Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Gulp... trial by fire

On Monday we went to Poly School to check out our new apartment. The apartment is much smaller than Father's (not really a surprise), but pretty cute. It is located about 2 minutes from the Guro Digital Complex subway stop. (If you want to find it on the map, it's on the green line and called Gurogongdan. It's four stops away from our school's exit: Seoul National University.) The entire commute will take about 25 minutes, which is much nicer than the over an hour commute from Father's apartment.

The area seems to have a lot of high rise apartment buildings. We'll be living on the 4th floor. And we will actually have a kitchen/living room and two other rooms. The rooms are teeny tiny, but should serve their purpose. In addition, there is a loft area above, which will provide some great storage. (And a place I can hide from Mark since there's no way he can get around up there - hee hee.) We'll take some pictures the next time around, it just felt creepy to take a bunch of pictures of someone's random apartment with all their stuff in it. We can officially move in on Feb. 28th. Until then we will probably be commuting from Father's apartment, though in a few days we'll have a single studio previously used by one of the single teachers at Poly made available for us to shack in.

When we were at the school on Monday, we received some very sad news. One of the teachers got a call that morning informing him that his brother passed away, so he was catching the next plane back home on Wednesday. And the school desperately needed someone to cover his classes on Wednesday and possibly even Thursday and Friday (when we were supposed to be training). Sooo... Mark and Kim to the rescue! We're going to be teaching our first classes tomorrow with absolutely no training whatsoever. (Actually, one of the teachers tried to give us a brief overview, but it was more confusing than anything.) So we're going to show up at Poly tomorrow and completely wing it. We'll let you know how it turns out! Wish us luck.....

4 comments:

Julia Goolia said...

How exciting! I'm sure it will be just like a new job over here....a little overwhelming at first, some glitches, but then lots of learning, too. You'll do great! Good luck.

Anonymous said...

I well remember my first day teaching in Miami back in the early 70's. I was so preoccupied with taking attendance and announcing procedures that I forgot to open the classroom windows. . . and this was late August. Fortunately one of the coaches walked into the room and opened them, much to the students' delight!! I'm sure you will have glitches like that as you begin your teaching careers. We will be anxious to hear all about it.

Anonymous said...

I'd love to be a fly on the wall when the two of you encounter your first group of preschoolers, Kg. or the more sophisticated first through sixth graders. I have no doubt but that you will do fine and the kids will probably be much like the kids here only maybe better behaved. Good luck!!

Erin Folwarski said...

The key to teaching to BLUFFING! And HUMOR! So if you make a mistake, either bluff your way through it, or make it funny, and you two will be great teachers. Humor can be understood even with language barriers, and is a great way to bond with kids, especially younger kids. Have fun with it, and it will come naturally.