It is Saturday morning, almost eleven o’clock. I should be sleeping off a night of raucous partying or relaxing in my room or even exploring the city. But I’m not. Instead, I am at school, having just taught two lessons and preparing myself for a third.
Whenever I tell people that I have to teach on Saturdays, they sound outraged on my behalf, and I am sure that when I have settled into teaching and my weeks start getting busy, this outrage will come to me too. But for the moment, I am thrilled to be here. This is mostly because the two lessons that I just taught were my first lessons.
All through this week, I would turn up at work, a bundle of nerves, ready to face the kids that I believed would be awaiting my instructions. But each day, there would be a new excuse.
“It is their first day, there are no real lessons.”
“They are taking an entrance exam, there are no real lessons.”
“We are only introducing them to their subjects, not really teaching.”
And so, although it irked me that I had to wake up on a Saturday morning, ruining any plans that I might have had for the weekend, I was excited at the same time. Saturday, I had been promised, I would start teaching.
On Friday, I was inundated with invites to places all around the country. First my roommate from orientation, Grace, invited me to Seoul for a weekend of shopping with her friend Hope, offering me a bed at her aunt’s house. Then I was invited to a Friday night dinner in Eumseong, on the other side of my province, and was offered a place to sleep there as well. Both of these I had to politely decline (the second one having to decline numerous times as all the different people who were going invited me) as I had to teach on Saturday morning. Then Jodie, another girl from orientation, asked if I wanted to come out with her on Friday night and go to the foreigner bar in Cheongju. This, I decided, I could do. I wouldn’t have to stay very late, could leave in time to get home at midnight and get enough sleep so that I could wake up bright and sunny in the morning. And so I accepted her offer. We made plans to meet at Chungbuk University, and at 20:30 I caught my first taxi in Korea, since I have not yet figured out how to use the bus system. Twenty minutes later, I was standing outside the main entrance to Chungbuk University in the pouring rain, waiting for Jodie to pitch up. I walked up and down the road outside the main gate, hoping that maybe she was just waiting somewhere and I couldn’t see her. But alas, after twenty minutes of waiting, I was cold and wet and decided that it was time to go home. I made one last attempt when the taxi arrived, telling him the name of the bar where Jodie and I were going to go, but Pearl Jam meant nothing to the driver, and so I settled for getting him to take me home. When I got back to my house, I was damp and annoyed at having wasted an hour of my time and almost R100 on taxi-fare. I got to my computer and typed out a message to Jodie asking her what had happened, trying to hold back my fury and consider that something might have happened to her. Seconds later, I received a message from her, explaining that she had gone to the wrong university without realizing it, and that when she had realized she had taken a taxi to Chungbuk University, only to find that I had already left. She had run to the nearest internet café, and was sending me the message from there. She apologized profusely, and begged me get another taxi and meet her at the pub itself, giving me it’s address and promising that she would pay for the fare. By this time, it was almost 10pm, and knowing that I wanted to be back home by midnight, and that it would take 40 minutes to get me there and back, I decided that it wasn’t worth the effort. Instead, I turned the TV onto American Idol (the only other shows were movies that had started at 9) and lay in bed, chatting away on the laptop that I have borrowed from the school (I had cable and internet installed in my apartment on Thursday).
This morning I woke up nice and early (7am) and started my daily routine of getting ready (without the cereal, since I am out of milk. Reminder: Go to the shops today!) and then made my way to school in the drizzle that remained after last night’s rain. I arrived and nervously fidgeted in the office until there were only ten minutes left to my first lesson. This was it, no going back now. I made my way upstairs to the hi-tech English classroom and put all the powerpoint presentations that I had prepared for the occasion onto the computer there. Slowly children started to filter into the room, shooting curious glances my way, as though they had never seen a foreigner before which, I realized, was possibly the case (they had seen them on TV, of course, but never a real live one.) Once everyone was inside, I started my lesson – the powerpoint presentation about me as an introduction, the map of the world to show how far I had come and the talk about airports to introduce them to the first exercise in their book, which was conversations that happened at the airport. Before I realized it, I had finished everything that I had planned for the lesson, and was now left floundering, not knowing quite what to do for the fifteen minutes of lesson that remained. And so, I played the game that I had planned for the beginning of the next lesson, and then invited them to ask me any questions that they had about the lesson or about me. Of course, this was a dangerous move, and led to questions about whether I had a boyfriend and whether I was married and other such awkward questions. This went on until the bell blissfully rang, and I was given a ten minute break before the next group arrived. The second lesson went better, as I was better prepared – asked more questions, went slower, explained more, and though there still ended up being a questions section at the end, it was far shorter and was filled with questions like “What is South Africa like?” and “What was your first impression of Korea?”
Now I am preparing for what is referred to as a Club Activity. I am teaching English Conversation lessons with my co-teacher, Cindy, and have half an hour to introduce ourselves and just talk about the kinds of things that we will be having conversations about over the course of the year. Afterwards, a group of the people in Eumsong who invited me over for supper last night are arriving in Cheongju, and I am meeting them at the bus terminal. From there, our exploration of the city of Cheongju will begin. I am excited, and will likely provide an account of my adventures in my next e-mail. For now, I hope you are all doing well.
Love from Korea
Lara
Whenever I tell people that I have to teach on Saturdays, they sound outraged on my behalf, and I am sure that when I have settled into teaching and my weeks start getting busy, this outrage will come to me too. But for the moment, I am thrilled to be here. This is mostly because the two lessons that I just taught were my first lessons.
All through this week, I would turn up at work, a bundle of nerves, ready to face the kids that I believed would be awaiting my instructions. But each day, there would be a new excuse.
“It is their first day, there are no real lessons.”
“They are taking an entrance exam, there are no real lessons.”
“We are only introducing them to their subjects, not really teaching.”
And so, although it irked me that I had to wake up on a Saturday morning, ruining any plans that I might have had for the weekend, I was excited at the same time. Saturday, I had been promised, I would start teaching.
On Friday, I was inundated with invites to places all around the country. First my roommate from orientation, Grace, invited me to Seoul for a weekend of shopping with her friend Hope, offering me a bed at her aunt’s house. Then I was invited to a Friday night dinner in Eumseong, on the other side of my province, and was offered a place to sleep there as well. Both of these I had to politely decline (the second one having to decline numerous times as all the different people who were going invited me) as I had to teach on Saturday morning. Then Jodie, another girl from orientation, asked if I wanted to come out with her on Friday night and go to the foreigner bar in Cheongju. This, I decided, I could do. I wouldn’t have to stay very late, could leave in time to get home at midnight and get enough sleep so that I could wake up bright and sunny in the morning. And so I accepted her offer. We made plans to meet at Chungbuk University, and at 20:30 I caught my first taxi in Korea, since I have not yet figured out how to use the bus system. Twenty minutes later, I was standing outside the main entrance to Chungbuk University in the pouring rain, waiting for Jodie to pitch up. I walked up and down the road outside the main gate, hoping that maybe she was just waiting somewhere and I couldn’t see her. But alas, after twenty minutes of waiting, I was cold and wet and decided that it was time to go home. I made one last attempt when the taxi arrived, telling him the name of the bar where Jodie and I were going to go, but Pearl Jam meant nothing to the driver, and so I settled for getting him to take me home. When I got back to my house, I was damp and annoyed at having wasted an hour of my time and almost R100 on taxi-fare. I got to my computer and typed out a message to Jodie asking her what had happened, trying to hold back my fury and consider that something might have happened to her. Seconds later, I received a message from her, explaining that she had gone to the wrong university without realizing it, and that when she had realized she had taken a taxi to Chungbuk University, only to find that I had already left. She had run to the nearest internet café, and was sending me the message from there. She apologized profusely, and begged me get another taxi and meet her at the pub itself, giving me it’s address and promising that she would pay for the fare. By this time, it was almost 10pm, and knowing that I wanted to be back home by midnight, and that it would take 40 minutes to get me there and back, I decided that it wasn’t worth the effort. Instead, I turned the TV onto American Idol (the only other shows were movies that had started at 9) and lay in bed, chatting away on the laptop that I have borrowed from the school (I had cable and internet installed in my apartment on Thursday).
This morning I woke up nice and early (7am) and started my daily routine of getting ready (without the cereal, since I am out of milk. Reminder: Go to the shops today!) and then made my way to school in the drizzle that remained after last night’s rain. I arrived and nervously fidgeted in the office until there were only ten minutes left to my first lesson. This was it, no going back now. I made my way upstairs to the hi-tech English classroom and put all the powerpoint presentations that I had prepared for the occasion onto the computer there. Slowly children started to filter into the room, shooting curious glances my way, as though they had never seen a foreigner before which, I realized, was possibly the case (they had seen them on TV, of course, but never a real live one.) Once everyone was inside, I started my lesson – the powerpoint presentation about me as an introduction, the map of the world to show how far I had come and the talk about airports to introduce them to the first exercise in their book, which was conversations that happened at the airport. Before I realized it, I had finished everything that I had planned for the lesson, and was now left floundering, not knowing quite what to do for the fifteen minutes of lesson that remained. And so, I played the game that I had planned for the beginning of the next lesson, and then invited them to ask me any questions that they had about the lesson or about me. Of course, this was a dangerous move, and led to questions about whether I had a boyfriend and whether I was married and other such awkward questions. This went on until the bell blissfully rang, and I was given a ten minute break before the next group arrived. The second lesson went better, as I was better prepared – asked more questions, went slower, explained more, and though there still ended up being a questions section at the end, it was far shorter and was filled with questions like “What is South Africa like?” and “What was your first impression of Korea?”
Now I am preparing for what is referred to as a Club Activity. I am teaching English Conversation lessons with my co-teacher, Cindy, and have half an hour to introduce ourselves and just talk about the kinds of things that we will be having conversations about over the course of the year. Afterwards, a group of the people in Eumsong who invited me over for supper last night are arriving in Cheongju, and I am meeting them at the bus terminal. From there, our exploration of the city of Cheongju will begin. I am excited, and will likely provide an account of my adventures in my next e-mail. For now, I hope you are all doing well.
Love from Korea
Lara
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