Greetings from, once
again, South Korea.
This time I'm located a little bit northeast of where I was last time, essentially halfway between my last city (Suwon) and the capital (Seoul). I'm about 20-30 minutes from the outskirts of either, an hour away from the good parts, which is kind of a nice spot. My new city is called Yongin, and I live in one of the more populated neighborhoods, called Suji. It's a huge step up from my previous neighborhood. In Gokban (in Suwon) I was surrounded by highway and rice paddies. Here I'm surrounded by restaurants, schools, parks, and stores. It's kind of nice to be in the middle of everything, still set far enough back that street noise isn't an issue. It's also nice that, where last time I was a 50 minute walk or 20 minute drive from work, it takes me about three minutes to walk to work. I just go back to my apartment for my lunch break and relax, unless I have work to do.
Work itself is pretty straightforward. My Korean partners plan the lessons, so outside of the classroom and progress reports I have very few responsibilities. The classes themselves are good, with their size capped at ten students. I have nine kindergarteners. I also have eight different primary classes, ranging in size from one to nine students. Two of my classes I have twice a week for different subjects.
Notable Classes:
My kindergarten, which I teach five mornings a week. It's basically the same hours as kindergarten at Maple Bear, only it's a lot more structured and with a lot more book work. I have nine kids: four boys (Alvin, Daniel, Eric, and Jake) and five girls (Emily, Julie, Claire, Ruby, and Amber). If you want to know which ones are my favorites, just look at the order I typed them in. Emily is actually my favorite, but anyone who knew me well and had met my class wouldn't expect it- she's short, chubby, quiet, and nondescript. And yet I love her. Alvin is my second favorite because he's got the best English skills and loves to talk and be loud and silly. He'd probably be the one most people would expect to be my favorite. I really do like all of my kids, so even though Ruby (Alvin's twin sister) is listed second to last among the girls, I like her a lot. Amber and Eric are also twins. Eric is sweet and adorable. Amber is a bit of a demonic moron who also happens to be adorable. It's like she's the three-toed demon, but once you get past the creepy feet, she's a baby rabbit. But there's still the issue of the feet. And the fact that she's a demon. Also that, due to never listening or following along, she has no idea what the hell is happening.
My all-girl class, which I teach twice every week is another favorite. There are nine girls in one class, all around age eight or nine, all with moderate English skills. Rosa is the smartest, except when her best friend Rachel is the smartest. Claire is the liveliest, though her best friend Emily is the most engaged and fun loving. Ellie is quiet and tends to blend in, except she's adorable and smarter than most of the other girls (even though I have to drag it out of her). Alice hates studying English, but sometimes she will burst into random acts of brilliance. Jasmine is beautiful, missing front teeth and all. She's also a complete sweetheart, though she has astronaut tendencies (space cadet). Sally is hard to love. She's at a much lower level than the other girls so she just makes noise and farts around doing nothing and then copies off the others at the last second, for which they all hate her.
My other favorite Is my one student class. He name is Kabin. She's the student with the highest English level in the school. Part of her curriculum is listening to CD tracks and writing down words that are missing from a transcript of what she is hearing. She most recently did this with a lecture on the latest advancements made by neurologists in the area of human memory. She's really well behaved and focused, so we usually end up with about 30 minutes left at the end of her lesson. She and I just sit and talk about whatever- the boy she likes at school, her plans for the weekend, what she wants to do with her life, everything. She's awesome. More recently we’ve started reading Holes aloud, one chapter at a time.
That's school.
The weirdest thing about being back in Korea is how much I felt at home from the moment I arrived. While Thailand always felt like a foreign country (literally and figuratively), Korea doesn't feel like that anymore. In the airport, I found the sounds of Korean being spoken around me and over the intercom to be inexplicably soothing. Even though I have no idea what any of the signs say, the fact that I can phonetically read them makes them somehow less foreign. The food is like comfort food to me now. There has been no adjustment period because I really didn't need one.
What has been interesting to me is how endearing I find all the little things that I never really realized were inherently Korean, the things that I had forgotten about. I mean, sure, I got really excited that I could buy my favorite sour candies again, but I had been looking forward to those. And the food is great, but I was expecting that. The sorts of things I mean are the most random things in the world. The shape of the bricks that compose sidewalks here makes me smile, because they're shaped the same all over the country and nowhere else I've ever been, a sort of wiggly edged rectangle, as though the masons cut them out using those squiggle scissors that were the coolest things ever in second grade. The prevalence of tiny dogs dyed random colors is almost sweet in its unrelenting creepiness. The immediate affection and connection that children here make to anyone and everyone around them remains endearing. The weird music videos where a group of five full-grown men dance around in blue sky and cloud pajamas, or women dance while wearing animal-paw mittens. The random old ladies who move like they're the busiest people in the world, yet never really seem to be doing much of anything. The hurry up and wait, wait oh shit you're insanely late nature of time. So much of the culture that I had forgotten, so many nuances and subtleties that had slipped my mind until I was faced with them once again. As strange as it seems to say, it feels good to be home.
This time I'm located a little bit northeast of where I was last time, essentially halfway between my last city (Suwon) and the capital (Seoul). I'm about 20-30 minutes from the outskirts of either, an hour away from the good parts, which is kind of a nice spot. My new city is called Yongin, and I live in one of the more populated neighborhoods, called Suji. It's a huge step up from my previous neighborhood. In Gokban (in Suwon) I was surrounded by highway and rice paddies. Here I'm surrounded by restaurants, schools, parks, and stores. It's kind of nice to be in the middle of everything, still set far enough back that street noise isn't an issue. It's also nice that, where last time I was a 50 minute walk or 20 minute drive from work, it takes me about three minutes to walk to work. I just go back to my apartment for my lunch break and relax, unless I have work to do.
Work itself is pretty straightforward. My Korean partners plan the lessons, so outside of the classroom and progress reports I have very few responsibilities. The classes themselves are good, with their size capped at ten students. I have nine kindergarteners. I also have eight different primary classes, ranging in size from one to nine students. Two of my classes I have twice a week for different subjects.
Notable Classes:
My kindergarten, which I teach five mornings a week. It's basically the same hours as kindergarten at Maple Bear, only it's a lot more structured and with a lot more book work. I have nine kids: four boys (Alvin, Daniel, Eric, and Jake) and five girls (Emily, Julie, Claire, Ruby, and Amber). If you want to know which ones are my favorites, just look at the order I typed them in. Emily is actually my favorite, but anyone who knew me well and had met my class wouldn't expect it- she's short, chubby, quiet, and nondescript. And yet I love her. Alvin is my second favorite because he's got the best English skills and loves to talk and be loud and silly. He'd probably be the one most people would expect to be my favorite. I really do like all of my kids, so even though Ruby (Alvin's twin sister) is listed second to last among the girls, I like her a lot. Amber and Eric are also twins. Eric is sweet and adorable. Amber is a bit of a demonic moron who also happens to be adorable. It's like she's the three-toed demon, but once you get past the creepy feet, she's a baby rabbit. But there's still the issue of the feet. And the fact that she's a demon. Also that, due to never listening or following along, she has no idea what the hell is happening.
My all-girl class, which I teach twice every week is another favorite. There are nine girls in one class, all around age eight or nine, all with moderate English skills. Rosa is the smartest, except when her best friend Rachel is the smartest. Claire is the liveliest, though her best friend Emily is the most engaged and fun loving. Ellie is quiet and tends to blend in, except she's adorable and smarter than most of the other girls (even though I have to drag it out of her). Alice hates studying English, but sometimes she will burst into random acts of brilliance. Jasmine is beautiful, missing front teeth and all. She's also a complete sweetheart, though she has astronaut tendencies (space cadet). Sally is hard to love. She's at a much lower level than the other girls so she just makes noise and farts around doing nothing and then copies off the others at the last second, for which they all hate her.
My other favorite Is my one student class. He name is Kabin. She's the student with the highest English level in the school. Part of her curriculum is listening to CD tracks and writing down words that are missing from a transcript of what she is hearing. She most recently did this with a lecture on the latest advancements made by neurologists in the area of human memory. She's really well behaved and focused, so we usually end up with about 30 minutes left at the end of her lesson. She and I just sit and talk about whatever- the boy she likes at school, her plans for the weekend, what she wants to do with her life, everything. She's awesome. More recently we’ve started reading Holes aloud, one chapter at a time.
That's school.
The weirdest thing about being back in Korea is how much I felt at home from the moment I arrived. While Thailand always felt like a foreign country (literally and figuratively), Korea doesn't feel like that anymore. In the airport, I found the sounds of Korean being spoken around me and over the intercom to be inexplicably soothing. Even though I have no idea what any of the signs say, the fact that I can phonetically read them makes them somehow less foreign. The food is like comfort food to me now. There has been no adjustment period because I really didn't need one.
What has been interesting to me is how endearing I find all the little things that I never really realized were inherently Korean, the things that I had forgotten about. I mean, sure, I got really excited that I could buy my favorite sour candies again, but I had been looking forward to those. And the food is great, but I was expecting that. The sorts of things I mean are the most random things in the world. The shape of the bricks that compose sidewalks here makes me smile, because they're shaped the same all over the country and nowhere else I've ever been, a sort of wiggly edged rectangle, as though the masons cut them out using those squiggle scissors that were the coolest things ever in second grade. The prevalence of tiny dogs dyed random colors is almost sweet in its unrelenting creepiness. The immediate affection and connection that children here make to anyone and everyone around them remains endearing. The weird music videos where a group of five full-grown men dance around in blue sky and cloud pajamas, or women dance while wearing animal-paw mittens. The random old ladies who move like they're the busiest people in the world, yet never really seem to be doing much of anything. The hurry up and wait, wait oh shit you're insanely late nature of time. So much of the culture that I had forgotten, so many nuances and subtleties that had slipped my mind until I was faced with them once again. As strange as it seems to say, it feels good to be home.
Below are a few pictures of my apartment, which is a little smaller than last time, but a bit better laid out. I like it so far.
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