Back Into The Swing

Do I mean that in a good way or a bad way? Haha.

As I posted earlier, no students are coming in for this week due to H1N1 complications. Though I'm excited to start teaching, this is actually pretty good for me. It gives me the chance to prepare some lessons as well as get the administrative stuff done that's necessary.

For example, Grace took me to the hospital yesterday to get my E-2 health check done. The hospital was PACKED. I wasn't surprised to see it. After all, Koreans make a habit of going to the clinic or hospital for EVERYTHING. It's cheap, it's easy, they get their medicine and go.

However, now that H1N1 is all over the news, people are terrified. I didn't have a chance to see a hospital when I was in America, but it's probably fairly similar. Either way, there were a ton of people in the hospital getting check-ups. Maybe two of them actually appeared sick. The rest were quite jovial wasting their time in the hospital. Or maybe I mean wasting my time?

Anyway, that's out of the way. Now I just need to pass and send some stuff to immigration. Then I'll be all set.

As Geoff and I were preparing lessons for the upcoming month, Julie came in and told us she had good news. Then she described it as bad news. Then she said we could look at it as good news.

This is where the typical Korean school model comes into play. Everything is LAST MINUTE. This is something that really stressed me out last year. I'm a plan-ahead type of guy. Not knowing my schedule, then working feverishly to finish things, isn't my style.

Well, the key here is to adapt.

Julie's good/bad news is that Geoff and I will be teaching super-basic English to some of the staff members. She made it sound like there will be a ton of people, and we'd each be making two hours of material for Thursday and two for Friday.

Fine. It gives me a chance to meet the teachers and try out my materials.

So Geoff and I each prepared four lessons that we would be comfortable teaching to the elementary school kids. Julie thought two (maybe three) of mine were basic enough. I then told her I could explain things in Korean if people didn't understand. She was ecstatic and approved all of my lessons.

But then we found out that it would probably only be a few teachers, and we have to have FOUR HOURS of material for BOTH Thursday AND Friday.

Welcome back to Korea, Aaron!!!

Julie said our lessons will last a long time because the teachers' levels are so low. They might have a low level, but that doesn't make a 40-minute lesson stretch to 4 hours. So we each prepared an "introduction" lesson to use as the most basic of basic levels.

Last year, this would've made my brain explode. This year, I'm just trying to take it in stride.

The only real issue is Geoff and I are supposed to have 6 lessons prepared each by Friday afternoon or Monday morning. That would be fine if we even had one more prep afternoon (which Thursday usually is used for). But now our Thursday and previously-empty Friday are gone.

We're going to really have to buckle down to get all our lessons ready. I decided I'll prepare one tonight at home and tomorrow at home. It'll get me ahead at the very least.

Once I get into the schedule I'll understand better how many we'll be preparing. But it's already obvious the work load will be heavier at this school.

Some things never seem to change.