Dead Day

[2013.03.03]

Didn't really do anything today.  Like I mentioned in my last post, I got home about 7am.  Only got about an hour of sleep cuz my heater hadn't kicked on yet.

All Night in HongDae

[2013.03.02]

OK, so Korean beds are like sleeping on a somewhat more comfy box-spring.  I like firm beds, I mean my futon back home is super firm, but these are a little too much.  I can sleep on them pretty fine.  But I wake up with really sore shoulders and arms.  I need to get my extra cushioning for it sent.

Anyways, due to the cold and hard bed, I slept kinda crappy...So I was going to sleep in since I hadn't really all week.  But low and behold I'm wide awake at 6am...After a bit I got bored so I decided to head to MyeongDong and get some shopping that I needed to do out of the way.

It's Mine, Precious

[2013.03.01]

Moved today!!!  Finally get my apartment.  So exciting!

End of Week One

[2013.02.28]

Bank account acquired!  It took so long, waited in line forever and then finally got started and so many papers to sign!  The guy who helped us had OK English, but he talked so softly it was hard to understand him.  But I got it!  And it's also all set up with LanGCon to get my paychecks.  I also got the cutest card, I can't wait to use it~

The rest of work went super slow again though.  Grace was super busy with new parents and students and constantly on the phone, so I didn't get to do a presentation with her again.  But that meant that I got to spend more time looking over my lessons and thinking about Monday's classes.  She didn't even really have time to give us our test, we got into her office to take it and literally right when she handed us the paper someone came in who needed to talk to her.  She's so busy, I feel so bad.

Kimbap and Soju

[2013.02.27]

I went to work myself this morning and didn't get lost!  Yay Gilli!  I don't know if I'm ever going to get use to taxis, ever!  They're better than taxis in the US, but they're still crazy drivers...

When I got there Grace, my boss, wasn't there, so I went over a bunch of information stuff with Becca and got all, and I mean ALL, my books for next semester,  And the flashcards.  I think I got 15 books or something like that.  So many!

Nicky and I went out to get Kimbap for everyone.  First Kimbap here in Korea!  SO YUMMY!  I can see why one of my co-teachers goes there every day!  I might have to also.

500 Students

[2013.02.26]

This is going to be a somewhat small entry, thank god right, mainly cuz not much really happened and I don't remember most of Tuesday.

Finally slept in till 7!

The lesson plans I had to do today were for a higher up level, and OMG so much more complicated!!!  I swear that I'm getting worse at doing these, I had no clue what I was doing for the story part of that lesson. And the sad thing is that I think that's those are the books for one of the classes I'm going to teach.

Welcome to UiWang!

[2013.02.25]

Woke up at 5 today...Slowly I'm making it back to a normal schedule.  But I had to wait around till 11.40 to get picked up and shown how to get to my school.  I guess that was about when I found out I won't be getting that 3 month training period that I was told I'd have.  Which I was a wee bit angry and upset about, but once I got there and I saw the kids I got a little less annoyed.  But now I'm super nervous about starting teaching next week already!

Just a Little Hike

[2013.02.24]

Woke up this morning at 4...But I went to bed at 10, so I still got a nice 6 hours of sleep and felt refreshed.  Though I did have a bit of a headache.

Around 9.30 I thought it was about time to venture out and see what all was around me.  Within 5 minutes I discovered 2 things; one, I'm in Uiwang, and two, if I had crossed the street last night (aka took the over pass, about 100 steps) I could have had Shinhwa chicken for dinner!!!  That's right less than 5 minutes from my hotel is a Chicken Mania.  My first meal could have been Shinhwa chicken!

After kicking myself, I continued on walking around Uiwang and found some interesting places and buildings.  And then I came back to my hotel and took a different street, only to stumble upon a park that I can only describe as interesting...It had the basketball court, exercise equipment that Korean parks always seem to have, and then the animal-butt area.  I'm not sure what it's supposed to be, I'm guessing someone took some very loose artistic license, since it's right next to an art college.

I think I'm in a Love Hotel

[2013.02.22]

I slept like carp the night before my flight, mainly because I was up till 3 repacking my bags.  They felt to heavy I was afraid both of them would be overweight and cost me a small fortune, so I went through and took out stuff I didn't think I'd need for work and some of the more summery clothes.  It was quite a sight to see actually, it's 3 in the morning and Kira and I were playing scale with my suitcases, trying to guess if they were over 50 pounds or not.  And they were still super heavy, but oh well!

Of course with my luck, neither of them were overweight, I was about 5-6 pounds under on both of them, so I could have kept most of the stuff I took out...

I got to the gate (OMG there were so many military people in the international terminal) and to my surprise there were quite a lot of people going to teach in Korea there.  So we all spent the next 2 hours waiting for the train talking.  There were a couple of people who were coming back for another year to teach, so they were giving us some helpful tips!  Also met someone who formerly taught at Avalon, he had a couple of bad experiences with them but overall like it.