Surviving My First Week of Teaching

So, it has been one week of teaching so far.  That went pretty fast.  I still feel in over my head.  After all, I was expecting to be an assistant teacher, and instead was essentially thrown in the deep end. 

I'm hoping to get my goals for the semester and such ironed out and try to get discipline under control.  My youngest kids are awesome (good at English, obedient, respectful and enthusiastic).  The older ones...yeah, we're working on it. The first couple weeks have been total day-by-day survival mode.  www.waygook.org has saved my hiney. Thank you fellow English teachers for posting amazing lessons for my older middle school students to ignore. 

The discipline is getting a LITTLE better, because now I have some Korean teachers in my worst classes (part of the time at least).  My amazing fellow American teacher gently strong-armed them for me ("In her contract. Must have Korean teacher in class.  If no Korean teacher, she tells EPIK office.  School gets in trouble.") Thank you, Allison! 

So, small improvements.  Still kind of wish I hadn't caved on the provincial placement, but oh well.  C'est la vie.  I also have high hopes of getting a table soon (from the school).  I might even get my bank account and phone this week!  Maybe...

Last night I figured out how to turn on my gas range all by myself.  I did a happy dance with a little song.  Feeling totally incompetent at everything has a silver lining:  when you figure out simple stuff, you feel like a friggin' genius!  Yay, I turned two knobs and was a semi-success at cooking corn dogs in a pan!  Oh yeah, I've got to buy a microwave.  I was going to try to live without one, but screw that.  I am far too incompetent and/or lazy to cook food properly.

Today, I saw a toy poodle.  Oh, it was a glorious poodle!  If only I had had my iPod or camera to take a picture!  It's true that there are some restaurants that still serve dog as food here, but apparently they're pretty uncommon and not really very popular.  And when people have dogs as pets here, they do crazy stuff.  This glorious tiny white poodle was sporting the traditional poodle cut and wearing a cute vest leash.  Ah, but the best was its dye job.  Its ear fur was dyed pink, and its little leg poofs were electric blue.  Such a gorgeous poodle I shall never see again, I'm sure.

Well, just wanted to keep in the habit of updating for my small, but faithful, following.  Love to you all, until next time!