And The Teaching Commences...

As our boss picked us up at 11 am on Monday morning, we were a bit anxious and excited to jump into teaching since we truly had no idea exactly what we

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were about to encounter! While Ryan dropped us off at the front we walked up to the second floor of the building and were greeted by Korean children with precious smiles and

adoring hugs! Children were running around everywhere acting as most children do when they allowed to be free! It was definitely controlled chaos. Many children curiously came and introduced themselves to us using their English names that they had been given. The two other English speaking teachers immediately showed us the ropes!

Before we started teaching, we had a lunch break. During our lunch break, Cari and Andrew(the English speaking teachers) showed us their apartment so that we could decide whether or not we wanted to move closer into the city. We love the convenience of walking to school and the convenience of having so many more choices of restaurants. And we also found a gym right next to the school. YEAH! So we will moving eventually! It will be at least 10-15 days before we move!

We came across an adorable bread shop while walking back to school. The scent of the shop was divine! We had heard that their bread here is made fresh and is quite delicious! So we went in of course. My eyes and nose were wonderfully stimulated with all of the fresh bread, cakes, desserts, and treats. Since Grant and I have the biggest, and when I say "biggest" I mean gargantuous sweet tooths we bought some pastries and cookies! They were wonderfully tasty.

After lunch, we started our first classes! Our basic goal in teaching: is to get our Korean students to use their English correctly in conversation. It is a very laid-back and fun teaching atmosphere. The discipline is totally different here. Their are NO liability issues, apparently people don't sue each other in Korea. Basically, if a student runs into a metal poll on the playground it is their fault(Obviously, some of you might laugh at this, but this same situation happened at my school last year). If you run into the street and get run over by a car, it is your fault not the drivers. Also, you can pick up kids and touch them without the fear of being sued! As far as discipline goes, it is a little bit more lax then I am used to. In Korea, when they are young, they want the children to be carefree and enjoy their childhood but yet still be held responsible for their actions. These Korean kids are very goofy and very much allowed to just be themselves which I think is a very healthy environment for them to have!

Our first classes went very well! Grant had a very quiet class while I had a very cheery and somewhat loud class, you might say. Grant had a blast playing hangman with some of his classes. We have about 30 classes a week. In one of Grant's classes they called him "giant" while in another classroom they kept wanting to touch his big muscles. In one of my classes they spoke very little English, therefore I had them repeat after me the text we were reading at least 5-10 times. After finishing the text they continued to mimic and copy what I was saying! It was hilarious. Our classes' English skills vary from speaking zero to no English(which is a very small minority of our classes), to speaking and reading full English sentences and paragraphs. The kindergarten students I have right now our speaking and reading better than the kindergarten kids we had at my school in DeSoto last year. They even know how to read phrases like: pencil sharpeners, veterinary, sometimes, early... They sometimes read full and lengthy paragraphs. They are crazy smart and advanced! I was pretty much dumbfounded and utterly stunned at everything they knew! In addition, their temperaments are very caring and loving. They love to come up and hug you and know your name. I am falling in love with these children! They are just darling!

It has been continuously raining the past two days. It seems like big cities smell soooo much worse after it has rained. Pyeongtaek is what most Koreans consider a small to medium sized city. To Grant and I, it is HUGE! As far as land goes, it is probably around the size of Dallas but with double, maybe even triple, the amount of people and buildings! It is crowded. While walking the streets, people definitely do stare and whisper the word: Waegu(which means foreigner). However, the upside of the city is that it has some very nice parks with exercise machines including things like chin-up bars and gazelle-like exercise machines. It has some very nice restaurants some which have menus in English. We went to this place called VIPS the other day. They had imported American beef so our steaks were much thicker than our original meal we had with our boss at our first Korean meal. The salad bar was pretty much to-die-for! It had so many choices. I also tried this prickly fruit with a thick outer shell, you have to cut it open and then pull out the seed. It kind of tasted like a grape. They told us that this fruit is from China. Grant made me try some smoked salmon. He reassured me that it didn't taste fishy even though it was pretty raw. So, me, trying to be the trusting wife, tried it. I almost gagged, the texture to me was very slimy and the taste extremely fishy!

The people we work with our very amicable and helpful. The native speaking Korean teachers are remarkably wonderful and very pleasant to be around. Julia, one of the Korean teachers, has been a godsend. She is a Christian and a sweetheart. She took us to the market yesterday and helped us buy groceries. Her mother showed up and helped us as well. Julia's dad is a pastor, and she has invited us to church on Sunday. After grocery shopping, Julia and her mom wanted to treat us to dinner. The food we had for dinner was QUITE spicy! Grant and I both were sniffing and asking for more and more water. They brought out a huge skillet full of pasta, vegetables, and a little bit of fish tossed in a red/tomatoey sauce. It was VERY good. Some of the noodles were made out of sweet potatoes. The noodles made out of sweet potatoes were completely translucent and clear. They were very weird looking. We also had some Kim-bob which is basically an appetizer consisting of rice and vegetables. Also, I have started to improve in my acquisition of chopstick eating skills. Julia complemented me on my "great" skills! We feel extremely blessed to have acquired Julia and her mom as our friends.

This is Ed one of the sweetest yet goofiest students I have!
He likes to try and give me raspberries on my stomach!