First Month

Well I've been here for about a month, and I have really been enjoying myself. I just finished my first month of classes at Connexus, and for having only been a teacher for a month, I did pretty well. Each month students have to evaluate all of the teachers, and my evaluation was really good (The only criticism that I received was from one class who wanted me to correct them more, but other than that they liked the class). I still find it kind of funny that I'm a teacher, because a year ago if you asked me if I wanted to be a teacher, I would have surely said no. In fact, it didn't quite sink in that I was a teacher until I finished my first day.

Besides teaching I have had some good experiences, and very few uncomfortable ones. Right now the only thing that I am a little frustrated with is that I can't speak Korean yet, but of course that is to be expected. Scott Lehman, my friend and ceramics buddy from Goshen, is here in Seoul, and we've hung out a couple of times. Surprisingly enough we were chatting online and I found out that his hotel was only one stop away on the subway from where I work, which is crazy considering Seoul is one of the top 5 biggest cities in the world!

I've found that part of the reason why I've been doing so well is because I have found a lot of things that are similar to cities in the US. Seoul is a very modern city, and so a lot of technology is just as good if not better than what you'd find in the US. I also like the food, which is really important when adapting to a new culture.

Korean food typically consists of rice, stew, and side dishes that you share with everyone that you eat with. It might seem different to most Americans, but I grew up eating rice and stew at home, so it wasn't very hard to make the transition. The most common side dish is Kimchi, which is spiced fermented vegetables. Anywhere you go for food it's usually a side dish and Koreans love it. I think it's good, but I don't usually eat a lot of it.

My favorite dish so far is called Sam Gyeop Sal, which basically tastes like pork chops, but you add other things to it. When you go out to a restaurant and order it, the table has a fire pit in the middle of it, and the server brings out hot coals and a grate for the fire pit, and takes slabs of pork that looks like thick pieces of bacon and lays them on the grate to be cooked. After the meat is cooked, you take a piece of lettuce and put the pork in it with onions, garlic, and this spicy bean dip and roll up the lettuce and eat it. It is absolutely phenomenal!

Most of the people that I have met are very nice, especially the students. Most of my students are between the ages of 20 and 30, and so it's easy to relate to them. Their age also makes it easy for me to teach because I don't have to focus on discipline within the classroom. The students are also pretty smart, and work very hard. Just the other day we had our last day of class for the month (classes usually last about a month before we switch and have new classes), and so for the last day I tried to teach one of my classes how to play Settlers. Now Settlers is a game that is pretty complicated, and so it was challenging trying to teach the students how to play the game in English, when some of them still have difficulty speaking and learning the language. But they figured out how to play, and I was surprised that I didn't win considering I was the one teaching the game. Oh Well.

There's the update. I've been pretty busy, so I haven't had much time to write. If there is anything that you are interested in hearing about, please feel free to comment or write me an email.