Chusok

This week was a rough week at school. I had to give several students a bad grade on a paper because of bad choices they made (no cheating, thankfully), and the effects of that lasted most of the week. Please pray that these students will make wise choices in the future and that there will be no more fallout from this week.

But what's one thing that always makes a rough week look better? How about a 5 day weekend? Thankfully, that's exactly what I am enjoying right now, all thanks to Chusok. Chusok is the Korean thanksgiving holiday. It is one of the biggest holidays in Korea. The celebration takes place over three days. This year the main holiday falls on Sunday, with the celebration extending to Saturday and Monday. However, the school was generous and gave us Monday through Wednesday off. Hooray for a two day week!

Chusok falls sometime at the end of September to the beginning of October each year. The exact date varies from year to year, depending on the lunar calendar. Its celebration corresponds to the harvest. Just like American Thanksgiving, most people travel to visit family for the holiday. Families get together and enjoy a big meal. However, before they can enjoy this meal, the family first offers it to the ancestors. Traditionally, this was part of the ancestor worship and done to honor the ancestors. Another big part of Chusok is gift giving. Traditional Chusok gifts include big boxes of fruit (like apples, grapes, and kiwi), dried seaweed, soap, toothpaste, and Spam. And I'm not talking about a package or two of Spam but about a big box with 12 cans of Spam. People traditionally give gifts to the family they visit, their landlord, their boss, their pastor, and, for children, their teachers. Basically, Koreans generally give Chusok gifts to people who are in a higher position than them, one deserving of respect. While I am a teacher who does have Korean students, I did not get any Chusok presents this year. Generally, more elementary teachers at PICS get Chusok gifts than high school teachers. Last year my roommates received 3 boxes of grapes and couldn't eat them all before they went bad. This year only one of my roommates got one Chusok present from a student: some perfume. And, just to clarify, gifts of soap, toothpaste, or perfume are not trying to send a subtle message that you smell bad or are dirty. It is just tradition.

Since we have 5 days off of school, one might think that it would be a good time to travel and explore. However, because most Koreans travel for the holiday, the roads are a mess. As a result, it is much better to stay put. The only place you can really go and not get stuck in traffic is Seoul because most people leave Seoul to visit family in smaller cities and villages. You may still get stuck in traffic on the way home and be stuck in basically a parking lot for several hours. Using the subway is a much better way to travel since you can at least keep moving.

Yesterday I went with two other teachers, Nicole and Kari, to Seoul to go ice skating. There is an indoor ice skating rink at Lotte World, an indoor amusement park. You can use the skating rink without paying admission to the rest of the park. We took the subway in and out of Seoul and had no problems. It wasn't very crowded, especially for a Saturday. We had a lot of fun skating, though there was definitely some cultural differences between ice skating in the States and ice skating in Korea. First, everyone has to wear gloves in order to be allowed on the rink. If you didn't have gloves, you had to buy some there for 600 won (about 60 cents). Second, many people, adults and children alike, were wearing helmets. At first they were trying to insist that we had to wear helmets, because we were women, but since there were other women not wearing helmets, it is more likely that they wanted us to wear helmets because we were foreigners. However, once we had our skates on and were ready to go out on the ice, we took off the helmets and no one bothered us about them. Apparently the helmet rule was one they were not enforcing. The gloves rule they did enforce, though. Another cultural experience to ice skating was the two safety guys. They skated around the rink, making sure everyone was following the rules and clearing the rink when it was time to clean the ice. They also wore gloves while on the ice. One of the safety guys wore pink gloves (a very Korean thing to do) as well as fuzzy pink ears (also a very Korean thing to do). Definitely not something you would see in the United States.

Nicole and Kari in a very Korean pose.

The safety guy wearing pink gloves and pink fuzzy ears.

After ice skating we went out for frozen yogurt at a place called Snow Spoon Cafe. It is a self-serve yogurt place like Lemon Tree. They had several varieties of frozen yogurt with many different toppings, especially fruit, along with a few different syrup choices, including "pignacolada." I guess Spanish to Korean to English translation doesn't work very well.

Tomorrow I am heading to Everland, which is the Korean version of Disneyland. I'm looking forward to the rides and experiencing the Korean version of an amusement park. Because it's still the Korean holiday, the park shouldn't be that busy. Plus, Everland is offering a discount to foreigners, so I can get in for almost half-price. I am going with about 9 other people from the school, so it should be a fun time. One of the other teachers is driving because it is hard to get to Everland using public transportation. The only downside to this plan is that we might get stuck in traffic on the way home. Thankfully, we will be going in a vehicle that is large enough to qualify for the bus lane, which will move faster than the other lanes of traffic. My plans for Tuesday and Wednesday currently consist of a lot of relaxing, without too much else going on. All in all, it should be a very good break before the final push to the end of the first quarter complete with plenty of tests and papers. But in the meantime, happy Chusok!

Korean-American Friendship Festival

This weekend was the Korean-American Friendship Festival on the Strip near Osan Air Force Base. The Strip is a walking mall right outside Osan's main gate. It has tons of restaurants and stores of all sorts. Thanks to the Strip, I've had Thai, Mexican, Turkish, Brazilian, Chinese, and Japanese food (in addition to American and Korean) since coming to South Korea. There are also carts and booths set up in the middle, where you can buy more food, souvenirs, and bootleg DVDs. The Strip is kind of a cool downtown area, though one that is best avoided on Friday and Saturday nights when the military personnel are all heading to the bars. Here's some pictures of the Strip on a regular weekday.

The Korean-American Friendship Festival took over the Strip and the surrounding streets on Saturday and Sunday. There were tons of booths set up with food and other items for sale. There were also some rides available for children. It reminded me a little bit of a "mini" state fair.

I went with one of my roommates, Kari, and we had a lot of fun walking around, talking, and eating a lot of food. We went right after church on Sunday, and it wasn't very busy. We had been in the area Saturday night for something else, and it was packed. It was nice to be there without the crowds, as we were able to walk comfortably down the street and we didn't have to wait in line for food. The festival had all sorts of food, including several varieties of Korean and American food. For American food, there was everything from burgers, hot dogs, and brats to snow cones and funnel cakes (yum!). I even found corn on the cob (on a stick, no less).

For Korean food, they had kimchi (of course!), fish, squid, rice, and other tasty treats, including one Korean delicacy: silkworm larvae (see picture below). Most of the Korean food booths had plastic examples of their food displayed, which is typical in Korea. Restaurants in the food court do it too. It can be hard to tell if it is plastic or not, but the food in the display pictured below is plastic.

I had two Korean dishes for lunch, both very tasty. The first was a meat popsicle; it is just meat on a stick. I had one made of chicken that was covered in some sort of sauce.

After that, I had something that I believe could be the next hot food item at the Iowa State Fair. It meets both criteria for popular state fair food: deep fried and on a stick. It is called the Potato Twist.

It starts as a regular potato on a stick that a machine cuts into a spiral pattern. After the potato has been "twisted," it is deep fried. Once it is cooked, the potato twist is rolled in salt and seasoning so that it coats the outside of the twist. It is delicious! It's just a deep-fried potato, so it tastes somewhere between a potato chip and a french fry. Wouldn't that go over wonderfully at the state fair?

Haircuts, Volleyball, and Immigration

Well, after two weeks of not posting, I figured that I should update everyone on what has been going on here. We haven't had any more typhoons or tropical storms, yet. There is one on the way, though. Typhoon Sanba is supposed to hit Korea on Monday; however, the track of the storm seems to be east of Pyongtaek, meaning we will only get minimal rain and that's about it. All in all, probably a lot of hype for nothing.

My last two weeks have been spent doing more than just watching out for possible typhoons. I have been really busy with school things and with other personal things. To start with, school. As crazy as it sounds, we are already halfway through the first quarter. Progress reports come out on Tuesday, which is something both the students and I have a hard time believing. Didn't school just start? Anyway, now that we are 5 weeks into the quarter, units are starting to finish up, resulting and tests and papers and lots of grading. Overall, the students did very well on both their tests and papers. Right now I'm in a bit of a grading lull, which is good because in a few weeks every single class has a test or paper due (or both). I will definitely be grading a lot during that time. In all of this, my carpal tunnel is doing okay. It has been bothering me some, but the pain hasn't been killing me. It is a livable kind of pain, which right now I am glad to get. I've had the "why are you wearing that brace?" talk with all of my students now, so the entire high school knows about my carpal tunnel and have been asking about it. I've been also keeping busy with planning for future units as well as completing my year plans. All teachers have to generally outline what they are doing each month for the entire year, including what standards will be covered. These plans are due at the end of September. I have figured out approximately what I will be doing each month; now I just need to put the standards in. The nice (and sometimes frustrating) thing about English is that you can cover almost any strategy with any unit, it's just a matter of what approach you want to take to analyzing literature and what you want to focus on. Some units lend themselves better to certain standards and strategies than others, but many of the standards could apply for every single unit. The tricky part comes in figuring out which units should cover which standards, which is what I have left to do with my year plans. Thankfully I have a couple more weeks to finish them.

But enough talk about school. Last week I bit the bullet and got my haircut in Korea for the first time. When I was here for student teaching, I just let my hair grow because I was afraid to have someone I couldn't communicate with cut my hair. You see, I really, really, really like my haircut. I've had the same haircut for about 6 years, and it is so easy and looks nice without a lot of effort. People compliment me on it all the time, even complete strangers! So I decided last time not to even mess with it, but just to deal with it until I got back to Iowa and Bridget could cut it. This time I knew that was not going to happen. One, it would be longer until I got back to Iowa. Two, I hate my hair when it gets too long! I absolutely love my short hair, so when it gets to a certain point (long for me), I have to get it cut or it just drives me crazy. Since I was going to have to get it cut in South Korea anyway, I decided to do it before my hair got too long. And as an added bonus, one of my roommates needed to get a haircut, so I was able to go with her. We went to a place across near the main gate of Osan Air Force Base, giving us a good chance that the stylist spoke at least a little English. And she did, enough to explain that I wanted a trim, in the same style, and that the back was kind of layered. She took it from there. I was nervous the entire time. When you have long hair and you don't like the haircut, it's pretty easy to put it up in a ponytail until it grows back. Not so with short hair. It is what it is, and everybody can see it. And I had no idea what I was going to get. When it was done, I looked in the mirror at both the front and the back. It wasn't exactly like how my hair is normally cut, but I still liked it. The back wasn't layered or stacked exactly like it usually is (slightly longer right now), but it is short enough. The sides are cut slightly differently too, but not enough to throw off the entire haircut. Overall, I am very happy with the haircut and am very glad that it is short again! Yippee!

Another "yippee!" moment happened last Saturday at the school's volleyball game. It was the first home game of the season, and the teachers who wanted to go all piled in a van and headed out to the gym, which was about 45 minutes away. Now I know you're all thinking, "I thought you said it was a home game. How can it be 45 minutes away?" Well, PICS doesn't have a gym that they can play sports in, for either games or practice. They have to rent or borrow gyms instead, sometimes from universities. All of my Grandview readers should be familiar with this concept. The gym we used last Saturday was in Anseong at a university. The father of one of last year's graduates is a professor there, and he arranged for us to use the gym for free whenever we need it. Needless to say, they try to hold their games there whenever they can, even though it's not close to the school and there are no bleachers for the spectators to sit on.

Before I move any farther, I should explain something about volleyball. PICS is part of the Korean-American Interscholastic Activities Conference (or KAIAC, pronounced like kayak), which consists of international schools throughout Korea. In KAIAC, schools compete in the sports of volleyball, basketball, cheerleading, and soccer. With the exception of cheerleading, all sports have both a girls and a boys team, including volleyball. While boys volleyball does exist in the United States, I haven't heard of a team in Iowa, and I didn't want to confuse anyone by suddenly talking about boys volleyball.

So last Saturday I went watch both the girls and the boys volleyball teams. The girls played first and won in 3 (best 3 out of 5). Then the boys were up. Now, the girls team at PICS is known to be good, and they have a really good shot at winning the tournament in October. However, the boys team needed a lot of work at the beginning of year. But work they have been doing. Their coach this year is the new science teacher, and he has been pushing them really hard, and they have been improving. And it showed last Saturday when they won in 3. As far as anyone can remember, that is the first time girls and boys have both won in 3 games. Yippee!

Oh, have I ever mentioned what the mascot for PICS is? We are the Conquerors. Yes, I went from being a Defender to being a Conqueror. The emblem is almost the same as Grandview's old helmet and sword emblem. When I first saw it, I had a deja vu kind of moment.

At the volleyball game with a couple other teachers, sporting my new haircut.

This week, specifically yesterday, has also had its share of adventure. Yesterday we had a half day at school for teacher in-service. However, instead of being able to work in my classroom in the afternoon, I, along with the other new teachers, had to go to the immigration office in Suwon about 30 minutes away (depending on traffic). We had to go to finish filing our immigration paperwork and get our ID cards so we can continue to be in the country and get paid (legally). While you can easily spend a couple hours at immigration, especially with 6 people's paperwork to process, we had an appointment, so it wasn't going to be too bad. Well, that was the plan at least. It all started early Friday morning when the woman, Miss Song, who was supposed to take us (and who had the appointment) fell and broke her ankle, requiring surgery. Needless to say, she could no longer take us. And because she was no longer going, we no longer had an appointment. Even though the same people's paperwork was getting processed, we could not fill her appointment time because someone else was taking us. If you don't have an appointment, once you get there you have to take a number and then wait your turn, just like at the DMV. Thankfully, you can have about 3 people per number, so we just needed 2 numbers for the 6 of us. Well, here's the thing with the "take a number" process: you have to be at the office in order to take a number. We left school about 12 and got to the office after 2. 30 minutes turned into 2+ hours fast once we got lost. We tried to take what was supposed to be a faster way, missed our exit, and got lost. Making matters worse was that the navigation program was not working. We also got little to no help from the strangers we asked for help (we did have a Korean speaker with us, so it wasn't a language problem). We eventually got to the immigration office and got our numbers: 455 and 456. They were currently helping #304. So we waited. And we waited. And then we waited some more. Finally, about 4:30, it was our turn. Three of us were easy: we had all the necessary paperwork, photos, and numbers to make it a smooth process. Thankfully, I was in this group. Now all I have to do is wait for them to process my paperwork and then print my ID card, which will be ready in a month. The good news is someone else can pick it up for me, provided they bring the receipt. The other 3 in the group were not so lucky. Their attendant got confused and had some problems processing their paperwork. Further complicating the matter was that they were missing a few pieces of necessary paperwork and their applications didn't have photos on them. But, praise the Lord, there was a photo booth right there where they could take the pictures and the remaining paperwork can be dropped off on Monday. We finally left immigration about 5:30 and made it home shortly after 6, tired and hungry. We're all looking forward to our next trip to immigration in 2 years if we decide to stay in Korea! (NOT!)

All in all, plenty has kept me busy these past two weeks, and I have not been bored. This weekend appears to be no exception. There is a festival happening down by Osan Air Force base this weekend, which we are tentatively planning on attending. I'll let you know what happens. Thanks for all your continued prayers and support!

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.