Settling in

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I have now been here a little over a week and have started to settle into a pace and decent sleeping schedule. The first week has been a whirlwind of activities, theme parks, Soju, island hoping, and meeting general great people.
School has not yet started for us and is supposedly going to open July 14th, now if this happens or not is still in the air. The workers that are building the school have been taking their sweet time, so it might take just a little longer, but we will see. I am excited to get in there and teach. I have never taught before and really the only kid experience was working at a laser tag facility in high school. It will be a real shock and a challange, but I am looking forward to it. Justin and I sat in on kindergarten class in another Wonderland school (wonderland is the name of our schools franchise), and that was interesting. It seems more like a day camp than an actual school with set rules and homework and busy work. Basically it is having conversations with the kids and get them to understand the basic commands and english phrases. Unfortunatly that morning that we did the observing, I was suffering from a soju headache, well body ache. If any of you had copious amounts of soju, you'll know what I'm talking about. It is one of the sneakest liquors I know of. Ninja sauce. So hearing and watching little kids run around screaming, laughing and jumping around like frogs was a little much that morning. I did though learn a valuable leason. DO NOT DRINK SOJU THE NIGHT BEFORE SCHOOL!
This weekend started off good and ended great. Went to a Korean waterpark, which is one of the safest places on the planet, and a place that tests you patients. To enter the wave pool, everyone....EVERYONE has to wear a life jacket and a swim cap, no matter how well you can swim or can't swim. It did not stop there. About 12 life guards were positioned stratigecly around the pool and around where the waves broke. I was yelled at for swimming under the water with life vest and all. This did not stop the 5 or 6 people that had to have the life guards dive in and drag them out because they thought the life vest wasn't enough protection and were drowning with their heads above water. Little fun fact....most Koreans don't know how to swim. Lines for slides tested your zen like ability. Most lines took about an hour to two to get actually on the slide, and the lines were not that long. What took long was the fact that you could not go down the slide till the person in front of you had gone down all the way and had left the pool at the bottom of the slide. I left many lines that day. Although I said alot of negative things about the park, it was blast all in all. I got to go down a few slides and had waves crash into me and ignored the whistles of the life guards as I dunked our fellow teachers.
I must end here, but there is more to the weekend (that was only friday). I must go to school now and work on lesson plans and talk about future weekends. Here are some pictures with stories for some to come.

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Photos

soccer field
near my house

My house
Palace in Seoul...can't remember name now

inside kings quaters
1400's kings quarters...still smells like old people

Comments

[Travis]

Word
Hey again. Sounds fun. Send me some of that Soju!

[NoMursi]

Soju for you
I might have found the perfect christmas present for you...a five gallon jug of soju!!!!.....(only $9 here in S. Korea) Perhaps I'll get you the big one.