longest. day. ever.

Just finished my first day...and it's 1am.  As I mentioned before, I woke up more or less around 4:30am, so this has been a reeeeeally long day.  First, the other newbie (Jake), a girl renewing her contract (Nancy) and I were taken to the hospital to go through our health screening that's part of the visa requirement.  Some of it made sense--like the blood and urine tests, presumably for drugs.  But many employers require that, so no big deal.  But they also tested our vision and hearing!  I'm not sure what that has to do with the ability to teach English--unless you're completely deaf--but whatev.  And they even measured our chests!  Nancy and I were like "....what the poo?!"  The nurse lady just whipped out a tape measure, asked us to raise our arms, and went to town with our lovely lady lumps.  It was...curious.

Then, I went to the school for the first time.  It was surprisingly small!  But probably part of that is due to the compactness of everything in Asia.  The school is on the 7th floor of a building that also has a bank, a grocery store, a few little restaurants, and some kind of Christian organization (or maybe a church).  The latter tenant actually makes my life a lot easier, because there's a giant neon cross on the side of the building--which, of course, makes it easier to find.  Thanks, giant cross!

My first impression of the school is that it was LOUD.  There was a constant din of kids hollering in unison and teachers bellowing over them.  Apparently, teaching at my school involves a whoooole lot of shouting!  The curriculum heavily emphasizes repetition, so the kids spend a lot of the classtime yelling various sentences in unison.  It seems like the kids stay interested when they bellow the answers, so it's fine....it's just gonna take some getting used to.

I spent the school day observing classes (both in person and on video), learning about my schedule and the curriculum, and meeting people.  And good LORD are there a lot of people to meet!  I'm usually pretty good with names, so I think I remember most of them, but I'll admit that it's hardest to remember the Korean teachers' names.  They use English names, but...well...they look alike to me.  Although to be fair (to....whom?  myself?), I interacted a lot more with the Western teachers than with the Korean ones--and as for the Koreans I DID talk to at length, I remember their names.  The day was kind of overwhelming, especially because they were trying to cram an entire orientation into one day, but at least I feel more capable now than I did about halfway through it.  For a while there, I was having a hard time understanding and retaining things--and I have to teach on Monday, so it was a bit nervewracking!  I feel better about it now, though.

Basically: this coming week starts the Korean public schools' summer break.  Hagwans (which, including my school, are private supplementary English schools that students attend after their normal school each day) go into overdrive during the public schools' breaks.  Instead of just teaching classes in the afternoons, when school gets out, my school (and all the hagwans) hold extra morning classes as a kind of English-learning day camp.  Those classes, called "intensives" are above and beyond the teachers' normal workloads.  Lucky me gets to start teaching at the beginning of intensives....SCORE.  At least I got what sound like good classes, though.  And I've got veteran teachers who'll be helping me out the first week.

During my second week here, the whole school shuts down, and all the teachers get our first of two weeks' vacation for the year.  (The other begins around Christmas.)  I just found that out yesterday, and I'm pretty bummed about it, to be honest.  Since I only get two weeks off a year (plus the occasional national holiday), I really wanted to use that time to travel someplace cool, like Laos or Japan or Thailand.  But apparently it'd be expensive to buy a plane ticket only a week ahead of time; and plus, I haven't earned money all summer, so I'd be going further into debt before my first paycheck.  So it looks like I'll be spending my week in Seoul, with a possible sidetrip within Korea.  It's not ideal, but I'm hoping I can get in some good sightseeing within Korea; at least there's plenty to see here.

At the end of the workday, I hit a wall.  The jetlag hadn't gotten to me all day, and suddenly I was absolutely drained.  I drank four cups of coffee, but I still had no energy through dinner.  Then, a bunch of the teachers came and joined Jake and I (who had gone downstairs for Korea's version of chicken wings) and started drinking.  I got a bit of a second wind, but it was still really rough to be out among people.  And inevitably, as often happens when co-workers socialize outside of work, there was ample griping.  It wasn't any more negative than most conversations of its kind, but I was in no mood to sit through it.....but unfortunately, I had no idea how to get home.  I hadn't gone directly from my (temporary) apartment to school yet, so I stuck around until about 12:45, when Sam (my future roommate) offered to take me home.  (To everyone's credit: I'm sure someone would have walked me home if I'd asked, but I never asked.)

So, all in all.....it was a ridiculously long day.  And it was overwhelming--in chaos, new people, poking and prodding, noise, jetlag, and good ol' fashioned fatigue.  (Oh--and the first time I ate in Korea wasn't until about 2pm today.  Perfect!)  But at least I'm up late now, so I hope to be on Korean time tomorrow.  I've got a couple hours of training starting at noon, and afterward I'm going to strike out into the city, start getting oriented, and run a couple errands.  I'm going to try to get a cell phone and a new outlet adapter (because NEITHER OF MINE FIT)....and some other stuff that I'm forgetting right now because my brain is friiiied.  I wish some of my lovely stateside friends and family were here to give me a hug!  I know I'll feel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed soon, but for now....well, at least my first day is over.