Just another day in paradise!

Longer blog post coming soon, but just wanted to let everyone know I made it safely to Busan and am getting settled into my apartment nicely. My friends and I are all over the city, but I feel especially lucky because I am only 3 blocks from one of the best beaches in the area - Gwangalli beach. I have never lived near the water and am SO excited I got this placement! My apartment is probably less than 500 square feet, but it's free so I am not complaining. I also have a great rooftop with amazing views of the ocean that we can hang out on while it is warm. I also wanted to give you all my address now that I have it.

For letters/ regular mail:
Amy Woolridge
Room 401 Amiga Beach
Gwangan 2 Dong, Suyeong-gu,  Busan
189 Beon Ji  1 Ho
613-805
South Korea

Packages:
Amy Woolridge
Yong San Elementary School
Busan-Si, Nam-gu
So-Mang 2 Gil 62
Yong-Ho 3 Dong, 382-1
South Korea

3 days until Busan!

When I woke up this morning I realized I was so preoccupied with my crazy afternoon that I completely forgot to write about all the POSITIVE things that happened on Sunday. We took a break from classes to go on a field trip to Jeonju Hanok Village and to Keumsan Temple. The village was really nice. We went on a walking tour and then had some time to make a traditional Korean fan. The temple was also nice, but a little underwhelming compared to some that I saw in Japan. At lunch we had a traditional meal of bimbibap. It came in this huge cast iron vat ready to feed over 700 people!

As class representatives, Billy and I were able to be one of the first to stir the bimbibap for the group.

Buddhas inside the temple

After we got back to campus we decided to go grab dinner down the street. We ended the evening with some beers and virtual golf! For about 9 dollars you get a set of clubs, tons of balls, and a round of nine holes. There is a laser censor that measures how far the ball goes after you hit it into the screen. I was terrible (and forced to play right handed!) but it was fun anyway.   

This is my friend Christine teeing off. She is also left-handed and did as terrible as me! :)

Some other pictures over the past few days....

Traditional Korean drumming at Opening Ceremonies

Outside of a Catholic Church in the village. While most of Korea is fairly secular, Christianity has been on the rise since the Korean War.

 Amy, myself and Christine on the walking tour.

Ah yes. My dear roommate Amy. She is Canadian, her favorite animal is a giraffe, and has a tendency to faint when having her blood drawn. I adore her. 

As some of you know I've had a terrible cough the past week or so. I've been going to the nurse for daily doses of medicine but it still hasn't gone away. The good news is I will be fully insured starting next Monday so I can go to the doctor in Busan if need be. 

Finally, I will leave you with a quote I came across in one of the orientation books that I found particularly poignant.

"One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child." - Carl Jung

Oh Oh She Is Tall. . .

Have you ever heard the song Love Potion No. 9? Well, the tune of that has been matched to a song to teach children English, and none of our lives will ever be the same. We watched a claymation video that was supposed to teach children about the concept of being tall, and it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen! Mostly because it was extremely awkward and had no point. It started out with a boy and a man doing pull-ups in a park. Then they start a dialogue about a blonde woman they see stretching nearby. "Who is that woman?" "That is my teacher!" "Oh, she is tall" "Yes, she is tall. . . and beautiful!" The two then walk over and have an awkward conversation with the tall blonde teacher, and then the song breaks out. We heard this song on Saturday I think, but ever since then you will hear people constantly hear people singing snipits of this song - most notably "Oh Oh she is tall" to the tune of Love Potion No. 9. After writing this entire paragraph I am having a feeling this will forever only be funny to EPIK teachers, but I wanted to share it anyway! It also goes to show that the materials we are given are going to be mediocre sometimes, and we will need to take the concept and try to modify the lesson to suit our student's needs. 

I need to work on my chopstick skills. It's just downright embarrassing at this point. The only thing I have mastered picking up is rice, since I eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We have the option at all meals to use chopsticks. I really need to put down the fork and pick up the chopsticks from now on. One Korean food I just can't get into is kimchi. Kimchi is the most well/eaten known side dish in Korea. Read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimchi They even say "kimchi" instead of "cheese" for pictures! Speaking of cheese, it is no where to be found. I hear it is hard to come by here, but I am hoping I will find some when I get to Busan. I can't live without it! :)

A cultural note. When you hand something to someone or are receiving something, you always use two hands. I keep forgetting this and always feel bad when I forget, which is pretty often. I want to do my best to immerse myself in this culture and not just be tourist who doesn't know any better. 

Today's classes were pretty monotonous, until the 3rd one rolled around. I was gone at the start of class because I had to go to the nurse to get cough medicine. When I came back, the class had divided up into 5 groups of about 15. I quickly joined a group and found out that we supposed to make up a skit on anything we wanted. We did a grocery store scene, another group did a scene at the airport, and so on. When it was all over, the guest lecturer said we were short on time and rushed through the rest of his slides. He then asked us to divide into our groups and do another skit. I looked at the clock and realized we only had 20 minutes left, and he hadn't given us any feedback about our last skits. I raised me hand and said, "Maybe only a couple of groups could do the skit and then you could give us some constructive criticism about how to improve our skits." He looked at me long and hard and said, "It's not my job to give feedback, it's your students. It doesn't matter if you did a good job or not, you just want English coming out of your student's mouths." I was unsure how to respond because I thought I might have missed something at the beginning of class and my comments were unfounded. I looked around the room for reassurance and found that others agreed with me, but unfortunately my comment turned into a launching pad for outright verbal attacks. One girl said, "So you obviously aren't an expert in this area, so what are you good at?" Now, I am sure many people were thinking this, but it was just rude and inappropriate to call this guy out like that. Like I mentioned before, most people here have not taught before, so I thought it would have been useful to get feedback. I also found it ridiculous that we were doing a skit with 15 other teachers. It is just going to be us and our co-teacher! When there was a lull in the attacks and awkward conversation, I  asked if anyone had ever seen or done a core dialogue. Since the resounding answer was no, I jumped up and made up an impromptu dialogue to show how to teach it when it is only you. Lana and Sarah (my TEFL trainers) would have been so proud! The lecturer's face was priceless when I was finished. He looked at me like I was the dumbest person he had ever seen, and all he said was, "Uhhh Okay". I unfortunately disliked him even more when he said told us the best way to quiet a class down was to get in their faces and yell "SHUT UP!" He also showed us how he liked to just get in their face and just stare. While intimidation might work for him, it will never be incorporated into my classroom. 

Tomorrow we have four more lectures and then finally on to lessons and lesson planning on Wednesday. Photos to come in next post!

Swine flu anyone?

I have been in Korea for about 3 days now and have already had my temperature taken 4 times. It's pretty remarkable how serious they are taking swine flu here. I honestly thought it was a passing fad, but that is not the case here at all. They even make us take our own temperature at the same time every day and if it's above 37.8 degrees celsius we are supposed to report the nurse ASAP. It's a little excessive in my opinion. Anyway, I guess I should back up and and start from the beginning some things that have happened so far. . . 

Well, I started things off with a bang almost missing my flight in San Francisco. While I had a good 3 hour layover, I decided to eat, talk on the phone, and play on my computer instead of go find my gate. With about 45 minutes before take-off I wandered over to the international terminal thinking I had plenty of time. There was a list of airlines that directed you left or right. I didn't see Asiana, but since I knew they were somehow related to United so I went right. I was wrong. Very wrong. I should have noticed to the left it said "all other airlines". Oh right. When I finally got back to the left side I had about 25 minutes. When I realized I had to go through security again I panicked. I kept checking my phone, and by the time I made it through I had a little over 10 minutes left. I have never run so fast to a gate in my life! I was "that guy" and was one of the last ones to board the plane at the finally boarding call. The worst part was that they had given my seat so I had to sit in the middle row, middle aisle. Not the way I wanted to start the trip, but things have only been good since.

I got into Seoul Wednesday evening, and after grabbing my luggage I headed out to find the EPIK shuttle. It turns out there was about 75 other EPIK teachers on my flight so it wasn't hard to find the shuttle line. The shuttle to Jeonju University was about 4 hours, not exactly what I was looking forward to after nearly 24 hours of travel. For some reason I was under the wrong impression that it was closer to Seoul. On the bus I met another girl named Amy, and we have become fast friends. When we found out we could choose our roommates it was an easy decision. The rooms here are very nice - way nicer than CU's. There are two double beds, two desks, tons of storage space, an in-room shower, and most wonderful of all, air conditioning!

After a pretty restless night of sleep, we started Thursday with a campus tour. Luckily that was the only morning activity, because I was eager to go back to my room and sleep more! Thursday afternoon we had opening ceremonies, and then a welcome banquet dinner. I am very impressed with the overall organization of all the events, classes, meals, etc. There are a little over 650 teachers here and only about 20 staff members. 

We had our "medical check" on Friday. I'm not sure why I feel compelled to put that in quotes, but it was way more than I could have anticipated. It started out with taking our temperature, obviously. We then went down the line to get our height measured, weighed, sight, colorblindness, and hearing test, and blood pressure. Then it got interesting. We had to get our blood drawn, then chug grape juice so we could give a urine sample. (We weren't allowed to eat our drink after midnight.) They gave us a dixie and cup and told us to fill a 1/3 of the way. I encountered my first Korean style toilet, ya know, a hole in the ground. So, not only did I have to pee in an unsanitary dixie cup, I had to awkwardly squat. Oh, and did I mention there was no toilet paper? All I could  do was laugh because otherwise I was going to cry. After that pleasant experience was over I had to go to the x-rayed. Still not a 100% sure what that was for. I did find out they were testing mainly for HIV in the blood test. How terrible would that be? "Dad! I lost my job! And I have AIDS!!" For some reason we all found discussing this fake conversation terribly humorous. 

Today only consisted of lectures preparing us for class.  I learned a few new things, but a lot of it was review from what I learned during my TEFL course. Apparently many of the EPIK teachers don't have TEFL or TESOL certificates, which I found very surprising. I would be so scared going into a classroom right now with absolutely zero teaching experience!

We are off to karaoke now, but I will add more details later about general observations later. Pictures soon to come as well!!