Welcome to Geoje

My first night, right after arriving in the city, I wandered around a bit. I was in downtown Gohyeon area, which to this day is where I spend most of my time, so I figured it was important to get at least somewhat accustomed to the area.  I tried to keep a stable direction in my head and come across landmarks here and there, which is hard to do when you're brand new and you pass a CU Mart every 12 feet.  There are mountains and water in every direction, so you can't really use those to judge where you are for the most part either.

I did eventually get oriented, and wandered around the area a bit before turning in, falling asleep with the tv on.

The next day we had our 'work orientation'.  I took a cab in (cabs cost about a dollar here, really), and figured my way into the building.  Our building is swank.  We have an aquarium in the waiting room, we have a waiting room. We have secretaries, cleaning staff, management staff. The building is sterile clean and freshly wallpapered, we have water coolers in multiple locations, showering units in the bathroom for...some...reason... and we've got our own private offices with computers, projectors, whiteboards, markers, pencils... the whole works. It's almost like I'm a real teacher!

At about 1 in the afternoon, we met up with the boss (who is a very nice lady who spoke less English than I thought she would, but still plenty more than is common) and went over hours, wages, reimbursements, living situations, etc.  We were then dismissed to do prep work. For the next.....six hours.  Which was, well, absurd. But it was something I was told I needed to get used to. As per the schedule, I'm at work 1pm until 10pm Monday through Friday, and at least three hours every day is prep work.  What it actually is, is 'deskwarming', which is a Korean job skill that requires you to procrastinate on the internet for a few hours until your class starts.  It take me roughly 15 minutes to prep for a class, I shortly found out, so if I were to do nothing but prep for the whole time they had set aside from me, I would have the entire semester done in a week.

As myself and the other new teacher didn't really have much to do,we were getting prepared to leave about an hour or two into finding our bearings in the branch when one of the Korean coteachers told us to stick around because we were getting free food.  Not wanting to burn through my meager funds, and wanting to sample some good Korean food as recommended by locals, I stuck around.  This backfired because we ended up getting Chinese food. Not that it wasn't fantastic! But, it wasn't Korean.  We got to chatting, and I found out the very uncommon fact that myself and the boss are the only people at work who drink, or at least enjoy doing so.  That... doesn't happen a lot in Korea. Everyone here drinks.  It's hard to walk down the street without seeing a drunk middle aged guy hanging off of his friend. Yes, I know it's eight in the morning, what is your point.

The other new teacher (I hate using names in a blog but it is starting to seem like I'm going to have to) ended up tagging along on the way home with me so that we could do prep work together (we didn't actually do any of the sort at work).  She needed my help, because she was given a class that she wasn't trained how to do, and I was given 5 days worth of teaching the same class over and over, so one of us got the short end of the stick. I'm talking about me, teaching the same thing everyday is tedious.  So I generously helped her out, and retired to Shaun of the Dead with Korean subtitles.

The next morning I woke up at 7am, still on my training regiment, and being affected by the whole 'I'm in a hotel room' thing, where my body doesn't sleep soundly because the surroundings are weird.  So I went to the fish market.  It only took a little wandering around, and it helped that I could follow my nose. Because the smell was awful. Offal, even.  I got there and there were live fish squirming, dead fish cooking, people chopping and gutting fish up all around, and the whole thing is situated right above a sewage drain.  The smell is quite atrocious, but it is a sight to experience for somebody who didn't grow up on the seaside.  Of course I had the unfortunate effects of managing to look at everything as a 'pet' instead of a 'food' for the same reason.

My first class was later that same day, and I went in thinking I was prepared. I mean, this is what they trained us for, right?  Wrong. They didn't train us. They didn't train us at all.

I was optimistic, happy, smiling, thinking about how much fun this would be.  And then my first kid showed up. She looked at me and went 'You my teacher?'  And I said 'Yep!' and she made a...a face. And swore in Korean, and left my classroom.

Well, things were off to a great start.

The whole class was like that. Just very...tense.  Nobody wanted to be there, they just wanted to sit and silently judge me.  See what I was made of.

It was my first day as a teacher, I wasn't made of much.

As we struggled to get through on the prep work I did and the little bit I was taught, the class progressively got a bit better.  We were laughing together by the end and not staring blankly at each other, which is enough progress to make over a three hour class period.

I left my first class feeling pretty drained.  It didn't really go how I had expected at all.  The kids at the private schools here seem to be fully aware that your employment is based on you keeping them happy. If they go home and complain to their parents, they get switched to a different school. This happens enough times, you lose your job.  So there's not really a way to punish the kids, or get them to pay attention other than just being stern and...hoping it works.  They get distracted, they refuse to do work, and 'sending them to the principle' just makes them come back mopey and even less willing to work. It's... frustrating.  At this point I hadn't really figured away around it, and it was just irritating.  I wasn't expecting such a small, four student class where none of the kids listened. It was like teaching in an inner city school back in the states, except with less change at being shot.

Although all the students have knives.  Granted, they're box cutters, but still, was a shock to see that all of them are more armed than I am.

The first week was essentially just that.  Getting to know the kids, getting to know the job, really...not doing a whole lot back home.  Mozying around with the girl from work, going into random places looking for food. I ended up getting japchaebap, which is horribly offensive from a western standpoint but I assure you it's delicious.

The only eventful things that happened during my first week were finding out that Dunkin' Donuts serves bubble tea, and getting into unintelligible arguments with the landlord at the motel I was stationed at.  He yelled at me about how I had dirty clothes in my room, and how I took the key with me when they needed to  clean, charged me for the maid doing my laundry, and then forced me to pay for an extra day (which I got reimbursed for), and all of this via shouting in Korean at me until I understood him.  I'll give this to the people, I haven't had anyone back down on me. Always push forward.  And really, it was the most honest exchange I've ever had in my life. He'd yell and point, and I'd hand him money until he went away.

Aaah, international relations.

I ducked out really early on my checkout day to try and avoid him, managed to successfully, and then set up camp in the apartment I'd be occupying for the next year or so.

It's nice.