First Weekend in Korea

From March 3rd:

I finally managed to get online by using the wifi password from the hotel across the street. Even at two bars, it's almost as fast as the connection back home. I'll be glad when I get a real connection set up!

This weekend has been pretty crazy - we went grocery shopping (spent ~$100 on groceries) and got me some new dishes and kitchen equipment, though I haven't put them away yet because the cabinets are still a mess and I don't know what to do with the old stuff. I cooked my first couple meals, though I have to keep it simple because I can't put the dishes away and I don't have a drainer to dry them in. I was so tired that I started cooking the rice without putting any water in first -_- Sunday was a bit more leisurely, and I got to thoroughly explore the local superstore (spent another ~$65 on more kitchen and bathroom stuff, like a new toilet seat and towel racks.) I muddled my way through my first load of laundry (which is still drying,) but I think they came out dirtier than they went in. One more thing to clean, I guess.

I was surprised to find out that we had a 4 pm meeting (at 4:30) that lasted a good four hours. I was apparently wrong about the age of my students: the grades are the equivalent US reading levels, while the students are grouped by level instead of age. My basics class has 1st and 2nd grade kids, while my 2nd grade class has students between 2nd and 7th grades. The biggest class is 12 students, and the smallest has 9. All the students have an English name they chose, so with the Basics kids we'll need to spend some time to get them a name to use. We went over every student in surprising detail (personality, how often they do their homework, whether they're audio or visual learners, and sometimes even their home life) to give us an idea of what to expect. The first week is just introductions and getting to know the kids, so I won't need books or materials for a little while yet.

My class schedule will be very busy, six 50-minute classes in a row from 3 pm - 9 pm every night with 10-minute bathroom and snack breaks in between (the school provides snacks for the students and teachers.) We were supposed to have a 30-minute dinner break, but a new law says that students have to leave hagwons (private schools) by 9 pm. Also, the school planned to expand into the space next door but the deal started to get fishy, so they had to walk away from it. This meant canceling three classes at the last minute, letting one teacher go and giving the rest of us full schedules, so no more dinner break. I'll manage, and everything else seems great, so things are starting to look up!