My First Few Days at School: Early Days Part 4

"Here we are," Classic Chris said. "Welcome to school."

"Where?" I said. "I don't see it."

He pointed. The reason I didn't see it the day before is because Swaton is on the sixth floor of an office building.

I was surprised when we actually stepped through the doors. Swaton didn't look like a school at all. The lobby was huge, decked out with TVs and tables. There was a reception desk with two people hard at work.

"Annyong haseyo," Chris said. Liz nodded buy Judy didn't both to acknowledge him. She wouldn't acknowledge me for the first few months either. I don't know when the tide turned, but she actually says hi to me some mornings now.

When Chris showed me my desk, I was surprised, not by the size or position, not by any freaky Korean differences, just by clutter. No one had bothered to clean it up from the last guy.

"Yeah," Chris said. "This is Kevin's stuff." I was kind of just a shadow of Kevin for the first month.

I spent the morning sitting in on my classes and meeting everyone. I won't hit all the introductions, just the big ones:

--Darryl I had met the night before for a beer. He looked much different in his school get up. He and I would barely talk for the first month or so and wouldn't really become friends until we started a Korean class together.

--Simon, Terrilynn, and Logan I had also met the night before. I suppose it's easy when all the foreign teachers live close together like that.

--Rose was really the first Korean teacher I met. It was odd meeting her in person after talking to her on the phone a few times. The first thing that struck me about her was that she seemed far too young to be running the show at a place like this. I guessed she was my age, but was a few years off. I won't say how many.

--Rachel seemed distant when I first met her. This was probably because she had just started a few weeks before me and didn't know what was going on either yet. I'd learn that she knew about as much as me the next day when I tried to ask her some questions. We wouldn't become friends until we both started chatting because we both showed up to school before everyone else.

--Jennifer tried to talk to me a little the first few days I was there, but it never went well. I thought she was a jerk for the first month or so I was there. Turns out she just got nervous talking around new foreigners.

I was terribly nervous sitting in on my first classes. I had only taught kids a little before. This was an adventure...and it scared the hell out of me. What would I do with these kids? I tried to take notes but didn't even know what to write. What would come in handy?

Rose took me down to lunch after I had sat in on a few classes. "I'm a vegetarian," I said. "Will I be able to eat in the cafeteria?"

"Yeah, I think so," she answered.

Well, I could have, but I would have had to like rice a lot. That's really all I'd be able to eat down there most days. I went to find my own food on the second day. I was packing my lunch by the third day.

My afternoon went much the same as my morning. When I left that night, I had no idea how I was going to do it. I probably should have prepared more, but I thought I had a clear grasp on things. I didn't.

I came in early on day two of school, but not nearly early enough.

I rushed around to get my lessons together, and thought I was okay because I had my morning planned before classes started. Not so.

I sat down with Stanford, my main class and the first class I taught at Swaton. I looked around the room at what were now my five students: Jun, Adam, Sue, Amy, and Nicole. The roster would change a little in the next months (Adam would go and Jason would come), but this was basically it.

I introduced myself and realized how little English they really knew. When I asked for their names, they needed help. So I just dove right into the material...and ran out with 15 minutes still to go. I then had them color. I had them color a lot my first few days until Jennifer finally said something to me.

"If you have extra time, they'll learn a lot more from reading a book than from coloring." She said. From then I always brought an extra book to class, but I rarely use it now.

For lunch I tried Subway and quickly learned that Subway was not like Subway at home: much fewer veggies and some that are not what you think. I orded a sub that was mostly olives and pickles. The olives tasted like tin and the pickles were sweet pickles. It was perhaps the grossest sandwich I've ever had. I haven't gone back.

When in Korea, eat Korean food. They don't quite get American food right, especially when it comes to veggies.

Luckily, my afternoon classes were the easy classes that first teaching day. They actually knew a little English. Still when I left, I had no idea how I was going to make it. I was sure I'd go crazy, be fired, or both within the next week.

I needed to blow off some steam, and I did, as seen in "Korean Ryan Goes Drinking." It can be found in the "July" subfolder at the left of this post.