For those of you know don't know, in November I accepted a position to teach at a private American-style school in South Korea in Suwon, the same city that my sister is working in. Yay!
I wanted to first start with my last day in the U.S. I walked around Berkeley with a friend and their dog and visited the T-Rex fossil at the university.
After I dropped Hannah off at home, I met my friends for dinner at Agave. It was my last American and Mexican meal.
The food was good, but I'm not sure if I enjoyed my drink. I *did* enjoy spending time with my friends eating dinner, taking a walk down memory lane, and then playing games together. I was touched that they wanted to spend my last day in the U.S. with me. We had a lot of good times in the past year going out drinking and dancing, going to conventions, going to hip hop dance exerercise classes, playing board games, and generally spending time together. The five of us had a lot of fun. I'll really miss you all.
The flight wasn't bad, even though it was about 14 hours. I was only able to sleep about 2 hours on the flight, so that plus the other 2 hours I slept before my flight gave me a total of 4 hours of sleep. I was surprisingly not tired though. Here are some of the sights I enjoyed from my window seat (and no one next to me, and the person in the aisle seat mostly up and away, yes!): leaving SFO, sky over the Pacific, and some part of South Korea.
What was frustrating was that the flight was a little late in arriving at Incheon and then not being able to take my dog, Hannah home with me that night. They paged me while I was in baggage claim to tell me that the Quarantine office was closing soon and I wouldn't have time to go through the Quarantine procedures to release my dog, so my dog would be kept in the Incheon cargo area until the next day. I was especially irritated because I felt like the airline had kind of set me up for failure. With only one flight out of SFO each day to Incheon scheduled to arrive 1.5 hours before the offices close, it seemed pretty unlikely I would have been able to get my dog on the same day as my arrival.
With help from my sister's signficant other, I was able to get Hannah the next day without any further delay. I gave her a Greenie, one of her favorite things, and I buckled her in to the backseat that she had to share with her kennel, and we drove back to Suwon. We went to an E-mart to buy dog shampoo so that we could go back to my sister's apartment and wash Hannah. I was glad that Hannah, while upset about the whole ordeal, was not traumatized by the experience.
I spent the first week buying things I'd need. Well, my sister and her S.O. helpd me buy things that I will repay whenever I get paid. Hannah and I stayed at my sister's apartment for most of the first week since I didn't have internet at my place or a working cell phone. I met my director/principal and some of other teachers/staff at my new school, and moved in to my apartment that Friday. I went to get my health check done too. On that same day as I was running to make the light (because they take so long here), I fell and hurt my knee, which still hurts today.
Anyway, we eventually got me a prepaid phone plan that I'm currently using, and we set up internet at my place. I now have super fast internet for under $27/month. (1,000 W (Korean Won) is equivalent to almost $1 USD, so I'm roughly converting.)
Work has been fine. I started teaching my second week in South Korea. I had nine art classes scheduled for two days that week, but they ended up canceling half of them on Thursday so that the students could rehearse for the winter showcase the next day. I took pictures of some of the art we did. I think the students enjoyed the activies.
I spent most my time that first week observing and helping out in a preschool class for 3-year olds. In March I will be the lead teacher for another preschool class of the same age group.
After the winter break from the beginning of January to the end of February, in addition to art classes for elementary and middle school classes, I will be teaching kindergarten science and Winter Camp classes. Winter camp is apparently something South Korean parents enroll their kids in during their winter break. My school follows the American academic calendar, but the South Korean academic calendar is different, so I will be teaching art and kindergarten science to students enrolled at my school, and winter camp to students that normally attend some other school in South Korean.
