Ready, Set, Go Korea!!

Long time, no talk, everyone....

2010-10-27T05:32:00.000-07:00

Hey there, it's me, emily. Anyways, it has been quite a long time since my last post and a lot has happened since then...Let me recap:

1. Hannah, our director for half the year decided that she needed to quit because she didn't get along with the owner of our school. It started a few months into the school year when it just seemed like things weren't going very well with the management. Since I couldn't speak/understand Korean very well at that time, I was pretty clueless at what was happening. Slowing things started to unravel and there was a lot of hostility and awkwardness at school. No one talked to each other, teachers would only seem happy around the students, no one would work and we all just sat in silence. Anyways, I don't know who exactly to believe (because my job is kind of suspicious sometimes...), but I do know there was a conflict of interest. Eventually, after it was confirmed that Charley was leaving, Hannah told me she was leaving too. Weird. Now she's jobless and just living life I suppose. Her husband moved to Poland for work and I think she was just burnt out. I talked to her a few times since she left, but the school doesn't like me talking to her...so when I do, it's kind of awkward.

2. We got a new director, Amy, who completely changed our school inside out (for the good and bad...). She seemed okay during the first week that she was here and then POOF, all of sudden she changed everything. She changed a lot of the rules, the entire schedule, even the text books we were using, and no one knew why. Our work load increased tenfold and for some reason she seemed really really mean... I think it was because things were changing so much...Charley and Hannah leaving, and Corey (new teacher) and Amy coming...that it kind of stressed me out a bit. It wasn't very easy saying goodbye to 2/4 co-workers. After the extremely short honeymoon period (1-2 days), Amy started being incredibly strict and rude but still wanted to befriend us all. I was thinking: who comes into a place and makes a lot of changes and expects people to like them? Well, I guess this is how Korea works...because now it's been over a month and the harmony has been restored. Thank goodness...I was starting to wonder if I should flee in the middle of the night or something. Anyways, now it's okay most of the time. She still has her moments, but us teachers and the students have pretty much adapted to life without Charley and Hannah. I was made a homeroom teacher which means I teach 3-5 classes with the "7" AKA 6 year olds, so they have become a lot closer to me. Amy doesn't teach more than 1 class a day, so in their eyes, I am the main teacher, which gives me a little more power than before. (evil, power hungry laugh: muahaha)

3. Charley left and now is in Ecuador doing work/research/travel and who knows what. Enough said. Korea wasn't really for him...well, at least in our specific situation. I hope he's doing well, although I haven't heard from him much.

4. LALALALA. Who has the red balloon?

5. Daegu is no longer sweltering hot and humid...now it's frigid cold. Brrr...it's been in the 30Fs at night and the 50-60Fs during the day. All the mosquitoes in Daegu have decided to try and hibernate/winter over in my room right now. It's been pretty bad and I am about to give up. I have taped up every visible crack in my room, but they are still getting in! AH! There is no natural/synthetic bug repellent or killer that seems to have any effect and I am continuously being woken up by their eery high pitched whine. Also, I think I am poisoning myself instead of those pesky insects.

6. Life is decent. It is kind of strange to hear myself say this because I was in such crises when everything was happening, I didn't realize why I am here. My students motivate me daily to be patient, loving, and happy, and they continue to amaze me each and everyday. Regardless if they are "good or bad", they are so innocent and intelligent that I can't bear to leave them behind just yet. I realized recently that my students (mainly the 8 kids in my homeroom class) see me a lot more often than they see their parents, and they look up to me almost as their parent. This has changed my perspective a lot. In no way am I read to have kids of my own, but some of my students look up to me as a parental figure...which definitely has been an interesting experience. It's sad because most of their parents are so busy that they never see their child during the week...grandparents or extended family raise their child and the parents never get to watch the beauty of their child growing up. This is something I have seen even in the few months I have been here. It's adorable and priceless and I love my students ^^ They make me so happy! I don't know how else to express it!!!!

7. Also I have gotten rather good at Korean. By no means fluent or native, but I have gotten kind of good. I have channeled a lot of energy into studying and I'm really proud of myself! I think I might be participating in a Korean language competition in a few months...but I'm not sure yet. It's funny how learning a language works. My loving parents sent me an article from NPR about a linguist's experience with learning Chinese when she moved to China. I can closely relate to her experience. (Somewhat summarized/paraphrased from what I read in the article a long time ago->but not nearly as articulate as she was). My experience learning Korean has been marked by several milestones. The first start out small; making it to the grocery story, taking a cab downtown, and being able to tell someone I can't speak Korean (which is pretty obvious). The next include being able to read signs, introducing myself, giving directions in a cab, and have short one-word/motion conversations. After that I could order food on the phone, ask directions, have slightly more detailed conversations, and write a short paper. Then I could have a fuller conversation, read children's books out loud, speak enough Korean in my beginning class that they don't even realize I'm not Korean (I think) and watch Korean TV. Today was the first day that I posted a blog post on our school's website in Korean, I can write short essays, I can speak to people on the phone usually (which is difficult!!!), translate simple things back and forth for people, and have somewhat interesting conversations. It is awesome! I am very proud of myself and I am going to continue to study while I am here.

8. Pictures to come eventually...

^^V (two happy eyes and a peace sign...teehee)

2010-08-26T01:39:00.000-07:00

It just gets better and better...

"My favorite animal is a squirrel"

-Edward (age 6)

Heehee

2010-08-25T22:20:00.000-07:00

Some quality art work
"My favorite animal is weasel"
-Brian (age 6)

Musical Performance

2010-08-06T01:16:00.000-07:00

This is Milton Class (6 years) performing their version of the Gingerbread Man! Enjoy!! Oh, also I posted a few more pictures in the Taiwan photo album. (see previous post for link)

Taiwan Photos

2010-08-03T05:31:00.000-07:00

After a high speed train ride, a plane, and a bus, I made it back in one piece from Taiwan! I was incredibly sad to say goodbye to my two best friends and a beautiful country, but this trip has infected me with the traveling bug, and I am excited to see what the future brings. I need to thank the World Passport program for letting me stay at their office for free, and my friends, Ben and Daniel, for being the best tour guides/friends/entertainment I could ever dream of! Here are some photos (some with and without captions) that I took while I was there!

Click here to be amazed!!! teehee

Please let me know if you can't view them. You should be able to...but you never can be sure...

Taiwan!

2010-07-28T05:24:00.001-07:00

Woohoo, I'm Taiwan with Ben and Daniel for my vacation. I left my humble abode in Daegu at 1:40am on Tuesday the 27th. I caught a taxi to Dong Daegu, which is the main bus station for out of city buses. It was strange traveling so early because usually this would be the time that I would be going to bed... After I got to the station, I got on my bus. The Korean bus system is extremely efficient. First of all, you can take a bus to virtually any city in Korea for anywhere from 10,000W-30,000W (about $8-$27). The buses leave every half an hour on the dot and I have always been impressed with how quickly they get to their destination. The buses are extremely spacious and comfortable. The seats recline all the way and there is probably enough room in one seat to sit two people my size. Anyways, the bus ride from Daegu to Incheon (the airport near Seoul) was advertised to take about 4.5 hours, but it actually only took 4 hours! So I got to Incheon bright and early and had a wonderful time waiting for my flight. The flight from Incheon to Taipei was only about two hours, but as soon as I landed, I took a bus from the airport in Taiwan to the Taipei Mainstation (which is sort of like Dong Deegu). That bus took probably an hour or so, something I wasn't expecting at all...but oh well. From there, I took another bus (5 hours) from the Taipei Mainstation to Tainan, where Ben and Daniel are. It was long, and I slept most of the way...but I definitely noticed a few key differences from Korea:

1. Taiwan is home to many different types of cars (Ford, Honda, VW, etc), where Korea only really has Kia and Hyundai.

2. Taiwan feels a lot more tropical than Korea. Even though have similar climates in summer...Taiwan has the palm trees, the lush forests, and even the smell...mmm! Oh humidity, how I have come to love you.

Well, already since I've been here, I have had a wonderful time with two of my best friends, eaten excellent food, assisted taught in an all girls Catholic highschool, and so much more! I have many pictures to come (I know I always say that, but seriously, I do!). Tonight I learned how to count from 1-10 in chinese. It's really hard because I don't have any experience speaking a tonal language. To me, it really feels like I'm singing the numbers...it's a lot of fun!

Anyways, hi from Taiwan!! Mom and Dad-I made it just fine. The trip couldn't have been any smoother! And to the rest of you- wish you were here!!

Class photo

2010-07-21T22:12:00.000-07:00

Here are ALL the students at St Patrick!

Teehee

2010-07-19T23:57:00.000-07:00

Frustrated!

2010-07-19T23:56:00.000-07:00

Errr.... blogger.com, why won't you let me post a video right now???

Camping! Oh, whoops, I mean, camp...which actually I meant to say field trip.

2010-07-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

Oy, I am realizing right now that almost every post begins with an apology. There has been several long breaks in between a fair amount of my blog posts; after which I go through apologetic motions like I've inconvenienced you, the reader. In reality, I'm sure your world kept turning...shocking, yes? Regardless if your world is actually being affected by these blog posts (which I truly am sorry if this is the case), I'll be taking on a less apologetic tone from now on. So this is my last "I'm sorry" beginning. Sorry :)

Anyways, I know you're probably sick of the excuses, but, my computer really did break, and I really don't have internet at my house...but that is all. I started this post a week and a half ago when we got back from "camp" which was July 2nd. Now, it's July 14th and I still haven't finished it. So, instead of waiting and wishing I had time, computer, and the internet to finish, I am going to post some photos and we can hope for an explanation later. I hope the pictures alone are able to give you a semi-good idea of how the trip went!

Oh, the joys of taking field trips!!! Last Friday we went to "camp" in GyeungJu, which is about a 50 minute drive west of Daegu. First of all, Charley and I were told we were going camping...which to us means going out in "nature" and sleeping in tents. We were both really surprised when Hannah told us we were going camping. We were a little less surprised to find out that camping was not actually camping and instead we were going to a hotel that had been converted into a young child's dream play land. The pool was drained so that it contained about 2ft of water, there were water games and activities outside in the courtyard, the hotel rooms were stripped of all furniture for groups to keep their stuff in, there were movie theaters, a interactive science museum, a bunch of photo opportunities (which photo obsessed Koreans love), an Animal show, a mini-zoo, a somewhat interesting musical about recycling, and probably other stuff that I'm missing. To me, going to this made-over hotel wasn't anything that special, but the kids absolutely loved it!

The photos are in a random order, so make sure to read the captions!

(The swimsuits were ridiculous...almost as ridiculous as the swim caps...) From left to right, Sarah, Dana, Brian, May, and Edward...

This was before any actual swimming...we wandered out into a courtyard and proceeded to take photos for an hour. It was was a little chilly that day, but there was high humidity, which made up for it. It actually ended up pouring rain while we were there. It's a good thing that everything (except for this photo shoot) was indoors!

Me...trying to enjoy swimming in a pool filled with 1ft of un-chlorinated water, with hundreds of kids floating around in innertubes...oh the joy. I know I'm looking my absolute best right here, drenched in urine water and stuffed in the manditory innertube.

May and Edward "napping" between activities... Aw, young love is so cute...

Alex playing in a sandbox that was essentially a room filled with some sort of grain. It's kind of funny, we teach the kids words like sandbox, and they will probably never actually play in a real sandbox in their life. This is the closest that any of the kids have probably come to playing in a sandbox, and it was a grainbox.

Charley and Me at the animal show. There were many photo opportunities, and this was one of the more amusing ones...heehee. Cute snakey, huh?

Me dragging kids around in the pool...wearing all my clothes. Doesn't it look like fun? I have to admit, it was fun for the first 30 minutes of it. At least I'm not wearing that goofy innertube any more. Turns out, adults didn't have to. :)

Chapin class, thoroughly thrilled about being at camp. From left to right, Sophia, Alex, Alisha, Miki, Andy, and Annie...

You can see the hotel, whoops, I mean camp, in the background...

This was just the beginning of a long day....

The strangest field trip ever...

2010-06-16T00:30:00.001-07:00

I don't really know how to start this post off... Let's just say that our school took the strangest field trip ever. We actually went to two different places. The first was a museum, called the Daegu National Treasure Museum... When we arrived, we were supposed to be learning how to play traditional Korean games. However, 1. no one was there to teach us, 2. it was incredibly hot and humid, 3. the kids didn't really want to participate, so, we played games for about 5 minutes and then went inside. As soon as we got inside I realized that this museum was not at all kid friendly. It was displaying ancient artifacts dating about 6-7AD that they had found in temples. All the artifacts were encased in glass boxes and displayed at just the right height that none of the kids could see. I don't think the kids really cared...at least it was cool inside. haha

. After we took a quick and pointless tour of the museum, we hopped back on the school bus to go to the former World Cup Stadium, the place where Daegu actually hosted the world cup back in 2002 (I think). (After the world cup, Daegu turned the stadium into some sort of museum...) Anyways, that was just about as fun as the museum. We ate a picnic lunch in the sun and then went inside where there were a bunch of semi-interesting displays and artifacts. After the tour, we went into a theater, where Charley and I expected to watch a short film about soccer. Well, much to our surprise, we ended up watching Ratatouille (the Disney/Pixar movie)...which has absolutely nothing to do with soccer or the field trip. Most of the kids liked it, but after about 30 minutes in the dark, the movie

had lost the short attention spans' and the kids were crying, and talking, and fighting while the movie continued to play. I think the teachers appreciated the movie the most because we could just sit and do nothing for a bit... (Field trips are more tiring than the normal teaching day...). haha. Anyways, I tried to find some notable photos to post about the trip, and what you see is what you get :)

Charley with

Miki and Alex...having a blast...

I'm not exactly sure where this was even taken, but I'm going to guess and say it is at the World Cup stadium. I think the kids were having more fun running around the museum than actually looking at the displays...h

Charley is playing a Korean game with some of the kids....May is the small girl standing to Charley's right, and Brian is the one in the fore ground. I can't really tell who the other two are, I think Andy is in the far back... Anyways, this game was really impossible for the kids. The point of the game was to throw spear like sticks into small holes. None of the kids could do it, but Charley and Edward (the school's owner's husband) were really good at it!

This is the Milton (6 year old) class posing before the fieldtrip. For some reason they can't take normal pictures and they all have to be doing something really goofy. From left to right: Jay, Shamie, Leo, Ryan, and Peter. This is Charley's favorite class. He teaches a lot of their classes and they absolutely adore him!

Also, I don't know how to get ride of this blue underlined font...ugh. Sorry.

This is Richard, one of my afternoon students. I feel bad for the afternoon students because they have to come to more school after they get out of their school. Seriously, what kid wants to get of school only to go to more class? Anyways, I teach a conversation class to four students who are bused from another school. They're always tired and distracted, but Richard is especially naughty. The thing is, he's not only bad in my class, I think he's a trouble maker during the entire day too. There aren't many ways to discipline a student, especially when they don't speak English. It is really easy for them to tune out the teacher and continue to misbehave. So...this is the one disciplinary action I have found effective. Time out (60 seconds of sitting the corner with the arms raised) is far better than anything else I have done. I feel kind of guilty for doing this because I'm sure it's terrible to sit with your arms out, but uh, nothing else I do really works. If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know. Discipline is probably one of the most difficult things I have to do here. We're not allowed to send the children out of the classroom, but we also have to prevent them from disrupting the entire class...sigh...

Last Saturday we had a "flea market", which was definitely more like a garage sale to raise money for some sort of charity. We had the kids' families donate random stuff so we could sell it later. The thing is, Koreans aren't really packrats like American are, so the amount of stuff and the quality of stuff was really small and bad. Oh well, it was fun. Charley and I were in charge of the games where we had a water balloon throw game and a "knock the pins over" type of the game. I think we probably raised the most money. The weather was really nice and we had a good time (even though we had to sacrifice our Saturday :( ) Here is just a snapshot of the flea market...

Cute song

2010-06-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

Funny things Charley says...

2010-05-31T23:50:00.000-07:00

So Charley and I have both decided that our English language ability is deteriorating quickly being here in Korea. For one, it's because we're talking to kindergarten and preschool kids all day, and for two, it's because the only people we really talk to don't speak English as their first language. So forgive us when our language sounds awkward or just plain weird.

1. "You go downtown tonight!" You should go downtown with us tonight!

2. "Tomorrow, you vote?" Are you going to vote tomorrow?

Birthday party today!

2010-05-31T22:33:00.000-07:00

Well, today we had a "birthday party" to celebrate the June birthdays, which actually means just eating a lot of junk food. Instead of having our normal schedule, we skipped snack time and then had an entire hour to devour as much food as possible during the party. It's pretty ridiculous. Everyone sits in the gym to eat. At the front of the tables there is a huge display of food (as you can see in the picture below). The kids wear goofy birthday hats and everyone gets their picture taken behind the food table. It's kind of tricky because little kids with food just sitting out=trouble... There always seems to be fingers in the cake, chicken on the floor, and grapes being thrown. Haha. It's fun though. The food is pretty good... on the menu today was chicken, cake, grapes, rice cakes (duk), kimbap, bananas, juice, and pizza. Pizza was a big hit like always, but the kids really like the cake!

Tomorrow is election day which means no school! Yay! It's going to be a short week!

From left to right, Dana, Molly, Meriel, and Sarah (all 7 years old...which actually means 6 years old American age...which actually means that some of them are yet to be 6...sigh)

Chapin class (5 years old...which means 4, which means some of them are 3 still...) From left to right, Alisha, Jayden, Alex, Mason, Miki, and Annie! This is the "food table" I was talking about earlier. Jayden couldn't keep his hands out of the pizza, and Mason couldn't keep his hands out of the irresistible cake.

Costco Bulgulgi Bakes

2010-05-30T22:34:00.000-07:00

Well, Costco is basically the same as American Costco, except they have to fit a lot more stuff into a much smaller space... How they do this you might ask... The Costco is Multi-floored, including a 4 story parking garage. It's a little confusing at first because the entrance of the Costco is at the 2nd basement, where all the house hold items, electronics and clothes are. The next basement 1 floor has all the food. The next four floors are parking garages! It's an interesting concept, especially since you go between the two basement floors on a moving walkway that magnetizes your cart so it won't move! To get to the other parking floors, you have to ride in a huge industrial sized elevator...they only have two elevators and 6 total floors, so you have to wait forever to use them, especially since only about 6 carts can fit in the elevator at one time. Imagine a typically busy Costco with people waiting in line for the elevator. There is quite a pile up!

Well, Costco is a great place for us to get American products like cheese and tortillas. They even have Tillamook cheese and Kettle chips! mm! It's a lot more expensive than home, but it's worth it. For those of you who know about the Costco foodcourt, there are so differences. The first difference is the Korean food court is a lot busier. Second, they serve the normal hotdog and pizza, but they also have clam chowder and Bulgulgi bakes (which are like the chicken bakes with Bulgulgi beef in them!).

Below I have posted a picture of Charley with our cart going up the moving walkway, and the Bulgulgi bake. The food picture may not be very appealing to some of you, and I'm sorry. It is delicious though and I wish they had them back in the States.

uuh

2010-05-29T19:41:00.001-07:00

So I have decided, that daily posts are a little out of my league and I may have had one too many soju drinks when I wrote that statement. Anyways, I figure even if I don't write a lot, I should still post picture...so here it goes.

I recently learned how to order delivery food over the phone. It was kind of tricky at first because talking on the phone in Korean is definitely a whole different story. I had my friend write out a script for me to use which basically goes like this (translated in English): I would like ___ and ___ delivered to bongduck dong 999-4, geunhung villa, room 301. I basically just read off that and then hope for the best. They usually repeat my order, which I can understand, but if they say anything else, I wouldn't have a clue. I don't get why Koreans don't/won't speak slowly to foreigners! Even if I ask them to speak slowly I really can't tell if they do. Sometimes I wonder if I got the restaurant number right, but the delivery guys have never failed to deliver within 30-45 minutes!

The first place I ordered from was a Korean restaurant. Charley and I get these booklet type things stuck to our door, which are full of menus of restaurants that range from pizza and chicken to places where they give you all the ingredients and cook it at home. After pouring through one of those booklets, I finally found a place who's pictures were appealing and the prices were inexpensive. I called and ordered bulgulgi rice and sujebi soup. It took about 30 minutes for the delivery guy to arrive at my door with a huge box (see pictures). I paid him and he handed me the box...At this point I was a little confused what to do with the box, and it was already awkward enough, so I took the box in the apartment. The following pictures show what exactly was in the box...

Ah, how do I fix the layout on this blog?? I can't seem to get the pictures to do what I want them to do! The first picture shows all the side dishes that came with our meal!!! I think that I only like about 2/3 of them... They range from kimchi to dried squid covered red pepper paste....

The second photo shows the box that everything arrived in plus the food! mmm!

Check out the facebook.

2010-05-28T00:02:00.000-07:00

I have posted two Musical English plays that the children performed on Friday.

arg, why isn't the internet working??!

Nothing exciting...heh

2010-05-25T00:40:00.000-07:00

Prepackaged foods are great. Tonight I had my Korean lesson so like every Korean lesson night I’m not really in the mood to cook up a feast. However, a quick stop by the grocery store made my meal perfect. They make rice that comes pre-cooked and packaged in individual serving sizes. All you have to do is peel back the lid and nuke it for 2 minutes and poof! you have perfectly cooked rice. It’s so convenient, especially since cooking rice in the rice cooker takes about 30 minutes (which actually isn’t that long, but I sometimes am impatient). Anyways, I had my precooked rice, a can of tuna salad, which I thought was kind of gross at first, but to my surprise, it tasted like (I kid you not), freshly made tuna salad with crunchy vegetables! How they make this, I don’t know, and I don’t want to know…but it did taste good. I also had a packet of curry, which is premade curry with vegetables, potatoes and carrots, in a MRE looking pouch. It tasted alright, Charley really liked it. I also ate a sliced English cucumber! Mmm… So easy, probably not healthy, but at least filling

Now I’m off to call my lovely Mother to wish her a happy birthday…

Love you Mom!

Hello again!

2010-05-24T01:40:00.000-07:00

To all the faithful (and maybe unfaithful) readers:

I want to apologize for the lack of posts during the last couple of months. As some of you may know, when Charley and I arrived in Korea, we were able to “borrow” internet from our neighbors, free of charge. However, after about a month into our stay, the internet connection stopped working! We were internetless for quite a while, but we recently got it. It’s about as fast at dialup, but it works! Yay!

Anyways, I’m a little overwhelmed with where to start with this blog. After two months of not posting, a lot has happened and it’ll be really difficult to remember EVERYTHING!! For now I think I will just summarize what we have been up to and then maybe I’ll go back and explain our adventures in more detail later. Sounds good? Okay!

After watching the movie Julie and Julia (a movie that I highly recommend), I have been inspired to make this blog a habit. It is really difficult for me to update once a week because so much happens, so I think that I should start posting daily. I know it will be more reading for you, but I am sure that we will both be a lot happier with the results.

Well, I hope you haven’t lost all faith in my blogging skill. I’m (at this moment) serious about posting daily so I guess we’ll see how it goes!

Movieee

2010-04-14T06:01:00.001-07:00

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=519735419492&ref=mf

Try this out. Let me know if it does or doesn't work for you!

Facebook

2010-04-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody,

So I've been trying to take some video of the school. However, youtube won't let me upload anything because I'm in Korea...or something like that. I've resorted to using facebook to upload some videos. If you haven't seen them already, I highly recommend that you take a peek.

For those of you without facebook accounts go to facebook.com and sign up. Then find me or Charley as friends by search our names or our emails (sipe5080@pacificu.edu or nish1436@pacificu.edu). I think actually you can look at the videos without even having to mess with adding us as "friends" or whatever. I have set the security to low so I think as long as youhave an account, you should be able to view them without any problem. I will start posting the links to the video on here

Time flies when you're interacting with kids all day.

2010-04-03T06:09:00.000-07:00

Oh, man, sorry for not posting for more than a week! So for all of you who thought Charley and I fell off the face of the earth, don't worry!! We are safe and sound! heh. It's so strange how fast time goes by here. I can't believe that we've been here for almost 6 weeks! I guess we have finally gotten into a regular routine, which makes it nice. Of course, some days seem like they go on forever, but overall, time is quickly passing by.

Well, I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I have been taking Korean lessons at a Hagwon (private school) downtown. It's about $120 a month for about 5 hours of lessons a week. On Tuesdays I have a private lesson, and on Fridays I have a group lesson. It's worked out really nice so far. Since I already could read and write Hangul, the Korean language, I really had an advantage over students who were starting from scratch. However, my teacher took my "ingeniousness" as my natural intelligence, so now he thinks we can do one chapter a class, and expects me to just absorb it like a sponge! Eek! I've been trying to keep up, but it's been tough. There has definitely been several long hours of flipping through flashcards, which makes me feel like I'm back in college again. Korean is such a hard language. Not only is the alphabet different, the grammar is nothing like English grammar. Also, there are different forms and dialects. In the Korean language there is a verb stem and then many different ways you can conjugate it depending on who you're talking to. For example, the language is completely different if you're talking to your boss than if you're talking to a friend. As I have been learning Korean, I realize that I probably will not even be conversational before I leave...but we will see. Studies on Westerners learning the Korean language suggest that a person who studies Korean for 4 hours a day for 56 weeks will have the language skills to be able to get by on the street. Great. I'm not even going to be here for 56 weeks, let alone study for 4 hours a day!!! Anyways, all in all, I have definitely noticed my Korean getting better. Although I cannot speak it very well, I definitely am able to understand it better! Yay!

Hmm, where to start. Well, I think I am finally getting used to living here. It's only taken about 6 weeks. haha. Anyways, it's pretty neat to see how much the kids have changed since we got here. At first, there was Alisha, the 5 year old who cried whenever Charley was in the room. Now we can't get her to be quiet. This is the first time at an English school for many of these kids, and so basically everything they know is because of us... They are absorbing the language like sponges, and it's amazing how much they are able to remember!! It's funny because the kids will pick up on phrases we use in class every day such as: "yay!" or "no Korean! Speak English!" or "Oh my gosh" and other things like that.

The kids are awesome. Each and everyone of them have a very distinct personality that is growing each and every day. The kids who were the quietest at the beginning of the school year are now the ones that are the most talkative in English. Even the preschoolers are getting noticeably better at English. It's really hard to explain how much I am falling in love with the students. They are just so innocent and intelligent. They say and do the funniest things that crack me up during the day. Even if they're being bad, it's really hard to get actually upset at them. It's adorable how they excited about the smallest things and the love Charley and me. When Charley walks into school, Ryan, Charley's favorite student will come running up to him excitedly yelling "Charley Teacher!!" and give him a huge hug around the legs. Other students will say: "Hello teacher! I love you teacher!!" It's cute.

Most of the students I think know and understand that I cannot speak Korean, but that certainly doesn't stop them from talking to me in Korean. Sometimes I understand what they are saying, but other times, they are so eager or excited that they speak in Korean really quickly. Usually I just smile and say "o0ooh, good" or "really??!" and (to whatever they said) that is the response that they want. Then (having no idea to what they just said) I say: "okay, go back to your classroom"... haha. I don't know if this is at all funny for you to read this, but to me, it's hilarious. Because I have no idea what they just said and my response is always the same, making them go back to their classroom. They sometimes look confused and go back to the room or say something more in Korean.

Even though they have really limited English, it's awesome to see and hear the kids speaking in English. Like I said before, they cannot really form sentences yet, but they are quite good at piecing together words to get their point across. I can't really think of an example at this exact moment, but I will try to write down some stuff that they say and post it, because it's adorable. They're just so intelligent. One of the 5 year olds, Andy, spontaneously spells words with alphabet blocks and can spell words by sounding them out when he writes. And he's only 4 years old! It's amazing. He wrote the word apple and airplane the other day...and I really doubt anyone taught him that. While most of his cohort can barely grip a crayon to color in between the lines, he is writing words and saying stuff that the older kids can't even do. However, I sometimes have to remind myself that he is just a little kid and even with all his ingeniousness, he is the same as all the other wild preschoolers.

Something that Charley and I have learned with the older kids is that we can control the classroom by using stickers. I don't know how it is in Charley's classes, but this is how it goes with mine. I take roll every class (kind of like in American schools I guess), where you raise your hand and say "here" when the teacher calls your name. I write the name of each student on the board, and if they raise their hand and say "here", they get one star by their name. Then as class goes on, if they answer a question correctly, name a word, or do other activities, the students accumulate stars by their name. However, if the students are being bad, stars get erased. By the end of class, the students count their stars, and only the top two students with the most stars by their name get one sticker. Then, that sticker goes on a different sticker chart that when the sticker chart is filled up, they get a prize. It's kind of a long process, but it really is all about the stickers. All in all, the students will do anything for a sticker. One girl decided that she would bring her own stickers from home and stick them, on her chart. Needless to say, Hannah and I ended up picking them off at the end of class. Also, another student was peeling stickers off other students' charts, which lefts a few kids in tears, so new stickers had to be issued. Sigh...oh the dramas of kindergarteners.

Okay, so I'm sure many of you saw the exciting St. Patrick's Day photos, and I'm sorry to report that the Easter photos are not nearly as exciting. I would probably have to say that the Easter party was just as disastrous as the St Patrick's Day party, but in its own way. First of all, the entire day consisted of eating eggs. The kids had hard boiled eggs for snack. Some of the kids ate so many, I don't blame them for not wanting to eat lunch, which consisted of egg on rice. Then, the entire school met in the gym for an Easter craft, which was basically gluing paper to hard boiled eggs. Most of the craft involved shredding and tearing up bits of paper (which was a blast for the kids, but probably we'll regret it later in class because the kids will be shredding their books because they'll think it's okay to tear paper). I don't know what the school was thinking, but gluing bits of paper on eggs is NOT a good children's craft. Making bunny ears or coloring on eggs with markers would have been a lot more age appropriate. Anyways, each student got one egg and a glue stick. To start out with, the students were supposed to cover their entire egg in glue! Really??! and then, holding a glue covered egg, they were supposed to stick small pieces of paper onto it. Most of the younger kids had no idea what was going on and you can see from the pictures below, that they weren't having much fun. Most of the bits of paper ended up stuck to the children's' hands and to the end of the glue stick, while many of the hard boiled eggs were dropped and cracked (glue covered eggs are slippery!), leaking egg juices all over.

Anyways, enough about the craft. So, at this Easter party, the school decided that they would not buy any candy for the event. What is easter without some candy?? I mean, seriously! So Charley ended up going to the store (while I was at craft time) to buy some candy. Before this even, teacher spend hours and hours making these adorable chicken baskets for the eggs, and wrapping eggs in paper to give as prizes. Not only did the kids eat eggs all day, eggs were given and prizes. woo. hoo. After the disastrous craft, the kids played a game called Musical Ghost. What musical ghost is, I do not know. I think it's something similar to a cake walk where the kids passed around hard boiled eggs to music and when the music stopped, whoever was holding the egg, got to keep it. Fun? I don't know. But just the name of the game was odd enough. Musical Ghost??! haha. Whatever, while the game was going on Charley and I were making balloon animals (or at least attempting to) and two other teachers were doing face painting. Charley and I quickly volunteered for the balloon animals because we did not want to get stuck doing to the musical ghost, but neither of us are very good at making balloon animals. I think the only things we can make are swords (very Easter festive...), hats (which consisted of random twisting of balloons that was the shoved on the student's head), or dogs, which sometimes looked like dogs, sometimes, really didn't look like anything. Anyways, regardless of our balloon twisting talent, the kids enjoyed the balloons and the face painting. At least it didn't involve hard boiled eggs, huh?

Alisha and Andy posing with their chicken baskets and decorated hardboiled eggs. They're probably thinking: "Why are we doing this?"

Mason's decorated egg. Hahaha. There was more glue and paper stuck to the carpet than on his egg....

How obvious is it that Charley and I don't really know how to make balloon animals....?

Trying to glue paper to hardboiled eggs... it's really a lot harder than it sounds. I think Mason just dropped his egg :( Those eggs are slippery when covered in glue! And then when the egg juices mix with the glue...mmm. The entire school smelled of farts that day.

Shamie hates her hat...probably because it looks like there is a giant inflated condom twisted around her head... The kids really didn't like the hats, but since we couldn't really make anything else, that's what they got.

Well, happy Easter everyone! I have a lot more pictures to post, but it's a beautiful day out and I've spent far too long sitting at this computer today ... I promise I will post the rest of the pictures within the next day or two! Byee and miss you all. When you're eating cheese or easter candy, think of Charley and me! We could sure use some of both right now, haha.

Some entertaining and probably not so entertaining photos from the past week or so

2010-03-21T02:34:00.001-07:00

So, the school attempted to have a St. Patrick's celebration. This photo is a perfect example of how the day went. You definitely should click on it so you can see the kids' faces better. It's pretty funny. The school thought it would be a great idea for the kids to wear these ridiculous hats and parade around. I think most of them were wondering what the heck was going on, but it was better than sitting in class all afternoon.

These are the 7 year olds on snow day. Like I said earlier, none of the kids were really prepared to play in the snow, so a few minutes after we let them out, the were cold and wet and wanted to go in. I've discovered how difficult it is to take a group picture, and this is the closest "good one" that I got.

These are the 5 year olds on the snow day!!! I wonder how many of them have even played in the snow before. It rarely snows in Daegu too. They didn't actually play in the snow really because it was so cold and they didn't have an snow clothes, but they sure look like they're having fun here!

This is an almost successful attempt of the 5 year olds lining up for snack time. We always say: ATTENTION! And they respond: Attention! And then we say "it's snack time!! Line up please..." and usually they wander over to the door. Then we do choo-choo train where we say "hands on shoulders" and this is about the time kids are strangling each other, hanging on the other's back, laying on the floor, etc. Then we walk down the hall singing (to the tune "are you sleeping" walking, walking, walking, walking, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, running, running, running, running, running, running, now we stop! now we stop!). The walking and hopping part usually goes over well, but as soon as the running part of the song starts, the kids go crazy and book it to where ever we are going. haha. We need to change the running part to walking or to something more calm...hmmm....Sometimes we just sing the entire song using the word walking....

Trying to take a group photo of the 5 year olds on St. Patrick's Day. This is what almost all the photos look like. haha. Those hats were bigger than they were!

The one successful group picture. Wow. I can't believe one actually turned out somewhat decent!

This was a complete disaster, taking a photo of the entire school!!! What were they thinking? It was a nice thought, but as you can probably see, the photo itself didn't really turn out too well. And this is the better one!

Oh, what exciting St. Patrick's day festivities! Chowing down on chips! What a fun activity for everyone! And as long as there is junk food, they will be entertained! (Oh, these are the 6 and 7s, by the way) The 5 year olds didn't get to eat candy or chips for some reason. Uh-oh, it looks like they're running out...good thing we had another bag waiting for them. The snacks weren't even green! I mean, come on! Shrimp chips for St. Patrick's Day?

Oh cheetos, how you disappoint me... I was craving cheese and I bought you, only to find that you were not cheese flavor, but BBQ flavored. You weren't even bright florescent orange, but a pallid yellow that did not stain my fingers...sniff sniff

There has got to be a more efficient way to dry laundry. Hahaha.

Snow day!!

2010-03-10T01:12:00.001-08:00

This is Andy. He is by far the smartest 5 year old in his class. He is very perceptive and has taught himself the entire alphabet (big and small letters), numbers up to 20, a lot of words, and phrases.

The view out my window this morning when I woke up.

Me downtown....

Barb Nish-this is for you. Charley standing by the Presbyterian church.

The owner of the school standing out in front of the school today.

Yay!!! Snow! Unfortunately school wasn't cancelled though...heh. Charley even called this morning to ask if we had school and Hannah acted confused when asked if there was school today. Anyways, classes are going okay. Today was the first day of REAL classes with the schedule that we'll be using for the rest of the year. I taught 5 year old conversation (which is really just "structured" play time in English), 7 year old conversation and phonics, 6 year old math (2 of the kids can't write or count past 9...uh-oh), and an afternoon class where kids from another school get bused in for 2 hours of English class.

Well, like I said before, teaching 5 year olds is extremely difficult. According to a ESL child development book in the office, 5 year olds may not ever speak in English for an entire year and you shouldn't "force" English words out of them. With that said, some of the kids in the 5 year old class willingly blab away in English, arranging letters and number is order for FUN, while other look at Charley and start crying. It's been difficult finding activities that all of them will participate in because most of the time, a few of the kids will take over the activity, leaving the other bored. If anyone has any pre-school ideas, please let us know!! Coloring pages have been popular, but there is only so much coloring that a child can do. Also, it's hard to gauge how much each child is learning, especially if they aren't willing to talk. Mason, one of the kids has been sick and cried all day when he's in the classroom. However, as soon as he saw the hello-kitty winter coloring sheet, he immediately wanted to join in. Alisha is the one who is scared of Charley. Today while Charley was teaching the 5 year old class, I could hear screaming and it was Alisha, sitting in the corner crying her eyes out. The owner of the school told me to go help him so I picked her up and took her out of the classroom. Immediately she stopped crying... I guess a big white guy can be scary to a little girl, but most of the kids love him since he's definitely kind of a novelty....

The 7 year old class is my favorite class. I have really been enjoying teaching them and they follow directions well. They also learn very quickly, which I can actually see the difference in the few short days I've been with them. They are also rather energetic and rambunctious... so they always need to be doing something or I lose their interest. They are already improving their handwriting skills, conversation, and reading! Yay! At least I think I'm doing one thing right.

Oh! We got our alien card the other day. We look really funny in our pictures because their squished our faces so they are really round. Now we can get insurance I think.

If anyone has any questions about here, please write them in the comments and I will try to answer them!! It would also be helpful as a writing prompt because there is so much going on here that it's hard to just start writing about it. I'm sorry to everyone for being so lazy about updating and I hope all is well in the states!

1 week down....just kidding

2010-03-05T05:44:00.000-08:00

Whew! We survived the first week. I don't know how kindergarten and elementary school teachers do it. I feel sorry/grateful for all those people who sacrifice their sanity and mental well-being for education. :)

More pictures!

2010-03-02T23:45:00.000-08:00

Snack time with the 5 year olds. This teacher's name is Julie. They're eating egg-salad sandwiches and drinking a yogurt drink. All the food is prepared by a lady (I forgot her name). It's always fresh and we get to eat lunch and snacks with the students! Today for lunch we had Japanese Curry...mmm. Charley liked it too! Finally, something that he'll eat!

The 7 year olds. There are a total of 8 students and they are a handful! The boy sitting in front is really tall compared to all the rest of them. He's very well behaved, especially compared to the other boy who is sitting behind him to the left.

Charley in the library.

Us in the apartment...nothing too exciting.

The 5 year olds in class. Charley must have taken this photo. He said it was kind of like babysitting because the kids are so young that it's hard for them to focus or grasp complex concepts...

First day of classes

2010-03-02T23:22:00.000-08:00

Oh my gosh! It was such a chaotic day... We were somewhat prepared for the chaos since the last couple days all the Korean teachers have been running around like chickens with their heads cut off...but still! We arrived at 9am, which is when the students were arriving. The school has a "school bus" (I tried to take a picture of it, but I don't know where they park the darn thing...) that they pick up most of the kids in. There are approximately 30 students that are from the age of 5-7. However, not all the students fit in the but at once, so there are multiple trips back and forth so some students are at school longer than others. Anyways, we arrive and the students are all dressed up in their cute little uniforms. You can tell their personalities immediately. There are the loud and obnoxious ones that are full of energy, the quite and shy ones that cry if you look at them, and the studious ones that have long attention spans (not many of those). The first half of the day was orientation, where the students learned about the school's rules and how to behave. Then after lunch, Charley and I taught our first classes. Charley taught the 5 year olds first, and then the 6 year olds, and I had the 7 year olds for both afternoon sessions. My class was pretty wild. The 7 year olds had a mix of English levels, so some could actually form short sentences, while others couldn't even recognize the alphabet or colors. We were told that only some of the students have gone to other English schools, which explains the mixed levels...They also wouldn't stop blabbing in Korean. I don't think they understand that I cannot speak Korean. Okay, well here are some pictures of the school today!!

This picture is during the "orientation" part of the school day. All the students are sitting in the gym/music room listening to the Korean teachers...See their cute uniforms!!!

The 5 year olds...so small, so cute! From left to right: Andy, Jaden (who's father is in the US army...he speaks very good English), Alisha, Mason, Miki, Sophia, and Alex! The women sitting behind them is Kate, one of the Korean teachers here who speaks English well....

The teacher's office. Left to right: Hannah (the director of the school) and Kate (another teacher) with Miki (5) and Shamie (6). Shamie named herself after at Pokemon... Miki is super cute. She also is very well behaved compared to the rest of her cohort and knows a lot of English because she's already gone to an English school.

The outside of the school! It looks sort of plain from the outside, but the inside is very nice! It also is unusual for a kindergarten school to have an "outdoor" area. Most schools are located on a floor in a tall building.

Walking home from school. There are lots of tall buildings and pavement everywhere. These building are nothing compared to the ones around us though.

Our humble abode.

2010-03-02T03:14:00.001-08:00

The size that all beers should be...huge. From left to right: photo of Charley's family, 2 soju bottles, rice cooker, apples, toaster, keys, huge beer, etc, etc...)

Charley doing what Charley does best. Ignore the mess...Costco boxes are a pain to break down!
The kitchen. The fridge is small, no oven :(, but it's actually quite nice to be cooking on a gas stove...
The entire room...

Some photos....

2010-02-28T03:16:00.001-08:00

Here are some photos from yesterday. Hannah took us downtown and we walked around a bit.Our kitchen! It's essentially a camp stove and a sink. I'm cooking bulgoli, a traditional Korean dish made with thinly-sliced and marinated beef. mmmm....

Charley and me standing downtown...I know it doesn't seem like there's a lot of people, but there are!!!
McDonalds delivery? All fast food places deliver here. It's a bunch of teenage boys riding these mopeds everywhere. They ride on the sidewalk and the road, weaving in and out of traffic...it's a wonder they ever make it anywhere to deliver the food...
Downtown Daegu at night: shops everywhere, people everywhere, loud crappy mainstream American music booming...

Still getting settled.

2010-02-24T02:05:00.001-08:00

Okay, starting off from the last post...

Yesterday was busy. It's like they expect us to have already gotten used to the time change or something. We were picked up by Edward, the owner of the school's husband, at 10am to go to the hospital for our health check. We then proceeded to drive all over the city to find the hospital. The first one we went to apparently didn't do health checks, so we ended up going to a different one. The city itself is larger than any city I have ever been too...not like I've been to any large cities or anything, but there are people, cars, skyscrapers, and shops EVERYWHERE. Traffic is crazy and now I know why people think Asians are bad drivers. As Charley put it, it is organized chaos. As far as I can tell, there are really no rules to driving... I'm really surprised that there aren't more accidents. There also is a lot of smog covering the city. Today it was sunny and clear, but the smog made it look like there was high fog or something. They city is kind of like Salt Lake City in that there are mountains surrounding all sides. If it weren't for the smog, it would be a really pretty view.

Anyways, the health check went alright. No one speaks any English and it's really confusing sometimes (I swear I heard somewhere that more people spoke English!!!). We had no idea what was going on most of the time. Edward speaks very little English and communicates by throwing out random English words to try and make a point. Usually we can sort of figure out what he's trying to say, but there are other times we have no clue. However, he does speak fluent Japanese and even with the 2 years of Japanese that I took, it's almost easier for him to say basic words in Japanese to help at least me understand! Thank goodness I took those two years...and I really wish now that I had taken more. At the hospital we had our blood checked, a UA, and some other basic tests. We also had our picture taken at a photo place and I guess we'll be getting our alien cards soon too.

We went back to the school and observed a phonics class and a conversation class. The kids are so small...I think they are between the ages of 5-8, but the way Korean ages work, I think some of them are still 4. So young! Two of the boys needed American names so we gave them the names Daniel and Ben!! Little do they know that they have American counterparts. Most of the kids had very short attention spans, but they understood English surprising well and caught on to what the teachers were teaching. They're definitely going to speak English well once they get older since they're starting now...

The school itself is very nice. Everything is brand new and the layout looks (it's hard to explain but I'll post pictures later) so nice. The class sizes are going to be about 10 kids a piece, which is going to be plenty. The school definitely is for rich families and Hannah, the director, said that some students aren't able to attend because of the tuition and fees ($800 a month). Yikes! Today we had to watch some boring lady talk about teaching English in Korea. There were parts that were useful, but I think both of us were dozing off a bit. After that we had to practice teaching a lesson... It was a little bit intimidating since neither of us had any clue what we were doing, but for the most part I think we did a good job. We also were doing the lesson in front of each other and Hannah, so it was kind of awkward feeling. Tomorrow we're both teaching our first lesson. Charley is going to do phonics and I am doing conversation. Eek!!!

Well, we're still getting adjusted to living here. It's nice to have internet now. Someone in our building doesn't have a password on their internet, so we can use it for free for now. I will post pictures soon I promise. I haven't really taken many, but I will!!! Oh, we also both have cell phones. If you need to call us, my number is 010-7667-0680 and Charley's is 010-7725-0680. We can get both phone calls and text messages. I think that the country code is 82.

Oh yea, and happy birthday Dad!!! I hope you had a great day and I love you :)

We made it!!

2010-02-22T21:42:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody,
We made it safe and sound. The flight from Seattle to Korea wasn't bad at all. Korean airlines are so much better than any American airline... The seats were spacious, the food was pretty good, and there were these cool video-touch-screen things on the back of each seat where we could watch a bunch of different movies, play games, and stuff like that. Everyone thinks I can speak Korean!! Arg! It's kind of annoying and embarassing because with Charley, it's pretty obvious that he's foreign. With me, everyone just starts talking to me in Korea. I haven't really found a good way to let them know I cannot speak Korean. I really need a shirt that says "I can't speak Korean...thanks". Anyways, we arrived to the Seoul-Incheon airport at about 6:30 local time. We had to call the director of the school, which was a little difficult. We ended up buying a phone card and then couldn't figure out how to use the phone. The airport was huge...so huge that we almost missed our flight from Seoul to Daegu. There weren't any signs in English and people kept giving us bad directions. I thought that more people spoke English here...I guess not. We haven't even seen any other American since we've been here. When we arrived to Daegu, we were picked up by the owner of the school, the director of the school, and the owner's husband. We first took a quick tour of the school and then had Korean BBQ for dinner. If anything, Charley and I will be eating it a lot! We tried Soju, Korean liquor..and silk worms (which tasted like flowers and dirt...ick).

Our apartments are nice. We thought we were living together but instead we both got studio size apartments. They are fully furnished with beds, stoves, bathrooms, TVs, and a couch and table...no ovens though. The showers are a lot different from America. Basically there is a shower hose type thing attached to the wall, then the water from the sink and shower drains into the same place. There are no shower curtins, so everything in the bathroom gets soaking wet. The heating is a lot different too because it's floor heating where the actual floor is warm. It's nice to be walking around on a warm floor. Well, Charley got locked out of his apartment last night because there was something wrong with the locks so we ended up sleeping in a twin bed (he has a full in his room). However, we were both so exhausted that we had a fairly good sleep.

Okay, but we're getting internet tomorrow! I'll write the rest tomorrow! Sorryyyy
Our address is:

Emily Sipe (or Charley Nish)
St. Patrick Institute
879-47 Bong-Duck 2 Dong
Nam-Gu, Daegu, South Korea

Visas!

2010-01-19T19:51:00.000-08:00

It's such a beautiful day today in Oregon!! The sun is shining and the skies are clear. Yay!

Well, we made it back from Seattle just fine. We went up the night before our appointments and stayed in the 6th Ave. Hotel. It turns out that the hotel is located across the street from the Korean Consulate (our room actually looked directly at it). The visa process was pretty simple. We had to fill out some paperwork beforehand and bring in some documents, but once we got there they took our stuff, did a quick interview, and told us to come back a few hours later! We didn't have copies of our criminal background checks since we sent them to Korea a month ago, but that wasn't a problem. It was kind of weird being the only American people in the consulate. I don't know what I was expecting, but everyone there was definitely Korean. There was some other American guy there getting his visa to teach English too. He said he was leaving next week, yikes! I'm wondering when we'll leave... I heard that the school is looking for flights right now, but now I guess we just have to wait.

I emailed the recruiter to let him (or her...I'm not sure) know that we got our visas and the entire response was this: "That is most excellent! Please bring large towel and bed sheets for your bed because you want to take nice shower and have sleep when you arrive. I hope it helps!" Well, that sure is informative...anything else?

It still hasn't really sunk in that we're going to be gone for a whole year. Charley and I are getting rather restless living in Forest Grove. The past several days have been really cold and rainy, which has definitely be reflecting on our moods. It's weird (and annoying) how the time passes so quickly with little being accomplished. Oh well... Now all we have to do is go through the rest of our boxes and figure out where we're going to store all our stuff!

Yay Korea!

2010-01-15T12:41:00.001-08:00

This is my first post in a blog that will follow the lives of Charley and myself in Korea. We first decided that we wanted to go teach English in Korea during the summer, and since then, I have been diligently working with a ESL elite recruiting, a Canadian based recruiting agency. It has been a little bit difficult to reach the place where we are now, but we are now officially employed by the St. Patrick Language Institute, in Daegu Korea. Here is the website (it's all in Korean...but it might be possible to translate it using Google translate)! For now, all we really know is that we will be working with young kids (kindergarden/early grade school). They will be housing us in a 2-person apartment that is within 10 minutes walking distance from the school, paying for our flight, and giving us health insurance (yay!).

Anyways, now I'm going to try to briefly describe how we got to where we are today:

I started looking at jobs at Dave's ESL cafe, a website where there are an overwhelming number of job postings in Korea. Each posting usually includes the type of position and the requirements. For the most part, the only requirements that these jobs have is you must be a native English speaker, have a bachlors degree in any field, and have no felonies. Great! So far, so good. However, the difficult part is contacting each recruiter and being matched up with a job. I sent our resumes and pictures to probably about 30 recruiter explaining that we are an American couple looking to teach at the same school and preferably live together. This is when I got into trouble. It turns out that schools don't like hiring couples unless their married...great. They also don't like hiring kyopo, which is a somewhat unfriendly term for Koreans who were raised somewhere other than Korea. It seemed as though being a couple and being Korean-American were playing against us this entire time, but after literally 100s of emails and a lot of perseverance, we made it!

The first step in finding a job is sending the recruiter you resume. Then the recruiter tries to match you with a school and sends the resume to the school's director. If the school likes your resume, they will set up an interview. During this interview, the school will most likely offer you a job. Sounds easy, right?

Along with finding a school that wants you to work for them, you have to also prepare a bunch of documents, which includes: transcripts, the original diploma, a criminal background check, passport photos, a passport, and signed contracts. Yikes. After we gathered all of those things, I sent them to Korea, where they begin the visa process. The visa process in Korea takes a few weeks, and then they send you a visa number that we have to take to the Korean embassy here in Seattle, WA to get the visa finalized.

So this is where we are now. The school wants us to arrive between the 15th and the 19th of February. I think that they are currently trying to find us plane tickets too. On Tuesday (19 Jan) we're going up to Seattle for our visa interviews. It's a pity that they don't have an embassy closer to us because the total time of the interview is 10 minutes per person. Oh well...