Oh Hey There Gurye

Guess this post is coming a lot quicker than I thought it was going to. I was told by a friend in Seoul that it took almost a month to get everything sorted out with phones and Internet but it was all settled by early yesterday afternoon.

Orientation came to a close Monday morning. We met our co-teachers after finishing all our packing. I have two co-teachers. One main one at Gurye Middle School, which is all boys, and one in Tong-Jeun Middle School, which is co-ed. I work with Mrs. Son at the all boys middle school. I only met her on Monday because she'll be my main contact. Well, at least until February. School faculty in Korea are mandated to change schools at least once every four years. She's been at this school for four years and her contract is up as of the end of this semester, so I'll have a new one in the next semester, but who knows who that will be.

She's awesome. Super friendly, unbelievably helpful. She goes completely out of her way just to be helpful. I honestly don't know what I'd do if I didn't have her here. She helped me get my Alien Registration Card, and helped, well it was actually her that set up my bank account on Monday, and she even deposited W10, 000 into the bank account for good luck. She lives in Gwangju, which is where I was doing my orientation, but drives to Gurye (about 1-1.5 hour drive) every day with her little posse of Middle School faculty. So we drove to Gurye and she showed me my apartment and then took me out to dinner at the most "Western" restaurant in town. It's only "Western" because it's on the highway and on the way to the town's biggest tourist destination. There is no English and nothing on the menu is Western. But that's good, so we got some kimbap, which is basically wild vegetables and rice and kimchi, plus everything else Koreans seem to find necessary to have with every meal. It's really crazy how much they eat.

After that, back to my apartment to get settled in. For the most part it was good to go. I have one bedroom which is big enough for a twin bed and dresser, a kitchen filled with everything I could need, a bathroom, a living room (which I've basically made my life in) that has a masssivve LCD TV, futon, desk, two dressers, and I've got a laundry room all to myself. No dryer, but washer and a hanging drying rack. I live better here than I did in a townhouse in North Bay. Plus, they're actually providing me with a new computer for the year. And the guy before me left a ton of books to read, so I've made it a mission to read all the Harry Potters and possibly all the Lord of the Rings, but we'll see about LOR. He also left a ton of movies and supplies for teaching, so I'm basically set for the year. The light in the living room didn't work, so when I got back to the appt I was basically in darkness trying to unpack. I would've left it but I was teaching my first class at 9am the next day and still needed to come up with an introductory lesson plan. It was about 8:00pm when we got in from dinner so it was a little bit of a rush. It finally hit me that I'm in Korea though. The bubble of Shin Yang Park Hotel, all us Westerners and the fact that the coordinators were setting up everything definitely left my mind when it was just me in the middle of a dark room unpacking and coming up with a lesson plan to teach to three classes of thirty grade one (of middle school, so grade 6ish) Native Korean speakers. Homesickness definitely set in quick. So I pulled out some pieces of home and threw on the Taylor Swift. The only thing that would've made it more depressing  would have been if I had six cats around me. Then bed, slept on the creaky futon. In the morning all I wanted was a warm shower and I could not figure out the shower system at all. So that was gone.

Luckily there is another English teacher named Mr. Her (not foreigner, but Korean English teacher) living in the apartment building behind me so he picked me up in the morning. We're about ten feet away from each other and we work beside each other in the office so it's super convenient. My building only has about ten apartments, and his does two I'm thinking. They're really really small. So he drove me up to the school and I met the principal and vice p, super nervous. First impressions are the biggest things so I needed to make it ace. So far so good. They laughed at my attempts to speak Korean. Still incredibly limited, but it's getting better. I can say goodbye, hello, please, thanks you, have a good weekend, see you later, nice to meet you. Just basics, but from what I've heard from some foreigners who've been here longer that's way more than they learned. So I guess I'm on my way. I work in front of the vice principal, but they both seem like super nice people. The principal doesn't speak any English so convo is almost out the window but I still pay my respects to him completely. The vice speaks a little bit. There are only about ten teaching faculty. Really small school. There are about 300 kids, ten classes. So 30 a piece.

First class went really well. Little nervous, didn't have a handle on my presentation of a slideshow I made of things from home. Plus, I only had a few pictures to show that I managed to save from a longgg time ago. So it was a little shaky but still went well. 45 minutes goes by faster than you'd think. Second class....that was a bit of a dud, the kids were too hyperactive and I didn't really have all that much engaging stuff. But now I know for next week. Third class of the day went well. Then we called it quits to get my appt up to snuff, fix the light. And turns out it wasnt me who couldn't figure out the water system, the entire tap was broken. So that got fixed. Plus managed to order a phone (for free) from Mokpo and get my Internet almost set up. The phone and Internet hookup came Wednesday. It took me so long to do the paperwork for Internet though. They run off the Alien Registration Card that I got, and my name is Minicucci Michael Joseph (Korean names always go surname then givens, but no one really goes by their given names, it's mostly surname) but course I spell it Michael Joseph Minicucci so I went through a ton of paperwork incorrectly by doing it the western way. I must have spelled my name at least thirty times, plus signed it every time. Frustrating, but it got done.

Got the chance to explore the area a bit, but it gets dark super quick here. Well, same as Canada, by six sun is already long gone. So I just got to walk through the fields of rice a bit plus along the river that is beside my appt. I've got pics of the surrounding mountains. It's a really nice place and I definitely can't wait to get up into the mountains. I wanted to hike up there ,but the river really cuts everything up and I couldn't really find where there was a cut across point. Oh well.

The next day's teaching was a bit hit or miss. I taught Mr. Her's class in the morning, disastrous. It definitely depends on the teaching style. Mrs. Son uses a drum stick to poke the kids if they're being ridiculous. It definitely works. He didn't seem to really use any form of discipline so his kids were ridiculous. No participation, no anything really. They just got loud fast and could not come down. But then Mrs. Son's kids in the afternoon, two classes, and honestly they were my favourite of the week so far. I was doing grade three's all day, and they were phenomenal. They still talked and needed a bit of guidance, but they were active in all the right ways and listened and did the activities I prepared. It was great. Plus, found out these kids love Italian Soccer. I mean LOVE it. So we talked about that for a while, plus PCbangs, and norebangs and other things. It was a ton of fun to go through those classes. Plus, Mrs. Her looked really satisfied, so I was really happy it went well.

I was also given the option to teach an afterschool program on Wednesday's from 3:30-5:00. Either that or play volleyball. But, I get paid an extra W60, 000 which is about $60, just to do it. It's a class of 14 kids, so half the size. And it's not really a "lesson" but a chance to get involved with the language so it's basically game central. We played scrabble and guess who, it was a ton of fun. So I think I'm going to jump on that every week. The kids are smart and want to be there, so that makes it worth it.

Thursdays=no classes for this guy, so that's a plus. Just a teacher workshop. I host the workshop and all we really do is talk at a cafe about some issues to brush up on their English. Gotta find a topic for next week, it was cancelled today. Apparently it gets cancelled often since teachers are coming from all over the town.

Well long post, but I figured it would be with the move and teaching classes. I feel like I've taught a lot. I've talked to others from the orientation and they've all been saying two-three classes so far, but I've done at least seven that I can remember. Oh well, way more experience, and it's a lot more fun than I was expecting. Hopefully next week goes just as well!

Miss all of you, its hitting me more and more every day everyone's not just a car ride away. Oh, I don't have wireless like I was expecting. Everything is wired here, but it's all cabled. So I was hoping I could jump on the good ole iPod everyone convinced me to buy and skype from that vid chat, but that's a no go. So I'm going to have to order a webcam and mic. I should have picked one up in Gwangju, saw some pretty cheap ones when I was there, but I figured it would all be wireless. Oh well. Won't be able to Skype for a while, so hope everyone's doing well.