Safe and Sound

It's been a damn long time since I wrote anything here. I've been meaning to... really. I just didn't get around to it.

First off, I got to Ulsan after a 5 hour drive, 3 plane rides (2hr domestic, 8 hour international and a 6 hour international) and then a 5 hour but from Incheon Airport to Ulsan. And yeah, after all that, I was tired, and in need of a shower. I got to my new place, and was surprised as to how big it is (well, compared to the last box I was living in) but was immediately hit by the "someone used to smoke in this place" smell. The teacher I replaced didn't smoke, but the one before her apparently did... a lot!

Ulsan is a nice place. In a way, it kinda feels like Gwangju. It has roughly the same population, the street pavement feels and looks the same, and stuff just seems to look similar. But, that's just Korea, I think - if you've been to one large provincial city, you've been to them all (Busan excluded ^^).

The location of my place isn't too bad as well. I'm within walking distance of a lot of stuff: bus terminals, train station, shopping, downtowns (new and old) and a river with an awesome walking/biking track. Plus, the bus system is pretty much what you'd expect for a Korean city this size.

I have a lot of friends in this area and I've met up with a lot of them already, and it's only been two weeks. I'm only an hour and a half-ish out of Busan, which means day trips on weekends are possible. Other places, like Jinhae, Changwon, Masan and Daegu are close too, so it's not too bad.

It's been cloudy and rainy since I've been here, but the weather from last weekend has been a bit better, with a lot of sun, but still quite humid. I got sunburnt on Sunday, but not that much, so it actually felt good XD

Work is okay too.  A (hell of a) lot better than my previous job. The timetable is a bit packed, but I do like having every morning off to do stuff. The people I work with are nice too.

I'm only 2 weeks in to my 1 year contract, but I've got a good feeling about it. Obviously, I'll have less doubt when I get paid, which is early next month. With all the "hagwon horror stories" out there, and how I found a good hagwon back in 2005 and stayed there for three years, it would be nice if this job worked out the same as that one.

As of yesterday afternoon, I've got my "welcome to korea" cold. Yeah, a cold in summer. It's happened every time I've got to Korea. Just a "welcoming present" as I like to call it - You need to get used to our cold XD

Not impressed

Moved to Guro, which is in Seoul, this evening. Someone from school was meant to turn up at my place in Anseong at 3pm to check things out, make sure things were clean enough, and that I didn't trash the place or steal anything.

No one f**king turned up!

I left the door open a bit, so that people could just walk in, but no-one came. I fell asleep at about 4:30... after waiting for 90 f**king minutes. Woke up at 5:40-ish, was getting a bit cold - I had the windows open for some fresh air (and the weather has been nice for the past 2 days). Waited until 6pm, and then got a taxi to the bus terminal, a bus from anseong to gangnam terminal, and then line 7 and 1 to Guro.

What a waste of my time. Every time a bad thing happens because of the school, it just reassures me that I've made the right decision to leave.

If I ever come back to Korea for working (which is very unlikely - will only be a LAST resort), I won't be working in a public school, and won't be teaching children. It'll be teaching adults in a hagwon, or teaching in a university.

Trapped

Shot some random video at school, and turned it into this. Got 4 days of
"nothing" at work to go until I'm "free".

The Final Five

Was snowing/sleeting yesterday, and is snowing again today.

I've got five days of work to go - today and four days next week. Three-day weekend this weekend, due to lunar new year, and I'm going to use this time to clean my apartment, and get ready to move out. The plan is to be living out of my suitcase by Monday evening/Tuesday morning.

Moving to Guro in Seoul on the 24th, before I leave Korea on the 5th of March.

Oh yeah, I got my phone disconnected yesterday.

The English Conference Room

It's called "영어교육실", but when they need the conference table, I'm kicked out of the room, so I call it the "영어회의실" (English Conference Room).

Mermaid Rack

Please sir, may I have some more?

So, I asked if I can leave school at 3pm, so I can get to the bank and send money home, put money into my account, etc...


Principal comes back as says 3:30. And my first thought it "you've never tried to catch the buses from out here, and i don't think you've ever been to a bank, let alone tried to send money overseas. wake up.", so, I persisted that I needed to leave at 3pm, because things take time.


Sometimes, it's good to have a co-teacher as the middle man.


But, here's the response:

앤디샘, you can leave at 3 o'clock.
And for your information,
the school committee meets tomorrow at 3:30 in your room as usual(?)...^^;
so I'd be thankful if you clean up the room before the meeting... you know.. if the room is not tidy when the principal and other members come in, the principal probably say something bad about you to parents and members... you can imagine..
so.. I want to let you know that there is a shool board tomorrow, and don't want you to be unhappy about it.

Oh, Korea.

Flow of information

From my experience of working in Korea, the people above you, do pre-filtering of the information they need to tell you. Basically, they tell you what They think you need to know. I have huge problems with this, mainly because I get told no useful information. When stuff goes down, I just put on the typical I don't know head on an angle + puppy dog/dear in headlights I don't know look that Korean students do very well. Koreans get that. Then I just blame my co-teacher.

Post-it Note Countdown

After today, 13 work days to go.