A ROK(ing) Adventure: Back to School

Today was my first official day at Geumcheon Middle School. I had to arrive early for a "special meeting" with the other teachers and the new Vice Principal. I met the Principal this morning shortly after arriving this morning. He seems to be a kind man, anytime I saw him throughout the day he would smile at me and say "hello Megan!" (If you've heard/read about my school last year, this would NEVER happen). After awhile all the teachers in the school flooded into the teachers room for this meeting. The Principal asked me to sit in the front of the room and the vice principal was next to me. They said a bunch of things about the V.P and then he talked and everyone clapped. He took a seat and I had to stand, the Principal began reading things off about me in Korean. I said hello to everyone and bowed to them and then everyone clapped again. It was a little awkward. The teachers are really kind and will stop and tell me things in broken English. The science teacher has an English name, Krista, she sat and talked to me and then gave me a newspaper that had a tiny section in English (I guess I looked really bored). One of the other teachers gave me a rice cake snack that had something dry and odd inside it. Seeing how friendly and laid back everything is at school makes me so happy and relieved. Last year I was treated terribly and would always get yelled at for trying to teach MY class the way I wanted to. I can see it won't be happening this year.

My first class started around 10:40, after sitting on the internet for a little over 2 hours (seriously public school is AWESOME!) The first year students were very talkative and friendly. Only a few boys wanted to ask questions, but after a little while the girls warmed up to me. The first question out of each classes mouth was "do you have a boyfriend?" They asked me if I knew KPop and if I like baseball. When I said I liked Girls' Generation, GDragon and Kia Tigers they class erupted in cheers and claps. Winning them over was easy enough. I talked a little bit to them and then Mr. Kim began teaching. I'm not 100% sure when my time to teach is, I really haven't been told much. After class 1, began year 2 students. These students are shy and don't want to use their English, although I'm not quite sure they have much knowledge of English anyway. Mr. Kim didn't really give them or me time to talk, he introduced me and started teaching. Some of the girls asked me questions (or attempted to).

After class number 2 it was lunch time. Lunch was not so bad, I accidentally had a bite of octopus (it was fried and I couldn't tell). It wasn't so bad, but I still didn't eat anymore. After lunch I had 1 more class. These are the year 3 students. They were pretty entertaining, although I wasn't given much time to talk to them. I have lots of students names to learn at some point! The one student has short hair and must be mistaken for a boy often. She turned to me and said "man or woman, which one" I laughed and asked what she was talking about and then she pointed to herself and repeated "man or woman" I wasn't quite sure, but I didn't want to look like a terrible teacher who can't tell if her students are boys or girls, luckily as she turned her head I noticed she had her ear pierced. I told her girl and she said "beautiful?" and I said "yes, you are" She loved this answer, shook my hand and turned around to begin studying.

My last class ended at 2 pm. Which meant 3 hours of desk warming. I finished my book, played on the internet, read some blogs and stared at the clock (I'm going to have to start taking naps!) By no means am I complaining, while it does get pretty boring it definitely beats last years work schedule with NO breaks!

I'm interested to find out what my school on Monday and Tuesday is like. I hear it is MUCH better than Geumcheon and I already think that school is pretty great.

To end, I'll leave you with a few pictures of my apartment.