First day in the classroom:
Monday August 31st:
I set my alarm for 6:30 am, knowing that I should be out the door by the latest 8 am. I don’t get out of bed until 6:45, then I stumble around for a bit. I forget that I have to turn on the water heater in order to have hot water in the shower, so I push that button as soon as I remembered that needed to be done, hah. I guess I always took having hot water for granted. Never again.
I take a shower in my Korean-style bathroom, shave (of course), then decided to wear just khakis and my carolina-blue dress shirt and red and blue tie. I definitely felt like I was dressing the part of a teacher. I gather everything together that I thought I’d need for the first day of class, head out of my apartment a little before 8, stop at 7-11 to grab my starbucks double-shot espresso, and then walk underground. The underground mall at bupyeong is literally just one huge maze, and I have absolutely no idea how people know where exactly they’re walking to. Luckily, I just have to follow signs that say “subway”, but of course I chose to turn at the wrong “subway” sign, hah. Instead of turning at the Seoul subway line, I turned at the Incheon one, and then I wonder around a bit and I realize I’m not in the spot I need to be at. I then ask one of the employees, “Seoul?”, and he points me in the right direction, thank god.
I wait for like 5 minutes before the train comes, I hop in with the hundreds of other Koreans heading to work, and just listen to my music. Luckily, my school is only one stop away, which translates into like a 3 minute subway ride. Not bad at all. I get off, head to the exit 1, and walk towards my school! Nerves are sky-high by now, because I have no idea what to expect. Of course, I get to school wayyy early (even earlier before my co-teacher got there), so I hang around outside. There, a bunch of Korean students are smiling at me and saying “hi, how are you”…I immediately fall in love with it. I give them all high-fives before heading upstairs to the English classroom to meet my co-teacher, Anne, who has finally arrived by like 8:50.
I meet my other co-teacher Christina (or I think that’s her name!). I think I got lucky having only two co-teachers, because I’ve heard of other people having like 6-8 co-teachers, which would make things much more complicated logistically. Christina’s English is just like Anne’s, very broken and basic, but we can at least communicate on a low-level. Communicating effectively and efficiently is going to be the hardest thing this year I think.
Anyways, Anne then tells me we have to go meet the principal, and I about shat my pants. We walked into his office, and stereotypically it was furnished in the nicest furniture and TVs and pictures. He gets up from his desk, doesn’t really smile at first, I bow and say “anyong ha-seyo”, bow again, and then he sticks out his hand to shake mine. We shake for a good 20 seconds, while just muttering broken Korean/English at each other and smiling. Very awkward moment, haha. Eventually, I think I broke the principal’s tough façade, because he finally starting smiling and laughing with me, and he tried out his English which was nice.
He then went on the school comm system which includes video to every classroom, and proceeded to award certain students for certain things (today was the first day of second semester for Koreans, so it was only a half-day for the students). After a lot of awards, I get a nudge from Anne saying it’s my turn. I walk into the room next to us, and find a fucking camera broadcasting everything to the whole school. I was not prepared for this to be video taped!! So after the principal says “Davis James Hunt” in his Korean accent, I step up to the podium and give my little welcome speech. I could see myself on the screen, and all I remember is me like smiling so much and thinking this can’t really be happening. It was a little surreal.
I somehow end after like 3 minutes of just spewing out words and thank you’s, and everyone is so happy with me. Remember, I’m the first native English teacher this school has had, so they don’t know what to expect from me either. However, I feel like I’m doing a really good job at representing myself, my family, and the US. I’ve made a huge concerted effort at making friends with all my colleagues and getting to know them and show them respect, and I think it’s already paying dividends. I’ve been invited to go into Seoul with Anne, and I think I have an invitation to go to some big temple in Seoul with one other English teacher and her husband.
Anyways, after my speech, Anne and I head back to our English room and we basically do nothing until lunch, no lie. I was invited to go out to lunch with Anne and the 4 other 5th grade teachers (Ryan, Amy, Rocky, and some other girl who I never got her name). We had some sort of soup/noodle/beef/fried rice meal which was very good. I don’t think Anne understands that I like spicy food though, because she ordered not spicy for me and her, and the rest of the table got theirs spicy. I’ll have to work on that, hah.
Side note, my school is not well-off apparently, and Ryan likes to make that known to me, and it makes me feel really awkward. I don’t think he’s trying to make me feel bad or make me feel obligated to do more/other things, but he’s reminded me at least 3 times now that these kids are low on the social ladder and don’t have much money.
After lunch, just hang out on my computer, show Anne pictures, put together a slideshow for tomorrow…
Meet other EPIK people at 6:30 at lotte mart
Jo’s friend takes us to a cool Korean restaurant in some alley-way, can’t get Stephen there…
Hang out with Stephen.
I put in laundry before heading out for a bit, and when I got back, I saw where some blue of I think my bluejeans bleed into some of my favorite shirts. I was about to shit my pants, but then I decided to remove everything that was blue in the laundry, and run the clothes through just water again. Genius idea! The blue was gone from the shirts, and all was right with the world. I really want to find a person to do my laundry for me though, because I hate not having a dryer and I don’t want to have to worry about clothes bleeding and other shit because I’m not used to Korean washing machines. Ehhh…
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