Daily Life

Now that school is over for the winter, I finally put together a blog entry about my daily life. Still, it might be interesting to see, so here's a blog on what my life over here is like on a day-to-day basis.

Today's Korean: 본교의 방문을 환영합니다 : Welcome to our school.

It's a lot of pictures, so it's all after the cut. Click to read more.

Every day I get up around 7:00. This is my bed. Korean mattresses are quite hard, since in the old days, Koreans slept on mats on the floor. Some older people still do this, and you can even request rooms in motels with floor mats instead of beds. There are no sheets, just a thin mat on top of the mattress and then a blanket. That top comforter is one I bought for the winter, as my regular blanket wasn't enough. 

After getting up, I take a shower. The bathrooms are very cold nowadays because they are not heated and the bathroom window doesn't even close all the way. The hot water is also not too reliable. :(

My bathroom is quite small. You're looking at just about all of it. You can see the showerhead attached to the wall beside the mirror. There is no separate shower or tub. Basically, you just treat the whole room as a shower. Nicer apartments have a Western-style shower head that you can stand under, but I just have the hand-held kind. I can't use it as it is in the picture, because the water would mostly just hit the toilet and sink, not me. I have to hold the shower head in my hand and rinse myself off. It wouldn't be too bad, except for the crummy hot water and water pressure issues. 

As you can see, the bathroom floor has a drain in it for the water to run into. You also have bathroom slippers for use in the bathroom in case the floor is cold/wet/dirty.

Once I've showered and dressed, I eat a bowl of cereal and get ready for school. Once I'm ready, I leave the house, and this is the first sight I see: the street where I live.

I walk to this intersection, where Su-jin picks me up to take me to school. That building with the blue and green sign is my bank. This intersection drives me crazy because there are no stop signs or lights, but I often have to cross it. Pedestrians don't really have the right of way here, so it makes crossing a pain.

It takes about 8 minutes to drive to our school, 영천여자중학교, or Yeongcheon Girls' Middle School.

At school, I go into the (unheated) hallway and switch from my shoes to my school slippers. Basically everyone wears flip-flops around the school. However, when we go to the nurse's office, we even take these slippers off.

Some students in the hallway outside the teachers' office. In the middle is 이지현, Lee Ji-hyun. One day, she came upon me in the hallway and asked me if I remembered her. I did, because she talks to me a lot in class. "Really, teacher?" she said, "I don't believe you. What was I wearing?" I told her I didn't remember that. "Teacher, I'm sad, because I know you're name, but you don't know mine. My name is Lee Ji-hyun. Please remember it, Teacher." I told her I would. "Then call on me in class next week," she said. I did. It made her day. And now I still know her name. She was one of the first students whose name I knew.

Every morning, I go and sit at my desk in the Teachers' Office. Most of the regular teachers are here. Administration, Home Ec, Third Grade, Nutrition, Music, etc. are sometimes somewhere else. I have a computer and headphones and my own coffee mug. Sometimes, students visit me here, although students are discouraged from hanging out in the office. On Monday mornings we have a meeting here, where I teach all the staff an English phrase.

 Every other morning, I teach "English Club" before the 1st Period. Most of the kids show up sporadically, but a few are enthusiastic. However, they pretty much universally hate having their photo taken. Here they are, avoiding the camera as usual.

Once the first bell rings, I teach class. There are 7 periods a day, four before lunch and three after. The 7th period is usually reserved for special classes. I usually teach 3 to 4 classes a day, so I have some break time to work or visit with other teachers.

In the school, each class of students "lives" in their own homeroom and the teachers go around to them. For instance, on Mondays, I teach English to 1-2 (Grade 1, Class 2), so I go to the 1-2 classroom. Between each class is 10 minutes of free time when students are generally chaotic and unsupervised. Teachers never go to the classrooms before the bell rings, as this is the students' time, so class actually starts a few minutes after the bell (since most of the teachers don't rush to class, either. ;) )

Here is the main hallway. At the end of it is the teachers' bathroom. None of the hallways or bathrooms are heated, so, that makes the trips to the classrooms a little unpleasant in the winter. It also discourages students from misbehavior (a little), since the main punishment is kneeling or standing in the hallway.

South Korea has only recently outlawed corporeal punishment in schools, and the practice is slow to die out. Punishment methods here are a little different from home.

Here are the students in one of their classrooms during the 10 minute break. Since they don't like cameras, I didn't try to photograph my actual class, I just popped it and snuck in a photo.

Generally, if the students me in their class during the break, they scream with surprise. I guess they really don't want to interrupted, especially by an English-only-speaking teacher.

At 12:30, the lunch bell rings and the students line up outside the cafeteria. There are two lines, and they wind all down the hall. Here are students standing in line for lunch. Fortunately, teachers have their own (very short) line, and can bypass this.

Here are more students lined up along the walls of the cafeteria. It's pretty much like any cafeteria at any school.

The exact contents of lunch differ (a little) every day, but the format always remains the same. On the left side is your rice. On the right side is you soup. At the top are your side dishes. Every day there is kimchi, another vegetable, and a third dish which is either meat, vegetables, or meat and vegetables. Sometimes there is a fourth dessert side dish, but only sometimes. This is usually yogurt, jello, or a rice cake.

This is Hwang Kyoung-ha, a fellow teacher who sometimes comes to my teachers' English "class."

Right behind my desk is the "lounge" section of the teachers' office. Often, teachers will go there in their free time or after lunch to eat snacks and drink tea or coffee. People bring snacks for the staff relatively frequently, so there is often something to eat. In the back are the fridge, sink, electric kettle, and dish sterilizer. Since I sit right by this lounge, I am constantly being interrupted in my work by teachers who want me to come sit with them. Well, at least I'm popular. Often, instead of coming here, I take my breaks in the nurse's or nutritionist's office, since they're my good friends.

After school, I change back into my shoes. My slippers/shoes are stored in the little cubby marked "Colleen." Unfortunately, since this is in the hall, and the hall isn't heated, in the winter, when I put my shoes back on, they are quite cold.

Here's a shot of the gym from the school's main building. I've only been there for assemblies. The people in blue in the distance are students in their gym uniforms.

 At 4:30, we're allowed to leave school, so I leave and head over to the parking lot. There are always a lot of students leaving at that time as well, so we exchange farewells.

I ride home with Mr. Lim, who lives next door to me, albeit not in an apartment. Although his English isn't very good, we sometimes have interesting conversations.

Once I get home, I usually do work or play on my computer for a bit. This picture pretty much shows all of my apartment except the kitchen/laundry area. I have the smallest apartment of all my friends. Basically, I have one clothes cabinet and one TV stand, which isn't really enough space for my stuff, so I use that "balcony" as a storage area. I have a table and two chairs, but I usually sit on my cushion on the floor. On the floor in the foreground, you can see my silver mini-oven and my red microwave. I am really lucky to have a mini-oven, as few people have them. It came with the apartment.

Around 6 or 7, I make dinner. Here is my kitchen. People who know me know that I don't "make" food so much as "heat it up." Here I usually eat ramen, instant rice, instant curry, instant meatballs, kimbab, cereal, sandwiches, hotdogs, eggs, yogurt, and fruit. Or I go out to eat with my friends. Sometimes, we go out for coffee or hot chocolate instead. As you can perhaps tell, there is no oven. Few people use ovens here. Those mini-ovens are all that's available. You can, however, if you want, buy a special refridgerator just for your kimchi. I don't have one, since I don't like kimchi that much. After dinner, I prepare for the next day's class, then go to sleep. And that's it. An exciting day in the life of Colleen.