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Published: March 23rd 2010
Training
After just arriving, waiting to get startedWhere do I start? The last two days seem like they’ve been more eventful than the last 2 months of my life. I’ll try to proceed in an organized manner but I won’t make any promises.
Yesterday (Monday) we began training. All of the trainees met in the hotel lobby at 10am and waited for a call van to pick us up and drive us to training. There were 11 of us in the lobby but more trainees showed up at training that had either already been in Korea or had their own transportation. Among the 11, there were 4 girls and 7 guys. 9 of us were from America and 2 were from Canada. We took a bus for quite a while through the city and then across the main bridge that separates the two different sides of Seoul. It was nice to be able to see a little more of where we were staying. The bus provided some get-to-know-you time for everyone and it seems about ½ of us has traveled before and ½ have never been outside the US. One girl from Louisiana had never been on a plane in her life! That’s a big adjustment to
Raw
Yum? land in Seoul, South Korea. We were all very anxious about the tests and training in general so when we arrived we all nervously filed into a conference room and waited patiently. We had a short orientation given by a very friendly Korean who was from New Zealand. There was another Korean in the training from New Zealand and another who was from Australia. After the brief orientation (basically telling us to be careful of swine flu- they had to shut down for a week because of an American who brought it over, and they lost $3MIL dollars) we were given our tests! It was a simple 4 page test, each test was about one page. The first one was about Chung Dahm, the second was about the code of conduct rules, the third was reading, and the fourth was grammar. We were given 20 minutes to complete it. Let me just explain the format a little bit. It was multiple choice (simple, I know) but one question would say “blab la bla bla- CIRCLE ALL THAT APPLY.” I knew the correct answer but multiple other ones looked okay too, and it said ALL THAT APPLY so I’d circle another
one. Well turns out you get 0 points for partial credit, so I missed a few that way. Ha ha, oops! In the code of conduct section, one question said, “Which of these things can be considered sexual harassment according to Chung Dahm policy?” The first 1 said, “saying, ‘I want to have sexual intercourse with you’.” The second one said, “Can you print me some extra copies babe?” (I knew from the study material to particularly NEVER call ANYONE babe at work). I can’t remember the 3rd one but it was also obvious. The 4th one said, “slightly touching someone on the upper arm/shoulder and saying ‘Hi, what’s your name?’” Call me crazy, but I thought being in a new place, speaking a foreign language, it would be okay to approach someone like that. Yes, I got the entire question WRONG because that is NOT OKAY to do. Now I know! Long story short, I passed 3 of the tests. The reading one (the study material was so easy I barely glanced at it) apparently stumped me. I got rushed and confused, then I panicked and picked a few answers, obviously the wrong ones! Ha ha, but I took
Hospital
Yes, this is the line I followed it today and passed just fine. I think only 3 out of 17 of the group passed them all the first time. One of them being my genius boyfriend. Props to him!
So back to yesterday: After the tests we had a quick break for lunch and then had to meet back at the training center to catch our ride to the Seoul City Hospital. Jake and I first had to go buy him a belt, (refer to his blog jhcurti27 for a great story about that disaster) then we walked around down this alley looking for food. That was pretty interesting. We saw every kind of raw seafood just sitting out on the sidewalk, along with spices and herbs, and deep fried food. We also went in our first convenience store where we found pepsi, pineapple fanta, Korean style Oreo’s cereal, along with fruity pebbles, and frosted flakes, complete with Tony the Tiger and all. We found a very small bakery filled with lots of doughy treats. I bought a fluffy roll covered in powdered sugar, and stuffed with whipped cream and chocolate! It was pretty delicious! Jake bought two sausage donuts that were less than impressive. Gotta
Chest xray
Like my top? I thought the whole thing was kind of humorous stick with the sweets, Jake! There were two young kids on the street that saw us and looked surprised and then grabbed each other and started whispering.
So after getting a snack and walking around in FREEZING wind, we were dropped off at the hospital. There were 2 volunteer interpreters’ that helped us get our paperwork organized and sent in the right direction. The hospital itself was quite interesting. There were people everywhere, sitting, waiting, being pushed around on hospital beds right by where we were standing, only about 10 feet from the front door of the hospital. I thought that was a little odd. One by one we were called and then told where to go. After waiting almost an hour it was my turn. The man pointed at a red line on the floor, and told me to follow it to the Health Promotion Center. Along with the red line there was a blue, green, and yellow line. Off I go, carrying paperwork entirely written in Korean but stamped with a lovely passport photo of me at the top. I keep going upstairs, around corners, wondering where exactly this line of tape is taking me. Luckily, I
spot some other Americans from my group and find out what to do. I wait while the people ahead of me go, and then I have my height, weight, vision, ears, and blood pressure checked. Then I follow another line to another place where I’m told to remove my shirts and bra. I was like, “Ummm did anyone else have to do this?” Ha ha but it was just a chest x-ray and it took less than a minute. After that I had my blood drawn, which is always great fun. Then I carried a Dixie cup to the bathroom with me, tried my best to aim properly, (side note: the toilet was a hole in the floor) looked out the window and saw ENORMOUS amounts of snow falling down, and carried my sample back to an open container where everyone else’s urine was sitting. It was so gross I had to take a picture. How often do you see that? Altogether, the hospital trip was an interesting, different, and exciting adventure!
We step outside into a white winter wonderland. It was the first snow of the year for me! Unfortunately, I was without a hat or gloves and
we had quite a walk to the subway. Yes, the call van just left us there and we had to get home on our own. We were altogether though, and we walked until we were soaked and decided we wanted to eat. We all went into a pub like restaurant and had a very good meal. I had pork cutlet that came with corn and rice and it was rather tasty. Then we headed to the subway and successfully found our way to the hotel.
The second I walked in the room I got into dry clothes, and instantly fell onto the bed. The next 12 hours were EXTREMELY miserable. It was 5pm and I was so exhausted I could NOT keep my eyelids open. I lay in bed until about 7:30 half awake, but fighting sleep every second. My eyes would close for quite some time and then I would open them and force them to stare at the clock hoping time would move quickly so I could go to bed. I knew if I went to sleep I would be even more messed up with the time change. I got up around 7:30, used my computer until
about 8 and gave up. I just went to sleep. Obviously it made for a bad night. I woke up at 1. I woke up at 3. And I woke up at ….you guessed it, 5. Forced myself to stay in bed and then woke up for the last time at 6. Restful sleep? No way. Splitting headache, sore neck and back. Then I realized…I never had coffee the day before. I realize that shouldn’t be a big deal but if you drink it at LEAST once EVERY single day, one day off, while experiencing jet lag, is not good. First thing this morning, I ran down to the convenience store in our hotel and bought a Starbucks double shot. I drank it with breakfast, almost in place of breakfast as I had no appetite at all and felt miserable.
My painful night and morning did not help me get excited for the first day of actual training seminars. However, the coffee and breakfast kicked in and I was feeling better in no time. Today, and for the rest of the week, we have to take the subway to training which takes about an hour each way. I enjoy
the subway though. It is the perfect place for people watching. The entire thing fascinates me! There is an entire WORLD down there underneath this massive world of skyscrapers right above it. There is shopping, cafes, and thousands of people rushing about underneath the ground. It is really very interesting to me how the whole thing works. I mean how do they build those?! I’m impressed!
For the morning session of training I was in a room with one trainer and 5 other trainees. All I can say is: INTENSE. We have been given a 3 ring binder packed with information specific to our teaching job. And we have been split into groups based on who and what we will be teaching. There are 8 or more levels in Chung Dahm and I found out today that I am teaching to the top level. Forget vocabulary words, we are working on dissecting long essays. And I mean LONG essays. I will be discussing controversial topics with my students like the death penalty and abortion. The students I will have obviously have very good English skills. The trainer said that many students at this level have better English than they
do Korean. You can imagine that I was quickly overwhelmed! We were given all the methodology for teaching this class in a couple hours and then we had to mock teach it back to our fellow trainees. Quite nerve racking!
Then we had an hour lunch break in which we went to a little restaurant on the street and just pointed to other people’s food to order. EVERYTHING was in Korean. There was no hope for us but to point at something. I had rice with some form of sliced meat that was very spicy and yummy. I really liked it and it was really cheap. However, I have no idea what is it or what it is called so I’m not sure I’ll ever get it again.
After that we went back to training for a few more hours. This was just one other trainee and the trainer. My trainer is from Seattle! He graduated from UW. He is Taiwanese but he has been teaching here for about 4 years I believe. He said there are lots of people here from Seattle. The training is basically him giving us tons of information, all the while calling on
GARBAGE!
YAY! I was so happy to throw away the million page packets of information we've been studying us by name to answer the questions. There is not one second that you can drift off or not pay attention. Then we would take turns mock teaching at the white board. Then we would hear constructive criticism. He gave us hours of homework for tomorrow. Most of the day tomorrow we will be mock teaching. I am SO overwhelmed but everyone told us training would be like this and that it calms down quite a bit when we get to our school. For the time being, writing this journal is incredibly relaxing after being in training all day. I have a lot of homework that I will get started on as soon as I finish.
I hardly expect anyone to read all this but I am glad to have it for my own personal record. It is much easier to type than write this all out on paper. I should get to work but I have greatly enjoyed sitting back, looking out the window, with cool air blowing on my toes, as I try to remember the events of the last 2 days. I hope everyone is doing well at home or wherever you are!
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passerby
non-member comment
The privileged seats for the elderly, handicapped, pregnant, etc. are located in the front part of the car. (Left and right, for three persons each.) Those seats are pink or red, I think. Other seats anybody can take, but Confucian etiquette recommends you to yield your seats if someone standing in front of you is apparently old (i.e. over 70) or weak. Also, you may encounter some crazy people (some of them senior citizens) on a train, just like anywhere in the world.