Thursday May 8, 2008 - First whole week down!

So over the last couple days we sure have learned a lot about what we need to get used to here.  I had my first solo taxi ride and made it to E-Mart and back all by myself.  I felt like a kid again going to my first day of kindergarten.  It was quite the rush.  I was so frightened before, but once I got back and realized I did it all on my own I felt very grown up.  I got my passport photos done for the whole alien registration process and went around the grocery floor and tried the sample taste testers to try some Korean food.  Brenda it was like that day at Costco.  I hit up every stand (I even went to one twice which I think they may have noticed since I was the only white girl in the place) haha.

 

Anyway Elyse and I had a fantastic spaghetti dinner at our apartment with wine and all and it was so romantical.  We were celebrating Elyse’s first day of classes, which went well.  She has classes of children that are both returnees from an exchange program overseas, and beginners as well as some adults.  She is enjoying it so far. 

 

We had our visit to the doctors and as Elyse says, she felt like we were on a game show.  It honestly was the craziest thing I’ve experienced.  We first went into the hospital, had to go into this crazy padded room to test our hearing, blood-pressure, sight and all that crazy stuff…then we were brought into this other room and they had us put on a robe and get a chest x-ray, put our clothes back on and gave some blood and urine as they were saying, do this, now do this, now do this….all in Korean mind you.  It was quite the experience.  Anyway, we got our results back the next day and all was good, so looks like we aren’t going to be shipped home. Phew!

 

I had my very first day at the microchip company.  Its pretty far outside of the city, so I have to take the subway half-way, and then get a taxi for the rest of the way.  It takes about half hour to get there but it’s quite the adventure and I get to see the outskirts of Daegu, which is nice.  It’s so beautiful in the mountainous countryside here.  I meet with 2 classes at the factory and the first class is beginner and the second is a more advanced class.  They provided me with books but they are in Korean so I can’t do much with that, so I just have to prepare a couple things.  Their first homework assignment I gave them was to come up with something that I MUST do during my year in Korea.  I definitely loved that activity.  I now have a to do list of great sights to see and places to visit. 

 

The students in my advanced class are all very fluent in English, so we more or less just discuss things that are going on and have conversations.  They all did pretty detailed introductions and they told me a little bit about what they do at the microchip company.  I still don’t really understand it much but one of them showed me this skinny little memory board looking thing for a computer and part of the company makes those apparently.  They want to be able to communicate with their trading partners and want to brush up on some conversational English so they suggested reading newspaper articles and just discussing them, as well as watching clips from 60 minutes and CNN and discussing current events.   I am really looking forward to this class.  Last class, we talked about some of the traveling some of my students have done.  We also talked about some insightful things about the Korean culture since this Monday is Buddha’s birthday.   One of my students spent 2 months studying at a temple and was sharing some of his stories.  It was very interesting.

 

On my way home from the factory, I get a ride to the subway from other staff members from our office but they teach Japanese so those rides are quite interesting.  They only speak a little bit of English so we try our best to communicate.  Thursday I was asked by my supervisor if I could help out at the university English school just for today as an exception because the new teacher had some complications with her working visa and still hadn’t arrived.  I agreed and had 4 classes there.  They were all children so it as much different then what I was used to.  We read some children’s stories and played games.  They had a pizza party that day, so the kids were even more excited than normal.  I tried traditional Korean food for the first time.  The director ordered me some food and it was excellent. 

 

That night, I came home and found out that the lady who lived here before realized that her phone was still connected so we don’t have a phone anymore. I was pretty upset with it because it was nice to be able to call home, but I suppose using the pay phones won’t be too bad for 2 weeks.  I went and filed for the alien registration card so hopefully it won’t be too long before we get the internet and cell phones.  That’s something that you have to get used to when you come to Korea.  Things that are rather important to us especially in such foreign circumstances aren’t really that important to them.  You would think that they would understand that we are already dealing with so many new things and changes in our lives that being able to contact home is a must, but again, I will deal with it and be stronger for it in the end.