Keep the ball rolling

Josh:

More, more and more!

Sun 4/5/10:
We finally got a day to sleep in a little. After getting a decent amount of sleep we woke up and prepared for the day ahead. Since the family who was living in the house finally moved out on Saturday we decided to lug all of our stuff onto the bus and meet up with my co-teacher who would take us shopping and give us our keys. We loaded up (with about three giant bags each) and got onto the bus (lucky for us he let us on). After a long and cramped ride we got off in front of the Pizza Hut near the station and waited for Ms. Kim.

As we were waiting we saw another white person heading towards us. We hadn't really seen one together so we both looked openly and he came right up to us. It turns out that he teaches the elementary school right behind the station and he got there at the same time we did (small world eh?). We talked for about 20 minutes, traded contact info and parted ways (We now hang out with him regularly. His name is Zack and he's a pretty cool cat). Shortly after Ms. Kim came, picked us up and we dropped off our bags at the new house. It was even bigger than I had remembered. I was so happy to have room to put our things and sit or lay down comfortably (well, sort of). Ms. Kim took us to the Macy's of Korea and bought a blanket, pillows, a sheet, dishes etc. It was very nice of her to take us shopping and we were ecstatic that we now had pillows and blankets of our own but it felt very strange for us to have someone buying things for us (even if it was out of the school's wallet). We shopped for several hours and unfortunately we hadn't eaten anything so we were starting to get incredibly hungry. After a huge shopping cart and a car ride home we said thanks, goodbye, threw our stuff in the house and ran out to get some food.

We decided to go all out and just finish moving everything tonight so we took a bus back to Dogok and loaded up the rest of our things and headed back out. As we were walking to the stop we managed to catch a glimpse of a spectacular looking dog. He was in a pet store and he was huge. He looked like a gray wolf so Audrey suggested we ask if we can pet it. One of us stayed out while the other went in and got to play with the fluff monster. It was good to see a dog that was taken care of and super friendly. We said goodbye to the monster and hopped onto the first bus. We managed to drag our things all the way to our new house (not an easy effort mind you) and went inside. Of course we didn't have a bed so we had to sleep on the cold floor. We also didn't know how to work the heater/it wasn't working so we huddled together and tried to sleep throughout the night (Note that Audrey was getting sick so this wasn't too good of a decision even if we did have lots of room).

Earlier that day Audrey saw a huge spider and made me kill it. It was big enough to make an audible pop when I stepped on it. That was one thing I wasn't too thrilled about when we decided to come here. There are bugs that make the ones in California seem like gnats here. I'm okay with it but Audrey definitely does not like them. I think it's the beginning of a long battle with the monster bugs.

Mon - 4/6/10

Today is my first day of school! After a long week I finally get to do what I came here for. Luckily I had already prepared a good lesson plan (or so I thought) and I was ready to go. I got to my first class and found out that the lesson plan was finished with about 20 minutes to spare (oops). I managed to ad-lib for the rest of the time but it was a little too close for me. It worked out well, however, because the ad-libbing turned out to work its way into my daily lesson plan. It also helped me gauge how long a real lesson plan works. The rest of the day went fairly smooth. Audrey had the day off and it was a good thing because she was feeling quite sick. We were supposed to go to the hospital to get the "health check" but we decided it would be best if I went because we didn't want Audrey to fail and get kicked out of the country just because she had a cold. So when I left Ms. Kim made Audrey go to the nurse where she got some medicine and hot tea and she got to relax at my desk for the rest of the day.

I got to head to the hospital with Ms. Kim. It was lucky that she was there because it would have been impossible without someone who spoke Korean to the nurses for me. They first checked my height and weight and then measured my chest for some reason (I have no idea why). I then did the eye test where you put something in front of one eye and try to read the tiny letters. She then took my blood pressure and I got ushered into a really small room with somebody sitting at a desk. Turns out I was privileged enough to get the third degree from someone who spoke broken English:
Doctor: Do you have spread diseases? (something like that, it was very difficult to understand her through her thick accents)
Josh: Uh, no.
Doctor: Ah. *nods head and writes something down* Drugs?
Josh: Excuse me?
Doctor: Do you have any drugs?
Josh: Oh. No.
Doctor: Ah. *nod* Do you have HIV?
Josh: No.
Doctor: Ah. *nod*

She then ushered me out and I got to have my chest x-rayed (once again I don't know why). It was a little strange because I didn't have any protective led anywhere that might be important to me in the future so I was a little worried about that but there's nothing I can really do about it. He then moved me back out and we moved to another wing in the hospital. I went upstairs where I got to pee into a cup and put it on a tray near the entrance to the small room. I thought it was strange that I just put a cup right by the glass door full of my urine where anybody could throw whatever they want into it. I don't know when they picked it up but I was worried somebody was going to knock it over or, as I said, , put something in it. Once again, nothing I can do. I then got to sit down and they had to draw some blood. This isn't like the States though and they stuck a big needle into my arm and pulled out my blood with a plunger. After a few moments they dropped the bloody needle into a giant box on the counter that was covered in blood and filled with needles. Safe? Nay sir. Nay. Surprisingly it didn't hurt (I'm not trying to be a macho man by saying "My manly muscles prevented me from feeling pain" but I was authentically surprised I didn't really feel it). We left the hospital, came back to my school and decided to meet up with Wu for dinner.

We left the school, changed and met up with Wu who was nice enough to show us his house. On the way over Audrey got to meet some of the older students. It's funny because when you are a "rebel" here you smoke cigarettes outside school or in the bathrooms. This, of course, made me realize that they are on a different level of "cool" than the United States. What they consider cool here is only baby cool in the States. As we walked to Wu's house we learned of the various locations where they smoke including the church. The leader kept nodding his head as Wu pointed to all the locations he caught them smoking. When he said the church Audrey looked over and said, "You smoke in the church?" and gave a disapproving look. He quickly looked over and said, "Oh no. Not me *shook his head vigorously*. Them." I like this kid's personality (too bad I will never have to teach him because he is a third grader).

Wu took us to the place where we were going to meet the other people for dinner (Zack and another guy named Mike). We met up, introduced ourselves and headed over for food. The restaurant turned out to be a fantastic place to eat. Audrey got yukejang finally and I got to eat some delicious dumplings. We had a good conversation, traded contact information with Mike (another awesome guy) and headed to Wu's house where we talked for another hour or so, picked up some of the things he wasn't using and went home to go to sleep. Unfortunately we had to sleep on the floor again and Audrey was still feeling sick. We knew our time would come. Soon.

Until we get internet and the time to properly upload images, here is a temporary place where you can see just a few of the many pictures we have.

http://s765.photobucket.com/home/joshuashadle

Enjoy!