Orientation

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March 3rd 2011

Published: March 3rd 2011

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Loora

Recycling Containers in Dorm

Koreans separate food waste, regular garbage, and all recyclables. Yeah.

Wow. Where do I begin? My program, English Program in Korea (EPIK), requires all teachers to do an orientation. The one I went to lasted 9 days and was at a university. I stayed in the university dorm. We got free meals plus snacks all week. The food was alright. There was kimchi (fermented vegetables which usually have red pepper paste on them) and rice at every meal. Then there were additional foods too. We did get cereal for breakfast, which made my life. The first night I went out for Korean bbq for dinner with about 10 others. It was grilled and marinated pork with side dishes. I don’t know what did it, but the next morning I puked and felt really bad. Of course it was the day of our medical checkup, but I powered through it.

There were about 320 teachers at my orientation, but there are 2 other orientations going on around the same time in other parts of the country. We were split up into 8 classes. I was in class 5, and all of us were going to Daegu after the orientation. In fact, there were 5 ½ classes worth of people going to

Dorm Hallway

Daegu. All week, I went to lectures with people from my class, but of course you meet people from every class in the dorms, at meals, and out at night. Most of our time was spent in lectures. The lectures were on things from Korean language to teaching reading and writing, to classroom management. The lecturers were all really good speakers so it was a nice learning experience for us to see people who are good at what we are going to do.

We also had a field trip day. We went to see a play. It was a comedy of a family of martial arts specialists. It reminded me of The Incredibles. It was called Jump!, and it was really good. At the end, some of the actors ran vertically up a wall and then back-flipped through the air. Amazing stuff like that! Then we took a bus 2 hours northeast and did a tour of a steel and iron factory called POSCO. EPIK explained that we went to see POSCO because it is one of Korea’s main industries. Most of it was a bus tour, but then we went inside a factory and saw a huge slab

Dorm Bathroom

of red-hot steel being cooled and then stretched out. I can’t say that a 4 hour drive to see it was worth it, but . . . it was cool, I’ll admit it.

I should mention that, coming to Korea, I didn’t really think much about the orientation in the whole scheme of things. I was more focused on the long-term ‘living in a foreign country’ idea. The orientation has made a big impact on me, though, because I made some good friends there that I plan to keep while in Daegu. The atmosphere of the orientation was one in which you’re constantly talking to strangers who also have no friends. I loved it because it reminded me of camp, with the many varieties of English and everyone’s open personalities.

I should also mention that the lectures could have made a really big impression on me, but I did not know where I was going in Daegu. In other words—no, they do not tell you your school level or exact school until the last night of orientation. (And you don’t find out your area or apartment until you show up at the front door!) Therefore, I could have

Shower Above Sink

Just as Koreans like them. There is a drain in the floor.

been thinking the whole time about teaching in high school and how the things I was learning would relate. However, because I didn’t know, it was hard to keep track of so much material. Luckily, in the end I did find out that I was going to Songhyeon Girls Middle School, which sounded ideal. Was it? You’ll have to keep following my blog to find out!

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