Lucky streak in Seoul

I swear, I'm on a lucky streak with this Korea thing. I hoped to get Incheon or Seoul, and got Seoul. I read up on all the crap that other people have to deal with (granted, it's Dave's ESL Cafe, which is infamous for people with negative attitudes) and "what could've been" with the housing situation, and ended up getting a decent non-hotel place. I read about the evil co-teachers that are out there, and ended up with pretty cool co-teachers so far (as far as I can tell). While things could be better (*shakes fist*), it could've been a lot worse as well (like poor Eric with his shoebox).

In this entry, I'll talk mostly about the school. I'll get into the living quarters later.

Basically, my place is near Seoul Station (about a 15-minute walk) and the geographical center of the city, and about a 7-minute walk from the school (which is all boys). I'm their first-ever native English teacher. Something I was wondering was how the students will react to an Asian who is also a native English teacher; even if you're not the type of person to look into race, you have to admit this is an interesting predicament for a country that is largely homogenous (and prides itself in its homogenuity).

The result surprised me. At first, the students weren't sure who this new teacher-looking person was doing in the school. I was invited to observe a regular English class, and was introduced to the students. After that, word spread much quicker than I expected. Suddenly, students were bowing to me in the hallways and stuff. (Stewie: "You will BOW to me." One of my best friends told me on MSN that I'm going to let this bowing go to my head, haha.) A few students actually went up to me just to say "HI!!!" or "Hello!!!" just like what the Caucasian teachers described. I guess race doesn't factor in as much as I expected.

The school facilities are interesting. When they were giving me a tour of the school, I was wondering if I will have my own classroom and what it'd look like. The school looks quite old and is peeling a bit, so I was like, "Hmm. I guess I'm not getting my own classroom."

Boy, was I wrong.

Not only did I get a classroom, but it is the NICEST classroom in the school. I'm not even remotely exaggerating about that. As I said before, the school looks aged and peeling. However, the English room is spanking new and looks like it was renovated lately. It has a smartboard (a touch-screen computer on the board), new tables and chairs, its own library/reading room, a computer with new software, a webcam, and so on. I swear, my jaw dropped majorly when I saw it, because it was such a drastic difference compared to the rest of the school. Even the doors were high and made of glass (while the other rooms' doors are about 5 feet tall and are old sliding doors made of aging aluminum).

The co-teachers are also pretty incredible so far. One of them speaks English pretty well for the most part, one seems okay when teaching but has difficulty in producing speech in an actual conversation, and one is having no difficulty in producing speech but is good for the most part.

I also have to teach other teachers, and from what I can tell, they're not in it because the principal forced them to do it or anything. I may be wrong, but I think it was a voluntary thing and quite a number of teachers signed up. I wish we covered how to teach other teachers during the orientation, because I'm not sure what to do for it.

The dress code for the school is slightly bizarre as well. I was told to wear a neat shirt, dress pants and... slippers. Yes, you read that right. Slippers. Both teachers and students wear slippers in the school. I have to find myself a pair in the right size (since the North American shoe sizes are different and many slippers on sale on the streets are packaged).

Today, I mostly did lesson planning. A lot of time was wasted while I tried to figure out the Korean version of Windows, but it's going smoother now. I still need to pick up the pace for one class' lesson plan tomorrow though. Tomorrow is my first day of teaching. Originally I was told that I won't teach until after the first week, but they changed it on me today. First taste of the Koreans' "last-minute culture," I guess.

That's pretty much my school in a nutshell right now. I'll talk about the living quarters later.