I'm Divorced!

As of yesterday at 10:34 am CO time, I am divorced. So I have been divorced now for 7 and 1/2 hours!! :)

Day 2 - or the "day of the teacher" ... or day of the "police"?

So today has so far been much better. I'm on a 2 hour break between my morning classes and my afternoon classes and I felt much more prepared for today's afternoon classes than I was for yesterday's, so I decided to come home for a little alone time in the middle of the day!! I am a very social person, but even I like to have a little space to myself sometime.
So anyway this morning's classes went much better, still a little like pulling teeth to get the older kids to talk, but maybe they will warm up. If not, every day for the rest of the month between 11:55-12:35 I will talk to myself. I'm pretty good at that and even if they aren't listening, maybe osmosis will kick in.
There was one panic moment... I'm alone in the teacher's room (big room, 10 desks, this is where we plan, etc, etc...) and my desk drawers are kinda sticking... well, I force them shut to have my purse be out of view. Then I try to open it. They locked. Luckily I was alone, because I crawled all around that desk trying to figure a way in and started cursing at myself for being so stupid. If something won't close, why do I have the desire to force it???! I tried picking up the corner of the desk and dropping it and pulling and lever-ing it with a ruler and finally I was frustrated and embarrassed and just said screw it. I'll just wait until one of the supervising teachers comes in and say someone else "maybe a student..." shut my desk drawers and now they won't open. At this point my hands were almost raw from pulling. I decided to give it one more try and they opened ... needless to say this desk cannot be trusted and I will not be closing the drawers again any time soon.

Anyway, this afternoon still has an opportunity to be disastrous, as there is a Kindergartner class and we know I am brutal on those kids and am hoping to make 2 cry today. But thanks to you guys for reading and commenting on the positives rather than focusing on the negatives the way I was... I think the best advice I got in a pep talk was "Keep your toenails up and your elbows on the floor and you will have a great day..." There may have been more to it than that, but thanks for the wisdom, Just Jeff. Anyway, I am going to read and decompress for a little while.

So this afternoon was different. After lunch, I had my kindergartner class - which went much better with crayons and things to do - and it turns out they are probably 1st graders, so I may be able to do more with them than color.
Then, between my first and second class I was pulled aside by a man speaken Korean. Angry (I felt) Korean. Luckily Mr. Lee (the supervisor) came up and started talked to him... finally Mr. Lee asked to show my ID. I don't carry my passport with me, because it would be a huge pain if I lost it. The man asks me if I have a Visa - I told him yes, of course. One of the Korean teachers said an E-2. He laughed and looked at me and said "tell me the truth, where is your Visa, your passport, your Alien ID card? What kind of Visa do you have??" At this point I'm starting to panic. Am I going to Korean prison? At worst they would just send me home, right? So I said as calmly as I could "I have an E-2 Visa (long term teacher Visa) at my Apartment. " Now he is getting agitated and saying "ID!" so I gave him my driver's license (which looks nothing like me and reads Hricko. My passport is under the much better name of Lewis. ) My mouth is incredibly dry because the man (officer?) has my whole wallet and is digging through it. He says something to Mr. Lee and the principal (Mr. P) and they ask me to get to my apartment and bring my Passport back. The man starts hassling Heidi (the other American) at this point and she is also sent back to get hers. So we trek to the apartment and back (our classes were being covered) which took about 25 minutes. She is incredibly calm (but then again she's been through this before and I think it was worse because it was in Ghana, Africa. She wins.) and I am panicked and sweaty. I have my marriage license and my marriage certificate and my passport and my social security card. I am picturing weapons (probably batons, but maybe knives!) and 5 more of these angry Korean men and lights and no water...very Korean Law&Order type of crap. We get to the school and the policeman has left. Apparently he was not as concerned as he acted and all the Koreans believe. When I tell this story to my grandchildren, it will involve knives and lights and no water, trust me. For a minute I thought I was coming home. :)

Anyway, we went back to teaching. I was greeted this afternoon by 8 boys saying "F*** you!" and showing me their middle finger.



All in all this was a better day than yesterday, believe it or not.

We may be going out tonight to play some pool or something. I wanted to show you a picture of the nightlife view from my apartment. This is another reason why the curtain was necessary.

Day 1 (we're here again!?!?!?)

Ok... so right now it is 8:40 my time - I will be chatting with my mom in a few minutes, and the morning is off to a bit of a rough start. I woke up my roommate first thing - we have to turn on the hot water to take a shower and the switch is in her room. So I open the door gently and reach to turn it on. She wakes up of course. I tell her I have to turn the water on and she says (not thrilled) "I leave it on when I go to bed so you don't have to wake me up." Me: "Oh, thanks... ok, sorry." Then when taking a shower I knock some bottles down which make a large clatter - if you've ever know any girls that share a shower you know that there is so much clutter on the edge of the shower it's ridiculous. Anyway, I'm sure that that annoyed her further. We have class at the same time this morning, so I wonder if we will be leaving for work at the same time, in which case I wonder if she will be annoyed enough to say something.

Oh,well.

Woke up this morning at 6:15 fell asleep after 1:00 am. Should be a very long day, which is why I'm starting my blog now, so I have the energy and desire to finish it tonight!

I'm going to do my best today. This is equivalent to watching someone drive for a day, given some instruction and then being told to drive. Anyway, off to chat with mom and dad, more blogging tonight.

So I did my best. At least I can say that.
Highlights:

one kid gave me a sticker
another gave me a hug
they had fried seaweed at lunch
2 boys wrote a "funny" story in which they become homeless people, who, enraged at the callousness of the citizens around them buy a knife and "will kill people forever". It did use the future tense, so I really can't say
anything too bad.
I survived
tomorrow will be better

Lowlights (unfortunatly there are more of these):

I made a 6 year old cry
a huge mix up which basically ended in me having
absolutely no preparation for one class
another class a poor girl had to ask
me "Teacher, please to speak slower"
they also had some crazy pepper thing for lunch
2 boys wrote a "funny" story in which they become homeless people, who, enraged at the callousness of the citizens around them buy a knife and "will kill people forever". They also spelled people "poepel"
I have homework to do
I survived
tomorrow exists

It really wasn't as bad as it feels like it was. Tomorrow will be better b/c I know more of what to expect. it was just a really really long day. and I literally have papers to grade. Crazy. Anyway all in all not a 100% disaster (just 93%) and tomorrow will be better if only because it will be over at 6:00 pm rather than todays 9:45 pm.

I had sent some papers to the school for my Visa that would be returned to me and they were. In the FedEx envelope they went it. It smelled like home...mostly cigarettes, but still home :)

Day 4.5 (for mom)

So it is 12:40 am Monday morning for me and my alarm will be going off in about 7 hours so I can be to school and look pulled together for my first class at 10:30 (I have to be there 1 hr early to prepare.) And I can't sleep. I'm not even really panicking about the classes... more just thinking at about 100 miles an hour, about a zillion other things and how if I fall asleep right now I will still get 7 hours of sleep and might be ok. I have tried deep breaths, picture calming scenes and faking yawns to encourage real ones. Worst part - tomorrow is a 11 hour day. My first day. ARGHHHHH!

Such an exciting weekend

Actually it wasn't really thrilling by most people's standards, but it had some really good components. Yesterday we went to the convenience store where I made my first Korean purchase: popped corn and water. The popcorn is way different from US, but still yummy in a weird sort of way. Anyway, I'm living pretty frugally for awhile and popcorn, ramen, and water was pretty much my food for the weekend. Oh! And tea! I should get paid this week, so I should have a little more breathing room next weekend and might actually get a Korean meal. Then we watched the movie Little Miss Sunshine - highly recommend it! Sunday we went for a hike up "the mountain". It's actually just a hill, but it's the biggest hill around here - we can see other cities, but Heidi and I don't know what cities they are - but we know Siheung (or the apartment part)- and I think (or can lie and say) that I can find our building. Isn't it funny the way the apartments kinda look like blocks or legos - or Heidi says dominoes and that seems pretty accurate. This is just the apartment section, but there is a factory section (which is much less pretty and doesn't even deserve space on my memory card). Sorry it's so cloudy, I don't know if that's just cuz it's cold winter air or if that is smog. But you can kinda see the actual mountains in the background.

Aunt Sandi will be happy to hear that I saw an actual gas station today. It looked pretty standard. It's surprising how many cars there are here and they are US-sized. No smart cars for this country. Anyway, I have seens tons of cars and now officially one gas station - if anyone wants to make a little extra money, a gas station down the street would probably clean up!

Next we went to a store called Home Plus where I bought more ramen, OJ and some gummy bears. The gummy bears act as a chaser for Korean food - it's nice to have something to get the spice out of my mouth after eating. The other huge benefit of Home Plus is the food samples. Imagine Costco or Sam's times ten. I literally left full. I tried everything from Fish cakes (surprisingly yummy) to dim sum - I love dim sum - to kimchi (still need to get the taste for this - yucky!) Home Plus is a bit like a super Walmart - and a little overwhelming. People with microphones standing on podiums yelling to bring your attention to their station and convince you to buy it. It may be awhile before I go back alone, but I feel like I could find it and get at least noodles and chocolate if need be!

Anyway then I came home and did a Trading Spaces makeover on my room - on the way home we found some furniture by a dumpster and we grabbed a cute little table for my room and a chair for the living area. The table is perfect for the family picture and the picture of Rome from Jocelyn. It's so nice to have just a few things to make the room feel like my room, ya know? I don't want to acquire a lot while I am here, but at the same time if I did no decorating, it would probably be a tough year. Then I hung my "curtain". The curtain is actually just a thin blanket that was already on my bed when I got here and I didn't need. It will allow me some privacy from the apartment buildings across the way and some respite from the sun first thing in the morning, but still let sun in during the day.

All in all a very productive weekend. My first day of class is tomorrow and I am getting nervous, but read something cheesy in an email today that fits this situation perfectly. "I am too blessed to be stressed." It's totally cheesy and I need to convince myself stll, but I am amazingly blessed to have this opportunity in Korea and I should enjoy it as much as I can.

Love you all - more tomorrow after school!

Day 2

I promise that all my blogs will be named something more creative...well maybe not all.

So I have been here for about 36 hours... and I have gone to work already.

It is 6:06 am (still jetlagged), I will probably have cheezits or some snack for breakfast and it's too dark to see the weather, but I'm guessing cooooold. :)

So yesterday I observed all day, and not that much exciting stuff happened, but some durn funny stuff did, so I will give you the downlow on that. My first class to observe was some deliriously rambunctious 5 year olds. They were practicing the words "I have", "I see", "teddy bear" and "robot". Looking ahead, I will be (on Monday) teaching them about the color Pink - not the singer - and "I want" and "doll". I think this will be my favorite class. The teacher I watched was hilarious and the kids really seemed to like her. In another class, they were playing a drawing game. They are all about games here and the kids really react when you say the words "quick game". So they were playing pictionary and the 10-year old kid came to the board and obviously drew alcohol. The other 10-year olds didn't guess what it was, so the teacher asked. The kid replied "soju" - Korean alcohol. The teacher just said "Ok, well next time English words, ok?" Pretty entertaining that a 10-year old is thinking about alcohol at 4:00 in the afternoon. I know I was. Another kid was trying to ask a teacher what english was for a word. He was getting flustered and she didn't understand, so finally he acted it out. He was being crucified on a cross. Another kid came up and hammered his hands and he even let his head droop when he was dead. I was pretty much horrified. The teacher guessed "You are Jesus?" then the kid got really flustered and drew a cross on the board. So the word was cross. At this point the kids let out a string of Korean and the word cross. I have no idea what the conversation was about, but it's seems deep and complicated.

For lunch I ate alone and confidently (after Thursday's plane ride) got fairly large portions. It turned out to be spicy cooked squid and kimchi. I washed it down with a starburst. For those keeping score: Cassie 1, Korean food 1. These two things are definitely acquired tastes and I probably wasted more than I ate.

So at the end of my first day (which was 10:00 pm) I went home and crashed. But now here I am awake again at 5:30.... I never really understood jetlag until now. I feel ok about teaching classes and have started to try to think of games to both control the ADHD kids and make the shy guys talk. Any suggestions would be adored.

My apartment: I only have one word - small. The picture below is my entire room. The whole thing. The glass closet is a little weird and I need to get something to cover it, b/c I feel pretty exposed between that glass closet dooor and the window in the closet... The bathroom - which most of you knew what worrisome to me - is normal. Delightfully westernized. The kitchen is small and I'm pretty sure the refridgerator is about the size of the fridge in the motorhome. there is a common area with a couch and chair and tv and that's about it...

This is the view from my closet window in the direction of the school. Crazy, no?

One more thing for you - little known fact: Dwight the travelling gnome loves the view, watched me walk to work and hopes he gets to go to school with me one day.

Day 1

So just a quick side note before this starts - everything on this blog is now in KOREAN! I've arrived...





So day 1 started with dry heaves due to nerves. LJ took me to the airport where we had our goodbyes. I suck at goodbyes. Basically all I could do was cry and tell her that I was scared. Pretty durn sad. I was making last minute phone calls while I was waiting and I don't think there was a single one that I didn't bawl during. At the airport, I found out that both of my bags were overweight. I am definitely the worlds worst worst packer. I'm going to try to go through and figure out if there is some stuff that I can mail back, but we will see. also at the airport I took this really groovy picture of my plane. It was a double decker! Only the business class was upstairs, so I never really got to see it or anything, but it still was pretty rad.








So the flight starts at noon - and we quickly learn that the in-flight entertainment system is broken. Yuck. Luckily I had my book....which I finished about half-way through the flight. Luckily I had Sudoku (I know how that angers some of you!)



I had a feeling of immense pride and surely had a silly goofy smile on my face while I ate Bibimbap - the korean meal on the plane. Given the choice between the western meal and the korean meal, I chose to start my adventure. Jeff told me to be proud of myself and I am going to be. Still scared to death, but pretty impressed with myself also.


Don't let the sun go down on me...


So this cheesy but delightul song came on my mp3 player (I admit it - I like Elton John and George Michael was featured on this version and I thoroughly enjoyed it) and I realized that today the Sun won't go down. We chased the sunset the whole way and eventually started to catch up to it. So I can't say "I lost a day on this flight" I can say I lost a night and a morning. I'm ok with that - I'm not a morning person.


I walked around the plane for about an hour - trying to get some blood flowing. Probably should have done more, but this nice elderly woman next to me slept the whole way and I hated disturbing her.

The mountains we flew over were amazing! I have to believe it was Washington state area, but I don't really know. They were beautiful though and I saw ice on the ocean. I've never seen that before.

I also managed to sleep for about 2 hours, but it was difficult at best. The Sun was up, I was a nervous wreck and I thought if I can just stay up, I can maybe avoid jetlag, a little. It's 6:22 am as write this - I didn't avoid jet lag.

About 4:00 or so, the captain (my captain) announced that we would be landing soon. I went through immigration without a hitch and forgot to exchange my money, but was picked up by a very nice man and his daughter from the school. We went to the school - where I met one of my roommates (seems like a nice girl) and other teachers who will have to be reintroduced to me today.


Anyway, I came to the apartment (home!) and pretty much just got right into bed. I didn't sleep great - I never do in new places and definitely had some thoughts of "why did you get yourself into this", but, strangely, woke up (at 5 am) feeling pretty confident. We shall see how I feel next week after I have been working there for awhile as an actual teacher.

I miss all of you and am so grateful for all the well wishes I've gotten today and over the past week. Keep 'em coming. 364 more of these days to go.