Back to School

While many of my teacher friends are in their own classrooms this fall, I find myself back in a Hagwon in Seoul. I never thought that I'd be back here, but I am and it's all different. Instead of having massive culture shock during my first week, I'm actually able to communicate and convey short messages to locals. It even blows my own mind that I remember so much Korean sometimes. However, I am always frustrated with the even larger amount of Korean that I don't know.

John and I have been doing well. We've been cleaning our new two bedroom apartment room by room for the last few days because it was absolutely filthy from the last jerk who lived there. It's looking a lot better now and we've actually unpacked. Although we have nowhere to put our stuff because our apartment lacks furnature. We're getting our bearings pretty quick and discovered that we live in a pretty kick ass neighbourhood, much better than the one that I lived in before where there was nothing happening. This neighbourhood is quite the little hotspot, a growing neighbourhood in North Seoul.

The school that I'm at now is great. Surprisingly the kids (and the teachers!) speak English pretty well. I am not dealing with the "teacher I am die" instead I am getting "Teacher, I'm not feeling well today". Its insanity! In some places, kids DO actually learn English. Quite the phenomenon.

We have 6 English teachers at our school including John and I. There are also 2 Irish girls and 2 Americans, one American is Korean American and the other is on his second year of teaching English in Korea, so there are quite a few people who know what they're doing here.

Tomorrow will be a feat though. We are going to do our bloodwork and testing at the hospital so that we can apply for our Alien Registration Cards. I just spoke with the nurse on the phone and she rattled off a million things that I cannot do tonight or tomorrow in order for me not to screw up my test: No caffene, No Multivitamins, No sleeping pills, No food, etc.

All in all things are going well and I am pretty happy to be where I am at the moment. John has been snapping pictures like a mother* so pictures are coming soon. Our internet should be hooked up next month and we'll likely get a phone then too, for now we have our personal computers at work (each teacher gets their own desktop!!) so that's working for the moment.

Talk soon.