Work Begins

Hello everyone! Thanks so much for all your encouraging comments, e-mails, and messages - really, they mean a lot to me, so by all means, keep them coming!

So the last few days have been more productive than exciting. Yesterday, Wednesday, I planned to explore and walk around my neighborhood, but to my surprise, it was dead quiet! What was a bustling and lively place the night before completely transformed into this deserted and quiet area - there were barely any people in the streets and most of the restaurants by my house were closed! I guess the people come out at night... So, I walked over to the department store and had lunch (some kind of Bibimbab) at a restaurant upstairs. It was yummy!

Later that night, my meeting with the head principal went well. He was friendly and I don't anticipate any problems with the school. After that, the head English teacher (who also lives in the same building as me) took me to E-mart, a big supermarket near the subway station, because I wanted to get a bunch of cleaning supplies. Korea is so expensive!!! I bought an air freshener for about 5 dollars! And toilet paper was about $10 for about 12 rolls! Ridiculous!!!

Today, Thursday, was my first day of work. I was nervous at first beacuse I didn't have any training at all, just the textbooks, but everything turned out well. I had four 55-minute classes today with kids ranging from 12-16 years old. The classes were small; the biggest class I had was with four girls. Each class is different, but they either focus on speaking, listening, or writing. After work, I had complimentary dinner at the cafeteria in the building. Nothing special, just some side dishes, rice, seaweed soup, and a little bit of pork, but good enough for me. Even though I've started work, it still feels like I'm on vacation!! :)

After that, I headed home to do some serious cleaning. I rearranged some furniture and cleaned for almost three hours straight! Let's just say the bathroom was NOT white before I got to it. Anyways , I'm still not done cleaning, but enough for today. Now I'm at the PC bang responding to some e-mails and what not. I'm going to get internet installed at my apartment next Tuesday. It's later than I would like, but it was the only meeting time that worked with both the company and I. The only thing is... internet is so expensive too. It's about 30 something US dollars a month, for internet only. It's because I'm a foreigner and the price is doubled. Bummer. I do have my own computer and internet access at work, but won't be able to webcam with you there. So, I'll post up some pictures once I get internet installed at my apartment.

I'll update again probably, at the latest, the beginning of next week. Don't know what plans I have yet... maybe head out to Seoul for the Saturday. Miss you guys much!