I can't believe it's been three weeks since I last got in touch, it's gone so fast, I've been here two months and I feel like I've been here for about three days other than the fact that my mind feels as though it's learned more in two months than in two decades.
I need to say two things-
Firstly, Nat, Katy and Callie, stop laughing at the length of my emails, you know my Gran likes thorough letters and you know you wouldn't stand for if I didn't get in touch! grrrrr!
Secondly, congratulations to Ben and Louise, baby Jimmy is so beautiful, and Sheryl and Beth for Cristina, she took her time but she must have made up for it when you saw her, she's gorgeous! Beth's pictures made me cry at work! She's so pretty, we needed a girl to balance the numbers out, well done there!
My first and most important piece of news is that I found mature cheddar and spent 9,000 w (about a fiver) on it because I just couldn't not buy it, I had to put a mirror back so I could afford it too but it was heaven. I sat on my bed armed with crackers and tea, switched off msn and ate it noisily, mmmmmmmm cheese. The food at school is getting a bit tedious, rice kimchi and soup everyday is just getting dull and the other two things you get that vary from day to day are hit and miss between small dried fish, pickled radish, sweet coleslaw or fried sweet potato, it doesn't really brighten your day when you open the tray to that. Normally I eat it but it was particularly bad the other day so I just had rice with beanspouts, tasty!!! Cintia asked if the cooks could make the occasional western meal and my boss' answer to this dilemma was to give us jam sandwiches with the usual lunch!
News nearly as exciting as finding cheese is, that I've pilfered/ wombled a very unattractive orange leather armchair. The plastic office chair was just too much for me to handle, so when Cintia and I were walking home from the subway the other day we saw an armchair being thrown out and we (in the words of charlotte) 'had it away'. Well I did try to ask the security guard if I could take it by saying "trash?" in Korean and pointing at the chair, he just laughed at me so we took it as good as a yes and ran (as fast as one can run with an armchair) and carried it up four flights of stairs shouting "pivot". I love it, it's my second favorite posession after my new shiny red house phone which has reintroduced me to the real world.
We took the kids on a field trip to teach them how to cross a road.it just made me angry, as I've mentioned before, you get fined $30 if you don't cross at a crossing when the green man is on but cars just drive through them anyway. Two of the kids have been hit by cars in the past month. I seem to have taken it upon myself to teach Koreans some driving etiquette and launch myself into the path of oncoming traffic. What seems to go through my head when I do it is "well run me over then, see who learns their lesson". I doubt though that if I were actually to be hit by a car I wouldn't learn more of a lesson than the driver.
I've had another one of those shocking moments on a par with "take a photo with the black people". Two of my kids are uncontrollable, all the teachers kept asking me how I was coping with them and when I said that they were horrid, one of the korean teachers phoned their mums. I came in the next day and the teacher told me that I could hit them with a stick, I laughed and she said "no, their mums have said it's ok" I said "well i'm sure they did but it's illegal" apparently not, if the parents give permission and the stick is under 30cm long (the Korean government's answer to people trying to get rid of the stick, make it shorter), it's fine. When I was at the British embassy for fish and chips the other day (long story) I mentioned it to another teacher there and I said, "I couldn't hit them with a stick, maybe I could hit them with my hand over their head but not a stick" and he said "oh god, you can hit them with your hand without permission, god I do it all the time, no wonder they walk over you" crikey!
Although I've only been here two months I've had enough of shopping here. I thought that it was quite refreshing to go somewhere in Asia where you didn't have someone going "buy this" "what are you looking for" "shop here it's cheaper than tesco" wherever you went but I've found something much more annoying. Whatever you look at, the shop assistant looks at too like she's also contemplating buying it. I was trying to buy some trainers the other day and I knelt down to look at some on the bottom shelf, and the assistant knelt down next to me, head cocked to the side like she was thinking and just stayed there until I stood up. I did it again with another pair and she did the same but closer, by the third time she did it she'd gone too far and was almost sat on me so I turned my head to look at her (she was about an inch away from my face and I'm not exagerrating) knowing full well she couldn't speak English so couldn't help me anyway and just starred at her, even at this point she didn't move! Having lost the staring competition, I left in a huff mumbling obscenities under my breath.
My school insisted that my TV was made to work which it now does but out of 500 channels, five are in English so I've not benefited much from it, although I do have BBC world news which is good. When I switch the TV off though I can still hear it very faintly. I have a constant Queens English voice in my apartment, my colleagues think I'm just subconsciously homesick so maybe it's just an auditory mirage.
I've met lots of other teachers out here. To the shock of my korean colleagues, all my friends are male, women are friends with women here and vice versa, anything else is considered a date. One of them asked me what I was doing that night last week and before I could answer, Esther said "she's seeing her friend...he's a boy!" the other one turned to me and said "a friend that's a boy? I didn't think that was possible". How very Victorian they are. The men carry the women's handbags here too. Cintia thinks it's strange I think it's quite sweet.
It is photo day today at school, anyone who saw Victoria's American kindergarten photos (dressed as a fisherman and sailor) won't be shocked by this but they dress the girls as princesses and the boys as princes, it's all too weird for me so I've left the madness to have a brew and type some more of this.
Hmmm, what else have I been doing?
My word list is expanding slowly, I still can't string a sentence together but I managed to shout "book pencil chair, here, now, sit" to a boy the other day that got me by. I'm still struggling to understand the difference between hello, goodbye if I'm leaving and goodbye if they're leaving so i just mutter hello quickly and quietly in all situations.
I just said hi to a child that walked past me at the computer, he gave me a dirty look and pulled his tongue out. I seem to be half hated and half loved by my kids. I go between shouting and standing on the chair singing within minutes. One of the kids, Jun, said "you're horrible teacher" as I dragged him out of the class for kicking me the other day, but a girl in the class (Josephine) shouted "no she's not Jun, when i'm naughty she's very angry teacher but when i'm good she's fun teacher" I'm glad she'd figured that out.
My morning class only has two girls in it and they started in the same month as me, I love them, they are in school all day when the rest of the kids go home, so their English is better than everyone else's. They are 5 years old and the other day I asked one of them to tell me words that began with 'Q', she said "cute", I was about to tell her that cute was with a 'C' when the other girl went "no silly Rebecca, cute is C not Q, Quail is Q" How does she know that and how does she know the word quail! I was speechless.
I can't wait to see Christine, I'm making my apartment look respectable for her and hoping she won't freeze to death. I'm so excited and so is she.
My camera still isn't working but I got a memory card for my phone so some pictures are on facebook. I won't attach any onto here after the ordeal trying to do it last time and sending it five times but I will email some of the family with picture soon.
It's is freezing, I think it's minus three today but it was minus seven on wednesday, I don't have windows as such in my apartment, they are like sliding glass shutters that don't close all the way, so after a day dreading leaving the overheated school, I marched home (with the important walk so many of you have told me I have) with a ' taking no messing' attitude and filled the gap between the two windows with dresses, I'm not a dresses person anyway, who am i kidding thinking I'm likely to wear them, the are much more useful as draft excluders. I also had a huge urge for a British cosy thick quilt and God bless Tesco, they came through for me again. I can't believe that I used to get a bus for half an hour to get to Tesco in Leeds and I live round the corner from one here.
I joined a gym, I was given the tour of the equipment which turned into two hours of me having to go on everything which nearly killed me. I then went into the changing room to be greeted with about ten naked women and a communal shower/ sauna. I crept into the shower with my nickers still on because it was all too much for me to handle and then one of the women came over and said "you stayed on the treadmill for a long time for a big person", as if my confidence hadn't already died a death standing almost fully nude in a room full of strangers.
A lot of my family seem to think i'm going to get really homesick ,this may be the case at some point in the future, I had a Sunday where I was a bit miserable, but on the whole I am very very happy here. I love spending time on my own in my own house and I have become scarily self assured and confident. Don't worry about me family, I feel great!
Anyway have to go, I hope these emails are getting shorter but I doubt they are.
love to you all,
Em x
P.S- Some of you have asked if there is anything I want sending over, there isn't much I can't get here but underneath are those things that I really can't get hold of, so if you want to send me anything these are the things that I would love / need.
- chocolate
- beef bisto
- teabags
- chicken and veg oxo cubes
- deodorant, sure roll on
- tampons
- nurofen
- pearl drops toothpaste
- long vest top tshirts and general tops (i have a long body) size 12
- thin cotton pyjama bottoms size 12 (how can a country next to china not sell cotton stuff?)
- photos of you all
- 2009 pages for my filofax
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