First Full Day and More

I had my first full day of teaching today. Things went pretty smoothly. There was a good amount of testing the waters from the kids in my Morning Kinder class, but any self respecting child should test the waters. My 2 afternoon classes both breezed by and 6:00pm came much quicker then I expected. The 2 afternoon classes have a monthly exam coming up this week so the next day or so will mostly focus on reviewing for the test.

I got my Alien card today, and was informed that after lunch I would get to open my bank account! For lunch today the director Mr. Kim took Jessica (who I'm replacing), some Korean staff, and myself out. We went to a Chinese food restaurant about 10 minutes from school and I could already feel myself gagging. Picky eating aside I knew I would have to stomach it, or at least attempt to stomach it. We got there and Mr. Kim did all the ordering. First up was a sea food soup, and I wanted to cry. The soup looked more like someone had grabbed handfuls of creatures from the bottom of the ocean and then threw in a few vegetables. There were mussels, octopus, shrimp, and so on. I made it through a bit of the vegetables and some broth but that was all I could do. Next up was some kind of super sized shrimp. It looked as though it had been zapped by the enlarging machine Wayne Szalinski had created in Honey, I Blew Up the Kid. It was breaded, fried, and then dipped in some kind of sweet and sour sauce. The super shrimp was the most manageable of the plates Mr. Kim ordered. Following the shrimp was a huge plate of fried pork, causing another internal sad face to take over. I was able to stomach a few piece but felt myself gagging so I called it quits with this plate. At this point I was done sampling food and wanted to run back to LA and get a hot dog from Brent's Deli. Little did I know there was one more dish making its way out. This dish was a noodle bowl, mixed with more sea food (oh goody!), a few veggies, and some super spicy runny red sauce. I got through a bit of the noodles and some of the sauce, before Mr. Kim asked what my favorite kind of food was. At first I thought he was just making conversation but he followed with laughter and commented on the fact that I had drank much more water compared to the amount of food I had eaten. We all laughed and and wrapped things up.

After lunch I went to the bank with P.S. (he takes care of the foreign staff) and opened an account. There was a lot of paperwork to fill out and the majority of it was in Korean. I was super thankful that P.S. was there to help out. We got things squared away and now the school will direct deposit my checks and utilities will be directly debited from the account.

Wednesday I move into my permanent apartment. Tomorrow evening will be packing up time and then around the corner I will go on Wednesday. Looking forward to air conditioning and internet!

Listening to Passion Pit Sleepyhead.