Less than 48 hours after landing in Korea...I teach my first class...

Yesterday they kind of threw me in at the deep end and had me teach three classes. Initial impressions are:
- The kids' English is very, very basic.
- The kids are generally (and surprisingly) pretty badly behaved. They'll think nothing of beating on each other during class and trying to keep them from talking for more than 5 seconds is a full-time job in itself.

In my first two classes I was Mr. Nice Guy, but that doesn't work. By the third class (and my first class today) I started adopting a much more stern approach, which seems to work better. Marginally better. Most of the teachers I've encountered seem to be resigned to the fact that the 35 (yes, 35 per class) students will generally have their own agenda.

In addition, I have 40 classes. Yup. 40. I'm sure my teacher friends/family back home are having minor heart attacks right now. I only see each class for 45 minutes once every two weeks.

My schedule:

It's not too bad...I have to be in the school from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mon-Fri (leaving the school grounds requires permission from the administrator, vice principal and head teacher), but my earliest class is 8:50 a.m. and my latest ends at 3:20 p.m., except for one day every other week.

Teaching's been a bit of a challenge, as the teachers generally just sit in the back of the class and let me have at it...without ANY direction as to the level of the studends' English, what book/chapter they're working on, what the last thing they did, etc...I'm hoping that an English dep't meeting will solve this issue, so I can start planning proper lessons.

After school, my co-teacher took me into Masan (not a bad place...I'm really looking forward to going back),  and I got my medical done...I should have the results by Monday, when I apply for my Alien Registration Card, which will allow me to get a cellphone and my own internet (since I have no one to call or text here, I don't care too much about a cell, but I REALLY want to have internet at home!). The medical was pretty easy...blood/urine sample, sight test, hearing test, X-ray, blood pressure...I was in and out of the hospital in 10 minutes, even though we just walked in. I'm guessing their health care system isn't as overburdened as ours haha. They sent me into a bathroom to do my urine sample...and here's a typical bathroom...hole in the ground (we have them at my school too...thankfully at home I have a western-style throne)

Then we went to a dinner held for all the new teachers at school, which was a neat experience.

The reastaurant:

Most of the stuff had meat, so I kept making myself Korean burritos haha...at first I took a round piece of hard rice paper and soaked it in some sort of flavoured water...then put it on my plate when it was nice and soft, filled it with veggies, wrapped it up and voila! Very healthy/tasty:

The dinner was great, people were kind, as usual. The principal did try to force soju on me (it's an alcoholic beverage Koreans get wrecked on fairly regularly...it's 20% alc and I swear there were a dozen or so empty bottles at our tables before long). Anyways...the big deal is TAKING the soju...thankfully my co-teacher is a non-drinking devout Christian, so he showed me a trick: take it, turn around and dump it in a little cup. Turn back around and thank the principal. As long as you accept it and thank whoever is offering it to you, you're not being rude, regardless of what you actually do with it. Works for me!

After that, I went home, changed and went exploring. I walked to the opposite way from the grocery store and found a TON of cool little shops selling everything from baked goods to live eels. It was dark and a little chilly, so the atmosphere was perfect...it's kind of cool walking around in places I've only seen in movies right outside my house. I have to get to class, but I'll do another installment tomorrow...I walked to school today, so I'll have pics from that, plus more fun times in the classroom :)