finally a post

Hello everybody,


Sorry for the lack of updates but we have been extremely busy here in Korea. Not only are we getting used to a whole new country and working five days a week but we are also busy almost every night. This week I volunteered at an orphanage Monday night, Tuesday night I played soccer, then Wednesday is volleyball night with the school, Thursday is ball hockey and then Friday my co-teacher, Moon, and her boyfriend are coming over for dinner. Oh and don’t forget lesson planning and hours of power points. Laura has a similar (but less sport filled) schedule. So you will have to forgive us.

There is a lot to update you about. The field trip to Danang folk village and a bamboo forest, our night out in Gwangju, the new schools, the foreigner community here in Mokpo, Mokpo itself, our apartment, the new pet rabbit, our first teacher dinners. Really so much to write about and so little time.

How about my school first? I teach elementary at Mokpo Nam (South Mokpo) with my co-teacher Moon Hae Jin. I call her Moon because it’s easy to pronounce and cool. My school is very small, around 210 kids in comparison Laura’s school has about 1200 kids. I teach grades 3 to 6 and they are split up into groups of around 20 kids each. The students and I are very fortunate to have such small class sizes. In all I teach 9 groups of kids, 4 classes on Tues, Thurs, Fri and 3 classes on Mon. and Wed. I come to school at 8:40 and leave at 5. The times I am not teaching I hang with Moon in the classroom planning but sometimes just desk warming. Desk warming is the term foreign teachers use when you are required to be at school but you aren’t teaching. Right now I don’t do a lot of it but there will be times when my contract requires me to be here but there aren’t any students or even other teachers around. I eat lunch in the cafeteria with all the other teachers and students. The food here is pretty decent; there is always kimchi, a vegetable, plain white rice, a meat and soup. Since it is cafeteria there can be misses. The other day the meat was fish with veggies but the whole thing was full of tiny bones. Koreans are very adept at avoiding fish bones but for me it simply wasn’t worth it. I find the weirdest thing about meals is that there is nothing to drink, after you finish and put away your tray and chopsticks everybody grabs a glass, washes it and fills it with water for a quick drink before putting it back for another person. One glass of water at the end of the meal. I guess a lot of people drink the soup broth. So that is my school, maybe Laura will post about hers next or maybe I’ll describe the class to you.

Greg