HELLO.
Good grief. I've only been here two weeks and already I have an insane workload. But it makes the day go by faster. I teach a lot during the day and then I have to prepare lessons and grade papers, and then all of a sudden it's 11 p.m. and I haven't eaten dinner yet.
I went back to the immigration office in Omokgyo to pick up my alien registration card. I didn't get lost this time, and I'm very proud of myself for that. However, I still get lost when trying to take a shortcut from my apartment to the school. And Sunday afternoon I almost got lost in the subway station at Euljiro on my way to Youngnak Church, even though I've been there five times already. The subway stations here are humongous, and it's easy to miss one's exit amidst the jumble of signs.
Speaking of signs, there are a lot of them everywhere I turn. Though a few are in English, the majority are not, and that can become very disorienting after a while. Even though I don't know what most of it means, I can at least pronounce the hangul script. So I'm learning to fight the confusion by reading every sign I see out loud. It's a good coping mechanism, and educational too.
Saturday night I met with Pastor Bill at the church and we had a good conversation. Afterward I took the subway to Kangnam to meet my friend Ed C., another newly arrived teacher, for dinner. On the fairly crowded I was standing and reading a Korean grammar book one of the teachers lent me when all of a sudden a 6-year-old came up from behind, stood in front of me, and said in a loud 6-year-old voice: "HELLO." He then went back to his parents, then came back a second time and said: "THANK YOU." He then went back to his parents, then came back a third time and said: "I'M KOREAN." Everybody on the train was cracking up. I came close to cracking up too.
Slowly I'm making friends here, including some musicians. After repressing my musical sensibilities for a couple of weeks, I feel like I'm ready to get back in the groove.
I went back to the immigration office in Omokgyo to pick up my alien registration card. I didn't get lost this time, and I'm very proud of myself for that. However, I still get lost when trying to take a shortcut from my apartment to the school. And Sunday afternoon I almost got lost in the subway station at Euljiro on my way to Youngnak Church, even though I've been there five times already. The subway stations here are humongous, and it's easy to miss one's exit amidst the jumble of signs.
Speaking of signs, there are a lot of them everywhere I turn. Though a few are in English, the majority are not, and that can become very disorienting after a while. Even though I don't know what most of it means, I can at least pronounce the hangul script. So I'm learning to fight the confusion by reading every sign I see out loud. It's a good coping mechanism, and educational too.
Saturday night I met with Pastor Bill at the church and we had a good conversation. Afterward I took the subway to Kangnam to meet my friend Ed C., another newly arrived teacher, for dinner. On the fairly crowded I was standing and reading a Korean grammar book one of the teachers lent me when all of a sudden a 6-year-old came up from behind, stood in front of me, and said in a loud 6-year-old voice: "HELLO." He then went back to his parents, then came back a second time and said: "THANK YOU." He then went back to his parents, then came back a third time and said: "I'M KOREAN." Everybody on the train was cracking up. I came close to cracking up too.
Slowly I'm making friends here, including some musicians. After repressing my musical sensibilities for a couple of weeks, I feel like I'm ready to get back in the groove.
posted by Marc Hogi at
3:51 PM
1 Comments:
TriL here...I see you successfully changed your profile info. That should take care of the time tag info. The 6-year-old story was hilarious! I would have walked up to him three times as well...HELLO!!...YOU'RE WELCOME!!...I'M NOT KOREAN!!!!
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