I subscribe to a blog that is written by a family friend back home, and at the end of every blog post she lists the 'Wikidates' - Wikipedia's list of holidays celebrated around the world. I read through the blog yesterday and when it came to the Wikidates, I smiled in anticipation. But my smile was in vain. It wasn't there. I quickly jumped over to Wiki to check - maybe she had made a mistake or hadn't grasped the significance of the date (though I couldn't see how this would be possible - 11/11 is so obviously related to this holiday, I don't understand how anyone could ignore the significance). And then I saw that Wiki hadn't mentioned the holiday either. How was this possible? 11/11 should be world renowned as Peppero Day!
What?!
None of you have heard of it either?
How is that...
What's that you say? Before coming to Korea I had never heard of it either.
Wait? Are you telling me there was a time when I wasn't in Korea?! I have a faint inkling that you may be correct, but it certainly doesn't seem that way.

Yesterday was Peppero Day, and for those of you who aren't in Korea, I suppose I should explain what that is exactly. A Peppero is a chocolate covered breadstick - in America they are apparently known as Pocky, but for South Africans, they are Chocstix. The 11th of November is celebrated as Peppero Day because the date (11/11) looks like four Pepperos placed next to each other - DUH! The day itself is rather like Valentines Day where you give Pepperos (which come in various flavours and varieties) to the people that you like, love or respect. Like Valentines, a lot of people think that the holiday is completely contrived and commercialised, but in the case of Peppero Day, they would probably be right. I mean, come on - a day for giving out a specific gift marketed by a specific company? Does it need to be more obvious? Lotte has pretty much taken over the world (or South Korea) and a couple of months ago even the GSMart near my apartment was converted into a Lotte Mart.

But I am not complaining too much - I benefit from Peppero Day after all! From 8:30am onwards, I was rewarded with Peppero in various shapes and forms, and by the end of the day, I couldn't look at or even smell another Peppero without gagging. But despite Peppero Day being filled with gifts, the best gift that I got from a student arrived on my desk this morning delivered by one of the students from my after-school class. She ran into the office and placed it on my desk before rushing out of the door blushing profusely before I could even say thank you. I opened the letter to find this (badly written but) heartfelt note:

"Hello. How are you. What's up. I'm Kang Chan Mi and from Mongolia. That is my English name Anna Belive KKK. Am... am am am.... (which I assume is translation from the Korean ㅋㅋㅋ which is like "hahaha") A foreign country be laborious! Me too. Run out freind KKK. But you many favor. KKK ^v^ You teaching many grammar. Next write many a letter. I want study to many time. The foregoing more give lessons many time. You knowing beauty every time. Don't abandon. Don't stop keeping. I believe you ^v^ I love you"

The letter came with a picture that she drew of me and her labeled: "Thats you. Have you big eyes. Thats I. I have small eyes." and a printed photograph of herself with a heart around it saying I love you in both Korean and Mongolian. While the letter was really badly written, I think that the sentiment behind it was more important than the bad vocab and grammar. It still made me smile to read it, and I will bring it back home with me and treasure it. So what if the kids learn nothing at all from my lessons - at least they like me :)

I have been in Korea for 8 months! It became official today, even though this is what I have been telling people for the last three weeks or so. Eight months, and I still hear the same question over and over again when speaking to friends and family back home or people who are new to the country. In the first months that I was here, it was a bit of a tender subject - I was still acclimatising to the country and finding my feet. But by now, I have formulated the perfect answer.

"I love the country! I hate the job."

I am not made to be a teacher. I do not know what on earth made me think that I was made to be one, or even that I would be a good one. I do not like standing up in front of 35 students and talking for 45 minutes at a time. I learned last week that I don't standing up on a stage in front of 1300 students and singing for five minutes either, crushing my dreams of becoming a singer much like an egg falling off a 30-storey building - It was shattered. I have never been one who was good at orals and standing up in front of my peers to speak, and what possessed me to volunteer to stand up in front of classes of people who don't know me from a bar of soap and essentially do the same thing only for a longer period of time, I don't think I will ever figure out. But whatever the reason, I don't think that I could handle it for another year. So while all of my friends are currently going through life-defining crises of the "to stay or not to stay" variety, my decision was made within the first few months of being here.

But then there are days like today when I can't help but feel a sense of pride in myself and my students, the sense of pride that can only come from having invested time and patience and having those efforts rewarded.

This morning I met my newest co-teacher. Since Alice left earlier in the year, two substitute teachers have taken her place, each staying for around two months. Today her final replacement arrived. I had a class with Hyo-mi this morning and I was a little nervous about it, the same way that I always am when someone new comes in and supervises my classes. I feel like I am going to fail miserably, am not going to meet their expectations and the class is just going to be an utter mess. The class itself went by with few hitches, though it was the low level class and most of them were completely unresponsive. It certainly could have been worse. I was still surprised though when Hyo-mi approached me after the class and told me what a good job she thought I had done, how well I had handled the kids, how good I was at explaining things to them in a simple, easy to understand manner and how beautiful my handwriting is. I stared at her for a little while, absolutely gobsmacked and not knowing how to respond, but pulled myself together for a brief thank you, my cheeks burning, and rushed off to lunch. It was a small ego boost, and I was grateful for it.

I expected that to be my highlight of the day - being told that I am good at what I do always makes me feel a bit better about doing it. Then I had my last class of the day. I love all of my girls classes, but I am not ashamed to admit that I have some favorites, and class 2-10 is so full of life and joy that I can't help but love them. Sure, sometimes the life and joy overflows to leave me dealing with bundles of excess energy that won't be quiet and won't sit still, but I still think that this kind of class is better than those that sit quietly, absorbing every word I say without so much as a smile. As I walked into the class, the chorus of my song started and it took a couple of minutes to calm them down and get the lesson started. One of the best things about this kind of class is that they are usually filled with imagination, which is useful when you are doing a class on metaphors - the ones that they come up with are just far more fun than the normal responses. Who wouldn't want to hear "She is my music teacher" or "She is my mother" to describe someone who is angry instead of "She is a volcano". Sure, the English in the last example is the best, but the other two make for far more amusement. The class went by in a rush of laughter and shouting and fun, and at the end of it, I left with a smile on my face with the "Lala la-la-la-la" chorus fading behind me. Then I heard one of the students calling me, and I stopped and waited for her and her friend to catch up. In their hands they were grasping the worksheet that I had handed out in class. On the back of one of the pages was a drawing of me (quite a likeness, actually) with big red rosey cheeks, and this message written underneath:

"Dear Lala teacher
We are class 2-10. We draw picture of you. We are sorry, we have many pens. We love you.
PS. We are proud you are our teacher."

I should have been annoyed that instead of listening to my lesson and actually paying attention, they were drawing a picture, but I couldn't bring myself to be annoyed. Instead a warm, fuzzy feeling spread through me and I very nearly asked if I could keep it despite it being on the back of the worksheet that they would need for their homework. This was certainly the highlight of my day.

So, while I will still say that I hate the job when asked about it, I have realised that there are some good aspects to teaching, and that it isn't all bad. It's not enough to get me to want to renew, but it does make me feel a little better about staying here for the next four months.

Looking at other people's blogs, I get the feeling that I really don't post enough! So here I am, trying to post more about my everyday life in what is now sunny, sticky, steamy Korea.

This week marked my fourth month in Korea. It doesn't feel like four months have passed, and I am going to take that as a good thing. Last month, it seemed like the three months that I had been here had taken forever, and yet here I am, one month later, feeling like I really haven't been here all that long. I think that means that things are starting to get better again. Last month I looked around my apartment and had a minor panic attack thinking that there was no way in hell that I could stay here for nine more months. Today I walked to school and there was a feeling of contentment that surrounded me. Just looking around me at the kids walking to school and the people cycling to work, I had a feeling that everything was really going to be okay. I didn't mind so much that the people around me were speaking a language that I couldn't understand, though last month that was one of the main reasons I was considering leaving (though, to be fair, it was more that no one could understand what I was saying rather than not being able to understand what they were saying). Everything just had a very familiar air about it. I was walking down a street that I had come to recognise, I automatically looked left then right when trying to cross the road. I just didn't feel quite as out of place as I have been feeling recently.

This week was also the first time in three months when I didn't have tutorials to worry about. I took advantage of that on Tuesday night by going out to dinner with my friend, Amy, and though the dinner was not the greatest, the company was good and I had a nice time in general, which always tends to happen when I hang out with Amy. Thursday night I took advantage of the extra time off in a different way - by just staying home and relaxing. It was a nice change from the hurried preparations that would happen after school and the precious ten minute naps that I would enjoy before rushing out the door to my tutlings.

The upcoming weekend is likely to be another of quiet contemplation, series and a sprinkle of partying spread in between. Tonight, there is Indian food and norebang with Shai, Jen and Dawn (a girls night out, which I feel should become a regular occurence, since my girls nights out have been sorely missed since my university days, and were rare even then). Tomorrow is movie night with Patrick and possibly his co-teacher, Ashley, followed by food and soccer. And Sunday night is quiz nite, as always, and hopefully this week I will stand a chance at winning! We shall see.

In the meantime, I am going to return to my day at work, which is looking rather empty and boring. But hey, I'm not complaining - it's better than being busy and overworked!

Five years ago, I was at crossroads in my life. High school was coming to a close and there were choices that needed to be made. What was I going to do next?
Go to university like my parents wanted me to do?
And study what exactly?
Take a gap year?
Travel the world?
Find a job?
A year earlier, my sister had been faced with some choices of her own - her university career was coming to a close and she could get a permanent job or take a gap year. She decided on the gap year option, and she looked at a number of different possibilities, including that of teaching abroad. Though I was never involved in the decision-making process, the prospect of teaching abroad was the one that appealed to me the most. It wasn't her final decision - she instead decided to work on cruise ships in the Caribbean - but the idea stuck in my head, and a year later when I was making decisions of my own, the idea was looking very very appealing. I didn't get very far with the planning of it at that stage, since my parents were pretty adament that I would go to university before anything else, but the idea stuck in the back of my mind.

Three years later, I was at another crossroads. I was about to finish my degree. I had applied to do a post-graduate diploma, but I was worried that I wouldn't get into the programme and I wanted to be prepared for that possibility. The idea of teaching abroad which had been at the back of my mind for three years came to the foreground when I got an e-mail from Teach Korea, a company based in Cape Town that looked for bright eyed and bushy tailed graduates to come and teach on this side of the world. I hadn't really considered Korea before then - I had been focussing my attention on Thailand, but had recently heard that it wasn't really the place to go. And then this opportunity fell into my lap. Teaching in Korea. It didn't sound too bad to me. I looked at the benefits, and almost responded to the e-mail right then and there saying "sign me up". But then I got a response from the journalism department. I had been accepted into the post-graduate diploma programme. I had been given an amazing opportunity, and I wasn't about to let that pass me by. Korea could wait, I decided.

I started my journalism course and got stuck into it. I put my heart and soul into the programme and loved it to pieces. But, on the sideline, I was still doing research. I looked into Thailand once more, and decided that it definitely wasn't the place for me. I looked into Japan, but the cost of living was too high and the benefits weren't even close to those that I would get in Korea. I looked into China, but found that they wouldn't accept me because I have no prior teaching experience. I looked into Taiwan, but the pay wasn't as good and and I would have to pay for my own apartment on top of the reduction in salary. My focus was always on Asia, since I wanted to go somewhere that was completely out of my comfort zone. I wanted an experience, and in my mind going somewhere completely removed from the Western world was the only way I could guarantee getting that. And so I went through my options and started gathering my paperwork and filling out applications.
Resumes.
Police Clearances.
Reference Letters.
Interviews.
Teaching course.
Though the teaching course wasn't compulsary, I had been told that it would help my cause a great deal and make it easier for me to get a job as a teacher in Korea and anywhere else in the world. So I went for it. By December I was told that I had been accepted for the February intake, and I couldn't have been happier. It was perfect - I would have two months to prepare myself, to save up some money and invest in some work-appropriate clothing, to say goodbye to my friends and family, and to come to terms with moving halfway across the world. I was told that I would have my contract by the beginning of January, and so I waited with baited breathe.

The beginning of January came and went. I had sent e-mails to the company asking what was happening, but got no response. I had been informed late in December that the contracts could arrive as far in the future as mid- to late January, but I started getting nervous. By the time the 20th came around, I was a nervous wreck. Screw it, I decided, I was phoning them. The call was one of the hardest I have ever been through. Being told that I had been shortlisted, rejected, that I could leave as late as August if then and trying not to cry while I was being told this was nightmarish. I hung up the phone and realised that I would have to find a job. A decent job, that is, rather than the one that I already had working for my aunt on a part-time basis. Three weeks, they said. They would give me three weeks of notice before I would have to leave.

I started the job hunt that I had seen Michael going through, and though I did better than him initially, getting lots of interviews and lots of praise, I couldn't find anything even vaguely decent. I slipped into a mild depression, feeling that everything in my life was going wrong. And then, one morning, while driving Michael to an interview, I got the call. My contract was on its way. They wanted me to leave in a week and a half. From there it was a rush of
getting contracts read and signed by various parties,
shopping,
booking plane tickets,
shopping,
getting contracts signed,
shopping,
quitting my part-time job and,
oh yeah,
SHOPPING!
I had to prepare for the cold winter that I would be facing. I had a week and a half to get ready, and somehow I managed. My contract arrived on the Monday after the phone call and was quickly scanned, signed, and sent off to Pretoria along with my visa application.
"It will be ready on Wednesday and we want you to leave on Thursday."
Tuesday morning came the call from the Korean embassy.
"You forgot to sign the last page."
Sending off another contract to Pretoria.
"It will be ready on Thursday and we want you to leave on Friday."
"It will be ready on Friday morning and we want you to pick it up at the airport."
"It will be ready on Friday afternoon and we want you to leave on Saturday."
"Perhaps it is best if you leave on Monday."
All of this came in the midst of hurried goodbyes and dealing with Catherine from Pangea Travels who insisted that I travel with them despite their plane tickets being R1000 more expensive than the airline was advertising for the same flight. Eventually the day arrived, and I left South Africa, a 21 year old recent graduate with no real work experiences who had never travelled on her own.

I arrived in Korea an inexperienced bundle of nerves, hardly prepared for what it would be like, and hardly prepared to be a role-model to teenage children. But that is what I have become, or at the very least what I am becoming. This is the story of my year in Korea - the ups, the downs, the happiness, the sadness and all the details of the things that happen in between. Enjoy.

This week I have been sick. I hate being sick. There is nothing worse in the world than being sick. Except, perhaps, being sick in Korea.

has lost her voice completely. Cannot say a word. How am I supposed to teach?!

got to school this morning only to be told that she wouldn't need to teach because the teachers want her to rest.

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