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.