Koreiention Week

The view from the teachers' office in my main school: Seolcheon Middle School.

     It's been some kind of a week.  To start with, I experienced my first typhoon/ hurricane in person.  Typhoon Sanba tore through South Korea on Monday.  I was luckier than some.
     Sanba made landfall in Korea just East of Namhae, where I live.  I was supposed to have my first day at the schools on Monday, but that didn't happen.  I have to take a bus to school, and in order to get on my bus, I have to walk about a kilometer to the bus terminal.  When I left my house Monday morning, I was armed with an umbrella and good spirits.  By the time I was half way to the bus station, I was soaked to the bone, rendering my umbrella useless, but the good spirits still remained.  I turned around and laughed all the way home.  My host teacher, Hyeon-Jin, said that the storm might be too bad for me to make it on my own, and in that case he would come and pick me up from my apartment in Namhae.  So after changing clothes, I waited a short while at the bottom of the stairs in my building.  I sat and watched the rain come down harder and the wind get stronger.  I sat and watched and waited.  But not for too long.  After the fifth or sixth time the storm decided to burst through the doors of my apartment building, I made the executive decision to go back to my room.  As my room was on the building that was not being pummeled by the elements, I passed the day in relative peace.  I found out that afternoon from a nice neighbor (and teacher at one of my schools) that classes had been canceled, and I was not in trouble for not making it to work.  I was very thankful for that.  I did get a chance to see some Korean news about the storm during the day, and some places were really hit pretty hard.  Luckily, though, people around here are fairly used to and ready for Typhoons, so I believe there were little or no deaths this go round.
     After Sanba, the rest of the week would surely be cake.  I have been being treated AMAZINGLY by the people here.  The schools as well as the people of Namhae have been very nice.  The most amazing of these people is my host teacher Hyeon-Jin.  He has been required to drive me all over the province as well as help me with paperwork and countless other odds and ends.  He is also my co-teacher at my main school:  Seolcheon Middle School.  On Tuesday he was nice enough to take me to the Immigration Office and Hospital for some official paperwork that he was privileged enough to fill out for me.  In fact, I think the only thing he hasn't done for me is take the physical the government required of me, and he might have done that too if I'd asked.
     On Wednesday I finally got to start meeting students.  I went to Seolcheon Elementary, which is across the street from Seolcheon Middle School, and met the staff there.  I also had the opportunity to meet the students (all of them) and let them play twenty questions with me.  Thursday held roughly the same ritual, but at the third of my schools, Doma Elementary, which is located about half way between my home in Namhae and the other to schools in Seolcheon.  The kids asked lots of form questions that they knew in English like 'What is your favorite food?', 'What is your hobby?', and 'Do you like...?'  The real interesting questions came when they asked in Korean, and the co-teacher there with me had to translate.  These questions ranged all over.  I was asked if everyone in Texas looked and dress like me.  If their hair was the same.  The question also got somewhat personal too.  I think that the single most popular question was 'Do you have a girlfriend/ wife?'  After I said no, the students would often plot to fix me up with the nearest marriageable female.
    Today, Friday, I have spent in the office at Seolcheon Middle School pouring of my text books and trying to formulate lesson plans.  I'm confident that I have enough of a grasp of the English language to teach it, and I even think I can teach at least acceptably well.  I am somewhat nervous, however, about working with (or rather finding out what it will be like to work with) the other teachers.  All said and done, it looks like I will have not one, but seven co-teachers.  I'm sure I will be glad for the help, but I will have to learn seven different dynamics.  I'm sure I'll be fine, but the butterflies don't listen to the brain.  I guess I'll know how cold the water is on Monday, because I'm jumping in whether I'm ready or not.