V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N-!-!

Hello, hello! This is officially our second weekend in our new apartment. The big difference is now its clean :)

We have one week of work under our belt and two things have struck us. One... how quickly the time is going by here. It's hard to believe that we've been in Seoul for over three weeks now. And two... how much work it is. The kids are great, some of the teachers are great, but the workload and the learning curve is definately taking its toll. I know that with time we will become more efficient, which will make our lives much easier, but the time being... its hard work. Luckily both Paul and I are used to working hard, so we are able to stay pretty positive while we are at school.

Strangely enough we are having our first week of vacation this week. SLP (our school) closes its doors for two full weeks in the year. Once in the summer (starting July 31st) and once in December for Christmas. So even though we don't really need a vacation right now, its nice that we are able to spend it together. We have yet to receive our first paycheque so our one week's holidays will be pretty low key and cheap. Not to mention, if you want a flight out of Korea you have to book months in advance because they only have three or so airlines that fly out of Korea so flights book up really quickly. So for this weeek we are thinking of touring around Seoul with the other new teacher Andrea (she's from Halifax). She arrived one week after we did and she won't have anything to do for a whole week, so we thought we would spend some time together.

For the winter vacation we are thinking about Cambodia, so I guess we better get booking. There is also a period of 6 or 7 days in October in which the school is closed (some sort of national holiday I think), so we might book something for that week as well. It's hard to think about that kind of stuff when you are still trying to figure out simple things like where do I put my garbage bags? or where is the nearest grocery store? etc. etc.

Well that's about it for now. We will write more about our adventures in Seoul this week. Take care everyone and hopefully we'll see you on MSN!

Woo Ha

Hello all. I apologize for the delay in our post. We finally moved into our new apartment and we did not have internet until this evening. So what to write about????

THE MOVE

Although we are both extremely happy to be in a place of our own - no roommates or living out of suitcase - the move was anything but smooth. We moved into an apartment that was previously housed by two teachers at SLP - Mark and Scott. We had heard rumours that they were not the cleanest of people, but both Gene and Jenny reminded them on Friday to clean so we were keeping our fingers crossed. We didn't have access to our apartment until past 2pm ( I guess the boys like to party!) At first glance things did not look so bad, but upon further inspection we were both disgusted at the state of the apartment. Our first instinct was the call Gene, but we soon found out that it was useless. All he said was "sorry, there is nothing I can do." How wonderful!

We will post before and after photos on our Yahoo photo album!

Every surface that could be cleaned needed to be cleaned and badly. Inside cupboards, outside cupboards, the fridge (inside and out), sweeping and washing floors, bathroom floor, tiles, toilet, all the dishes etc. It was horrible. To make matters worse the kitchen sink was clogged so we had to wash everything in the bathroom! To clean, rearrange the furniture and unpack took over 12 hours. We finally hit the sack at 3 am on Saturday morning. We were both glad that we had worked so hard the day before so we could semi-relax on Sunday. We spent the last day of our weekend relaxing and grocery shopping.

FIRST DAY OF WORK

We arrived nice and early on Monday morning with butterflies in our stomachs. The room where the mother's can watch their kids was so full that there were people standing outside the room. We knew that we had a audience and that made the case of the nerves much worse! Once I entered the classroom I completely forgot about the fact that people were watching. When I spoke to Paul later he told me that he felt the same way. The hardest part of the classes was monitoring time. Instead of the typical "running out of the time", I actually found that the class went too quickly and I had extra time on my hands. I am already adjusting my syllabus to remedy this situation.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Unlike what most people think, I believe that this job is going to be a lot of work. We are already pulling 9-10 hour days. Part of this is because we are new and we have yet to discover a more efficient way to complete the work, but part is that there is simply a lot of prep work to do for each class. Here is what a typical preschool morning schedule looks like for Monday-Friday....

9:40 - 11:00 am PRESCHOOL HOMEROOM

11:00 - 11:20 am SNACK BREAK (Teachers get a break as well)

11:20 - 12:40 am SECOND PRESCHOOL CLASS

12:40 - 1:20 am LUNCH (Preschool teachers serve lunch to their homeroom class - not included in our 21 classes a week)

1:20 - 2:20 pm ACTIVITY CLASSES (We teach an average of 3 classes per week - not included in our 21 classes a week)

We are required to teach 21 classes per week at 80 minutes each. As you can see we only cover 10 hours with our preschool schedule. We are VERY BUSY people. But once you get a routine down and become more efficient, it seems that most teachers are only working their 40 hours a week. Time will tell.

Well that's it for now. I will post those photos right after this. Drop us a line and let us know how you are doing!

Lost in Translation

I didn't realize how much the weekend would help us to relax and absorb all of the information we've been receiving over the last week. It's actually a long weekend as well, so we got three whole days of "do nothingness". Just how I like it.

We did go into work on Saturday for a couple of hours. We managed to get more work accomplished and more questions answered in those two hours then we normally do in one day during the week. I think as long as we maintain a go with the flow attitude we will be just fine. The schedule (or lack there of) is frustrating, but I can understand it at the same time. The 24th (our first official day) is the start of a new session at the school and also the start of something called Intensives (I'm still not 100% what they are). But what it means for us is that everyone in the school is getting a new schedule, not just us, so it makes sense that things are always changing. Plus another new teacher just arrived on Thursday so they have to find classes for her as well. Hectic is an understatement when you have 900 students and 20 odd teachers. CRAZY!

I think us Westerners are used to most things being in a orderly fashion and Korean people just don't do it that way. I imagine if a Korean native was being trained in Toronto they would have trouble understanding our way of things. Plus, I think we all know that things never quite go as planned.

Next week we get to teach one of our classes with Jenny and the old teacher watching. Although we will both we nervous, I think it is a great opportunity to learn as well. I will welcome any suggestions they have since I have never taught children before.

Enough work chat...

We finally experienced our first Lost in Translation moment...

This weekend we decided to go and see a movie. Saturday night six of us went to the big mall, COEX to see Pirates of the Caribbean. We arrived at 5:30 pm and the only tickets available were at 9pm. Movies sell out rather quickly here because most people prepurchase them online (but you need a Korean credit card to do that). Two people were unable to stay that late, so after much debate four of us decided to stay for the later show. Bryan (who has purchased movie tickets before) took our money and braved the cash only line for the tickets. He came back and said they only had a 9:25 show available, but he purchased them anyway. We had three hours to kill before the movie.

SIDE NOTE: The movie theatres here have assigned seating. When you purchase your tickets you actually get to look at a seating chart and pick out where you want to sit! It's great because if you buy your tickets a few days in advance you can show up five minutes before the movie and be guaranteed a good seat!

We walked into theatre 10 minutes before the movie and got comfortable. We watched two Korean previews and what looked like an advertisement for the army. Then the movie started. Only it wasn't Pirates of the Caribbean. It took about 10 minutes, but we finally realised that we were in the wrong movie (the first hint was that it was all in Korean!!) We all snuck out of the theatre while the locals giggled at us. Turns out that there is a Korean movie out right now with the word Caribbean in the title so the employee got confused and gave us the wrong tickets. The manager was very nice and gave us tickets for the Sunday night 6pm show and we were on our way.

Last night we were finally able to see the movie and we had a great time. It was so nice to do something that we would normally do on a weekend. It felt like we were back home.

Today we are just going to bum around and do nothing. We've already been grocery shopping so we literally have nothing to do. It feels nice. I'll write more once there is more to write. I hope everyone back home is doing well and please drop us an email anytime. Also, don't forget, if you want to chat over MSN please let us know and we will add you to our list.

Rain rain go away

I will do a quick and dirty post because I know we've been slacking a little. Both Paul and I are exhausted from mind overload so plese forgive any sentences that don't make any sense.

First of all , it has been raining in some way, shape or form everyday since we got here. The last three days it has been raining hard all day long. I don't even remember what the sun looks like. Our training has been intense, but that is because we are both working hard now to avoid future confusion. The problem is that we don't know who's schedules we are taking over so we can't focus on those particular classes. Everything is rather disorganized and we're doing our best to take it with stride.

Korean people work extremely hard. It is still a traditional society in that men go to work and women stay home with the children. Although that is changing with the younger generation (most of our Korean teachers are women - unmarried women, but women nonetheless). They work 10-12 hour days six or seven days a week. The Korean teachers work harder then the foreign and get paid a whole lot less. I imagine it must be hard for them to hear foreign teachers complain about their jobs. Most of the foreign teachers at this school are young, fresh out of university and have never held down a "real" job before. They complain a lot about having to work hard probably because they don't realise its the same way at home, but you actually run the risk of getting paid less and they certainly don't pay for your housing.

Right now that is the hardest part of the job. Overcoming all of the negative energy that is around the school. A lot of the teachers are unhappy, either because of hours, money or some other stupid reason. They walk around like the world owes them something and unfortunately it is a spreading. Anytime a new teacher comes to the school they seem to be infected with the "piss on this" virus. I've spoken with my roommate at length about the situation (Rachel) and she agrees that the trend has to stop. She is glad to have people like Paul and I there who are willing to work hard and have fun at the same time.

As for the actual training, so far everything has been done through observation. Can we say BORING! There is no training manual and no set system of how to learn things. It has been our responsibility to find out what we need to know and then ask the right questions.

I guess we won't really know if our hard work has paid off until we step foot into a classroom. Fingers crossed.

I'll write more later, but right now breakfast is served. And just as a side note. I may have made everything sound negative right now, but there are good people at the school (they are just in smaller number). We are both remaining positive and that is a good first step!

Peace Out!

Let's try this again...

This will be my second attempt at writing our first blog from Seoul. I had written a detailed and beautiful entry and it was lost in the expanse that is cyberspace. So instead you get this which will be much shorter and probably not nearly as beautiful.

Our flight was fairly uneventful, which as far as airplane trips go, is good news. We arrived at the airpot in Seoul at 7:00 p.m. It took us 45 minutes to get through customs and pick up our bags. When we got out of the airport there was someone there to meet us, but not who we expected. Sammy, our representative from our placement agency, had a family emergency and has taken a leave so we didn't meet him. Instead we had a very nice cab driver who didn't speak a word of English :)

The traffic from the airport to Seoul was horrible and we weren't at SLP (the school) until past 9 p.m. There we met the Vice Director - Hailey - and she took us to our respective apartments. Paul's roommates are Kevin and Bryan. Kevin is a native Korean who works at the school. He has the job luckly job as translator between teachers and parents. I must say that I don't envy his position. Bryan, who is from Sarnia, has been here for over a year. He will be leaving in December, which makes 16 months total. He has been a great resource so far and we're luckly to have him to help answer our questions.

My roommates are named Ivan and Rachel. Rachel, who is from Owen Sound, has been teaching for five months now. She seems like a lot of fun, and is really stylish and funky. Ivan is from Ireland and has only been here from 3 months.

So far all the information we've been given about training is scaring both Paul and I. From what we can understand it will be very overwhelming and the school will explain next to nothing, but will expect you to know everything. They believe that you should be able to pick everything up through observation, so the next two weeks of work will be strickly observing other teacher's classes. We've received some good advice on how to make training go more smoothly. Basically, ask lots of questions of the teachers, but not the supervisors. If you ask the supervisors they will see that as a sign of weakness and an inability to learn. Welcome to KOREA! They do things quite differently here, but that's why we're here. To experience another culture.

We've also been told that the work load will be really heavy for the first few months because of the learning curve. So if we don't update as often as you hope you know why :)

We spent the weekend grocery shopping, setting up our temporary rooms and getting to know the area of Gangnam. Just from a glance I can see already that food here will be difficult for me. This is a meat based diet and almost everything has meat in it. But with a lot of creativity and paitence I should be fine. The worst that will happen is that I will get bored of eating the same thing over and over again.

Tonight we will spend the night relaxing before our first day of school. We should have more information about the training process in the next few days. Until then we will both have our fingers crossed!

Back to Asia

A Seoul with Soul

Wow it has been FAR too long. To be honest there hasn't been too much happening in Ajax (go figure) which means there hasn't been too much to write. All of you who are reading this will have received the email letting you know about our next grand adventure. We fly out of Pearson International tomorrow morning at 7:45 a.m. and land in LAX 5 hours later. From there we get to hang out at the airport for 4 hours (I'm crossing my fingers to see someone famous) and hop on another plane directly to Incheon International Airport which is 52 km west of Seoul. We will be landing at 6:30 p.m. South Korean time (which is 13 hours ahead of us folks in Ontario - everyone else will have to do the math... sorry!)

Our representative from our placement agency will be picking us up. His name is Sammy and he has been a fantastic help. He has made the process so much easier for us. We may sacrifice some salary, but for the peace of mind that he brought to us it has been worth it a hundred times over.

We start our first day of a two week training period on Monday. Our first official day of work is on the 24th of July. We will be in temporary housing until we finish training, but we get to move into our apartment on the 22nd of July. It will be very nice to have a place of our own again.

Tonight we hope to spend some time relaxing because the last two weeks have been hectic. Once we get situated in Seoul we will write again. Peace out!