settling in

hey everyone, so we started this blog so everyone could see what was going on whenever they wanted. we have been in south korea one month now. crazy. lots has happened. lots has changed. and we are just now getting settled. we have lived in one dorm and three apartments in four weeks.

orientation was great. we met a lot of nice people, learned a lot and felt semi-prepared to teach some kids a little english. we were told we would have a co-teacher each who would help us get settled and other team teachers who knew english that would be in the classroom with us while we were teaching. so that all sounds great.

our last day of training we get on a bus bound for our new home, the city of donghae. once we reached we would meet our co-teachers and be taken to our schools for a meet and greet with the school administrators. matt and i were placed in the same city limits but at different schools, totally fantastic. because we are at different schools we went with our individual co-teachers to our schools.

on the drive to my school, after initial greetings my co-teacher bluntly says "i just want you to know we didn't ask for you. our school doesn't need you. we have another native teacher. the board of education just gave you to us." what a welcome.

because there is already a native english speaking teacher (a woman from canada) at my main school, which is a middle school, my time is split between three different schools. i teach six hours a week (all day monday and tuesday morning) at mukho girls middle school, six hours (tuesday afternoon and wednesday) at mangsang elementary school, and eight hours (all day thursday and friday) at changho elementary school. this is pretty crazy because i am teaching 2nd-6th graders and 9th graders, which means i have 9 different lesson plans to write each week. this news was a lot to take in because we were under the impression that we would only be at one school.

then she said that they didn't have a place for me to live. oh man. it was quite a drive. i held it together and said that i was okay with staying at matt's place until they got everything figured out. long story, short. we spent the first few days at matt's place, then moved into this incredible penthouse in the sky ---- they gave me the principal’s old apartment which was literally a penthouse on the 19th floor overlooking the entire city and the east sea. we moved in on tuesday night. on wednesday afternoon, they told us we had to move out as soon as possible - the principal wanted it back. oh, it was such a mess. but now we are in a beautiful apartment that feels like home.

we have been in this final apartment for one week now. we'll post pictures soon. it’s great. we have a balcony with a gorgeous view of the east sea and live in a super fun neighborhood that doesn't see many foreigners so we are an anomaly – things are good!!

matt has an awesome school situation. i'm sure he will tell you more about it, but he is at donghae sango high school. its a technical school for kids that aren't going to college. the kids are a lot more relaxed but a lot of fun. the girls looooooove matt. he has a great co-teacher and two team teachers. he write one lesson plan a week for his students and then has conversation classes with teachers who want to improve their english. so fun! a perfect set up.

my teaching situation is a lot different. its a lot of work. i have to write 9 lesson plans a week all based on the national english curriculum and i have no co-teachers. for my middle school classes, i get to teach what i want which is fun. i am going to do a lot about team building and self esteem and just tie english into those themes.

my elementary schools are super little. each school has about 75 kids total. the kids are amazing!! my classes are between 10-21 students each. they are both in rural areas. mangsang elementary is across the street from this beautiful and famous beach and changho elementary is on the top of this mountain peninsula where you can see the east sea from any direction. the teachers are all super nice but of ten teachers only one knows english. it was a surprise. i am the only exposure to english they get. so there's a lot of pressure to teach them the national curriculum so they pass the end of the year english test. but i think i am getting the hang of it and soon i will fall into a routine for teaching and writing lesson plans for all these different grades.

again the kids are incredible. sooooo much fun! yesterday, i was invited to what i thought was a birthday party. last night, matt and i went out and bought a birthday present. we were so excited. all the day of friday, the kids were so excited that i was coming to this party. they kept telling me that there was going to pizza AND spaghetti!!

so today we show up, its not a birthday party. hahahaa. its kids day at a church but there was pizza and spaghetti. so many of my students were there and for two hours we played ridiculous games with these kids. it was a blast.

things are going well. the food is so spicy. i die a little more each day as i have to eat the food given to me. matt is in heaven. he could eat this food forever. we have eaten some crazy stuff - raw octopus (with brains intact), big fried insect larva, and lots of raw fish.