Mother Earth, Love Me Weary

Two bigger events happened. One, it's been two weeks since the schedules for the new semesters at work came in. Two, I helped clean up a beach in 30 degree Fahrenheit weather on the same island that I taught on last year.

While my teaching hours start earlier now - 3:10 or 2:30 as opposed to 4:00 like before - they are fairly stable. I have five classes a day, and the new system of all kids in the same level using the same book means that there are less books to plan around, but we might have to teach the same lesson twice in one day or one week. The debate books are more detailed, like the training had promised, and having a library class means I get to teach stories sometimes.

There was a week and a half of no middle schoolers, because they have to study for big exams at their school. The younger ones just got into middle school, the regular middle schoolers showed up at TOPIA, and the older ones studied for and took an exam that determines which high school they go to. Management had us choose a random textbook to teach the middle schoolers who showed up, so we've been making photocopies of those pages and occupying them in a more casual manner than usual. However, testing period was officially over today, so I assume the regular curriculum with their new textbooks will begin tomorrow.

Saturday morning, I woke up at 5:30am to quickly pack, then caught a taxi to the express bus station. The bus there took me to Seoul, where I transferred from line 9 to line 4 and reached Seoul Station minutes before the Daebudo Ecotour group was going to depart. The commute took me three hours. We reached Daebudo in an hour. After eating, we went around to places on the island where birds gathered and heard lectures about the different kinds of birds that live there.

Then we went to a museum, where I learned about the different kinds of mud flats and the four different kinds of salt in existence. It was connected to an underground aquarium too, so we saw some live fish that were not models. After dinner, there was a workshop where they had us brainstorm and give a presentation on how to satisfy all the stakeholders in a piece of land, while trying to improve the environment there at the same time. I took the initiative to lead and got two tickets to an exhibit about Tutankhaman at the Gwacheon National Science Museum. =)

The next day was the actual beach clean up, and the amount of trash made me irritated at people's careless practices. Most of the junk was from people who had barbecued on the beach and fishermen. It was mostly plastic wrappers from snacks, and Styrofoam bits from floating objects attached to nets that the fishermen use. There were also a good two or three intact fishermen's body suits. There was much more, and the whole pile could be five or six feet high and five square feet wide. South Korea's beaches are no more polluted than any beaches in an industrialized country in the world, though.

Afterwards, we ate lunch, and all of us headed home. I got home by 7:30-ish pm, and was happy to settle down and just play video games for a while.

Combo Finisher - Korea, Year One End

Saying goodbye to the munchkins was a heartrending process. The kids themselves made the work very difficult for someone without experience, but also make it so worth it. Even though the fifth and sixth graders were fairly jaded because they knew two other English teachers before myself, they still expressed sadness at my leaving.

For me, it was the beginning of the end when I translated all those kiddie speeches from Korean - with a lot of help from Google Translate - where I gained a better understanding of what each kid from grades third to sixth cared about from their essays. While coteacher assigned different topics for each grade, every speech was still unique and there was even one about how being wheelchair bound inspires him to become a social worker to help other people like himself. However, my coteacher didn't announce that I was leaving until exactly one week before I had to leave - Thursday.

Since he's probably going to have to take over teaching English for the half a year that Daenam Elementary School will not have a native English teacher, he told me to sit out the Thursdays, whereas before I would lesson plan by either expanding on a topic from the book or feeding the students vocabulary based on my interests. It doesn't make much of a difference time-wise, but it felt like I was less of a teacher. When I'm alone with the kids Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays were taken up by reading story books that I found , including Go, Dog, Go! for the younger kids and Peter Pan (the skeletally diluted version that comes with both a cd and Korean text in the back from EMart) for the older ones. Afterschool was games - who doesn't love games? Especially when I reward the winners with candy or stickers.

After the school day was over though, I cleaned and packed. Cleaning out my dormitory was a conscious process of deciding what's important, so the least important but worth keeping things were packed first. I had four luggages and my backpack and a handful of other bags plus the cat and his things. I did not travel lightly. Every other weekend, I would drag one of these luggages over to a friend's apartment who lives closer to Cheongju. It was the only way that I was able to take everything I wanted on moving day and not fill my coteacher's caravan to the brim. Those decisions weren't the hardest part. The hardest part was scrubbing out all the patches of cat hair mixed with my own hair that were ejected from under the washing machine and had accumulated on the bathroom floor. Grossed out yet?

Between cleaning my dormitory and the English classroom, my students gave me gifts. There were some handwritten letters that I enjoyed, expressing their heartfelt goodbyes. I received a plastic bouquet, a fan, a highlighter, a plastic rose, a mirror, some soap, and a few other things I hadn't had time to open yet. My teachers insisted on a goodbye dinner, though it was the most awkward affair ever, because I can't drink well and had no idea what to say when I'm supposed to make my rounds and toast people. So my coteacher urged me on and I had to stand up and give short speeches. They gave me a bag of Skinfood products. I felt special and popular, all the while knowing that they're just doing this out of courtesy and tradition. That was on Friday.

I even had a final disagreement with my coteacher. He and the administrator were checking my dormitory before the staff goodbye dinner. I had cleaned everything, but because I was still packing, there was clutter in places and my coteacher took one look and said, "No clean?" This was because when Koreans say clean, they mean organized and dust free. I was disappointed that he didn't even look at the areas I did clean, considering I worked so hard. It was part of the reason the staff dinner was so awkward - I wasn't in the mood for it, because I was irritated at him. Skip past Saturday and Sunday where I'm hanging out with English speaking friends - though there was a mildly interesting Korean American Friendship Festival on Sunday in Songtan.

On Monday, I had less clutter, but there were still a few bags on the small kitchen table, and some clothes strewn about the sofa because I was either still using them or planning to use them. Coteacher and administrator checked all the items off the list that they had to make sure everything is still there, but my coteacher still said, "You think this is clean?" gesturing at the kitchen table and the couch. Even the administrator paused and said, "Ooh... Smile again."

Coteacher waited til he was outside then went on to try to say that he wanted me to clear things so that it was like when I arrived, and I explained that everything still out are objects that I'm keeping. I have no sense of timing, because I asked that moment whether I'd still be in a car on my way to Cheongju or a bus since my recruiter had new information on where he wanted to meet. He said if I didn't clean the dormitory AND the English classroom to his satisfaction within the next few hours, then he's no longer driving me - good luck , I'm taking the bus and going alone, which would add roughly three or four hours to my commute.

I listen to him because I was going to do it all anyway, but he was just impatient and wanted it done by a very specific moment on Monday. Still, it didn't feel good, and I walked past them without saying much on my way to the English classroom to clean. It was much easier to deal with than the dormitory - I just put all the waste paper in the can, wiped down the desk and all the tables, swept the floor, then proceeded the mop it with all purpose cleaner. He wanted it to be like before I arrived, so I moved several pieces of furniture, pulled up the blinds and opened all the curtains. - All while singing to songs my friends suggested and dancing with the mop. The adrenaline made my bad mood go away, though it didn't erase this memory.

Tuesday. I get up early to finish packing all the little odds and ends, clothes, toiletries, and others. It takes me two hours to do that and finish with all the cat objects as well as urge him into the carrier. I visit my librarian friend, who also made me something. I sadly bade my goodbyes - she was the only person I can relate to in some form at that school, though the kids are great and the other teachers were all well meaning. Coteacher led me around to say goodbye to every teacher who was around individually, as well as the principal. So there we have it - no more Daenam, unless I actually take up their offer to visit.

Anticipation, Streamlining All I Have

Breakfast was a slice of bread with water, and that's enough to last me for a few hours. This means that I'm okay with a mostly Spartan lifestyle - cue: heavy guitar riffs, voice from the movie 300, "This is Sparta!!!" while I kick someone I dislike down into a metaphorical 6-foot hole. Don't worry people, lunch and dinner are always far more substantial (to back up the assertion that I do eat from the last post). Anyway, the process of moving to another city and another apartment is far under way.

Let's recalibrate. A few weeks ago, my school had told me that it's impossible for my contract to be renewed. I found another job at a private academy, since the timing of my contract's ending closed off most public school positions for me, and what scraps are left mean that I would be in a similar situation to where I am now: out in the suburbs - read, middle of nowhere - and having to travel fairly far to shop for food or see friends. So despite the bad reputation private academies have in terms of employing foreigners in this country, I really had no choice but to give it a shot. I spoke to a few recruiters, and these were my terms.

I wanted to be nearer to a city, while retaining the rest of the benefits I had before. They include health insurance, vacation time, weekends off, and having a (preferably free) apartment that's near both public transportation and the school. I also decided to move further south in favor of a less harsh winter, some people I already know there, and having it easier as a tourist to travel in any direction within the country. These are somewhat strict requirements, especially for someone without a teaching certificate with only one year of experience who was very much short on time (since I didn't want to spend the extra money to go home before coming back again to work). I was found by John Yoon of JICC Recruiting, and he sold me to the Cheongju branch of TOPIA. (I encourage everyone to blog about their recruiters - this way, we find out which ones are the liars who exaggerate to get you to take the job so they get paid.)

While I didn't get away with having nearly as much vacation time and there's more work, the pay is higher and I would not have to lesson plan. There will be a lot of student work to grade and forums to respond to online, and maybe I would have to bow to some extra parental demands. As with most academies, hours are afternoons through evenings. I will be working with more people because it is a large franchise and it can even afford having a handful of foreigners in one institution. However, the classes may remain small.

Even after I signed the contract, I continued to do my research - if this was a blacklisted private academy, for example, I wouldn't show up regardless of what paper I put my name on. When I called them and asked to speak to an English teacher, they gave me a Korean American or gyobo to speak to - whose word I still took for granted, despite the grain of salt that she would not have the guts to say she hated the place even if she did feel that way. But when she said, "Oh, you'll love it here!" there was enough enthusiasm that I think she would be telling the truth. I also reasoned that no matter how bad it is, it can't be as bad as my 11 months at Target, where my hours shifted on a weekly basis and I had no health insurance.

So John Yoon will pick me up from Cheongju train station on September 27th at 4pm. I still haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to meet him with two big luggages and a cat kennel, when I will have no cell phone and only two arms since I will be traveling alone. Later today or Saturday, I will go to Ansan Station to find a pay phone, so that I can at least call the local taxi van service to take me and my luggage + cat from my apartment near the mud flats to Oido Station, on Line 4. It might be a good idea to somehow get one more luggage to that area this weekend, so that when I meet with John Yoon I'll only have one big luggage and my cat.

In terms of packing, I've put away all my sweaters and jackets, and most of the small things are in this blue luggage next to me, and I know how I'm going to organize my shoes, my cat things, wires and small electronics. I also have another bag of toiletries, and a backpack of the stuff I'll need to stay comfortable for the next handful of days when everything else is packed away. I also need to go to the bank today to cash in all my coins so that I can travel roughly 3 kgs less.

Cleaning wise, I've cleaned the washing machine and porch area, most of the bathroom, and cleared out most of the drawers of everything that I'm keeping. I need to finish up the bathroom, work on the living/bedroom floor, the kitchen floor, sink and gas range, and perhaps the inside of the fridge. Now my goals for the next few hours are set.

I'm finished mentally recalibrating and organizing. And now, cue Juno's voice, "Thundercats are Goooo!!!"

Korean Driving

Everyone has a GPS - who needs a map? For a country that's about the size of Pennsylvania, it's interesting that they don't bother to navigate. Out in the rural areas where I am situated, there are also no sidewalks, which can be a bit hazardous in the dark or the winter, but I am careful.

Everyone seems to own something between a sedan to a caravan; if it's a mobile business, then they might have a van for their wares, but overall, people here are not a fan of huge vehicles. Maybe this is because that might be more dangerous, considering that most Koreans switch lanes very quickly and use their left or right signals only for a second or two. There are very few red cars, or any cars with bright colors. I think the most well known company is Daewoo.

The bigger the city, the wider the roads, but that applies anywhere. Only a few crosswalks have traffic lights with buttons for pedestrians to push. Their crosswalks are generally kept new and well colored. During the traffic jams, the block can last for a long time, but it's still generally faster paced than the awkwardness on a Massachusetts highway. When it comes to accidents, even a scratch is considered an accident here, so then both parties put on their warning lights right in the middle of the road and exchange insurance information. They don't bother to pull over to the side.

As far as I can see, all the Korean vehicles are stick shift. They also have an extra knob on their steering wheels so that they can make turns more accurately and swiftly, which is necessary for avoiding other cars, navigating tight streets in the rural areas and such. Some Koreans don't wear seatbelts - they don't consider it a necessity.

This is my first winter here, and they don't have snow salt. They use shovels, there are no snow plows, and they put sand on top of the snow which barely helps. Sometimes they also use water to melt the snow, which just turns it into ice, but I guess makes the area more flat.

It's not clear to me whether they make room for police cars and ambulances when these emergency vehicles have to pass. The emergency cars have sirens on them, but... While there are some drivers in the US who would let the other guy pass out of niceness or for the heck of it, that rarely or never happens here. There's also a lot less room between cars on a busy street. And if you're taking public transportation, the buses generally don't wait for people - neither does the subway.