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After our little Osan adventure we decided it would be best to continue cleaning the still messy house. I decided I would try out the trash bag system so I went out to find where to buy them. I don't remember how I ended up at this street vendor but it seems it was fate. We have found one of the greatest street vendors in the world. Imagine an entire egg (fully cooked) inside a perfectly cooked cornbread muffin. Not only is it an awesome combination by itself but the guy manages to put salt inside the egg at the right place so when you take a bite of the egg you get the perfect amount of salt and then you get the cornbread taste. He gives you three big muffins for only two dollars. Where else in the world would you ever get something this awesome for only two dollars? No where, that's where! Be sure to visit Korea if you want a small taste of heaven.

Aside from the delicious egg muffin things I also brought home some giant trash bags so we can finally clean up the house. In Korea they have a system where you buy trash bags from local stores (one for regular waste and one for food), you organize your trash and then you throw it away at specified locations. You are also required to recycle aluminum, plastic, etc. A lot of work to throw away trash isn't it? Life would be so much easier if they just had dumpsters or trash cans like America and people can just throw things in and let it be. So after I went through the entire house I managed to fill two giant trash bags and one small one for food. Going off of very confusing directions from the land lady I carried the giant load down the road that she pointed to. I eventually found a street corner that had other trash bags on it so I put them down and headed home. Once again I had this feeling that somehow I did it wrong so I made sure I wasn't followed or spotted and rushed home. Maybe I'm just being paranoid but I'm always worried about Koreans yelling at me because I don't know their trash system. If they would fix it so it would be easier maybe I wouldn't have to worry so much about this whole "Where to throw away your garbage" thing. You hear that, Korea? Cater to me!

After doing a deep cleaning of the house we finally managed to make the house start to look like a place where someone would want to live. We assembled the desk and started to set everything up. Our house has finally started to come together (sort of).

The following Monday it was another school day. I really do enjoy teaching. Maybe one post I'll go into details about what/how I teach, but not this time. Audrey got to go to the medical clinic today because she started feeling better. I headed over to Suwon to the department of immigration in an attempt to get my registration card (I got my medical results back - healthy!). I'll start with Audrey really quick. Ms. Kim was nice enough to take Audrey over to the same hospital and help her through like she helped me. The funny thing was the doctors gave her more exams that I had to go through. They checked her teeth (she claims she got a splinter in her tongue because of their tongue depressor) and checked other things that I didn't have to worry about. For some reason they only check half of the patients fully because there was another teacher who had as many tests as Audrey while there was another that had the few that I had. The problem came about when Audrey had to go upstairs to get her blood drawn. I knew that she wasn't looking forward to it so I tried to calm her down saying that I didn't even feel it so it'll be okay. I warned Ms. Kim that she has low iron so she has had trouble getting blood drawn in the past. I don't think she understood fully until they finally took Audrey's blood. Apparently she said she felt every second of it (and it lasted a million years to her) and afterwords when she was leaving she started to get dizzy and had to sit down. Ms. Kim was really worried but after a few moments she got to the car and they went back to my school. Audrey might be able to fill in more details than I can as she was the person who was there.

As for Suwon, I did my last class and walked as fast as possible to the train station (the place closes at 6PM and it was already 2PM). I managed to hop onto a train, grabbed a taxi and made it there by about 3:20PM. Unfortunately that was where the "easy" ended. Since it was just me I had no idea where to go or what to do. I waited in front of an information desk for about five minutes while the guy talked on the phone. Luckily another white guy with his co-teacher came and walked past him so I sneakily followed them. They went into the wrong room and I asked an attendant and she pointed me in the right direction. I went into a small room and started filling out the form. With the help of another attendant I managed to fill out most of it (I was missing some information because I didn't know I needed it but luckily I was able to retrieve it off of a computer nearby). At one point I gave up and asked the other white guy and his co-teacher what I needed to do and how to get a number. She was nice enough to help me fill out the form, show me how to buy a stamp (proof of payment) and grabbed me a number. I talked with him a little and thanked both of them for their help. When my number was finally called I got to the front and with a little confusion I learned that I had to wait 15 days until I would get my card. Keep in mind this card allows me to get a bank account, internet and phones (later I would learn I also wouldn't be able to get paid without a bank account). I headed home with the grim news that we would have to survive another 15 days without any modern conveniences or extra money.

On my way back I figured Audrey would have some trouble with the blood drawing so I went by that street vendor I mentioned earlier and got her some egg muffins. She came home about 10 minutes after I got back and was quite happy to have some tasty food.

Not much happened for the rest of the day as we spent time relaxing and organizing our thoughts.

On Tuesday I got to meet with the principle and it was a very good meeting. He basically requested that I teach practical English and that his students were good at writing but not speaking; this happened to be exactly what I have been telling every other teacher here and what I based my lesson plans on. It was nice to know that I was teaching the right thing. I also saw another few kids get hit today but, as I mentioned before, it was perfectly fine. The teacher just seemed to be going through the motions of it and didn't really seem like he wanted to actually do it. The intensity was nothing compared to before so I didn't even do a double take when I saw this and just kept going with my day. The kids even came up to the teacher after and seemed to be friendly. I have seen this happen multiple times where a student gets hit lightly, shrugs it off and continues talking with the teacher (it seems they knew they did something wrong).

While I am on the thought of physical punishment I want to talk about something rather interesting here. In Korea it is okay for teachers to touch their students in familiar ways (unlike in the States where it is forbidden to even stop another kid from punching another kid by holding his arms). I believe this allows teachers to not only be more effective (let's say what I mentioned last sentence happened in Korea) but also to be closer to their students. Many teachers will playfully punch or shove their students (lightly of course) if they say something snarky (much like one would to his or her friends). I have only seen the female teachers do this but it kind of makes me happy that everyone is able to function not just as teacher and student but also as a friend on a small level. Something utterly hilarious to me is I have even seen some female teachers smack some male students on the butt playfully. I almost burst out laughing when I first saw this because it was utterly ridiculous to see. It seems that most things here are so much more innocent that they ever could be in the United States. If a teacher smacks a kid on the butt it usually means something sexual and that is obviously a big no-no. But here it is just another gesture that one does like holding someone's hand or tapping them on the shoulder to get out of their way. It is innocent and playful. I also find older women doing things like that super funny because you just don't normally see that very often (if you are reading this David I am thinking of that one story you told me with the winking). Of course I am not endorsing this kind of behavior going to the States but I am happy that I am in a place where I can stop a kid from hurting another kid (if the above situation ever arises).

A few other awesome things happened today: I got three packages full of goodies, I learned that we only owe Verizon $20 instead of $230 and we are now done with them and I learned that my students love seeing old pictures of me. I showed them a picture of me with long hair from college and they didn't believe it was me. Some students asked why I cut it, others said I look better with short hair. My favorite quote is one kid called me a "pashionista"-aka-"fashionista" (there is no 'f' sound in Korean) which meant I was very fashionable. I guess this is a real term in Korea because Audrey's kids called her this way before one of mine mentioned it to me. Another funny moment today was when I had all my kids say the daily tongue twister out loud. When I got to one student he said, "Start?" so I said, "Start." and he excitedly said, "Okay!" It was really funny. I hope that my future students in America can put a smile on my face as easily as these kids can.

The second post of the day is done. Soon enough, soon enough.