My Left Shoe Fits As Well As My Right

The view down my street headed back from the bus station.

     It's been a pretty good week so far.  I've had my first 'real' classes with all my elementary students, and I'm starting to understand what my co-teachers are going to expect of me.  I've also made a few key strides in my social world, as well as managed to get over the final bureaucratic hump of getting set up in a new place.  So far, it's been a pretty good week.

     Working with seven different co-teachers at three different schools was bound to bring some... inconsistencies, but my nerves about the situation have been calmed.  After the first week of classes, I feel I have at least a rudimentary idea of what is going to be expected of and from me.  I'm not sure if it is because I'm still new, or because I'm spread over several schools, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of demands put on me when I'm not in class, so I have spent a lot of my time at school reading or researching on the internet.  I almost hate to say it, but part of me is uneasy with so much free time.  I feel like I should be doing something more for the job, but when I ask about if I should, I usually get a rather ambiguous response, but along the lines of.... "ummm... no it's ok."  Although Korea produces a lot as a country, it has one of the worst production-to-man-hour ratios in the world.  I'm beginning to see a little bit of that maybe.  Or maybe I just haven't got to the hard bit yet.

     I was happy to waste some time with the staff of Seolcheon Elementary on Wednesday though.  Every week they have a sort of semi-formalized pick-up volleyball game, and I was very nicely invited to join this week.  Even though I haven't played in a while, and I'm pretty sure I have a bad shoulder (which still hurts a little from the game) I had a really good time playing with them.  They seem to be a really fun group.  The talent ranged from pretty enthusiastic players to the not-so-competent, but it was all in good fun with good spirits.  Afterwards, we ate a small snack of chicken.  I was surprised to be served a beer in the school, and was even asked to have a little Soju (like Vodka)!  I never thought in my craziest dreams that someone would offer me alcohol at school, and it not be breaking some sort of law or taboo.  It was nice anyway.  I had a nice conversation with a few of the teachers before I had to bugger off and catch my bus home.

     This week has also been fairly fortunate in that I have met the other NETs (Native-English Teachers) here on the island.  Namhae has maybe a dozen Foreign Teachers and of that very select group, a few are apparently more inclined to be sort of home-bodies.  A small group of five of us met up last night and went out for some drinks.  While a little annoying at times, the language barrier has not been giving me too much of an issue from a personal standpoint, but to get out with some good 'ole English speakers and relax for a few hours was great.  And as an added bonus, I met them just before the long weekend, so I won't be as lonely and bored as I might have been.

     The long weekend is five days, by the way, and is in celebration of Chuseok, or Korean Thanksgiving.  It's a harvest festival, and is a very family centered holiday.  Most Koreans go to their home town and spend time with their families, as well as pay homage to their ancestors.  It's probably the biggest holiday in Korea. For those of us with white skin and no families that are practical to visit, it's a nice long holiday from work.  The other teachers I met last night already have big plans for the weekend and days off, and they've invited me along.  Most notable of the plans was a Lantern Festival in Jinju on Monday and an Oktoberfest in a little 'German' village on Tuesday.  I'm looking forward to both for observational/educational reasons as much as for social ones.

     Today will be spent mostly jumping through the last few hoops to get me officially set up here.  My ARC (Alien Registration Card) was issued yesterday, and my wonderful co-teacher and liaison-extraordinaire went to pick it up for me.  So this morning we went and opened my bank account, and in a few hours, we're going to get me a phone and internet.  I'll have all the comforts of the technological age by the time the sun goes down, barring any unforeseen mishaps.  Again, all of this is happening at a very convenient time as the long weekend would have been much harder to deal with without the little things like phone and internet.

     If this week has been an indicator of what life as a teacher here will be like, I think that I will have no problems at all.