Kevin in Korea  - A blog about teaching ESL overseas

Hello again,

Sorry about the lack updates. I feel like I’ve been going about this the wrong way. Why have I been trying to force myself to update on the weekends, when I am busy and frequently have plans? It’s so much more convenient and a much better use of my time to update while I am at school! I have a lot of breaks this semester. Actually I teach nearly the same amount, but the way the day is structured I have a lot more breaks in between classes. This allows me to rest, take naps, and to pace myself to last the whole day. Last semester I tended to finish earlier, but teach in bunches non-stop the whole day.

All in all I like most of the changes to my schedule. Previously, I had a 4 week rotating schedule where I saw my 1st graders (as in 7th graders) once a week, and my 2nd and 3rd graders once a month. This has now changed to a 2 week schedule, with me seeing every class once every two weeks. I like the fact that I will now see the other classes more than 2-3 times a semester (in some unlucky cases I only saw some classes ONCE from September to December due to cancellations and other random school stuff). I also feel like I have a stronger co-teaching staff to work with, PLUS I am making an extra hard effort to include them in the planning and collaboration process. It can be a lot of work to hunt down the teachers before class to talk to them, but I think it is worth it. I hope they appreciate the fact that I am trying to include them, not resentful that I am making them do more work :).

It’s also nice having a more spaced out schedule with more breaks in the middle of the day. Although I end my days later, it’s not really a problem since I still have over an hour left before going home most days. I suppose the downside is now it’s even harder to establish any kind of connection with ANY of the students. Last semester I struggled to recognize even my first grade students. Even now I only know a handful of them, if I’m lucky I know a couple in every classroom.

This has been the first week of getting back into teaching regular hours. After half a week I’m pretty tired! I need to rebuild my stamina again. It’s going to be a long grind. I believe the Korean school year goes from March straight until the end of July. There is no March Break equivalent. I’ve heard rumours of a 5 day weekend in May, but I don’t know if it applies to my school as well. Aside from 2 holidays in May it will be pretty much school every single day. The biggest events I have to look forward to are school midterms and exams, since those are half-weeks where I have no classes. There may also be a school field trip for a couple days. I’ve asked if I can join the second graders where they get to visit Jeju Island. We’ll see how that turns out!

Well a lot has certainly passed over the last month and a half. Annie has come and gone, my sister has come and gone, and now I have an awful lot of time on my hands again. So I figured I would update the blog a little bit. Believe it or not, I thought about my blog a lot over the last month and a half, and figured that I would be better served by spending it with Annie and Jocelyn rather than trying to spend hours documenting my experiences. So I decided to save it until after! So I will try to update frequently over this next week to try and get you all caught up on what has happened. In the meantime, let me bring out my checklist of things that I wanted to do while in Korea. Here’s what I posted back in November. I have updated and revised the list a little bit.

- Explore local areas around Bucheon:
– Visit museums and other cultural sites such as Aiinsworld. Aiinsworld is a CHECK!
– Visit local market: CHECK!
– Visit local parks: CHECK!
– Go hiking up the local mountains.

- Travel around Korea:
– Explore major areas of Seoul: palaces, temples, Seoul North Tower CHECK!
– Travel to other Korean cities: Busan, Gwangju, Daegu, Daejeon. Especially Busan, for the beaches. Busan is a CHECK!
– Visit Jeju Island.

- Experience Korean culture, whether modern or traditional
– See a bboy show/competition: CHECK!
– Go to a noraebang: CHECK!
– See a gaming tournament like Starcraft CHECK!
– Go to festivals when I get a chance, like the mud festival
– Go hiking up the mountains. I have been to Bukhansan, but I did not make it to the top. So I must go there again, and to other mountains as well.
– Learn Korean. I’m trying to find/meet Korean friends to do language exchange. Maybe the easiest way to do it is just to hit up the foreigner bar and talk to the Koreans there. I don’t know. Suggestions?
UPDATE: I have met some Korean friends, my Korean is still awful though. I can read slowly and understand words here and there, but trying to communicate is always a struggle. So semi CHECK!

– Go to the sauna / public bath house.
– Travel to the DMZ. CHECK!
– Go to the Korean clubs. CHECK!

My new goals for Korea are to stay up to date with local and big festivals and to try to participate in them in some way. The next big one will probably be Lunar New Year’s, which is a HUGE deal in Korea. I am looking forward to participating in that in some way.

- Travel around Asia:
– [Priority] Visit Japan
– [Priority] Visit Hong Kong / China
– [Optional] Visit Vietnam, Philippines, etc.

In terms of my travel, I feel like I am still at a loss on what I should do. I have semi-convinced myself that Japan is similar to Korea enough that I should try to visit other places. Not to mention that Japan is expensive as hell to visit. I am leaning very heavily towards making a trip to China. I really feel a strong desire to connect with my homeland and to experience my own culture. I didn’t mean to make this into a philosophical post, but living in Korea has really encouraged me to look to become more than just a non-white Canadian. I really feel like I can put the effort in and re-connect with something that has been missing in my life – that sense of belonging. It’s hard to describe, but right now I do not feel like I am either Chinese or Canadian. I am trapped somewhere in between, and I think that’s an identity crisis that really hits a lot of second generation immigrants onwards. So I really do hope to find some kind of closure in my time here. I don’t expect to magically fit in with other Chinese people when I visit, but I do hope to learn a little bit more about myself.

Anyway for the next update, I do keep a very general diary of my activities, so I’ll use that to help me fill the rest of you in on what I’ve been up to lately. Stay tuned, I’m back!

Not so much a contestant, but last night I went to the airport to pick up Annie! Although her flight arrived at 3:40am, I had to leave Bucheon at 8:30pm in order to catch the bus to the airport. I arrived by 10:00pm and had 6 hours to kill. So I walked around the airport a little bit (pretty neat, they had closed restaurants that I could walk right through, into the employees only areas. I probably could have had some free drinks if I felt like it) and eventually settled myself into a little corner. Fortunately there was free wireless, so I was able to Skype my family for a couple hours. Around 2am I tried to get a little nap in before Annie’s arrival. However, I did not expect…the zambonis. Yes, starting at around 2:30am, a bunch of little zambonis started driving around, cleaning the floors. It was very loud, and very obnoxious. Not so much the engine noise – I could grow accustomed to that. It’s when they stop and turn, it sounds like screeching brakes every time. So essentially I got no sleep the entire night. Around 4:00am I headed down to catch Annie, only to discover that her flight made it in an hour early! Ack! So I walked around a bit, and sadly she found me first. Nooo, so much for the excitement of seeing her face! Well I tried. We eventually caught the bus to Bucheon at 6:10am (note to family: the 302 bus leaves SONGNAE at 5:00am, but NOT the airport at 5:00am) and arrived back at my place around 7am. Slept for a few hours, and have had a fairly tame Saturday. Mostly sleeping :). The night stay at the airport was definitely just as hard on me as my original flight to Korea was. Exhausting! Minus the jet lag, of course. In other news, my Internet has been officially set up. It seems to be on an ethernet cable only, which is a bit unfortunate. However, the speeds are incredible! The handyman did a speed test and it clocked out at 10MB/s upload and download. Crazy. I’ve never seen anything like it. Oh, and he actually came 15 minutes early! Hooray for punctuality.