Working In Changwon - The First Few Days

So, my second day on the job ended up being me teaching entirely by myself at Dogye GnB, which I was extremely nervous and unprepared for, but it ended up going phenomenally. The first class was learning nature vocabulary and the second class was learning professions and where each profession worked in the city, so I taught both classes how to play Four Corners, but made it revolve around their vocabulary. The first group was in a garden (the classroom) and each corner was where a certain kind of flower grew in the garden. The second group was in a city and each corner was a building and they would choose a profession and run to that "building". One person stood in the middle with their eyes closed, counted down, and then guessed a corner. The kids went absolutely bananas over this game.

I'm well aware that some of the sentences on the left are fragments. I had to erase some of the board to draw the "city".

The other classes were a little more straightforward. Some were quieter, some had better English, some had worse. Overall, it was really fun. After school, one of the teachers I was replacing (Kimyn) showed up and took me down the main drag of Dogye to show me where all the important things were: dry cleaners, FamilyMart, bus stop, etc. In FamilyMart, an older man came up to me very enthusiastically and just began talking to me and asking me where I was from. He gave me his business card and I told him I'd contact him for help with my Korean and any other advice I needed on Changwon. I'm quickly learning EVERYONE in Korea has business cards. I probably should have brought my IFC ones even though they're outdated.

After we loaded some cash onto my MyB bus device (coolest thing ever), we left FamilyMart and headed over to Red Fox, a bar/restaurant (everywhere in Korea sells food), to get a few drinks and so she could help me figure out a map and bus routes and such for the two other campuses I'll be working at. After that, we parted ways and I headed home only to bump into a semi-drunk Korean who says "maek-ju?"(beer) and tips back his hand to mime drinking. I said "ne" (yes) thinking he was asking me if I had been drinking. He asks where I'm from and where I'm walking to and we walk and we talk for a minute as best we can with his very limited English and my nonexistent Korean before he ushers me into the 7-11 we are in front of. We walk back to the beer section and he asks me what beer I like. I don't know any of the brands in the case except for Heineken, so I grab it and he promptly takes it from me and pays for both our beers. I bow and saw "kansamnida" and he seems pretty pleased by my attempts at Korean, although it's clear he wants to practice his English.

We sit at a table outside 7-11 and try to communicate as best we can while knocking back our beers in the dead of night. I learned he is a soldier in the South Korean army and all that he wants is peace between North and South Korea. We bond a bit over this obviously mutual goal (who doesn't want North Korea to chill it's hostility?) and then we go back into 7-11 for more beer. I try to pay, but he won't let me. So beer and pringles in hand, we march off to my apartment two blocks away. I show him my apartment and we sit down in front of the TV and go back to our agonizingly poor attempts at communication, but it was still very cool. We finish our beers, talk a bit longer, but it's late and soon I walk him out. We agree to meet up again and settle on meeting at 7-11 on Friday at 9:00pm for dinner. After I shut the door, I reflected on how that's probably the single coolest thing that has ever happened to me. Really difficult to describe.

So obviously, after that I crash and wake up with a splitting headache. Luckily I have plenty of time before work to let it wear off, or so I thought. I had forgotten my director was picking me up at 11 to go to the doctors, until I hear a knock on my door. I quickly throw some close on and TA-DAH! She came with a internet technician to install wifi in my apartment. Happiest day ever, because now I can use Viber to call my parents over WiFi in my apartment. She then whisks me off to the hospital (pyongwon) which the most efficient system for a check-up in the world. I may as well have been on a conveyor belt. They drew blood, took x-rays, gave me an eye exam, did a urine text, checked my heart rate and blood pressure, etc. all in under probably 15 minutes if I'm overestimating. And this hospital is super cool to boot. It's a giant labyrinth that, among other things, also holds a dentists office and a gift shop...

Everything checked out and I was driven to the Dogye campus to meet up with Kimyn again so she could show me how to ride the bus to the Daewon campus. Buses are super efficient here, and cheap as well. You pay a dollar to get on the bus (normal by swiping your MyB or a phone app) and can rid eit anywhere down the line. You can even get off and swipe your MyB again on your way out to get an hour reprieve, meaning I can get off, go shopping, and as long as get on another bus within the hour, I don't have to pay again. Pretty nifty.

Daewon campus was alright. I really like the kids there, but I only go one day a week and instead of having a whole 50 minute class to myself, I have to do 15 minute segments in each of the three teachers classes sometimes. It's kind of exhausting and makes it hard to get any real content, in my opinion, but I don't call the shots. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to remember so many students at so many campuses. I hope they don't get offended when I surely forget.

The director of Daewon campus also happened to be the director the Shinchon campus where I work on Thursdays, so he offered to drive me there my first day so I didn't have to try the bus. It was the 4th of July in Korea, so expats were all raging at a bar called BK's in the part of Changwon where all the foreign bars were. Kimyn took me there and I was super excited to meet the other Americans in Changwon. I was not impressed. I showed up around 11 and some people were already drunk like college freshman making total idiots out of themselves. Some girl was redefining sloppy drunk and was pissing me off because she kept hanging on me and falling all oer the place, and I realized I much prefer Koreans in Korea to Americans or Korea. don't get me wrong, some of them were super cool and I exchanged information with a few, but like 80% of the people at that bar made me never want to go there again.

The next day I rode out to Daewon and Director Kim drove me to Shinchon and showed me around. He's such a nice man, but has this very anxious nature about him that makes me nervous because he can't seem to relax or slow down. Shinchon was a very laidback atmosphere since it was my first day. I just had conversations with all the classes, but learned that one class doesn't have a book for speaking so I have to create a curriculum for just this one class -_-; I'll work on that at some point I suppose. Then my last class was a bunch of 16 year old guys who offered me some of a pizza they ordered in class and we just talked about travelling and sports and stuff. It was cool. They asked me which was better, Korean pizza or American pizza. Hands down, nothing beats American pizza. When I get back to Florida, I'm eating pizza hut for a straight month.

This weekend I'm *hopefully* going to Seoul with my friend Lais who is going to show me around. Should be a lot of fun. I look forward to posting about that.