(This is usually my Tuesday and Wednesday schedule)
6 am- Wake up. My breakfast is much different than back home (oats and milk) and it is either rice and veggies, a soup or left-overs from the night before. I'll do some perusing on the internet while I eat then get around for school.
7 am- Shower and iron my work clothes and head out for the 7:40 am bus. The bus stop is 10 steps away from my apartment which is very very convenient.
8 am- Arrive at school before most teachers and students and prepare for my 9:20 class and the other classes for that day.
8:30 am- Kids start to arrive in droves, albeit small ones, and most will knock on my door and yell Hello! Hello happens to be the only word all the students are comfortable using when they see me.
9:20 am- Usually my 3rd grade class (7 students) arrives and I great the kids. After going over my dandy reward system for the 100th time we start class. There are a few wise guys in my class but they are all pretty good. All classes get stickers to raising their hands, being quiet, not speaking Korean, participating and winning games. Individual rewards are given: such as candy, american coins, etc, and group awards like pizza, a movie and me playing my guitar. All of the classes are about half way to getting a movie day and most of the kids use the individual stickers on candy. It's great because it keeps them in line much better than yelling.
After a warm-up and review I'll teach them some new topic followed by an activity and game. The kids always get into the games and it's fun to see them get so competitive using their English.
10 am- I'll have a break and get ready for the next class, peruse the internet or study a little.
11 am- Teach a normal class with the 5th graders. I have "after school" classes which consist of me coming up with my own material and normal English classes which follow a curriculum through a textbook and CDROM. This class I'll just follow the book which is slightly more boring but I try to put some life into it.
11:40 am- Class is done and something random usually happens before I go to lunch. Today my mentor teacher brought a lady into my classroom and set me up with my health insurance. She was talking a mile a minute in Korean with very complex health insurance talk so I understood 2% if that. Mainly I just have to pay an 8,000 won ($8) deductible for most doctor visits and 3,000won ($3) for medicine. If I get bed ridden in the hospital my deductible shoots up a large ($2). That's about all I understood. Anyway, the lady handed me a gift at the end of the meeting with handmade Korean soaps. Wasn't expecting that.
12:10 pm- I head over to the cafeteria where I get a nice meal. The cafeteria here is hands down 150% better than the crap I use to eat when I was in elementary school. Most meals consist of rice, a soup, kimchi, some combination of veggies, meat and a small dessert. The amazing thing is the meal is never the same. I remember in school we had fries, some mystery meat and some random food with milk, often repeating the same meal in the month. I've eaten at my elementary's cafeteria more than a month and have had a different meal each day. It's pretty amazing how many different combinations of food these cooks can come up with, how fresh it is and to top it off on the lunch menu they have the nutrition facts! Each that fat American schools.
Since my Wednesday is finished, I'll say good bye to the head teachers, principle and vice-principle then head to the bus. Today was an exception as I got a ride from the computer tech. We had a long conversation on the difficulty of Korean and English language all in Korean, which I was pretty proud of.
1:30 pm- Headed out for a run to the track to do a speed workout. The hill to the university doesn't seem as bad as it first was.
2:30 pm- 4 miles and a nice long speed workout I head home to shower, play guitar and eat.
5:00 pm- Either go to the gym or hang out with one of my neighbors walking around town. Tonight my friend and I headed to the cafe and ran into a uni student in the English program and talked for a little bit.
7:00 pm- Normally I head to the library at this time and study for a couple of hours.
11:00 pm- Sleep.
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