Has the Dub got Seoul

Apologies for taking so long to post this entry. The first of 2 semesters is just about finished! Life has been very busy of late, guess that's a good sign ay!

The general atmosphere in School is fantastic. The staff room vibe is very friendly and relaxed. There are smiles and bows to beat the band. Bows are not generally expected of me but I do try and bow to people who I’d have more of a formal relationship with, especially the School Principle. I have already been pulled up for not respecting him with a loud “Annyong Haseyo”(hello) and a deep bow. It's a difficult thing to get the timing right though! I always feel like I need to be on a constant state of high alert. I’d be sitting there looking at my computer and I’ll inadvertently glimpse up and make eye contact with him just as he’s passing by. At that stage it's too late to prep yourself for a big “Annyong Haseyo”, stand up, and give a deep bow! So now I just try and clock him from a distance and prep myself accordingly ;-).
I do however miss being able to understand the banter and craic that’s in abundance in the staff room. Sometimes I just ask the girl beside me “what was that all about….” One can feel excluded, but isn’t that an obvious disadvantage of being in a foreign speaking land. And before you say it, yes I do need to work on my Korean.

Uncle Macs observations from another land.

• Women do not smoke in public, very much frowned upon, I was out with my vice principle the other day and we saw a girl smoking, he pulled a ridiculous over the top grimace! Disgusting I tells ya, haha – They will however smoke with no qualms in bars.

• Korean women have a tendency to cover their mouth when they laugh, very cute indeed.

• Korean women of over 50, known as ajummas seem to have free reign to do what they want here, including queue skipping and elbowing people to get by, they are a dark force to be reckoned with. They're usually identifiable by the massive visors they wear, see below. Some folks believe it's the ajummas that secretly run this thriving country.

The majority of classes I teach have 34 students. Generally in TELF(teaching english as a foreign language) teaching, this is about the most students you'll have to teach in one class. Unfortunately Boin high school is in one of the poorer areas of Seoul. Not that one would think that by looking at the school, the students, or the area. In fairness though, it would be hard for me to spot a korean scanger accent ;-). However, what this means for the students is that their parents can't afford to send them to english academy after school, which is the norm for most korean students. And for me it means I'm teaching students with very low english profiency, but god don't we love a challenge!

Some of my 2nd grader in class

I must admit teaching at first was quite terrifying. The first week or two was a rude awakening. I'm teaching kids in the range of 14 to 16 years old, grade 1's are 14yrs old, grade 2's are 15yrs old etc. It amazed me how remarkably different the character of each age group was. Grade 1's are pretty manageable in terms of discipline but then again the co-teacher I have for the grade 1's is a right little hitleress, just what one needs to be honest. Grade 2's on the other hand were a nightmare to start with. Kids at the height of teenage attitude and rambunctiousness. I was going to have to learn very quickly how to control them, because there were certainly moments when I nearly lost the plot and shouted expletives to quell the racket. Grade 3's, despite only being a year older were surprisingly more mature and thankfully calm. Their level of english is significantly higher than the lower classes I teach. I was so shocked and overwhelmed in those first few weeks that I had to take notes on the character of each individual class, so that I could be completely prepared/armed for the situation I was walking into for each class. Here's a few pics from class.

Me in the early days opting for the out-dated and totally ineffective "shhhhhhh"

I am very lucky as my class schedule is very easy going. I only teach 4 classes of 45mins a day. Thankfully these classes are spread out through the day as teaching 4 classes in a row would be very draining. Teaching is very tiring I tells ya! I’ve never been sapped of energy as an engineer in this way. My colleagues tell me that the secret to doing back to back classes is food food food! Fortify yourself with rice and lots of energy food and you’ll be fine they say. So, my Thursday 3 classes in a row are now a lot more bearable. Despite only teaching 4 classes a day my working hours are 8.30am to 4.30pm. So the times that I’m not teaching I have to “desk warm. Desk warming, needless to say is just sitting at your desk scratching your **** , lesson planning or just surfing the net. It’s great having free time but there’s only so much scratching your **** one can do. It amazes me how much time I find I can waste surfing the net and using that evil network, Facebook!

I have a dedicated classroom called the "english zone" to teach in

The english zone, where all the learnen happens!

So flying by the seat of my pants I slowly learned the most effective ways to control the class without having to resort to exhausting roaring. I nearly lost my voice in the first few days from it. In order of effectiveness here are the top five.

1. Escalating to the home room teacher. Only really used if the students are relentlessly noisy from class to class.
2. Randomly moving the kids around to keep them away from friends.
3. Slamming a stick on the board to make a loud bang.
4. Threatening them with being kept back after class for 10mins. (Not ideal as kinda shooting myself in the foot as I often only get 10 mins break between classes myself.
5. Put disruptive students out by the wall. (Never thought I’d see the day I would be doing this ;-))

The thing that takes up most of my school time outside of teaching is lesson planning. This is basically preparing the lesson that I’m going to teach for the following week. I have 3 grades so I have to prepare 3 solid plans a week. Lesson planning I must admit is the bane of my life in Korea. Well so far anyway, but it is getting easier. The majority of TEFL teachers here in Korea have a syllabus to teach from, whereas I’m unfortunate in that I’ve been told to teach, I quote “whatever I like”. This puts a lot of pressure on me to, firstly, come up with good effective material and secondly to deliver lessons that are of a suitable level for each grade. It took me a number of months to become familiarised with what the students had covered and the level that they were at.

My head co-teacher Mr Oh and I at my welcome dinner, back in my experimental goatee days

A more recent photo of my Vice principle and I. I've never met someone more hell bent on lashing out the orders, bossy personified, but a legend in his own right

Not many of my colleagues outside of the 5 english teachers I co-teach with can speak english that well. However, within the first few days it was quite apparent which teachers were keen on learning english and were happy to befriend me to meet facilitate that end. Let me introduce Mr Hong-Chu (who actually has a brother called "Ah"!), and Mr Pak-e-Man, yes the same as the 80's computer game. Two legends in their own right. Paciman is one of the most pleasant and benign people I've ever met. He always has this big gleaming smile on his face and never has a bad word to say. His english wasn't great to start but I'm amazed at how much he's learned since we've become friends. Mr Hong-chu on the other hand is a pretty slow learner and often gets a bit disconcerted and frustrated with his progress. Nevertheless he's an absolute character, who has a very unique closed toothed smile, it leaves a huge gape between the cusp of his lips and his teeth on either side. You could quite literally fit a spoon of kimchi in each side with his mouth closed. In my first week these guys invited me to go hiking with them where we hit it off immediately, ever since we've been good friends. I've probably learned more Korean off them than from my saturday morning classes.

Pac-e-man on the left and Hong-chue on the right with their respective wives at a scrumptious meal at pacimans house. sidenote - Hong chu revealed to me in mid-meal that he wears a wig and thought that I should know. I was in total disbelieve as he really didn't look like he wore one. Consequently he asked me did I want to touch it, I said I might wait till I finish my food, luckily he forgot. Dam good job though, I would never have guessed he wore a wig!

The canteen food isn't bad at all. The great thing is that the menu varies hugely from day to day. The teachers have their own private canteen which is great because you wouldn't be able to hear yourself think with the racket coming from 800 hungry Korean kids. As I enter the canteen I usually steel a glance at what's on offer for the day, hoping not to see that palate burning red spice that they insist on putting on most food here. Salads are even doused in it! Korean eating utensils are generally made from steel, including chop sticks, cups and trays. My first introduction to this was in my canteen, which I found quite strange and less comfortable to the western norm. Chops sticks are hard enough to use without having them made from slippery steel! Soup is served with every meal and is usually a broth, seaweed soup is also no stranger to the canteen table, nice n salty.

1st graders crowding to get into the canteen. When the bell goes off at lunch time the building almost crumbles with the clatter of stampeding ravenous students

The staff room and my desk with the melodious school bell going off. It got on my wick for a while after listening to it about 10 times a day, I am now numb to it.

Last year corporal punishment was illegalised in Korea, however all of the teachers still carry a stick of some sort, I even have one! They allegedly don't use them, however the Police were called to the school by a student last week, because my head co-teacher Mr Oh "verbally abused him". Yeah sure..... This is quite a common occurrence now that the kids know their rights.

Me trying corporal punishment. I forgot my stick that day ;-)

How happy are my students!!

One way that the teachers can get their own back on the students is by assigning them to cleaning duty. This I think is genius. It means they don't have the extra cost of hiring a cleaner and the students Hate it! Nevertheless there always seems to be a sufficient army of naughty students to sweep, mop and scrub the floors.

Funny students

The relationship the majority of the teachers have with the students can be very different from one day to the next. You could hear very loud intimidating roaring from male teachers one minute, and next you'll see them walking through the staff room with their arms around the kids having a great laugh. There never seems to be any shortage of banter between the teachers and the students either. I for one, have a great laugh with them. They are always very friendly to me and always insist on saying a big "hello Cormac". However, due to their innate pronunciation difficulties, my name comes out as "Como" or "Goma", which means "sea food" in Korean. (Korean people have awful problems with the letter "R")

Me trying to get the some of my 1st graders speaking english, NOT a very good reflection of my teaching skills ;-)

The same lads posing

Our astroturf pitch that doubles as the school yard. Every break time or lunch time this pitch turns into football anarchy! There can be about 10 games of footie going on at any one time, mayhem!

The tuck shop. You'll often see very endearing displays of sharing between the students here. They could have up to four of their friends gaping mouths looking for a bite of their sandwich/bar, and they never say no. It's really nice to see

I really love the vibe working in a school. My colleagues for one are just so nice and friendly, but I think what makes most of my time working in a school so easy, is that kids just radiate this effortless joyful energy. Kids are for the most part inherently happy, and when you have a 800 of them in one big building around you, that energy can only effect you in a positive way.

There was a very steep and sometimes scary learning curve to start with, but the more my teaching skills develop the easier and more rewarding teaching becomes. So that's the first semester over with, let's hope the second one is as enjoyable....

Well needless to say this was the last feckin place I expected to be this early on or at any stage of my jaunt! Anyway don’t fret it wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounds, on the contrary, it was actually great in many ways(without showing any disrespect to my worried folks and all the seriously sick people in hospitals, eek). The doctors informed me after the 1st night that I’d probably have to stay there in the Asan hospital(the biggest in Asia) for a week or so. So quickly, to get the “violins” out of the way... I had an inflammation of part of my intestine which meant, eh, mmm, well pretty much, I couldn’t drop the kids off at the pool. So the only way out was the top end, “mmm lovely” you say. Anyway that’s the long and the short of it. The solution was…Putting a tube up my nose and down to the top of my stomach to help release the trapped gas, it couldn’t come out any other way, yes before you ask I couldn’t even fart! “Ha, deserves him right for all the harm he's done” people will say. ;-) The tube thing was without doubt the most horrible and violating thing that’s ever happened me. Then to make things worse I had to go back into the emergency room and sit there looking like I had been violated in the most hideous of ways one could imagine, which I was! Oh Mommy…So besides from that it was all plain sailing. In a nut shell, one of the doctors goals was to get me farting again. This all sounds absurd ay, tell me about it, I’m sure some people I know would have paid the doctors not to fix me! I was being drip fed intravenously so couldn’t eat or drink. It was quite a strange experience not eating/drinking for that long and not getting hungry or thirsty. With not having to sit down to three main meals a day one actually gets a lot more to your day, ordinarily not exactly what one wants when in hospital, but for me it was great. I needed to lesson plan for my first classes, revise my beginner Korean, organise my mp3 music collection and write my gripping memoirs! ;-). All this punctuated with reading, listening to music, watching movies on my laptop and sleeping. Kind of like what one might do on holidays ay! I was also very lucky to have my new Irish friends and Korean colleagues pop in to me from time to time.

Asan Hospital

My room couldn’t have been in a nicer location, perched 10 floors up overlooking the metropolis of Seoul and looking down on the city’s main artery, the Han river. I was freaked out not having my camera because the views were stunning.

Visiting hours in Korean hospitals don’t really apply, forget about a two hour slot in the evening, ALL your family and friends could stay for the full day, and you could even have one lucky person stay the night. Each hospital bed has a slide-out futon underneath, where one of your friends or family could sleep, and believe me this is completely taken advantage of. It takes the pressure off the nurses as it allows the family member to help out with the more menial domestic type chores. There were 5 other beds in my room, each slept in by middle to older aged men. Each man had his wife staying 24-7, no hanky panky now, these guys were too sick for that. It was very touching to see how the wife’s tended to their men. They held and caressed their hands when they were down, massaged their limbs when in pain and really just kept vigil over them 24-7. They even came prepared for nasty hospital food, the patients wives brought frozen home cooked dishes. There was even a dedicated fridge in each dorm for the patients and their slumber buddy’s use.

Uncle Matts observations from a strange other world

• It's very common in Korea for engaged couples to get their wedding photos taken months before the actual wedding(one of my co-teachers is getting married soon, that how I know these things).

• Most water coolers have mini-envelopes instead of cups to drink out of. I prefer cups.

• Beef is very expensive here and almost impossible to come across. I miss steak :-(

• Big noses are the thing to have in Korea. Everybody either wants one or wants someone with one :<

The general impression I got was that the hospital food was tasty, not that I knew, as I couldn’t eat, but the plates were always licked clean. Luckily the smell of it was fowl enough not to tease me. I’m not sure if it was Kimchi I was smelling, but it really did stink. I had to get out of the room every time they ate to avoid the smell. There was a great sense of sharing at meal times, all of the supplemental foods brought by the wives would be shared out among everyone in the dorm. The wives made sure to offer me food when they were sharing. A cynic could suspect malice here as I obviously couldn’t eat, what with all the tubes popping out of my arms. However, knowing Koreans up to now, they just wanted to make sure I didn’t feel excluded.
For me, my saviour was chewing gum. I don’t know what I would have done without it, especially Oxylitol my favourite, as it says on the pack, Fresh Up! I felt like a pyjamas wearing Alex Ferguson by the end of the week. Even though I didn’t get properly hungry I certainly missed eating and drinking. I will shamefully admit the one food I fantasised about most was Big-macs, and my fantasy drink of choice was Lilt, the totally tropical taste. I just couldn’t stop picturing that ad from the 80’s with Rastafarians downing them on a palm lined beach.
The hospital setup was very efficient and organised. Things were run with military precision. I was fascinated at how the nurses from every shift seemed to be 100% privy with the treatments the doctors had prescribed for me. Any questions I had (and I had lots) they answered without once having to consult the doctor. Maybe it was down to the scarcity of westerners in the hospital, which may have made me a bit more memorable. All of the nurses were attractive in their own way and each was immaculately turned out in little white uniforms. Strangely enough, all of the nurses seemed to be fairly small and of a very similar slim build. Was it a prerequisite for the job? Twas almost comparable to the hiring methods of Willy Wonka. Their level of English wasn’t bad, nevertheless they were completely limited to nurse/patient vocab. They had evidently only learned the necessary medical terminology, and no, before you think it I wasn’t trying to chat them up ;-). I was however most impressed by their use of the word “stool”. Use that to most folks back home, and they’ll think you want to sit down!

My fellow dorm mates, their wives and I, on the day I left hospital

The closest thing I could call a friend while in hospital was a special needs deaf kid, who was apparently in with some kind of head operation. He had this huge white bandage wrapped around his noggin. Not sure if you could classify it as a friendship, as we couldn’t really communicate in the true sense of the word. In fairness though, I was able to communicate with him just as well as with any of the other patients, the only difference was he took a liking to me. When my drip trolley and I were doing our prescribed walking exercises, he and his drip trolley would follow me around. When we weren’t hanging out like that and were just passing in the corridor, we’d just give each other an acknowledging smile and bow. If I was just sitting in the common room chilling he’d come up and start quizzically touching my computer, book, ipod or whatever I was using. As I am writing now he came into me breaking his shit laughing miming that he just saw a pregnant lady. How nice would it be, to be so simply brought to convulsions of laughter. He was a good kid.
Slowly but surely the nurses took me off the intravenous grub and reintroduced me to food fed via the gobster. Firstly water, then gradually onto a liquid diet and finally light foods. Now that I was eating and going to the gents room comfortably, I could safely say that the Asan hospital had achieved their mission. Alas I am finally back to my windy ways ! ;-). Nevertheless, I am totally indebted for the sterling treatment I received from the nurses and doctors of Asan hospital. It really was unusual circumstances to be introduced to a new world, but in fairness it could have been a lot more unpleasant. It was my first true experience of Korean hospitality and it would prove not to be my last. Second period of confinement over, this time I was definitely ready to be released on Korea. My fellow teachers were now a week ahead of me in terms of settling in and getting to know Korean culture. I had a lot of catching up to do………

Uncle Macs observations from a strange other world

• You know when you're in a lift, and some idiot presses all the buttons for the "craic" or, you accidently press the wrong floor. Well instead of having to stop at every floor you can unpress the buttons here, what a simple thing ay.

• It is completely unheard of in Korea for a man and women to live together until they're married. Darn right, the way it should be ay!!! ;-)

• Koreans are obsessed with brushing their teeth, on average about 4 times a day, probably to get the smell of that nasty Kimchi away.

• When you ask for a coffee here, the person asks you "hot or cold". Cold coffee is very popular.

• Almost all of the 291 subway stations in Seoul have a glass/wall type partition between the tracks and platform. This was recently implemented because throwing yourself in front of trains, became the most popular method of suicide in Seoul. See pic below.

They also have a live display showing the trains approach, I thought this was genius, see top of pic

Anyway on a lighter note....When applying for teaching in Korea I had an opportunity to request a preferred level to teach. My options were....

• Elementary, age 6 to 12 yrs old (supposedly a walk in the park because all you have to do is sing songs and chants, very basic english, but not much of a challenge)
• Middle schools, age 13-16 yrs old(Kids in the height of attitude and "kevin n perryism", but a nice compromise)
• High school 17-19 yrs old(more mature, but maybe harder to control).

So these were my choices, I chose middle school without knowing at that time what age group they exactly were. I thought I'd have the best of both worlds, kids that would be a bit of a challange but would not be head wrecking enough to grind me down. Mmm in hindsite I got things a bit mixed up. It's the middle schools kids that are the hardest to control. Anyways I got my first choice, middle school and don't regret it, a good healthy challange!

Artists impression of Boin Schools, the middle schoool is the smalller building in the lower half of the pic

So the plan was to bus each group living in the same viscinity off to a car park, to meet and be collected by our head co-teachers. When teaching in Korea, you don't teach alone, you have a "co-teacher" who help with translation, discipline and teaching. Your head co-teacher is also your manager. So going to meet my head-co-teacher caused acrobatic butterflies to say the least. One slight relief was that we found out which of our fellow teachers we were going to be living near, and luckily I knew a few of them pretty well. The trip wasn't long, soon we arrived at the car park with a gang of smiling Koreans, conspicuously teacher like(leather elbow patches all over the place). So we nervously got off the bus and grabbed our bags from the undercarriage. We had been told that the large majority of head co-teachers were female and fairly young. Between you and me, I was hoping for exactly that. Haha, not for why you're now thinking, but because it's certainly more palatable than getting a sullen old man, would you not agree???? Anyways, we're standing there sizing up the crowd listening while our names get called out, watching as our group diminishes to only a few. Sincere "Good lucks!" were shouted as the guys headed off into the unknown with their Korean minder/manager/friends. So there's about 4 of us left at this stage and the girl beside me says "God I hope I get a nice friendly young female teacher", and of course me being the smart ass turns around and says, "haha, you'll probably get some cranky old man now". My name was called out immediately after that. Oh the trepidation, and yes I had just jinxed myself when I made the "cranky old man gag". Karma's a bitch Cormac. Cormac, meet Mr Oh. Oh shit, Mr Oh appears to be a cranky old man, surprise surprise. I couldn't believe it. What an imbecile I was, why did I have to open my cake hole. Mr Oh didn't utter a word, never mind a welcome as we walked to the car, he didn't even force a smile, I was not a happy camper, no no no. This guy was my life line for the next year, shite!

The dreaded Korean staple - Kimchi

Anyway we threw the bags into the back of the car and drove off to the unknown. I didn't even know whether we were going to the school or my new appartment at this stage. He asked me which I'd prefer and I thought "lets get the school mullark out of the way with so I can relax in my new apartment for the evening". So off we went to the school, our communication for the journey was quite strained to say the least. Mr Oh's spoken english wasn't bad but his listening skills were to yet to be desired. I had to enunciate every word really slowly and then had to repeat it at least 2 times more. I was thinking this whole thing was going to be a pain in the ass, as generally your head co-teacher is meant to have the best english in the school. The one thing that really bothered me was that everytime I asked a "yes or no" answered question, he would just answer "ok", which basically told me he hadn't a clue what I said. This I later found out was a common idiocyncrasy of older male english learners. Doh!

The gymnasium/canteen

So we finally made it through a very awkward journey of "Cormac struggling to make conversation" to my new place of work - Boin boys middle school. The school looked fairly none descript on approach, however the one feature that caught my eye was a full size astro turf pitch which lies directly between the middle school and the high school. Luckily for me it turned out that Boin School was one of the most succesful soccer schools in the country, two of the korean national squad had actually graduated there.

First things first, we had to drop straight in to greet the school principle, which was more like meeting a head of state than anything. The principles office was just like a board room. There were about 10 huge leather seats that I'd say had barely been sat in and a humidifier with billowing steam. The main honcho was a very esteemed looking man alltogether. He had a pristine suit and tinted glasses which very much gave him a "godfather" look. I had a whole load of things I had to remember for then I met the principle...i.e bow deeply, introduce yourself in Korean and always look at him when speaking instead of to my interpreting co-teacher. But of course as a result of nerves I don't think I got one of these things down, so not a great start between him and I. He spent most of his time over in the high school anyway so our paths weren't going to cross often. That was the main event really, I was just briefly shown my bare desk and a very quick waving hello to my new colleagues. I got plenty of inquisitive stares from the students, it must have been strange having a white guy in the school after so long, (my predecessor was a Korean american girl). There was nothing else that springs to mind about that first introduction to Boin school, however it was indeed a relief to finally see where I was going to spent a large portion of my year in Korea.

My apartment building, I'm on the 4th floor

Mr Oh then drove me off to my apartment. This is when I realised that the drivers in Korea were batty, he wasn't the only perpetrator. Mr Oh randomely decided to pull in wherever he wanted to, once the hazard lights were on, seemingly one can do whatever outrageous thing they want here! He knew the viscinity of where my apartment was, but he hadn't a clue where the actually entrance was. We found it after about 15 mins. A grey stand alone apartment block of 7 stories, pretty small by Korean standards, my room was on the 4th floor.

A video tour of my apartment (let me know if this doesn't work for ya)

On entry, my first impressions were "oh(not mr oh) it must have another room off to the side somewhere". Nope! That was it. Small but in fairness it had all I needed. As you can see from the video the bed is up in the loft, however on the first day the bed was downstairs to the side, with the loft empty. I asked mr Oh, was it ok to put the bed upstairs? and he said " no no, it's fine there". I said "well whats the loft for then", and he says without a grin "that's for the muslims to pray to Mecca on". What the!!! I immediatly thought this guy was a fruit cake through n through! But to be honest in retrospect, knowing him now, I think he was just winding me up. The best part of my new apartment was the under floor heating. Almost instant heat, and that goes for the water as well. No turning on the immersion or having to ensure the heats been on before-hand. Just press the button and hey presto, hot water! My apartment is located right on the outskirts of the city. My view is towards the mountains and overlooking a huge barren wasteland. It looked very lifeless and desolate then, but now with the start of spring it's really starting to come alive with colour. I'm about 30 mins from Seoul city centre, about the same as from Portmarnock to dublin, convenient ay!

Sunset out my windy

The next big piece of information I needed was "how do I get to school the next day"(yes I was to start work the next day). I was hoping I'd maybe be brought on a dry run on the bus/metro, but that didn't happen. Mr Oh brought me out to show me the bus stop and unconvincingly at that. Once again he hadn't a clue. We went from bus stop to bus stop, him running up the road screaming at people ahead of us for information. It was quite a hillarious spectacle. He just didn't give a shit who he bothered, completely devoid of any shame. I was really beginning to see what kind of a character Mr Oh was. We finally found the correct bus stop, the first one of many that we checked and then he rather dubiously told me that I should just got off after about 5 stops for the school, mmm not exactly convincing....So anyway I was very lucky to have a life-line, Eduardo Nuci, an ozzy guy who was teaching english in the Boin high school . Conveniently for me, he lived two doors down from me. My Oh thankfully gave me Eddies number and I called him straight after my eccentric guest left. Eddie was luckily a cool guy, because to be honest the whole day had been so strange and nerve wrecking to say the least. I really did need to speak to someone who knew the ropes, and that was Eddie. Eddie had been here for 6 months already and was able to fill me in on everything I need to know - faux pas's, useful advice, bus routes, paying bills etc. I really don't know what I would have done without him, better than learned the hard way I guess ;-). He also has a Korean girl-friend who was very helpful when I need anything translated.

Local train playground

So that evening Eddie dropped over for a chat. As I said it was great to be filled in on all the details without the having to get blood from a stone from Mr Oh. I must admit I was not feeling in good health that night. Between nerves and the day that was in it I also had reoccuring stomach cramps. Anyway putting them aside for now, I headed of to work the next morning with Eddie. All of the other teachers were really pleasant and welcoming. I had a few words of Korean at that stage so I was able to say "hello" and "nice to meet you" fairly confidently. That was the thursday and and I was told that I didn't actually have to start teaching until the wednesday after. This was a huge relief as it gave me chance to find my bearings and start lesson planning for the coming weeks. The computer they gave me was in Korean so that was quite challanging to get my head around. They couldn't seem to change the language for me, and to this day my work pc is still in Korean. It's impossible for me to do it because everything is in Korean!

So that first day was strange, what with not knowing anybody and I suppose being totally out of my comfort zone. The fact that my Stomach cramps were still at me really didn't help matters. Just after forcing myself to eat some very dubious looking korean canteen food, my stomach got pretty bad, the final straw maybe. I had to go to the school nurse, who in turn referred me to the doctor down the road. So to cut a long story short, the doc gave me a prescription for loads of medication which I started taking immediatly. She was fairly sure i'd be "a ok" within 24 hrs. I was that bad at that stage, that I had to go home early. We had been told in orientation that sick days were an absolute no no here. If you were sick you basically had to drag yourself into school and then be told to lie down in the nurses room till you feel better or be told to go home in extreme cases. I was that ill the next morning, that all the protocol went out the window, I called in sick. Den Den Den!!!! A sterling start in the new job/new career ay!So much for cutting long story short, haha, sorry. Anyway I pretty much lay in bed in agony from thursday afternoon until saturday morning which was when the doc asked me to come back to her. It was a pretty nasty few days because I had no means of communication either (violins! :-( ). I couldn't eat or drink without it being rejected in "not so nice ways", as Annie Lennox once said, "the only way is up!". Thankfully the doctors english was really good and she used her proficiency to tell me I had to get my ass to Hospital :-( For *****s sake, Calamity Cormac will tell you about that in the next "Has the dub got Seoul". Don't loose sleep now kids ;-)

Apologies these should have been in the last blog entry

The bridge linking Incheon Airport Island to seoul

Statue of an Important person

same

EPIK Orientation
EPIK stands for English program in Korea and is the organisation responsible for bringing the guts of 1800 native English speakers into South Korea every semester. All EPIK require is that you have a degree in any discipline and have completed 120 hours of TEFL(Teaching English as a foreign language)training to participate. Lots of people asked why Korea. Providing a free apartment and pretty cheap cost of living allows one to save a fair few quid here, which I suspect is the main draw for the crowds of TELF’ers that come here.
The course I completed back at home was very worthwhile doing and I have without doubt picked up some invaluable skills. Anyways, EPIK orientation now, 9 full on days teaching training, Korean language learning and lectures on Korean culture and shock;-)

The university

So all in all, Orientation was pretty full on. There were twin bedrooms we all had to stay in and unluckily for me I got landed with a snoring American who liked to go to bed at 9.30pm and then potter around the bedroom at 6am with the lights on. He was a good guy all up. One of the few that was older than me, he managed a comic store back in Pennsylvania that ended up going bust. One of the most interesting things was hearing how people ended up in Korea. After Charlies comic book store went bust his Korean wife convinced him to go live in Korea and try teaching. I’m not sure how he’ll get on though because he really was a very shy guy, not exactly a requisite trait for a teacher. I think the majority group were American/Canadian graduates who came to pay off big college debts and then there was a big group there out of necessity, due to the global down turn of course.

Our Welcome packs

It amazed me at how well organised the Epik crowd were, and now that I think of it, most systems in Korea seemed to meet similar standards. Not only seamless organisation but we also received free accommodation for 9 days, three buffet meals a day, free training, an Epik hoody top, Towel and Alarm clock. All for nothing!!! Still not a patch on the Irish dept. of education ay ;-) I don’t know where else in the world you would get the same treatment and then a good job afterwards.

Uncle Macs observations from a strange other world

• You can't get a knife or fork anywhere here, its chop sticks and a spoon the whole way, the chop sticks are steel which doen't help things

• The rice here is super sticky, almost in one big huge lump, this makes it possible to eat the rice with chop sticks

• Samsong, Hyundai and LG seem to make absolutely everything here, from cars, to Elevators, to toasters, to phones would you believe!

Must be a great patriotic feeling knowing your country doesn't have to import much and are pretty much self-sufficient

• Part of the Korean staple diet is "Kimchi". What I can only describe as extremely spicy ancient cabbage. They say if you don't like it you must get used to it because you can't get away from it here. Well I've now tried it 4 time and will not be going back for a fifth. It's nasty and vile, probably up there with Vegimite....Thanks Denis ;-)

Here's some classroom pics

Learnen the lads how to shape

don't ask but I do know this guy never heard of the rubber bandits(google them if you aint heard yet)

Role-play with the barazilian Johner

It wasn't all riveting, my room mate beside me must have been wrecked from all his own snoring, check out fievel in the background

Loved this pic

I must admit the lecturers we had were of a very high standard. Most of them had taught in Korea before, so their material was based on their own experiences. The majority of the activities we learned in the classes were great craic and created much guffaw. The lectures illustrated the teaching techniques using us as the demo students. It actually worked out very well.
Here's some of the activities we were taught to use in our future classes.

we had to guess the movie with the help of our team who couldn't use gestures or obviously say the name

Class room activities

Body spelling(I'm "r" ;-) )

More role-play

Charlie spoke the guys words and Andrew the girls improvising the conversation, lucky there were some gas people in the class

So orientation was great overall but at times it got a tad overwhelming. 185 of us went to classes together from 9 to 5,ate together in the canteen 3 time a day, we went to language classes together in the evening for 1 hour, and then if you weren't sick of the crowd at that stage some of us even went out for a sociable bevy in the evenings, ah twould be rude not to! It was great meeting new people and all of us having so much in common. There was a great feeling that you could just turn around and chat to randomers, however by the end of the 9 days inevitable "clicks" did form.

Caught you snapper!

On our last day we had to perfom a mock lesson and look all professional, I know don't say it, and then receive all the negative and positive feedback

One of the days was called "cultural immersion" where we got to taste Korean food(jurys still out), watch videos on how successful a nation Korea is(dam they can do shit proper!!!), listen to talks on the Korean history(they had it as bad as the Polish)and the best part, get dressed up in the old Korean getup. BTW this was the only size they had left for me. I look like that guy in beetlejuice shrunk my head! A ceremony was also performed by some willing Koreans, with some of us in the starring roles. Here's some pics

Myself, Jina one of our main co-ordinators and a mate stephen

Me wondering what the heck to do next

This kid actor had what was coming to him when he slipped for tom-foolery

da lads

me and charlie, my roomy

One of the last evenings out we ended up in a nice Korean bar for a change. While we were sitting there chatting away a work crowd came in and sat down at the table beside up. Within about 10 minutes there was cheers and shouts coming from them. When we looked over there one of the women was arm wrestling one of the guys and kicking his ass at that! There was wads of korean won changing hands rapidly. She was a fairly burly women for a women, but still she was a machine!! So the interest suddenly turned to us once they saw our heads turned. On kicking her colleagues as all the men invited us over to challenge her. So of course one of the lads got up straight away and sat into the seat. Got his ass kicked in 10 secs, wapow!!! so my rusty old guns hadn't been tested in a while so I thought "how strong can she be".....mmm I should have stay put. Yes she kicked my ass too. Here's the pics

Money changes hands and the proposition is made

Mike's confident at this stage

The catch was that we had to hold her wrist which I think gave her the advatage ;-), I'm seriously struggling at this stage...sorry lads :-(

So Orientation really was great craic, and essential for networking and getting to know people for when we were let loose on Seoul. However, the 9 days was more like a confinement, as the days were so full we couldn't get to see much of Seoul at all. 9 days in Seoul and only getting to see the inside of some dingy western bars and a Korean college. One thing I always would have like to do, was go to an American high school/college for a while. Especially after watching all those hollywood movies with cool shit happening at the highschool prom(Carry). Well I suppose this was the closest thing I would ever get to it, what with all the yanks around in this college setting. There was even one guy who wore a quarter back "jock" jacket! Classic! So it all finally came to an end and we had to say goodbye. At this stage I really was looking forward to some of my own space. Here are some of the farewell photees.

Guess who dingus???

Some of our co-ordinators and I

Class or 2011! Spring break woohoo!!

So that was Orientation in a nut. There were mixed feeling as we neared the end. We had the mock lesson plan to prepare for which was a little nerve wrecking, we were all looking forward to some personal space, and of course we had the obvious anxiety of what was to come next. One of the niggling fears that we had was that at this stage none of us new what level of Kids we would be teaching, what school we'd be in or what area we'd be living in. What will our appartment be like...how big will it be? will it have all the basic furniture and appliances, where will it be? And of course the main anxiety of not knowing what our new co-teachers would be like. Our co-teachers were basically our life line from then on. They would teach along side us in class, we would report to them, and they would be responsible for helping us do get settled into life in Korea...help us set up our internet, get the things that may be missing in our new appartments, get a new phone, set up a bank account. So needless to say this was a very important relationship to nurture. So we all got onto our respective buses, and were nervously whisked off to our new lives in Korea....

p.s - If anyone would like to leave a comment on my blog, can you please sign up with this site which will make it a lot easier and avoid people getting notifications from facebook messages. It only takes 2 secs, don't worry you won't get spam from it! Cheers, Cormac

Slán Eire, Anneyong Hesayo Korea!

The decision to flee did not come lightly and was finally made after serious amounts of second thoughts, which I suppose is only natural with such a big decision. Teaching English abroad was an idea I had seriously given thought to for a long time, and the plunge had to be finally made to avoid future regrets. Nevertheless there were numerous mornings where I woke up saying “what the heck are you doing idiot! Get your shit together Cormac”, but thankfully as the day progressed, negativity faded rapidly. I think if I kept plodding along with the status quo, the decision to change things would only become increasingly more difficult, a self-destructive comfort zone. So here goes, let’s just see what Korea has in store!

Interesting things I’ve learned so far.

• 20% of Koreas population has the surname “Kim”

• As it’s bad luck, most elevators don’t name the fourth floor “4”, they use the letter “F” instead

• Koreans don’t drink with their meal as they believe it’s not good for your stomach, mmm lets just see;-)

• Similar in Geographical area to Ireland but has approx. 10 times the population.

The flight was uneventful except for the fact that I was stung with a dastardly cold which only deteriorated as the flight went on. FAI (Football association of Ireland) head guy John Delaney was sitting two seats up and one across from me. When I saw him first I was thinking, how the heck do I know that giant mallet, oh yeah only the idiot that fecked up Irish soccer on a daily basis! Anyways I spared him my ignorant jibes ;-). Everyone I told I was flying with Etihad were like, “oh you’re so lucky they’re the shit, the bomb, best ever” etc… but it really just raised my expectations to ridiculous heights. I ended up thinking I’d be fed grapes and fanned with ostrich feathers. I managed to stretch out in the centre on 4 spare seats, and would you believe the middle seat arms wouldn’t even raise to let me sleep. Backwards or what! My stopover was Abu Dhabi, also a disappointment compared to Dubai, especially considering these boys are meant to have trillions more pints of oil than the Dubailiners.

Sunrise on an Etihad wing tip

When checking-in in Dublin, the assistant told me there were 9 other Irish on the flight going one way to Seoul. You could guarantee it was for English teaching as well. It was reassuring to know I finally wasn’t alone on this escapade. Did I want to track them down on the flight, no. Ah ya know how it can be, it’s a long flight, not all Irish people are as sound as me ;-). These 9 were quite easily recognisable though (as I’m sure I was), folk with Irish appearance, freckles n pale skin carrying laptops, shit loads of baggage and looking at me equally quizzically. So meeting folks as I reached arrivals would suffice, which I did, a lad from Tullamore and one from Galway. It was great to finally meet people in the exact same situation as me, with similar apprehensions, excitement, curiosity and questions. And Irish at that! Always a great start. It was nice to finally have some company on this endeavour.
Seoul first impressions – ridiculously bright skied, very modern, massive and friendly. A bus was there to collect the first lot of us on arrival. We really only caught a glimpse of Seoul, as we were more interested in getting to know our new peers and find out what circumstances had brought them to Korea. Discovering Seoul would have to wait as now it was off to EPIK(English teaching program in Korea) orientation for 9 days. Oh dear, college again, mmm, well its gotta be more stimulating than going to an all-male engineering college like DIT Bolton street! I might actually find this interesting……

p.s - don't fret I'll have more pics for my next entry ;-)