It's Getting Better All The Time

Right now it's Friday morning at 7am. For the record, Korea is 15 hours ahead of Texas. Let me tell ya, the future is awesome.

Today completes my first week as a kindergarten teacher in Anyang, a suburb of Seoul. "Suburb" is such a tricky word to use here, because when the city-proper is as big as Seoul, the suburbs are roughly the size of Manhattan. As far as city planning, nothing grows outward, only upward. It's rare to see a one-story building. I'll get some pictures of this up pretty soon.

My school is incredibly disorganized as far as handling the influx of new teachers. There's about ten of us, with only three veteran teachers. None of us had apartments (I'm still living in a Love Motel, but more on that later), half the teachers walked off the plane Monday and were driven directly to their classroom to start teaching, and we still haven't gotten Alien Registration Cards or health insurance. Not to mention on top of all this, we're supposed to be writing lesson plans for the entire month, due ASAP. I teach an English coursebook to 5 and 6 year olds for most of the day. They're absolutely adorable. I cannot stress this enough. Expect about a zillion videos of my little asian babies saying cute things.

As I said before, I'm in a Love Motel. This is something you find all over Seoul... it's a motel that's very cheap (some rent by the hour), and men bring their mistresses here to go to bonertown. Also, in Korean culture you're supposed to live at home with your parents til you get married, so if you and your girlfriend wanna bang, then a Love Motel is the place to be. I get to hear lots of interesting things through the ultra-thin walls of my hotel room. My bed has neon green lights. When I checked in, I was handed a free condom and a toothbrush. Awesome.

Although I have a ton of things to dislike about my current situation, I gotta say I've met some really great people at my school, I'm already seeing a shitload of progress in my little babies' English, and the stir of confusion is growing smaller by the day. I think I'm in a good place.