David's nose is bigger than mine.

Yesterday was my first day teaching.

After I updated yesterday, I found my way home. I was tired so I had a nice 2 hour nap. I woke up around noon and hopped in the shower. I'm getting pretty used to showering like a caveman; squatting down to wash my hair, etc. I put on a suit, minus the blazer, and watched TV until Gwak Hae Bong, the president of my school, picked me up at 2:20... ten minutes earily then he said he would. No problems there, as I was ready to go. Off to the school we went. It's on the 5th floor of a five story building, and on the way there, my boss was demonstrating the Korean driving method brillantly. The main drag in Ok-Dong, the part of Ulsan where the school is. I live in the university district, which is next to Ok-dong. That means that a lot of younger people live in my area. The two districts are seperated by a river and a huge park, which includes the world cup football stadium (from now on, whenever I say football, I mean soccer). At least, I think that's what seperates them.

The school isn't too bit, but it's very clean. Once we took the elevator up to the 5th floor, the were at the school. The door to enter is a glass door. It seems that a lot of the door here are glass. The door to my apartement building is glass, the door to the grocery store that I've been going to is glass, the door to the PC Bang (internet cafe, PC 방. Bang (방 means "room") that I'm in is glass, as are a lot of the door that I see on the street. It looks pretty cool. Some of them automatically slide open, such as the door to this PC Bang. Anyway, the school consists of a reception desk, that the president's wife opperates, a waiting room for the kids, a few desk in the main area for people to wait for class to begin, a gentleman's and a lady's washroom, a closet which contains tea, coffee, etc., a small room with a fridge, microwave, toaster, etc., a staff room with three desks (mine's the centre one), two computers and a printer/photocopier, an office for the other staff, and about five classrooms (I think). The classrooms are all named after US universities (Harvard classroom, MIT classroom, etc.). The schedule is divided into approx. six parts, each with two sets of classes. Each part is one hour, and divided into two parts. We work in teams with the Korean ESL teachers. One set of kids goes to the Korean teacher for the first half-hour, then to me (or David, the other Canadian teacher) for the other half-hour. Vice-versa, a set of kids come to me, then to the Korean teacher for the last half of the hour. There's two Korean ESL teachers, making four ESL teachers in all. It's Julie, Susan, David and myself. This hour-split goes on until about 6 o'clock, then the last section of the day is 2 hours (2 1/2 hours on Tues./Thurs.). So I have two classes for one hour (actually, 50-55 mins. because of a 10-minute break) on M/W/F, and for 1 1/2 hours (not including the break) on T/Th. That means that I'm done by 8pm on M/W/F and by 8:30pm on T/Th.

For the first few classes, I just sat in for Dave's classes and watched while he did the lessons. He would begin by introducing the class to me and by writing my name on the whiteboard. Some of the kids though that my name was pronounced "Black", while most of the other pronounced it "Blak-u" or "Blak-ee". We just corrected them and they figured it out, because "e" is a "silent-letter" when it's at the end of most words. ;) Stupid French influences of the English language... He asked the kids the date, while he would write it on the board. Sometimes he'd ask the time as well. Most of the kids were pretty good at responding. The kids would ask where I was from, to which David or I would respond "I'm/He's from Canada". The kids would always ask if we were family and/or friends in Canada. Then the map would come out and they all seemed awed at how far apart Nova Scotia and Northwestern Ontario were away from each other. One girl in a class even commented that we had "big noses". After thinking about it for a second, she decided that "David's nose is bigger". He then broke out into the lesson, which came from a variety of textbooks/activity books. They were often reading lessons, listening and repeating an audio tape lessons, or speaking lessons (question and answer..."in FULL sentences!"). Each class is pretty much organized into different levels, which are basic, intermediate and advanced. Most of the kids have alredy been learning English for a couple of years, so they aren't totally lost. I do with that I knew Korean though, because it would make explaining things easier. David seems to be able to get by, as he's been here for a couple of years already. He was at another school, with Julie, and they left because they school directer wasn't treating them well (not paying on time, treating the Korean ESL teachers badly while treating the foreigners okay). Julie left and came to this school. She decided that it was a good school, because the boss is a nice guy and actually pays on time and treats everyone equally. David soon followed. So I guess this is a good school. So far it is.

Well, after a couple of classes, I went to one of Susan's classes. She introduced me, gave me a list of basic questions to ask the kids, and left the room! Thanks Susan... I spend the rest of the 30 minute class asking the kids random questions (how old are you, what colour is your shirt, are you in Tae Kwon Doe (three out of six where, and they were waring their uniforms to boot!), what is your favorite food (usually pizza, spaghetti, etc.), etc. One of the Tae Kwon Doe kids (two of them were brother and sister), was a little big fatter then the rest. Not huge at all, but a little pudgy. When I asked him what his favorite food was, he wouldn't shut-up! It was so funny! It went something like this:

B: Matthew, what is your favorite food.
M: (thinks for a few seconds) Spaghetti.
B: I like spag...
M: ...and pizza, and hambugers, and Chinese food, and steak.
Anna: (Matthew's sister) My brother likes eat lot food.
Class(Lia, Anna, Matthew, Chris, Denny and Kahn): HAHAHAHA! Matthew likes eat lot food!
B: (laughing to hard to say anything)
M: Smiling contently.

I sat out the next half hour, and did nothing other than e-mail Barb and Jim and practice a little Korean. Then I sat in for another of David's classes. After that, the looong period began. I was on my own from this point. The first 80 minute class had only one student in my class. She didn't have an "English name", because she was home-schooled. I asked her what her name was, and she thought for a second, then responded with "Sally". Well, she has an "English name" now! Sally it is then. I did the usual question-at-the-start-of-class routine (what is the date?, how is the whether?, what time is it?, How old are you?, etc.). She responded in almost perfect full sentances, and said she was 14. That means that she's real 12 or 13 in our terms. (In Korea, you are one-year old when you are born, and every January 1st, you add a year to your age. I am 26-years old here, even though I'm really ONLY 24!) She's absolutely adorable, and is already my favorite student. Probably because she's easy to teach. Her English is really good and she has no problem conversing. She has a little bit of trouble conjugating the "to be" verb correctly (sometimes uses "is" instead of "are"), but she's still pretty darn good. She said that she's been to Vancouver before too, and likes Canada. The 80 minutes passed pretty quickly, because she is just a joy to teach. The final class had only two boys in it. Their English names were "Jack" and "Jake". I could not keep their names straight to save my life; mixing them up for the entire duration of the class. One of them was pretty talkative, and the other was very shy and not as advanced as the other one. The more advanced boy would finish a section of his book, and be half done the next section by the time that the other boy would be finished. The slower boy didn't have too much trouble with his lessons, he just wasn't as fast. I finished a chaper in the book after 65 minutes, and figured that I'd start the last section in the 15-25 minutes that were left until 8:30pm. They wouldn't let me start it!

Jake and Jack: "No teacher, no. We can't start this today."
Blake-teacher: "Why not, there is still 15 minutes left."
J & J: "No. We can't start it!"
B: "What should we do then?"
J & J: "Let's play a game!"
B: "Okay, what do you want to play?"
J & J: (decribe hangman to me)
B: (remembering Mike Schultz's last e-mail to me, where he said never to give into the the "hangman" ploy. Not being able to think of any other games for two people (heads-up 7-up doesn't work very well with two), I gave in extremely quickly.) "Do you mean "hangman"? Ok. (I start drawing a gallow's pole on the board.)
J & J: "Yay!"

I like hangman now.

After the end of the class, my work day was finished. Six whole hours! How will I ever work for this long everyday!?! Heh, heh, heh.

Unlike the way to work, I was not getting a ride back home. This meant that I had to experience the Ulsan public transportation system. Luckly, Julie, David and myself all, sort of, live in the same area and all got on the same bus. David stayed on with me until me stop, even though he didn't have to. From there, I began to recongize my way home.

When I got home, I was tired, but I needed some food, dishsoap and toilet paper. So off to the grocery store I went! 40 Won later, I had a backback full of goods and a 10-pack of toilet paper (the smallest pack available) under my left arm. A white-boy with a full backpack and a big bag of toilet paper. I must've been quite the site. I found all of the necessary ingrediants for sushi. Yay! After a meal of udon noodles, the spices that they came with, a couple of eggs mixed in, and some "OB" beer, I was ready for bed. I had the first good night of sleep since I was in Canada. I woke up at 9 o'clock this morning, showered, had a couple of eggs and some beer for breakfast and came here to the PC Bang. Now I have to leave for work in an hour!

Bye everyone!