School Daze

I still haven't really talked about the school yet. It is pretty gruelling, but the days go by quickly and there really isn't a whole lot to it. I have pretty much 100% control over the methodology and curriculum. The kids have to be tested each month and they cannot be given bad grades (it is against school policy). Basically, from a teaching and learning standpoint, the whole thing is a carefully maintained joke. Still, I have kids in the afternoon who have been attending for three years and they are quite fluent. I guess it all works out in the end simply because it is so intensive. If you spend a few hours every day with an English speaker you will learn English no matter what the methodology or due to the lack thereof. That said, there is still an opportunity to make a big difference here. Especially in the discipline department. I am trying to work on basic issues like a little chant I made up that my morning classes begin with: "Bottom on the seat, feet on the floor." Enforcing this takes about 25% of my time in each class right now, but I think it will eventually pay off. In the afternoon I have older kids (8-11) and some of these kids are absolute nightmares. I have one kid who refused to participate so I stood him in the corner and I didn't take his pencil away and he drew all over the wall. That was the first time I seriously considered resorting to corporal punishment. I have thought several times about how this must be payback for my own academic disruption for disruption's sake. If there is something such as divine retribution, then I am up shitty crick, because I really have it coming. This kid that drew on the wall reminds me so much of myself it isn't even funny. I have a new schedule starting tomorrow. Mondays are the worst. I don't have a single break the entire day, other than lunch. We usually have one or two open periods throughout the day. This gives one a chance to sit down and regroup. I guess I will be pretty ungrouped on Mondays. I think it is good for me, really. I don't have to be there till 9:30, and when we get off at 6:30 the traffic has calmed down and there is still plenty of evening left to do something. All in all it is a pretty good gig. I like the staff, I love the kids (even the rotten ones), they feed us lunch, and I get to pretty much do whatever I want. After Thursday when Perry leaves I will be on my own with all of my classes. We shall see how I feel after a week of that.

Catching Up

Part. I The Journey.

There were several times I thought, during the 24 hour trip over here, what it must have been like a hundred years ago. I travelled most of the way to Korea at 30,000 feet and 600 miles an hour. I got halfway around the world in about one day. It was utterly exhausting. Trains and steamers, while a slow way to travel, were likely at least a little comfortable.

I spent Monday night in the ER at Memorial. I had a swelling in my tender bits that would not go away. This has happened before. Some of you may remember the ultrasound I had hanging proudly on my refrigerator for several years. I waited til the last minute in the vain hope it would fix itself, but I was in severe discomfort by Monday PM and decided that if I had to get medical attention when I got over here it would be difficult or impossible. (This turned out to be quite wrong.) Long story short, painful exam, painful ultrasound, excruciating shot in the ass, and home at 2:30 AM, two hours before it was time to get up and drive to St. Louis.

When we got to St. Louis I was in no shape for human companionship. My poor mother, who drove me, is a first ballot sainthood candidate already, and her patience and compassion at this point has only reconfirmed the already well established fact. I fall asleep in the boarding lounge after asking a kindly neighbor to make sure that I got onto our flight. The flight there was uneventful. I drew a window seat for the first and third legs, and it was fun to look out at Illinois and Indiana as we flew over.

At Detroit I got to walk down the concourse (about a mile and a half) to my gate, located it, and went to find some grub. There was a Japanese joint a way back and I went there. It was packed. There was one guy in front of me, and as some tables were clearing, I asked him if he wouldn't mind sharing one so I could get in quicker. He said sure. When we got sat down I asked him where he was from/going and he said he was from/going back to Busan. I couldn't believe it. Anyway, I picked his brain for sure. He was in his twenties. He is an assistant in the ESL at Busan International, the most prestigious university in Korea. I got a lot of good info from him and we talked from time to time for the rest of the flight.

We flew with the sun over the Canadian Rockies, over Alaska, and down the Eastern seaboard of the Asian continent. I sat in the middle section. The plane had three seats by each window and a bank of four in the middle. It was possible to get fairly comfortable by reclining your seat and sticking your legs out under the seat in front. I slept a bit, watched a couple of movies. They fed us twice, unremarkable food made remarkable by boredom, like prison food. I spent most of the flight talking with the girl sitting next to me. She was quite a remarkable young lady. She currently resides in South Carolina and attends UNC and is a double major in Economics and Math. She is 17 and graduated from a prestigious math and sciences academy. She was on her way back to Shanghai to visit friends and relatives. She dislikes the US and plans to return to China asap. We talked about a lot of things. She was very curious about Lit Crit, saying that she finds English to be the most difficult academic challenge she has ever faced. We talked a lot about the intersection between the arts and humanities and ended up agreeing that economics is every bit as interdisciplinary as literary studies and that this was one of our favorite things about our respective disciplines.

They had a screen on the plane that showed the plane's prospective route and traced its progress with a little airplane icon. I have never in my life seen anything move so slow. I tried to will myself not to look at it but it was impossible. It also showed altitude, velocity, miles travelled, miles remaining, projected arrival time, and outside temp. At its coldest it got to -80 F. I kept finding myself doing the math in my head and finding fault with the arrival time, but when we got to Japan the captain speaking told us that we were being put in a holding pattern (430 loud groans) and we ended up landing two minutes late.

The airport in Tokyo was amazing. There was the incredibly practical (five dollar shower rooms with hot towels in a warmer and organic shampoo and body wash...I had no choice at this point), to the incredibly weird (flavoured oxygen bar) to the incredibly beautiful (who had the brilliant idea to put the Japanese National Museum of Origami in the airport?). There were a couple of frustrating mix-ups (they had overbooked the flight and kept making increasingly desperate pleas for volunteers to stay the night. My Busanese acquaintance took them up on it, getting a $400 voucher for his next flight in compensation. They also changed the gate several times without telling anyone, making the ticket situation all the more tenuous. I finally gambled on gate 27 and won. Several people at the back of the line got bumped against their will.), but after we finally go into the air it was all good. I was in the last seat of the last row on the plane.

It was at this point that I saw the sun set. I had seen it rise over Illinois at 6:00 AM on the way to the airport. It was now 22 hours later. I had set a record for my longest day.

I will never forget the sight of Busan as we came down through the clouds on our approach. The city, to appreciate its bizarre geography, has to be seen at night. Busan is a huge city that has absorbed about 7 large mountains. Koreans love neon and they never shut it off. Viewing it from the air the black masses of the mountains form stark voids in the sea of lights that back each seem all the more extreme. It was an incredible sight.

I got off the plane last. I navigated immigration, exchanged a thousand dollars for 1.1 million won (in their largest currency, the 10000 note, which meant I have in my possession a huge stack of bills), and got my luggage (yay, it isn't lost. After they changed the gate the third time in Japan I had pretty much written it off). Jenny, the director for the foreign teachers at my school, met me at the airport. We went to my hotel (my apartment won't be ready til Saturday) and then met the assistant director, for dinner at a BBQ place nearby. It was a beef one. (There are beef or pig BBQ's, never both.) They brought out a bucket of burning charcoal and put it in a recess in the middle of the table and we grilled the tender marinated rib meat and ate it wrapped in sesame leaves with grilled garlic, kim chi, seasoned noodles, red onion, and a variety of sauces. I am forgetting some stuff. I also forgot my camera. Next: my first day at the school.

Things I am NOT worried about.

I always try not to worry about anything. There is, in my opinion, not much point. What is going to happen is going to happen and worrying is wasted energy. Prepare for what you can anticipate and leave the rest to fate. Often the things that you were worrying about work themselves out and the things you didn’t even think about whack you upside the head. That said…
Here are some of the things I am "not" worried about as I prepare to go to Korea to work and live for a year. I realize that most of this will be irrelevent and that something far worse will be the actual problem, but just so I can look back and make fun of myself later, here goes:

· Banking: There are apparently limits to the amount of money one can send back home. This, in addition to the exchange of currency and the actual apparatus of wire transfers, has caused me to wonder if I will be able to easily access my money and move around cash.

· Shopping: I wear a size of pants that will likely be very difficult to procure in Korea. Ditto underwear, shirts, socks, and etc. I have been informed that even getting sheets can be difficult. Apparently personal hygiene products, if available (deodorant’s not), tastes horrible (toothpaste). I have heard rumors that there are Walmarts in Korea. I have tried to boycott them as much as possible, but given the choice between supporting the great satan or going commando, well…sorry. They probably don’t even have 38-40 Hanes' Boxer Briefs.

· Transportation: When I originally saw the contract summary provided by the recruiter, it said that my apartment would be five minutes away from the school on foot. The school, when I spoke to them, said that it was actually fifteen minutes away by bus. We have all seen videos of people being literally crammed into public conveyance in Asian countries during rush hour. I no like. She said that most of the teachers had purchased a scooter. There was one in the classified section of pusanweb for 500000 won (about $500), so if this turns out to be the best solution, that isn’t so bad. Then there is the driver’s license (may be hard for me to get) and the driving conditions…

· Food: This worry has two separate components. A) How will I procure it?; and B) What will happen to me guts after I consume it? Language barrier: when I go out I may be able to get by with hand gestures and picture pointing, but they have a thriving home delivery system, and gesticulation and pointy-pointy isn’t going to work on the telephone. Must learn hangul! Second, the spicy. I have had kimchee. I will literally bleed out if I have to live on it. Note to self: procure and pack one year supply of Pepcid AC.

· Teaching: Never taught Kindygarten before. My ESL experience is limited to an Asian woman in an 099 class who, despite being able to speak and understand only a very limited amount of English, excelled at the written form. The contract mentioned again and again the desire on the school's part for innovative methodology. I have been looking at various ESL and linguistic sites to get a grasp of the milieu, but there will likely be a hard landing.

· Packing: My recruiter told me to get the Lonely Planet guide to Korea, in which there is apparently a thorough packing list. I will see when I get it. I have most of the expensive stuff already: new camera, new laptop, world band radio, mp3 player, internal framepack, luggage, guidebooks, phrasebooks. I still need to figure out if there are holes in my wardrobe due to climate differences. Not literal holes (of which there are many), but...oh, you know what I mean.

· Accommodations: This is really the big IF and probably my primary source of anxiety. I have seen quite a few "look at my new apartment" videos from Busan on YouTube, and the qualitative variance is extreme. If I end up in some windowless one room hovel I will literally die.

But, like I said, there is no sense in worrying too much about anything until I get there and find out what is up. I know there will be bumps. Positive attitude maintenance is the key. Starts now I think. I am not going to go into this with a sense of dread. I know it will be a great adventure, no matter what. Adversity is just a little extra wasabi.

How did this happen to me?

I have been putting this off for some time now, relating the crazy tale of how I ended up going to South Korea to teach English, but a conversation with Brian (who you will meet in a moment) yesterday kind of got me thinking about the way that thing led to thing in an almost imperceptible and, in retrospect, unstoppable chain of events leading up to my imminent departure.

I think it all started with an email from CareerBuilder.com. "Teach in Asia" or some such drivel. As I read it I remember thinking: "Wow. That would be cool. I bet they have good sushi." I looked at a few sites, filled out a couple of "online applications," was contacted by a few recruiters, sent out a resume, got accepted to the recruitment queue, and waited around for a job offer. In the meantime, I got a passport.

This was back in November, and at this point very few people knew what was in the works. I kept in under wraps because at this point even I didn't seriously believe that I was going to actually pick up and move to the other side of the planet. Eventually word got out a little, and people started asking me: "Do you seriously believe that you are going to pick up and move to the other side of the planet?" And when asked this question, the answer was invariably, confidently, yes.

Thus began the second phase. Don't dare me to do something: I will likely do it. Especially if it is foolhardy, reckless, socially unacceptable, or involves drinking, eating or nudity. I became trapped in my own false confidence. This actually turned out to be a good thing. I still wasn't convinced that going was a good idea, that I even wanted to go, but I kept giving myself positive reinforcement by being forced to basically lie about my confidence level in regard to the whole adventure.

This couldn't have happened at a better time. Around this time, in late Spring, I got a contract offer from a school in Busan. I tentatively accepted and began the long process of producing the documentation that they needed to proceed with my VISA application on their end. This included a background check from the Illinois State Police (which, to my amusement and surprise came back spotless) which had to be Apostilled by the Illinois Secretary of State after being notarized. This document alone, when produced, stamped and double-stamped cost a pretty penny. When I had accumulated the requisite documents (including my original college diploma) I sent them off to Korea via Fedex, who subsequently raped me as well. (10 Pieces of paper=$51 postage?)

This was also the period when I discovered "The Horror Stories." There are ex-pat forums for people teaching in Korea, and it seems that the most prolific entrants are also the most profoundly bitter about their time in Korea. Some, like those who got over there only to find that their school had gone broke and closed (a not altogether infrequent occurrence, from what I gathered), leaving them stranded and penniless, had legitimate complaints. Others seemed to be bitchy, nitpicky whiners who were unable to see that things were a little different in this culture and that compromise was necessary. If I had read some of these things in the early stages of this process I would have likely abandoned it, but...

At this point more people knew, more bold statements had been made, more money had been invested, more bridges were burning or at least doused with gasoline, and I was beginning to turn the corner and arriving at phase 3 (where I remain) which is...

Get me out of here! I can't wait to go. I have concerns, I know it won't be easy, but I am ready to go.

Which brings me back to my newfound friend Brian. We met while getting Passport/VISA stuff done ($45) at the Korean Consulate in Chicago. He has a friend who has been teaching in Korea for seven years. She went over there to teach for one year and never came back.

Brian is from St. Charles, MO, at teaches eighth-grade English at an inner-city school in St. Louis. He related a story of disillusionment with his current job and a former wife, and a desire, like my own, to do something different. He, too, felt that the project had at some point taken on a life of its own, and that he was into what I call phase 3 now. (He had better be, since he leaves in ten days.) But anyway, it was nice to talk to someone else who was going through the same things I was and had the same fears and concerns and hopes. We agreed to stay in touch. He should be a valuable resource once I arrive. He seems to have a much better handle on things due to his detailed research and his talks with his very experienced friend.

That is it in a nutshell, as they say.

I received my travel itinerary from the ticket service this morning. June 24 10:10 AM: NW1680 Lambert to Detroit then NW0025 Detroit to Tokyo Narita then NW0005 Tokyo Narita to Pusan Kinhae. 7466 miles. 16.75 hours. 14 timezones.

Hopefully I will get my passport back from the Korean Consulate and I will be on my way.