For a year?!
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Yes, today it finally hit me. I am living in Korea, for a year, alone, unable to speak the dominate language, teaching high school girls English.
After some amazing closing ceremonies by an orchestra that only plays traditional Korean music (videos to come later), everyone packed up, went out one last night together, and boarded their respective bus the following morning. About 1 hour later, we all climbed off our bus nervous and excited. With my luck of course, I was the third one picked up after only having to wait about maybe 10 minutes. Lee Mija, the head of the English department at my school, helped me with my luggage and whisked me away with barely a few moments to yell bye back. We ate pizza and then visited our school. I meet one of my three co-teachers, Chau-Eun, who thankfully speaks English very well before her, Lee Mija, the two vice principals and principal all sat down together. The next 10 minutes consisted of me feeling so nervous I was smiling uncontrollably while they all speak about me in Korean. It was fascinating and frightening. My co-teach Chau-Eun, walked me through everything I needed to know about the school and teaching there. Luckily I have tomorrow off to prepare and get myself together still, so I don't have to teach until Monday (whew!). After this, I was off to my apartment- with a room on the top floor, 10 before then heading off to the supermarket! There we went grocery shopping, I ran into another student from the EPIK program (YAY!) who said he lives really close to me. I gave him my email, so I'm anxiously waiting to hear from him. We brought my food back, unpacked that, and my co-teacher took me out for tea before then leaving herself. Oh! And somewhere in here I also exchanged my money for Korean won too. After I was finally alone, I spent the next 3 1/2 hours unpacking. I also cooked on a hot plate, tried my hand at the washing machine (sadly no dryer) and started my lesson plan for Monday. I was stressing out about the fact that it's real, so me being the smart alick that I am, put in the movie "Be Cool"- to remind myself to, well, be cool. xD I think I'm mostly moved in.
Goals/To Do for this weekend:
~Pick up a few more shirts for teaching (somehow don't have enough)
~Buy a pair of sandals for the school (you can't wear outside shoes inside the school)
~Explore my area a little bit, get to know it
~Find a swing scene for dancing!!!
I'll keep you guys posted and updated about what's going on. I hope you guys are doing well and can't wait to hear about where life takes you!
Love,
Rita
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