Tuesday-Thursday August 24-26
So I’ve been sick for the past several days off and on. I’m super bummed. It started Tuesday night and I can’t seem to get rid of it. Tuesday night a couple of the EPIK staff took me to the emergency room to try and lower my 103-degree fever. I ended up staying there until 6:00AM. I made it back only to sleep for several hours and to wake up to the same fever. I had to miss my presentation (this presentation was pretty important…like everything we learned about lesson planning and so forth was all preparation for this presentation) so that the nurse could take me to a doctor’s office to get a shot and some more medication. They gave me a shot in my bum and then gave me some pills for the next three days. I made it back to the EPIK site Wednesday, in time to meet our POE’s of whom told us where we were going to be located and which school we were going to be teaching. I found out that I was going to be teaching at Haknam Elementary in Seobu Disctric Daegu. It is a newer part of Daegu that was recently built. I was able to sit through the farewell dinner that night and then made it back to my room to sleep while many other went out for the last night.
The next morning was pretty smooth. We all had to load our luggage onto these UHaul looking trucks according to which city we were going to. The bus ride took about 2.5-3 hours and we arrived at Daegu University. I was super nervous because this is where we were going to meet our co-teachers. This co-teacher was pretty much going to be our go-to person and we were going to be teaching with them in the classroom. It’s very important to establish a good relationship with this person right off the bat. Seobu district was called second and after a bit of confusion was sorted out we were all led to a room that was full of Korean teachers holding up signs with our names on them. I spotted a Korean man holding a sign with my name at the very front of this auditorium. (ok, Deep Breaths, remember to smile, have a friendly face, make a good impression.) I started walking towards the man but he started walking the opposite direction parallel to the stage at the front. I realized that there were TWO people he was there for. Huh? Only one foreign teacher was supposed to be assigned to each school. Sure enough, both me and Michael would be teaching at the same school. Our co-teacher’s name is Simon and we also met a woman who happened to be an administrator for our school. I didn’t know Michael very well while we were at EPIK because he was in a different class so I never really was near him. He seems very nice and I’m grateful that I will have someone who is going through the same thing I am in the same school.
In our lectures, the professors stressed that Koreans feel nervous if you don’t talk or make conversation because they think you are unhappy. So, me and Michael talked it up in the car with our co-teacher and the woman administrator. Our co-teacher’s name is Simon, he’s 40 years old and has 2 little boys; one is 8 years old and the other is 6 years old. Simon has been teaching for 10 years and before that he worked as a medic for the military after only 6 weeks of training. He is very nice and very funny. He was listening to Michael Jackson and Eric Clapton in his car (awesome). We had to drop off the administrator at the school…wow, what a big school! Apparently it’s the largest elementary school in Daegu. 2,000 kids! Let me repeat that….TWO THOUSAND KIDS! In an elementary school! There are 70 teachers and 30 administrators…100 staff members. Goodness gracious! It looks like a small college! No joke! Oh man, the jitters started. But it was only Thursday so we had to do some other things and Friday we would actually go inside.
Our co-teacher took us to a Wal-mart type store in order for us to buy some essentials to get us through until our first paycheck. We were each given 300,000 won which works out to be a little under $300. Pretty good deal. We had to buy things like a clothes rack (no dryers for clothes, only washing machines), bath towel, bottled water, dish soap, laundry detergent, fabric softener, hangers, trash bags (they separate their trash-there are like six different categories…haven’t figured all of them out yet), tooth paste, paper towels, sponges for dishes, sandwich meet, bread, mayo, fork, spoon, chopsticks, clock, and batteries. After this 2 hour shopping spree, me, Michael, and Simon were very tired but we needed to eat so Simon took us to a small restaurant to have some spicy noodles. This restaurant was the real deal…take off your shoes after you walk in and sit on the floor with a pillow under your bum. Welcome to Korea. We had some nice conversation with Simon. Turns out he really likes Soju J and so does his wife. He was making jokes about it the whole time; it was very funny. Michael and I decided to pay for Simon’s meal since he had done so much for us; Simon did not put up a fight lol.
After dinner Simon walked us around a little while to see the night life of where we were. It looked like a Koreanized New York. Very bright, a lot of lights, many vendors on the side of the street, little arcade games (basketball, the thing where you bop the heads) and such. There were a lot of karaoke bars and we passed a motel. Michael told Simon that he’d heard about the motels in Korea and Simon went on to explain that these type of motels were for “one night” lol. Of course. Lol. Simon drove us back home, my apartment was first. He walked me all the way up to make sure I could get into my apartment ok and we said goodnight; I was sure to thank him for everything. I was extremely tired so I didn’t bother to unpack and went to sleep. I had a lot of trouble sleeping but I got through it.
My room is very cozy and nice, a lot more than I expected. Everything I need is here; I may need a couple of end tables for my bed but other than that I am very happy with my place. I have everything unpacked so it's feeling more and more like mine. I may also need to buy some decorations to make it more like my personality...
Sure you stopped to play the bop the heads game.
ReplyDeleteNance, I think you and Mom should sleep on that tiny bed on opposite ends - her head to your feet and her feet to your head.