Typhoons and Tropical Storms

The weather has been very interesting here this week. I survived my first typhoon and my first tropical storm, both within two days of each other. Typhoon Bolaven came through Korea on Tuesday, and Tropical Storm Tembin hit on Thursday. Typhoon Tuesday and Tropical Storm Thursday. Isn't alliteration great? :)

Bolaven arrived on Tuesday with a lot of wind and a little rain. The eye was about 110 miles north of Pyongtaek, so we did not get the brunt of the storm (our northern neighbor did). Some schools in Seoul canceled school on Tuesday because of the storm. We went to school like normal, but shortly into the school day it was decided that it would not be safe to stay all day. As a result, we had an 11 a.m. dismissal. Bad news: I only had one class that day, and half the students were absent anyway. Definitely not a productive teaching day. Good news: Because we had a half day of school, we don't have to make it up. And that's really good news because our make up days happen on Saturdays.

We made it home safely and stayed inside the rest of the day. My apartment is on the 8th floor, but the only effect from the wind I noticed was the windows rattling. Our apartment building had no damage, and I did not hear of any damage at the school either. I also did not see any trees down in my neighborhood or on the drive to school. Plenty of leaves and sticks were lying all over the place, but no big branches or trees. That could be because Koreans tend to trim trees before a big storm like this (they do the same for winter) in order to prevent downed trees. I do have to say, though, that I've seen worse wind in the Midwest. Yes, it was windy, but I don't think it was windier than the day the remnants of a hurricane hit Ohio and Cedarville was without power for a couple days.

During Bolaven:

The wind was not as much of a problem with Tropical Storm Tembin. All that storm brought was lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of rain. That's what you get when the eye passes only 50 miles from your location. It poured rain all day on Thursday. It started sometime in the middle of the night and went until into the evening. In the afternoon there was some wind, enough to turn umbrellas inside out, but nothing compared to Bolaven. We went to school all day on Thursday, though driving home was a little interesting. After raining all day at a rate of several inches an hour, the roads had acquired numerous puddles. Deep puddles. Puddles so big and so deep that you shouldn't drive through them because, well, you learn in driver's ed never to drive through standing water unless you know how deep it is. We did, however, make it home safely without any car trouble.

This time, however, the storm was not so nice to the school. Water started dripping in the side staircase, coming from a leak in the roof. Some classrooms had water dripping in the windows. And then there's the teacher's lounge. Somehow water got onto the floor (not sure where it came from), and by today about half of the (carpeted) room was sopping wet. The walk to the copier is a little squishy right now. Thankfully, there was no water coming in my classroom or into my apartment. Another praise is that Tembin cooled the temperature down nicely last night, so that it was in the 60s when we went to bed. And it had stopped raining by this point, so we were able to open up all the windows and let the blessedly cool air in. It was heavenly.

Now, knowing that the reading audience of this blog consists predominately of Iowans, I'm sure that some of you are wondering how the rice fared with all these storms. That's right, I know you're wondering about the crops. Hard not to since they're such a part of the state. Well, I was similarly curious (my Grandpa would be so proud), so I studied the rice paddies outside my classroom window and took some pictures of how they looked today. If you want a comparison, check out my "First Week of School" post. It has some pre-typhoon/tropical storm pictures of the rice paddies.

As you can see, the wind definitely did some damage to the rice. Some areas are worse than others, but you can generally see the rice is bent from all the wind. It was interesting to watch the wind ripple the rice just like waves, but it went on for too long, and now there's damage to the rice. The paddies are also pretty waterlogged right now after all the rain yesterday. I didn't get close enough to investigate exactly how much, but even from my 3rd floor classroom window, I can tell there is a lot more water in the paddies than there was last week. Everything still looks kind of "wet" today.

After this very exciting and interesting week, I am definitely hoping for an ordinary boring week of school next week, one without any "Will we have school?" drama. At least now this landlocked Iowan can say she has experienced a typhoon and a tropical storm.

First Week of School

This week we had our open house and our first three days of school. It all went well. I am getting to know my students and already figuring out which ones are going to be the talkers. We didn't really get into much of the material this week but that will start on Monday. I spent most of the time talking about my expectations and procedures while introducing them to their daily journals and the basic overview of the classes.

My schedule this year is a little strange, though that will change next year. It all has to do with the size of the junior class. There are only three juniors, so instead of giving them a separate section, like they have for all the other grades, they combined them with a different class for English and history. Last year they were combined with the class ahead of them, but this year they are combined with the class below. So as sophomores, they took the junior level history and English classes. This year as juniors they are taking the sophomore level history and English classes. This means that instead of teaching for 5 periods of the day (out of 7), I am only teaching 4 periods of the day. That is good because it means I get more prep time, which I think I will definitely need this year. Because we go to school in teacher vans, we have to leave each day at 4. If you're not done with what you need to do, you can either stay and work and then take public transportation back, or you can bring your work home with you. Having the extra prep period will hopefully mean that I get more work done at school and therefore have less to bring home with me. The only bad part of having the extra prep is when I have it. My planning periods were originally 3rd and 4th hours. The extra prep I gained is 2nd hour. So I teach 1st hour, have 3 planning periods in a row, then study hall and lunch, followed by teaching 5th, 6th, and 7th periods in the afternoon. And the way the schedule is set up, I only supervise study hall twice a week. So some days, I don't have any students from 9 a.m. until 12:30 after lunch. Great time to get a lot of work done, and I'm sure that some days will be very productive. However, that gets to be a long morning, and it would be really nice to have prep time in the afternoon. Oh well.

My schedule (in case anyone is wondering) is as follows:
1st hour: American Literature (12th)
2nd hour: Prep
3rd hour: Prep
4th hour: Prep
Study Hall
Lunch
5th hour: World Literature (10th/11th)
6th hour: Speech/Drama
7th hour: 9th Grade Literature and Composition (9th)

I'm excited that speech and drama is my elective this year. I am really looking forward to it. We've already been having fun in speech class. I enjoyed hearing their introductory speeches and where they had all lived and what languages they spoke. Even the students are enjoying themselves. In fact, one of my students said yesterday, "This class is more fun than I thought it would be." Maybe that's what I get for playing charades and pictionary to demonstrate nonverbal communication.

Here are pictures of my classroom and of the view from the windows.

As you can see, there are a lot of windows in my classroom, especially because it is at the end of the hall, so my windows wrap around the corner. The school is situated on the outskirts of the city, so most classrooms have a view of the surrounding rice patties. Right now it's nice and green, but that will change once they start to harvest the rice. I am looking forward to seeing the harvesting process and how that all works.

Thank you for your continued prayers. I know they helped this first week go smoothly. I was reminded this week how much I really do love teaching. The past couple weeks I've been doing a lot of planning, and it felt good to stand up in front of a group of students and teach them. I'm excited for the rest of the school year, but I'll still need your prayers as I know I have a lot to learn yet about teaching and about my students.

Seoul, Birthdays, Cell Phones, and Water Filters

It has been a busy week. I am feeling much more settled here, especially now that my classroom at school is pretty much set up. We had orientation this past week, so I've spent my days at school, sitting in meetings and working in my classroom. For the most part it has been meetings in the morning and then a few hours of work time in the afternoon. All the work this week was in preparation for Open House on Monday night. That will be a time for parents and students to come meet the teachers and see the classrooms and the school. Except for making copies of information to pass out, as of Friday afternoon, I am ready for open house. That means that I can finally start thinking about lesson plans. School starts with a half day next Wednesday, August 15th. Yikes, is that coming up quickly! I have a lot to figure out in the next few days.

Next week also starts normal arrival times at school. This week we didn't have to arrive until 7:45 for breakfast, so we didn't have to leave until 7:20. Because it takes about 20 minutes to get to school, the teachers cannot walk. Instead, we travel back and forth in teacher vans everyday. Next week we have to be at school for devotions at 7:25. We will aim to be at school by 7 to have some prep time before devotions, because once those are over, on normal school days, students will be at school and prep time is over. All of this means we have to leave at 6:35 every morning. I know some of you are thinking, "That's not early. I do that everyday!" Well, it is earlier than what I'm used to. That's about the time I would get up when I lived on the east side and worked at Grandview. I'm sure I will get used to it, but it will take a little bit of adjustment.

School hasn't been the only thing keeping me busy this past week. Last Friday I went into Seoul with a few other teachers from school. There were three new teachers who went (including myself), as well as one returning couple and their toddler. The couple had to go to the embassy, so the other new teachers and I were able to explore part of Seoul while they were in the embassy. The embassy is near one of the palaces in Seoul, one I had visited two years ago. However, we explored some of the surrounding neighborhood that I did not get a chance to check out when I was here during student teaching. We did, though, come across a stream running through downtown that I had found last time I was in Korea. That was cool. I also remembered where the tourist office nearby was. Yay! That was my personal victory for the day. I had a lot of fun riding the subway again and exploring Seoul. It really made me feel like I was back in Korea.

Statue of King Sejong who ruled at the end of the 14th century during the Chosun dynasty. He invented the Korean alphabet.

Admiral Yi Sun Shin, a great Korean warrior.

The stream running through downtown.

It continued with my birthday last Saturday. I celebrated with my family before I left, but I was able to do some things here with the other teachers. I went out to lunch with a couple of them, and then on Sunday we had an ice cream/birthday party for me, complete with blowing out the candles on a cake made in a rice cooker. My "buddy," the person who has been helping me adjust to life in Korea, answering my questions and taking me to the grocery store the day after I arrived, got me a plant for my birthday.

My buddy also took me to get a Korean cell phone last Saturday. I was without a cell phone for less than a week, but I didn't like it. Though people here could still get contact me through the home phone, I still felt out of contact with everybody else. Also, because I didn't have a cell phone, I couldn't get a debit card when I opened up my Korean bank account last week. I still need to go back to the bank and do that, but at least now I can call and text others here in Korea. I know, many of you are thinking that for years you never had cell phones and were okay, and I was okay, but it's still not fun being without one.

This week also included a trip after school to Home Plus, which is basically a Super Wal-Mart. In addition to getting some necessary food items, my roommates and I also decided to buy a water filter for our apartment. Like in many countries, the water in Korea is not safe to drink. As a result, you either have to buy bottled water or have a big water jug and dispenser. Our apartment doesn't have a dispenser, so we have to buy bottled water and carry it up to our apartment. Not fun. So the idea we had was to buy a water filter that hooks up to the water supply in the kitchen. No more buying water bottles, no more hauling water up the hill, and no worrying about water delivery or buying a dispenser. It costs a little more up front to get the water filter, but in the long run it will save us money and hassle. So, when we were at Home Plus on Wednesday, we bought the water filter. And that's where the saga begins. One of my roommates put the charge on her credit card, but the store had processing the card and had to take it on and off before it would finally work. Once that was finally accomplished, they could talk about delivery. Because it was such a big purchase, the store would deliver it to the apartment and set it up for us. Originally, delivery was going to be Thursday afternoon sometime. They were going to call that morning and tell us the time. Morning passed, no call. We got home from school, and there was still no call. So we called the store, and they now said it wouldn't be delivered until Friday after 5, which worked out well because we would be home from school by then. Friday morning rolled around, and they called to ask if they could deliver it right then. We were at school and couldn't leave, so the answer was "no." Then they said it wouldn't be delivered until Saturday sometime. Okay fine, we would definitely be home then. Friday afternoon we got another call. The delivery men were waiting outside our apartment building. Thankfully, our director let my roommates head home immediately so they could accept delivery of the water filter. If they hadn't, who knows when it would have actually been delivered! Now the saga is over, and we can enjoy cold or hot safe, filtered water whenever we want, no bottles or jugs required.

Saturday's adventure consisted in a trip to Costco. This is always very exciting because it allows us to buy American products that we might not be able to find elsewhere in Korea. I went as a guest this time, but next time I will probably get my own Costco membership that will also be good in the States. My biggest purchase at Costco today was a table to use as my desk. It's just a plastic folding table, rectangular, about 4 feet wide. It's nothing fancy, but definitely necessary for grading papers and working on things at home. In fact, I'm sitting at it right now to write this blog. What makes it so necessary is my carpal tunnel. Yes, that pesky little condition is acting up again. And it will probably, most definitely act up once school gets going into full swing with teaching, lesson planning, and grading. Right now, that's my biggest concern as school starts, and my biggest prayer request. It definitely made things harder this past year, and I don't want the complication or pain this year. I would really appreciate your prayers on this matter!

First Few Days in Korea

I made it to Korea! After a long 13+ hour flight from Chicago, I landed at Incheon International Airport in Seoul and got through immigration and customs without any problems and all my luggage. Getting to Korea safely without any difficulty was an answer to prayer in and of itself, but God went beyond that in providing for this trip. On my flight to Korea, I originally had a middle seat :(. It was all I was able to get when I booked my flight. However, when I checked in at Chicago, the attendant called to see if there was an aisle seat for me, without being asked by me. At that point there wasn't, but she was going to try to get me one. And she did. And not only did I now have an aisle seat, but I had an aisle seat only 5 rows from the front of economy class, meaning I was one of the first people off the airplane. Before I was about 5 rows from the back of the plane. It was a much better seat.

Well, that was Monday. It is now Thursday in Korea, and I am settling into my apartment, learning about my neighborhood, working on necessary items for the immigration office, and starting to set up my classroom. After crashing Monday night, I spent Tuesday unpacking and going to the grocery store. Wednesday included a short trip to school, enough for a tour and a quick perusal of my classroom, before going to the hospital. Don't worry, nothing was wrong, I didn't do something stupid to injure myself. One of the requirements of the immigration office is a health check. So we spent several hours at the hospital getting various tests done (lots of waiting!). We had to do a urine test, a blood test, a chest x-ray for tuberculosis, height/weight measurements, hearing test, vision test, and a consult with one of the doctors. The staff at the hospital were very helpful and used their limited English to tell us where to go, where to sit, and what to do. The 6 of us stuck out a lot at the Korean hospital.

Today was mostly spent at school, setting up my classroom. I got all my furniture arranged, including the student desks, and mostly have all the books on the shelves. I plan to go back tomorrow and finish that and hopefully get through all the other boxes. We start orientation on Monday, and I would like to have my classroom set up enough so that I can start working on lesson plans and syllabi during the work time. Sometime in there I will decorate, but that's not my number one priority right now. I will say that having a couple years teaching experience definitely helped me set up my classroom faster. I knew what I liked for furniture placement and what I didn't like. I didn't have the space to arrange the student desks exactly how I would like them, but I am content with how I have them arranged. Once everything is done, I will post pictures of my classroom. One wall is basically all windows, and it looks out onto a rice patty. It's nice to see some green after looking out at the concrete jungle that is the city I live in.

Speaking of where I live, my apartment is on the 8th floor of a 10 story apartment building. That's pretty comparable to the other buildings in this area. My building stands out a bit, however, because it is on top of a hill, a hill that I will have the joy of walking up and down every single time I want to go somewhere. Carrying groceries in the middle of winter, especially if it's icy, will be a lot of fun. However, that makes my building a little bit of the way, though it is bordered on two sides by busy streets, so it's not necessarily quieter. Overall, though, I like it. I have two roommates, one of whom is here already, while the other gets in tomorrow. I have my own room, though I have to share a bathroom. There is also a spare bedroom that we use as office space. The apartment does have an A/C unit, which is very important right now as Korea is very hot and humid during the summer (though it is cooler than Iowa right now). One side of my apartment looks onto another apartment building, and the other side looks out onto the rest of the city of Songtan. In case I haven't explained, all the teachers live in Songtan, which is very near Osan Air Force Base, but the school is in Pyongtaek. We carpool in teacher vans each day (15 passenger vans), which take about 20-30 minutes to get to school (depending on traffic). Below are some pictures of Songtan from my apartment. This is the view out my bedroom window. This is also part of the flight path of the jets from Osan, so you can sometimes see them flying by (you can definitely hear them!).

The area I live in has restaurants and shops all around. There are several small grocery stores not far away. All the teachers live within a 10 minute walk of each other, so it is really nice.

While there is so much more I could tell you, I think I will wait for another day, maybe with more pictures of the area. I'm sure as time passes I will get more fun stories to tell. In the meantime, keep up the prayers, as the transition to Korea is definitely not complete yet. One of the next things I need to do is start learning Korean, which will definitely be a challenge. Though hopefully with a little bit of work, it will start looking less like a bunch of lines and circles and sounding less like gibberish and start turning into comprehensible words.