My email copied to the blog.

Hello from the future!

It is currently Sunday January 24th at 6:24 pm in Suji South Korea. It is also 4:24 am Sunday morning in Indiana. I think that some of you were curious about what I'm up to and some of you aren't so if you want to, you can read this email and if you don't, I understand. I am going to set up a blog at some point but I was just looking at google and its all in Korean, so it's going to take me a while to figure that all out. So here's whats up!

I'm in Korea. South Korea. I like it pretty well. I live in a small one room apartment with a bathroom and a little porch type situation that has a washing machine. Even though it's small, its nice. Its enough space forthe amount of time that I spend here. The bathroom is different. The shower is a hose attached to the sink that has a shower head that hangs on the wall, so when you shower the whole bathroom gets wet, then I leave the window open to let it dry. It would be ideal for me, because its essentially self cleaning! The problem is that my hot water doesnt work right now, so I take realcoldreal quick showers and havent had ahot shower in 2010 which is pretty depressing if I think about it too much. I also dont have an oven or a microwave, only a gas range with 2 burners. That makes it challenging to feed myself, but luckily I like eggs. In Korea, heat comes through the floor. There is apanel thing on my wall that controls the temperature of the floor and when I leave I push a button to turn it off so that I'm not heating an empty apartment. Its sort of weird having the floor be the only source of heat, but its not bad.

So school. I work at Brighton Junior School in Suji. I believe Suji is a southern suburb of Seoul, but I'mnot 100 percent on that. I have about a 4 minute walk from my apartment to school. Its on the third floor of a building. They build up instead of out, so almost everything is on a floor of a building, finding things is hard, especially because Ican't read the signs. Anyway, I leave for school at 9am and that gives me about 45 minutes to prepare for the day. Kids come in at about 945 and the bell rings at 10. From 10-230, we have kindergarden which the age range is from 4-7. Then from 230-630, we do after school programs for kids ages 6-10ish. Each room is named for a greek god and maximum studen capacity is 10. There are 4 teachers like me at my school, myself, a girl from Iowa who came the same day I did, a guy from Texas who has been here since november, and a guy from Canada who has been here 18months. We work with 3 Korean co-teachers and then there are 3 older Korean ladies who run things. I like everyone who works there and the kids are so cute, which is very ucky forsomeof them.

A typical day- On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I spend all of the Kindergarden time in Apollo with 10 advanced 7 year olds. It's a challenge to say the least. Subjects range from learning vocab for everyday things to reading to science, arts and crafts, experiments, math, story telling, and hand writing. I haven't found a great way to get everyone to pay attention or believe that I will discipline them, but I'm learning. Everyday goes better than the day before. At 11, its snack time! This is their favorite time because its about 20 minutes that not only do they get to eat, but they are allowed to speak Korean as well. Then we work until 1230, and its lunch time! Lunch last for an hour and teachers can go out or eat at school. I've been eating at school because I don't get paid til February 14th and its free. The catch is that you have to eat with your students and if you think learning how to use chopsticks while being criticized by 6 year olds is fun, you're silly. But free lunch is great and I figure that if I'm going to try new and weird foods, at least I'm not paying for them. As a side note, I enjoy Korean food for the most part. Its weirdly spicy, but not bad. They eat rice the way we eat bread, so you dont find deli meat and cheese which are staples for me at least, you find rice and kimchee, stewed spicy cabbage. And seaweed soup. At eery meal. Anyway, after lunch the kinders have about 40 more minutes. I go to Titan everyday where I have 4 5year old lower level girls. I read them a story and we write about it. They hate it, so we play a lot of simon says. Then I bundle them up and the bell rings and Kindergarden is over. We walk them down to the bus and have 10 minutes to regroup and get ready for after school kids.

The after school kids are lower level, but older. From 230-330, I have either 7 kids or 3 kids, alternating days. We work on vocab and play a lot of hangman. Then from 330-630, I have 4 chunks of middle level 10 year olds. We read a text book and do some work book pages. They have vocab quizes every day.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I am in Aurora for the first part of the morning. There are 9 advanced kinders in there and I teach science and art. Then I go back to Apollo. Afterthe 230chunk, on Tuesday I have a break and then fro 5-6 I have readng club. Reading club is 4 10 year olds and we read chapter books and write book reports. On Thursdays after the 230 chunk, i have talking club until 430. This is me and an 11 year old girl and we sit in a room and talk. She was born in Oklahoma and lived ther for 6 years, so shes very advanced but her mom wants her to work on her hand writing, so we do someworkbook stuff, but mostly just talk about whatever shes thinking about. Then I get togo home. So Thursdays are my favorite! I get out 2 hours early!

I come home after work, eat dinner, usually eggs, take a very fast shower and then either read or watch TV. Then I get up and start over. Somy days are long, but like I said, each one gets better as Ifigure things out and getmore comfortable with everything.

On the weekends, I go to a bar where other foreign teachers hang out and meet new people. I also have been exploring Suji. Once I get more settled, i'm going to try the public transportation and see more of the country, but for now I;m just excited when I make it home everyday.

I bet that was way more than you wanted to know, but that's what I've been up to for the past 2 weeks. Here is my address in case you want to send me things. I also just want you to see what a mouth ful it is.

(line 1) Katie Dale (line 2) Brighton School (line 3) Haemyeong Building 3rd Floor (line 4) #1028-13 Poongduckcheon 2-Dong, Suji-Gu (line 5) Yongin City, Gyeonggi-Do (line 6) South Korea 448-555

One last thought, the kids call me Katie Teacher, so all my coworkers and I call each other that, no idea about last names. Its weird not hearing Katie Dale all the time. Just a thought.