First Day Jitters

This past week marked my second first week here in Korea. As a little reminder, I lost my job at the center and was placed at two elementary schools here in Busan. This meant that I would be the new foreigner once again. No matter, I was excited to get back into a normal school setting and actually engage with students on a normal basis.

I have two schools: my main school and my travel school. I am only at my travel school two days a week, hence why it is called a travel school. I teach grades 3-6 at my travel school with a total of 9 classes between the two days. I teach grades 3-5 at my main school with a total of 11 classes in the three days that I am there. I know it might seem like a lot of teaching (and it is!), but I teach the same 5th grade lesson 5 times a day or the same 4th grade lesson 4 times a day, so it is not too overwhelming. Now enough of the boring logistical details.

My main school

My travel school

My week started on a Monday (so weird since I was used to having Mondays off) and a somewhat quick bus ride. Technically, I had to be at work at 8:40 in the morning. I had checked and re-checked the bus schedule to ensure my timing would be right. 8:25 was cutting it too close to 8:40, which meant that I ended up getting to work about about 8:05 (can you tell I'm my mother's daughter?). I figured being 35 minutes early was much better compared to a measly 15 minutes. I had absolutely no classes that day since it was the first day of school, so I sat at my desk and lesson planned (with a few phone breaks here and there) for about 9 hours. I love my life (note the slight sarcasm). The one super positive of the day, besides having a little breather before full scale teaching, was that I got to experience school lunch. The lunch was delicious, especially since I did not have to make it myself. After an incredibly long day, I headed up an incredibly steep hill to wait 15 minutes for the bus that would take me home.

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty similar to one another. I was at my main school, which is located right next to my travel school. Commuting is quite similar each day. I had five 5th grade classes on Tuesday, and I taught from 9am until 1:40pm. Each time I would enter the classroom, the students would give me a round of applause. So cute! I would tell the students a little about myself, such as my favorite foods, where I grew up, places I have traveled, and then gave them the opportunity to ask questions. I got a lot of the basic "what's your favorite sport?" (American football), "what's your favorite place you've traveled?"(Greece), "do you speak Korean?" (only a little). The students were incredibly sweet and some were surprisingly proficient in English. I then had them tell me their names and one thing they liked to do for fun. Many of the boys talked about how much they enjoy playing soccer (looks like I'll have to brush up on my soccer stats). We ended the class with a fun game of Would You Rather. I had them move to different sides of the room based on what choice they chose. The boys were quite rambunctious throughout the game, and I enjoyed seeing how much they struggled to choose between choices at times (kimbap vs. tteokbokki was a tough one). My four classes of 4th grade on Wednesday went much the same except I had a different co-teacher.

Thursday I was back at my travel school. Again, I had no classes, so more prep time for me.

I was stared at numerous times by students who would pass by my classroom and look through the glass door. I felt as though I were in a zoo.

Friday marked the end of my long week. I had two classes of 3rd graders, and I think they might just be my favorite. All the little boys were bashful when I would look at them or talk to them, and the girls would smile shyly. The majority of them knew next to no English since 3rd grade is the first year students take an English course in school. Some students attend hagwons, which are private, after school programs. I breezed through my introduction slideshow and asked if they had any questions for me. I had the basic questions as usual, and then it started to get philosophical. I was asked my lucky number (16), the day I feel the luckiest or strongest (my birthday because I really just could not think of anything else), and lastly, the day I feel the weakest (Mondays, need I say more). All the questions were asked in Korean, but I was amazed by what they wanted to know about me in the first place. After my two classes, I waited in my office for another 6 hours before I could go home.

Meals from the past week

Waiting for me when I made it home was a nice little care package from home. As soon as I opened the box, I could see the bright colors of Girl Scout cookie boxes. I also received a bag of Trader Joe's peanut butter pretzels and everything bagel crackers. The real showstopper was the dozen or so gravy packets courtesy of my dad. I'm talking chicken, pork, and brown gravy. It truly made my day (honestly my whole year) to be sent that little box.

Taste of heaven

Needing to decompress from the somewhat stressful week, Tom and I met up with Nicole, a former co-worker, in Haeundae. We saw her new apartment since she had to move, and I was quite jealous. She has a separate kitchen area along with amazing floor to ceiling windows. After hanging around her apartment for about an hour, we decided to grab lunch at a local pizza restaurant. The food was honestly pretty decent, and we made plans to visit an escape room once our meal was finished.

The escape room was in both English and Korean, which made it easier on ourselves when it came time to solve the puzzles. Par for the course, there was a hidden room whose door opened in a creepy way. We made Tom investigate it first since he's a guy and therefore should be the one attacked by a monster. At one point, Tom and I were trapped in a cage together which meant Nicole would have to solve the puzzle in the other room that was pitch black. She had her reservations, but we also needed to get out of the cage so she took one for the team. Overall, we received a few hints here and there, and we were able to escape the room with an extra 10 minutes to spare. Not too shabby if I say so myself (which I do).

We then traveled to an arcade in Seomyeon (the one I visited way back in October) where Nicole and I rode the Disco Pang Pang. For those of you that do not know what that is, it is essentially a Gravitron (like from a fair and you spin really fast while standing up) except you are sitting on a seat (not buckled, might I add) and the DJ ride controller stops the ride to talk to you. Nicole and I were immediately singled out since we were foreigners. We got the basic questions of where we from and why we were in Korea. The ride would stop every so often so the DJ could mess with more people. He would bounce the machine and make it spin really fast all so we would fall out of our seats. I was death gripping the railing and found myself sliding close to the edge of my seat on more than one occasion. After too long, the ride finally stopped and I could find my feet on even ground. Waiting for me was Tom holding a stuffed panda he won for me in a claw machine game. He truly is the best! I then played a dart where I had to pop balloons in order to win a prize. I popped 4 balloons and won myself a cute panda keychain. I played a zombie shooter game with Nicole and went out far too early (my gun was broken, I swear!). Our little trio also played a fun game of darts (regular this time around), and I managed to come in second place with a score of 347. Before we left, Nicole and I hit the Disco Pang Pang one last time.

Sensing our evening was coming to an end, we stopped at a Korean BBQ restaurant for dinner. I had absolutely delicious pork skirt and belly, as well as rice and steamed eggs. It has been a while since I've had K-BBQ and it was a nice little indulgence.