Yay! I now have high speed internet in my apartment! This means that I can now tell you about every absurd thing in my life... although that might not amount to much, considering that I'll probably be online during every second of my free time :-) Anyway, now that you're all once again privy to the minutiae of my life, I'm going to start this post by sharing something that has not a damn thing to do with South Korea. The following is the text of an email I received from my mom the other day:
When I brought in your garbage can this afternoon I saw that someone had written in the dust on the lid, "White girl stay here." Don't know if that was just information, or a request.
Well, if it's information, it's no longer accurate, as I'm now just about as far from Waycross, GA as a girl can get and still be on this planet. Although it wouldn't surprise me in the least if someone were to label the front door of my apartment building here in Daegu as such. While there are a lot of Americans and other native English speakers here in the city teaching English, there are very few in the part of the city where I live and work. I stand out just as much here as I did back home in the hood. At least as yet no one has pulled a gun on my neighbors!
First let me tell you about where I’m living. Both the school and my apartment are on the eastern edge of the city of Daegu. Even though this is my third trip to Daegu, I spent almost no time whatsoever in this part of town during my previous stays, so in that sense everything is new. Of course, as this is my third trip to the country and city, I’m neither suffering culture shock, nor being weirded out by how different everything is. My apartment building is a little unusual. While it seems that most Koreans these days reside in identical, towering, sky-scraper-like apartments, I’m living in an older and much shorter building. It’s only two stories tall, and as far as I can tell, it only has four separate apartment units. My apartment itself has two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a balcony and what would normally (if I had a family, per say) be a very small living room. I’ve decided to leave the “living room” space empty, kind of like a large foyer, and I’m using the larger of the two bedrooms as my living room. There’s a wall unit AC in my living room – which is awesome, given that it feels like Florida outside, although sadly it doesn’t cool the whole house. It’s a really nice apartment – definitely nicer than the place where Melissa and I lived back in 2001, although not quite as nice as the Seoul Ritz (where I stayed the last time around). Okay, bad joke. Moving on…
I’m teaching at the Ansim Oedae Language Institute (http://www.oedae.co.kr/), which is actually owned by an American friend of mine and her Korean husband. Today was my first day of class, and it went quite smoothly. Granted, I expect the students to behave better than normal until the get accustomed to me, but I must say that they were all very well behaved and studious and respectful – yay! I’m teaching Monday through Friday (woohoo, free weekends!) and (currently) I teach roughly from 2:30 to 9:00. While I have more hours of class than I had at the American Home, the classes here are much, much shorter (the shortest is 25 minutes, and the longest is 50 minutes – no two and a half hour monster sessions here!).
I’m feeling kind of pooped after my first day of work, so I think I’ll just post some photos and crawl off to bed…
When I brought in your garbage can this afternoon I saw that someone had written in the dust on the lid, "White girl stay here." Don't know if that was just information, or a request.
Well, if it's information, it's no longer accurate, as I'm now just about as far from Waycross, GA as a girl can get and still be on this planet. Although it wouldn't surprise me in the least if someone were to label the front door of my apartment building here in Daegu as such. While there are a lot of Americans and other native English speakers here in the city teaching English, there are very few in the part of the city where I live and work. I stand out just as much here as I did back home in the hood. At least as yet no one has pulled a gun on my neighbors!
First let me tell you about where I’m living. Both the school and my apartment are on the eastern edge of the city of Daegu. Even though this is my third trip to Daegu, I spent almost no time whatsoever in this part of town during my previous stays, so in that sense everything is new. Of course, as this is my third trip to the country and city, I’m neither suffering culture shock, nor being weirded out by how different everything is. My apartment building is a little unusual. While it seems that most Koreans these days reside in identical, towering, sky-scraper-like apartments, I’m living in an older and much shorter building. It’s only two stories tall, and as far as I can tell, it only has four separate apartment units. My apartment itself has two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a balcony and what would normally (if I had a family, per say) be a very small living room. I’ve decided to leave the “living room” space empty, kind of like a large foyer, and I’m using the larger of the two bedrooms as my living room. There’s a wall unit AC in my living room – which is awesome, given that it feels like Florida outside, although sadly it doesn’t cool the whole house. It’s a really nice apartment – definitely nicer than the place where Melissa and I lived back in 2001, although not quite as nice as the Seoul Ritz (where I stayed the last time around). Okay, bad joke. Moving on…
I’m teaching at the Ansim Oedae Language Institute (http://www.oedae.co.kr/), which is actually owned by an American friend of mine and her Korean husband. Today was my first day of class, and it went quite smoothly. Granted, I expect the students to behave better than normal until the get accustomed to me, but I must say that they were all very well behaved and studious and respectful – yay! I’m teaching Monday through Friday (woohoo, free weekends!) and (currently) I teach roughly from 2:30 to 9:00. While I have more hours of class than I had at the American Home, the classes here are much, much shorter (the shortest is 25 minutes, and the longest is 50 minutes – no two and a half hour monster sessions here!).
I’m feeling kind of pooped after my first day of work, so I think I’ll just post some photos and crawl off to bed…
My apartment building.
I'm upstairs on the left.
This picture is half for Melissa H and half for my AH peeps.
They'll know why. (Yes, this was my lunch today!)
The front door of the school...
(It's actually located on the second floor of a bank building.)
Look at the front desk glow!!
7 comments:
That's a wild-looking language institute. Do you guys host raves on the weekend? :)
And I absolutely *LOVE* that kind of instant noodle, whatever it's called. That company was very popular in the Siberian region where I taught English a couple of years ago, and I can see why. Not only were we closer to Asia and could thus expect to see such products, but also it's sooo much tastier than Ramen and any of the others, especially since they're spicy flavors are, in fact, very spicy. Mmmm...I might have to have you send me a few, please! I am willing to negotiate the terms. Jars of peanut butter? Books in English? Name your price! :)
-Brooke
And I meant "their" spicy flavors, and not "they're" spicy flavors, of course. I swear, the better my Russian becomes, the worse my English becomes. Is it impossible for a person to use two languages simultaneously?!!
-B.
absolutely brilliant front entrance, very old school. no washing machine?
No need to worry about the neighbors in Waycross- you are likely to only be there for 4 or 5 days total until you relocate again to Russia (again) or some other place around the world. I wonder, why even buy! You don't need to tie yourself down!
I know what you mean about the "acres of skyscrapers" thing going on down there. It can be a little bewildering to get off the subway and get in the middle of all those identical-looking clusters of 15-story buildings. Congrats on NOT living there.
Seriously, I hope you enjoy it there. The Korean Winter you are going to have will be literally nothing compared to the Russian Winter you just got through, and there is usually a really nice "Indian Summer" from about the end of September to late November when it is beautiful.
Cheers and good luck at the new gig.
~Matt~
Aw, Jane, am I really your peep? Yay.
Plus, you're ridiculous.
Enjoy the new schedule. Hope the kiddies keep behaving!
~(apparently, the other) Brooke
Brooke S - I am SO glad someone else likes Doshirak (the name of the ramen brand). I took a lot of shit at the AH for eating it every day. I knew it said on the package that it was made in Korea, but somehow I didn't really expect to find it here! (Although the version of it they have here is spicier - you know how Russians aren't really fans of spice!) Anyway, Doshirak means lunchbox in Korean.
khakra - yep, I've got a washing machine; it lives in my bathroom :-) no dryer though :-(
matt - i'm actually planning on spending about 6 months in Waycross, once i'm finished with this gig, assuming i have enough money to support hanging out in the hood w/ no job....
Brooke R - of course you're my peep. Not that I'd ever really used that phrase before, but you know what I mean :-)
Yeah doshirak! My mom was so excited when she saw one in Russia, she insisted on taking a picture. I would have too, if I hadn't seen them all over the place for the past six months... :P
Your apartment sounds (and looks!) sweeeeet. I hope your stay in Korea continues to treat you better than the last one. You go, white girl!
Moosh
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