First day of school and typhoon

Hello all, Carrie here.  We survived two big events this week: our first day at school and one of the largest typhoons in Korea in several years! 

As for our first day of school, it was fun but very busy and tiring!  We have about 30 classes a week, with different students everyday. We each teach the same grade levels at the same time, but in seperate classes. Our first week is pretty easy in regard to lesson plans, as we can use the same lesson in each class.  We both decided to introduce ourselves and play fun ice breaker games for the first week of class, and will be starting with text books next week.  We each teach grades 1-6, and we basically go from classroom to classroom each period, and have one period off. 

We were both very impressed with the amount of English that the students understood, even the 1st graders.  While there are some classes where the students aren't as confident speaking English, you can see that they understand a great deal.  Some of my students said they started learning English at age 4.

All of the students have both a Korean name and an English name that they have chosen for themselves.  Most of them are basic, Sally, John, etc. but I did have a student who called himself "7 star hotel chef" and another who goes by "So Beast."  This made it pretty easy to determine who the class clowns were going to be!  Most students were well behaved and, while talkative, would quiet down when asked.  Only my last class had more of a talking issue, and we had to stop playing games and start journaling instead!

After our first day of class, one of the Korean English teachers, Young-Me, took Bradley and I to the local hospital to get a full health screening, as required to work as a foreign language teacher in Korea. We got sight and hearing tests, blood drawn, chest x-rays, and other tests all within 30-40 minutes, very efficient.

Lastly, we had heard a few days ago that there would be a typhoon headed our way Monday night.  Young-Me called us that evening and let us know that all public schools had been cancelled in Korea due to the potential heavy rains and strong winds.  Here in our city, there appears to be no flooding, though we have stayed inside all day.  It was definitely windy and rainy out, and some trees outside our apartment lost their branches.  However, Bradley and I were snug inside and had a movie marathon.  No power outages and nothing except a quiet day off for us.

Tomorrow we head back to school to meet some more students.  So far so good, but I forgot how tiring that teaching can be.  Hopefully after a few weeks I will have adjusted a bit more to our busy schedule!

xoxoxo Carrie

Rabbi's blessing

The Friday before we left we went to services to get in one last spiritual session with friends and family.  On this specific Friday it was family services and the Rabbi always does birthdays and anniversaries for that month.  It just so happened to be our anniversary the day before and we were required to go up front and be sung a blessing to for our three year anniversary.  Then thinking we were finishes with our blessings for the night, the Rabbi says everybody can sit down except you two, speak of me and Carrie of course.  He started telling the congregation about how we were leaving to go to Korea for a year, even though most everyone in the room already knew.  Then he said Wayfarers’ Prayer.*   At that moment I felt that this was finally becoming more real. 

*Adonai shall guard your coming and your going from this time forth and forever (Ps. 121:7)

God within and beyond us, Your Presence pervades the world.  Wherever we go, You are near to us.  “If I take up the wings of the morning, and dwell on the ocean’s farthest shore, even there Your hand will lead me, Your strong hand will hold me” (Ps. 139:9--10).

Now that Brad and Carrie begin a new journey, they turn to You in confidence and trust, for You have always been a light unto their path.  May they go forth in health and safely reach their destination.  May this journey not be in vain; and let them return in contentment to their home and their dear ones.  Then will their travels be truly blessed.  Amen.

Baruch Atah, Adonai, Shomeir ha-nos’im

Blessed are You, Adonai, Protector of wayfarers.

Our first day

Hello everyone, this is Carrie.  Just thought I would give you an update of our day.  We left LAX at 12:20 AM on Tuesday the 21, and we arrived in Seoul just before 5 AM on Wednesday.  We then proceeded to the bus terminal and caught our bus to Gwangju, 4 hours south.  There was light rain all day, nice driving weather.  The landscape is green and mountainous, and we got to see some very pretty countryside. 
When we arrived in Gwangju, we were met by one of the Korean English teachers, Young-Me (don't know if that is how you spell it, but that is how you pronounce her name).  She is very nice, and took us to the school right away to meet the principal and assistant principal, Mr. Lee and Mrs. Shin.  We went into Mr. Lee's office and were brought cold plum tea.  Young-Me acted as our interpreter, and she said that they principal and assistant principal thought we looked "very friendly and professional" (we were smiling a lot because we are so excited to be here!).  After our brief meeting, we were taken out to a VEGETARIAN restaurant by Young-Me.  (bahahah, hilarious!) I whispered to Bradley to try to choke down the vegetables, but he actually loved the place!  It was buffet style, had delicious noodles, dumplings, and imitation meat made of tofu that tasted like orange chicken.  It was all very tasty!
Afterwards, Young-Me brought us to our apartment, and I wish I had a camera with me now to show you how cute it is!  We have two small bedrooms, a cute little kitchenette, and a little dining room area. The bathroom is interesting because the shower head is attached to the sink faucet, and there isn't really a shower stall, you just shower in the middle of the bathroom.  Oh well, I guess the bathroom will be extra clean!  Anyway, we are all unpacked and settled in, everything fits perfectly and we have a lot of storage to put away our suitcases.  As soon as we get a camera I will post pictures.
After unpacking, we relaxed for a bit and then went out in our neighborhood, looking for dinner.  We found a little restaurant with pictures of food, but our waitress couldn't speak English, so I pointed at one picture that looked like chicken and then flapped my arms like the chicken dance.  The waitress thought we were very funny, and we did get some delicious chicken and rice for dinner! :)  However, I am going to start practicing my Korean or else who knows what else I may have to pantomime!
Some other random fun things that happened today:  when we went to the school, we had to take off our shoes once inside and use a pair of the sandals provided, there are hundreds of pairs available for students and teachers to use.  Very different from my high school where we weren't allowed to wear flip flops!  Also, we had 3 different strangers come up to us today at different times throughout the day, two in the bus station and one while we were walking around the city tonight.  They all wanted to practice their English and wanted to know where we were from.  Everyone we have met has been very nice and it makes me excited to start working and meeting more people!
Also, I wanted to add that it was so fun to see so many of you at our going away party.  So many people wished us well and told us how special we are to them, and it really made us feel very loved.  Thanks for giving us a beautiful send-off!  Will keep you updated with our adventures . . . XOXOXOXO Carrie

Getting our E-2 Visas By: Bradley

Carrie and I went to the Korean consulate to get our E-2 Visas and everything was in Korean and everyone was speaking Korean.  Wow did I ever get a dose of culture shock.  This scares me a bit about living in a new place but at the same time it excites me.  This experience will help me plan for my first week or so in Gwangju.  I will remember how I felt walking into this building and know that I need to take deep breathes to calm myself down.

As for the process of getting our Visas that was easy, we filled out the applications and turned in our passports.  The next day Carrie picked up our passports and we had out Visas.  Hurray we are officially able to work in the Republic of South Korea.  Next step is our flight but that hasn’t been set yet.  

The Interview Process By: Bradley

We had our first interview; it was interesting because it was over the phone with the director of a hagwon.  I was surprised to find out that the director was a female.  To start the interview the director began with a friendly meet and great.  This went well and then the interview went into some important questions.  She asked us why we wanted to go to Korea to teach.  I felt a bit uncomfortable because she was on speaker phone and couldn't quite understand all that she was asking me.  But in the end I felt as if I did a good interview. 

After some time without any interviews we decided to make an introductory video to have our recruiter send to the schools he was contacting to get us jobs.  Boy did this help!!!  We got two interviews the next day and 1 more the day after that.  These interviews were very similar to the first except that the current ESL teacher did the interview for the school rather than the directors.  As Carrie and I talked about which school would work for us we got another email from one of our recruiter’s sources inviting us for another interview.  We decided that if we got an offer from one of the three schools we interviewed with that we would take it.  But, we wanted to do this new interview to have one more option. 

The bad news is we didn’t get an offer from the school we decided to accept.  The great news is that we had the new interview still to do.  This interview was once again with the current ESL teacher at the school, whom was leaving to go back home for personal reasons.  This interview was the best we had.  We answered the questions without hesitation and I felt that we gave all the correct answers.  Our interviewer even told us that we are way more qualified than he and his wife were when they started two years ago.     After the interviewer hung up Carrie and I both looked at each other and smiled. We both know we really wanted this job, we hoped that they wanted us for the job as well.  

We waited a few days to receive our answer because the interview was on a Friday in Korea and we had to wait for the weekend to pass to learn our fate.  Finally, Sunday evening in California, we got an email saying the school would like to offer us a contract.  Without hesitation both Carrie and I were ecstatic and emailed them back as quickly as possible to accept the offer. 

Now we are in the process of sending our paperwork to the school.  The school is called Songwon Elementary School.  It is in Gwangju; this is the sixth biggest city and is located in the Southwestern portion of South Korea.