JaysKoreaStoryPage3

6:30 finally made its long anticipated appearance and it was time to grab a beer. However, not unlike the absence of breakfast places, small town Korea has no late afternoon bars to belly-up to. This was a most disturbing discovery.

I went to the grocery store, endured the stares and confusion and found the beer cooler, grabbed a few and went home.

I was very high from the experience, was enduring the part of culture shock commonly referred to as the "honeymoon period." This is the time that one feels so proud of themself for expanding their horizons, blah, blah, blah. But when you start coming down from this blissful state, man-oh-man do you ever hit a wall, and I did.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention--oftentimes when you first get here you immediately get sick, have a sore throat for at least three weeks and are prone to all sorts of nasty things a Westerner's body has little immunity to. It's a true joy.

So, day one of teaching ended in a sleepless, jet-lagged night wondering where I was and how I got there.

So, Monday came. I had been shown the way to walk to school (about a ten-minute walk) and I was to be there at 9:30 each morning; my first kindergarten class started at 9:40.

I showed up way early and found the teacher's room and met the other teachers. One of the two other foreigner teachers, whom I had met briefly over the weekend, Tui, was there already. She's a Kiwi (from New Zealand), and the other, a male, Adrian (also from New Zealand), arrived soon. Adrain had been at the school over two years. Additionally, there were several Korean teachers, three bus drivers, a super-model receptionist and some other people on the staff that do whatever they do. I think there are around 180 students, total.

Everyone seemed nice enough.

Soon, I heard little voices as they scrambled up the stairs to where most of the classrooms were. The voices grew louder and increased in numbers by the second. Finally, I got to see the little monsters. Cute and rowdy is how I would describe them. They were, of course, very curious about me.

9:40 AM--First class: Well, I good a good solid ten minutes of training (and that's all I got...ever) before I got cut loose with these little guys. I had twelve in my first class. It was totally out of control; I never fully regained control (ever) but the important thing is that the "out of control-ness" was being conducted in English.

If there was one single thing my little kids have learned to say it's "sit down please!" Oh yes, they can can all say that in perfect English with a Texas accent as well, just as "be quiet please!" and a few other commands that were rarely given much attention.

I contracted to teach three kindergarten classes each morning before noon, then three to five classes after lunch with students ranging in ages from elementary through high school.

I finished at usually 6:30. sometimes earlier, sometimes later.

Many times I had no idea how I was going to make it though another day with the kinders, much less a whole year.

But, I did make it through my first day, even though by the end of the day I was delirious and was teaching the kids how to count to ten in Spanish...seriously. I was so jet-lagged, culture shocked, dizzy and generally freaked-out that my mind had actually left the building.