my tiny apartment every night! Carrie told me that the local YMCA offers Korean classes, so I might look into that, or into taking online classes of some sort.

Sorry for the long post! For those of you who've read the whole thing, thank you and please keep in touch!

EPIK Orientation

Well I made it to South Korea in one piece! After some issues with my luggage in Chicago (each of my bags did end up being 15 lbs overweight, and rather than just pay a fine they had me pack all the extra into a cardboard box and then pay $130 to ship the box), I found out that my business class ticket had been upgraded to first class because the flight was overbooked! I got to use the lounge before I boarded, I boarded first, and the 14-hour flight went by really quickly - I even managed to sleep for almost seven hours.

We landed in Incheon around 4:30am on Wednesday, and luckily all my luggage made it through and I was even able to exchange my money for Korean won at that time in the morning. I checked in at the EPIK desk, and there was a four-hour wait for a bus and then a four-hour bus ride to Jeonju University (their awesome slogan is "The Place for Superstars") in the city of Jeonju, where our orientation is based. It made for a very long day, but I was finally registered and in my dorm room by 3:30 or 4pm. After a shower and a little unpacking I was asleep by 5pm! The next night I only made it until 7pm, but even with going to bed that early I was able to sleep through the nights.

I've been in South Korea for about five days now, and have settled into the routine of our orientation here. I'm even sleeping normal hours now! It's going really well and I'm amazed at how well-run and efficient it is, and how considerate everyone here is of us teachers. They helped us set up bank accounts, recommended a cell phone plan and provider and then even brought in the vendor, and organized a full medical exam for us, because one is required of all new teachers in the country. I was expecting to have to do all of that myself and was so relieved to have it all organized for me.

We also have Survival Korean lessons and Korean movies every night. These are optional but I've been to every one. The Survival Korean is really helpful - I've already learned how to properly introduce myself to my future principal and co-teacher as well as the Korean names for several school facilities. And the movies are a really cool, unique way to learn about the culture (the film industry here is huge, if you ever have the chance you should check out some Korean films!). Besides Korean lessons and movies, we learned a little history through a field trip to a traditional village and Buddhist temple. I'll try to put up pictures soon!

The weather here has been somewhat difficult to get used to - it's very hot and humid, and this isn't even the hottest part of the summer (that's in July). Air conditioning does exist here, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my apartment will have it. The food also requires a little bit of an adjustment, but I like it for the most part - a lot of spicy vegetables, a lot of interesting and mysterious seafood, and a lot of rice. It's very healthy and my chopstick skills are slowly improving.

However, for the most part I haven't really experienced culture shock or homesickness yet, and I think that has a lot to do with the atmosphere here at the orientation. I'm surrounded by 700 Westerners, attending lectures at a university, eating meals in a cafeteria and even sleeping in a dorm; it's like being back at college again. It's very comfortable, but after we leave here on Friday and go off to our various schools around the country, I'll be entering the 'real world' - I'll be on my own in another strange city, with a much, much smaller support system and a brand new job.

So overall I am definitely nervous for orientation to end, but I'm really enjoying it so far! I love hearing from everyone at home, so keep the emails, comments and Facebook posts coming!

Here I Go!

This is it! In a few short hours my family is leaving for Chicago, and in just a few more I’ll be on a direct flight for South Korea! Almost exactly eight months ago I signed up for an online TEFL course, and at each step along the way it was still hard to believe that I was really going to do this until I actually had a plane ticket with my name and tomorrow’s date on it. Between working several times a week and preparing for this move, the summer has really flown by…and I still can’t believe that I’m actually going to do this.

I’ve been learning to read and write the Korean alphabet, Hangul, with the help of this website: http://www.learnlangs.com/RWP/Korean/index.htm I still don’t know how to speak any of the language, but now at least I’ll be able to read menus and signs in the streets or subway stations. The alphabet was surprisingly easy to learn – the characters are very logical and everything is arranged by syllable, so it’s easy to sound out and pronounce words. Not to mention that Hangul actually is an alphabet, with only 20-something characters, rather than thousands like with the Chinese or Japanese scripts! We have two or three survival-Korean classes at orientation, and one I’m settled in Daegu I’d like to sign up for more – or maybe I can find someone who’s willing to exchange English lessons for Korean!

The whole last week, when I wasn’t working, was dedicated to packing and re-packing my two suitcases and carry-on, over and over. I’m pretty sure that I’ll have to pay airline fees for breaking both weight and size limits on both suitcases, but with only two of them to last a whole year I didn’t have much choice. I have to have one suitcase packed for our nine-day orientation, and then the rest of our luggage will be stowed away until all of use EPIK GETs (Guest English Teachers) are bused away to our various locations. I think this is because we’ll be staying in dorms for the orientation, so space will be limited. I’m pretty satisfied with how much I was able to cram into my two suitcases; I didn’t have to sacrifice too much. I would take more books if I could, and more knick-knacks or decorations for my apartment, but I’m sure I can find everything I could need or want in Daegu. I also couldn’t fit my heavy winter coat in, but I’ve heard that Korean winters are somewhat milder, so I’m counting on all the layers I’ve packed and my thick Wisconsin skin!

I’m really anxious to have all the airport/airplane stuff over with, and I’ll try to update as soon as possible after I arrive. Next time any of you hear from me I’ll be in another hemisphere! Don’t be afraid to contact me through Facebook or email, it might take me a little bit but I will get back to you!

Putting the Pieces Together

I can’t believe it, but in exactly one month I’ll be on a plane headed for Incheon International Airport in South Korea. Everything has been happening really quickly since I graduated from St. Thomas. I mailed all my documents to my BridgeTEFL recruiter in Colorado, they were forwarded to the English Program in Korea (EPIK) office in Korea, and a few weeks later I received a contract for a job in the city of Daegu.

The nine-page contract is in Korean and English, and vaguely outlines what sort of duties, housing, and benefits I can expect. I don’t know where exactly I’ll be teaching or what age or level of students; it’s also subject to change throughout the course of the year. I’m guaranteed some basic appliances and furniture, but I don’t know really what type of dwelling I’ll be in or where it’ll be relative to my work. I won’t know any of this stuff until the orientation or even after. I get two weeks paid vacation, and the Korean national holidays off, but I might have to work during the school vacations. I get some settlement money to help pay for my plane ticket and other initial expenses, but I also get money held back from my first few paychecks and returned to me at the end the year (if I fulfill my contract and don’t trash my apartment). None of this was really surprising to me because I’d read most of it on the BridgeTEFL website, but that was also several months ago when I was first starting their online class.

Once I had the contract in my hands I could apply for an E2 visa. It was sort of a nerve-racking process; my mom and I braved the 270-mile journey from central Wisconsin into downtown Chicago with all of my documents, and after some confusion with my application (the consulate wanted specific contact information for my guarantor in Korea, which I don’t have because I don’t know exactly where I’ll be just yet…), $45 for the application fee and $17.50 to have my passport mailed back to me, we were back on the road. I was really relieved to get my passport back, with the visa inside, a few days later. I wasn’t completely convinced that everything was going to work out until I was actually in possession of my passport again; I hate to let that thing out of my sight!

So now I have a job contract, a visa, a plane ticket, and significantly less money in my checking account than I did one month ago. Next time I write I’ll hopefully have some more interesting information, as I continue to research my future home!