5.04.2006

the internet in our house mysteriously stopped working two days ago, so i am not able to post pictures from home.. or really make long posts because i am using a computer at work. BUT short story: i went running the other day and some guy on a bike almost ran into a fence because he was staring at me. he lost control of his bike hehehe.. if he had hit the fence, he'd have fallen into a ravine - about a 12 foot drop. dangerous curves, what??!?

5.01.2006

hello hello!
so yesterday was our first day at work.. we had an hour and a half of 'orientation', followed by actually teaching classes. holy. crap. picture.. getting up in front of a class and trying to teach them, having very little idea what you are doing, as well as never having seen the material before! good times. actually it wasnt so bad.. i spent a good deal of each class talking to them about wisconsin/the US and trying to learn the children's names (i have a little girl whose 'english name' is mint. absolutely adorable. she's only as tall as my waist. and another who reminds me of rufio from Hook. he's a little shit.).

we get to set up our own syllabus based on the books we are teaching from, though there is some proscribed homework that everyone has to do. one of my tasks for this morning is to set up my syllabi and do the paperwork so that my supervisor knows what i am doing. i'm going to have to spend some time figuring out some actual activities/games to play because most of my students are younger. the poor things all go to school all day and then have to come to our program. i refuse to be boring.. that would be awful for them.

our shower is interesting.. we have no curtain, and the shower head is about at shoulder height. i feel like i'm back in the old sullivan bathrooms before they remodeled! also, the last people who lived here were disgusting.. all the floors are grimy and the bathroom doesnt look like it's been cleaned in at least 6 months. another thing to add to the to-do list. the floors though are heated which is pretty cool. here's a picture of our bathroom, and a picture of the really exciting sponge i found while wandering through shops yesterday:


4.30.2006

safe!!
i have arrived safely in korea. the place where we teach is about 3 blocks from the apartment, which we share with another guy from... *cue music* wisconsin! anyhow, the flights were long. it took me 24 hours of travelling to get here. but i am here. and already having adventures.. here are my first two pictures of the trip -
no doobies:

and, the super girly adorable bedspread a woman who works with us got me to replace the scary ones that were on the bed when i got here:

that's all for now. it's time for some hardcore sleeping. i start teaching tomorrow. eeek!