12 Things You Need To Know About Native Teacher Apartments In Korea

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12 Things You Need To Know About Native Teacher Apartments In Korea


Click to follow the link for advice, tips, and some pictures of my first Native Teacher Apartment in Korea.

January 2012 Update

So, I know I have been pretty quiet on the blog front for a while, it has been a really busy few months! Excuses aside I figured it was time to give you all an update on what I have been up to!

A few months back now I finished my GEPIK contract (thankfully!) and started working at a Hagwon / Private School in Byeongjeom.  Byeongjeom is not to far from where I was in Osan so it was pretty easy to settle in.  I moved into a new apartment and I was excited to start working - it had been a bit of a rough exit from my last school with a few broken promises and some fairly average treatment - but after meeting my Hagwon directors I was fairly certain it would be different here.  The differences are fairly unbelievable, my co-teachers are lovely, helpful and super friendly.  The majority of the students really want to learn and are polite and helpful. Then, of course, there are my wonderful hours... I work from 1pm till 7:30pm Monday to Friday which means I get to sleep in every day but everything is still open when I finish.  All in all I am so glad I made the change - and many thanks to Sonya (the previous native teacher at my Hagwon) who gave me confidence in my new employers and made the hand over process so easy!

Korean Cultural Customs

Things to remember, things to do and things to avoid doing while in Korea!

Take your shoes off!
It is disrespectful to enter someone’s home with your shoes on. In Korea they sit on the floor to eat and then roll out a sleeping mat onto the floor to sleep so it is important to keep the floor clean. Many Korean’s view westerners as backwards for keeping our shoes on in the house and I have actually seen some of Korean colleagues wrinkle their noses with disgust at the thought of sitting on carpet – especially carpet we have walked on with our outdoor shoes on!
For foreigners in Korea there are three things to remember:

- Take off your shoes when entering someone’s home
- Don’t try to tell Korean’s it’s ok for them to leave their shoes on
- Keep your floor clean!

My student's are tired!

A substantial amount of research has been done into how much sleep humans need to be healthy. Sleep is crucial to our health as it is the time that allows us to rest and regenerate and gives our bodies time to deal with damage our system has sustained during the day. It has also been suggested that sleep is important because it allows us to dream and therefore lets our subconscious deal with and rationalize the events of the day. So sleep maintains or physical and psychological well-being.

Girl's Necessities

I am writing this because sometimes it can be awkward to ask your co-teacher these questions... especially if your co-teacher is male, or if you live somewhere outside of the main cities.

These are the basics that every girl needs to know...

The list below includes;

Shampoo & ConditionerDeodorant

Hair Removal Products

Birth Control

That time of the month

ToothpasteUnderwear

Fake Tan

Perfume

Make-up

Handbag's & Shoes

Things you can get here that SHOULD be made available at home

What Your Blood Type Means In Korea

Don't be surprised if you are asked what blood type you are when you are in Korea - they consider it a normal question - so normal in fact that it appears on some job application forms! If you are someone like me this question can prove to be a bit of a problem because I have absolutely no idea what blood type I am. The most interesting thing about being asked this question is that it does not, as I would have thought, have anything to do with you health or donating blood. Actually in Korea they believe that blood type dictates personality type.

We're off to South Africa! Cape Town here we come!

It's finally here! We have been counting down for at least the last 18 weeks and finally the day has arrived! I am finishing off my last day of Summer English Camp this morning and at mid-day I am officially on my way home to finish the packing process before we head off to the airport!

We are going half way across the world! Our first flight, approximately 11 hours, takes us from Seoul to Dubai where we have a four hour wait, followed by another 11 hour flight from Dubai to Cape Town. It's a loooooong way but I can say happily we are travelling with Emirates rather than South African Airlines so it should be a more pleasant experience!

The flight departs at 11:55pm so with buses etc we will be leaving our apartment much earlier than that....and we found out a while ago that my old co-teacher is on a flight that departs 5 minutes before ours so we will meet up with her for a coffee at the airport!

All that's left now is to finish today's classes....Today my students are working on their "Photo scavenger hunt" which is a brilliant ploy to get the students out of the classroom for a few hours! I have varied the list slightly from the one I ran over winter camp but the general idea is the same... I have included things like;

Take a photo of:

A team-mate in a display window as part of the display	10
You with the largest stuffed animal you can find	7
Video/ picture of the group singing in a store	10
Your group posing a scene from a Disney / Animated movie	9
Team playing air guitar	6
Something / someone that looks evil	6
Something out of place	8
A team member with someone giving them “bunny ears”	6

The teams get points for the photo's that they manage to successfully take - which tests their English comprehension skills - but also allows them to go a bit crazy, laugh a lot, and get some fresh air! The students have also promised to e-mail me the photo's they take so I can put them up...they should be hilarious so I am looking forward to that!

While the students have been out and about doing this I have been organising travel insurance, talking to mum, keeping up with facebook...and updating my blog!

I wanted to make sure my blog was really up to date before we left because I am going to be able to tick a few things off my bucket list when I come back and I am going to have a lot to write about!

Anyway! Best be off! Many things still to do!

Ciao for now!

Trip to the Interactive Art Museum

I had seen so many pictures on the facebook pages of my friends here in Korea where it looked like they were actually involved in a painting somehow and I had to go and check it out. I picked a weekend where I had some free time (those are few and far between!) and started getting organised to head into Seoul... then I realised I didn't know where we were going... Special mention in this post goes to the lovely Rosie for providing some last minute directions (also because this time they were really good directions...this time...lol)!

 We jumped on the subway and headed for Sindorim station and found the Interactive Art Museum without any problems... finding the ticket office around the corner from it and then the right door to get in was a little challenging but even though they had very little English the people working there were happy to help. It was such a cool thing to go to, like a large winding series of rooms, full of the most amazing 3D paintings that you could interact with. It was also amazing to see the large number of people going through it and how no-one seemed to get stressed, everyone just waited for their turn, and patiently! I have had a lot of fun playing with the photo's since then so I have attached a bunch of them below. Definitely a fun day!

Butterfingers & Dr Fish

Butterfingers All I have to say is wow! Having been in South Korea for around 8 months now there are a few things that I frequently crave - a lot of which I can cook for myself with ingredients available from stores like Homeplus - but there are some things you just want to be able to have cooked for you...the way you like them! The butterfingers menu is impressive... they serve the most amazing buttermilk pancakes but you can also get Waffles, Bacon and Eggs, breakfast sausage, fried potatoes, french toast etc etc etc. There is also a massive selection of sweet pancakes, waffles and ice creams. It's not the cheapest restaurant around, though you can expect that with most places that serve Western Food, it's also not ridiculously expensive and the meals are huge. My friend and I shared 1 big breakfast and added an extra two pancakes (coz they were too good and we were being greedy) and we were both stuffed for hours afterward. Definitely worth a visit and they are open from 7am to 3am so there is plenty of time to get there! Directions: Get to Gangnam Station on the subway and look for exit six which will take you up to street level. Walk in a straight line from the top of the subway stairs till you reach the Body Shop at the first corner and then turn left. Butterfingers will be on your left on the second block, though the blocks are small in this area so you should see it just after you round the corner, it's just after the Burger King. Dr Fish Cafe Another awesome experience! Though it's a little difficult to find on the second floor of a massive building in Gangnam it is well worth he trip! It costs about 2,000won ( roughly $2) although you have to buy a cup of coffee so you are looking at about 7,000won in total...the coffee is fabulous so I had no complaints! You are also given a tray with some butter and jam and they have a station in the middle of the cafe where you can help yourself to as much fresh bread or toast as you can eat. You can choose to have your coffee before or after your Dr. Fish session. When you are ready you walk up to a little raised area right by the window where there is lots of natural light and one of the assistants directs you to take off your shoes and socks and put your feet down into a wooden sink where he hoses them down to make sure you don't contaminate the fish water. Then you have a choice of two different tanks, on with small fish, and the other with rather large fish. You sit down and drop your feet into the tank where the fish start to eat the dead skin off whatever skin is submerged in the water. It tickles for a while with the little ones then it just starts to feel like your skin is tingling. I didn't like the bigger fish because I could actually feel them eating me and I found it a little creepy. A little background: Doctor fish is the name given to two species of fish, Garra rufa, and Cyprinion macrostomus. The fish at the cafe in Gangnam are Garra Rufa. They consume the affected and dead areas of the skin leaving the healthy skin to grow - kind of like the way the cleaner fish look after sharks and whales. Directions: Get to Gangnam Station on the subway and look for exit six which will take you up to street level. Walk in a straight line from the top of the subway stairs till you can see the CGV building on the other side of the road and then you should be practically in front of it. Look up! The cafe is on the second floor but you should be able to see the sign pictured here.

Buddha's Birthday Lantern Parade

Buddha's Birthday was celebrated on May 10th this year (2011). In Korea the birthday of Buddha is celebrated according to the Lunar Calendar so the date changes each year. This day is called 석가탄신일 (Seokga tansinil), meaning "the day of Buddha's birthday". Many temples are decorated with paper Lotus Lanterns for the entire month and some even provide free meals and tea to all visitors on the actual day. This year in Seoul, in an area called Dongdaemun, there was a Lantern Parade which ran from about 7pm through to after 9:30pm - though it wasn't scheduled to run that long! We went into Seoul a little early to run a few errands and have something to eat before the Lantern Parade started. The parade itself was spectacular. It was as though a never ending stream of people were passing us in full costumes, either Hanbok's or otherwise, carrying the most amazing lanterns. The Lanterns were either hand-held, held on a stick that was raised in the air, or giant structures that were carried by a group of people. It was beautiful to watch! Buddhism in Korea Facts: Originally brought to Korea in about 372CE Original religion (Korean Shamanism) and Buddhism blended together. In many Buddhist Temples shrines are set aside for Sanshin (the Mountain Spirit), Toksong (the Recluse) and Chilsong (the Spirit of the Seven Stars, the Big Dipper) who were the three most important spirits in in Korean Shamanism. Neo-Confucian overcame Buddhism during the Joseon Dynasty. Persecution of Buddhism stopped after some Buddhist monks helped to repel Japanese forces at the end of the 16th Century. In 2005 46.5% of the population had "no religion", 22.8% were Buddhist, 18.3% were Protestant, 10.9% Catholic, and only 0.2% followed Confucianism.

My Birthday in Korea! (and Everland!)

Ok, so for those of you who know me, you know that my birthday is early April and I have been really slack (really really slack) about keeping my blog up to date in the last little while. I could blame it on having a crazily busy and fascinating life but really I have just been being lazy - I have had plenty of time and have just been practicing the fine art of procrastination! I am lucky enough to have mum here now, so I knew we could have dinner for my birthday which makes it feel a little more like home, though mum works a late shift so balancing our schedules was interesting! Then I was given a special present... a Kindle! Best present ever! I have been obsessed with the thing since I got it! In Korea it can be rather difficult to get your hands on books in English unless you want to trek all the way into somewhere like Itaewon and even then you can't always get the books that you want. Some bookstores will order them in but an e-reader just makes the whole process easier. When I got to school a couple of the teachers gave me gifts too which was so sweet and I was stunned when even the principal came to visit me with a card written half in Korean and half in English! I had been for dinner the night before with my co-teachers who had gone to all the trouble to get me a cake and really make a fuss. I had arranged with school to finish early that day so that I could make the most of mum's prezzie to me; a massage and facial, before heading home to relax for a while before dinner. That night we met up with mum and had dinner at the fanciest restaurant in Osan, don't laugh, Outback Jack's Steakhouse. I am not kidding! The food there is amazing...totally twisted by the Korean chefs but thoroughly delicious! I was spoiled rotten by mum as well who had arranged Amazon credits so that I could buy books for my kindle! My birthday was on the Friday so on the Saturday Mum and I jumped onto a bus and went to Everland - which is like the Korean version of Disneyland or Dreamworld. It's absolutely huge and beautifully decorated....and swarming with people! Everland averages about 9 million visitors a year and has a zoo and a water park as well as rides and a few other attractions. Highlights of Everland for me; Hurricane (a spinning up and down ride) Feeding the budgies in the "Africa" exhibit

The big tree that looked like what I always imagined a bunch of fairies would live in

All the couples walking around in matching fluffy ears

The completely insane Korean women that were there in stiletto heels The gorgeous flowers / spring tulip festival Trying to work out if these little fluffy animals were actually skunks Lowlights: Standing in massive lines for the rides

The "Haunted house - laser gun" ride... worst ride ever. Feeling a bit sorry for the animals in the zoo... they dont get the space that we are used to seeing the animals in at the zoo's in places like Australia. We had a fantastic day jumping on rides and looking around - the lines were a bit of a bummer but it still didn't get us down - and we were completely exhausted by the end of the day! It was a perfect birthday...and birthday weekend! Thanks to all my gorgeous friends and family for the beautiful messages on facebook and the text messages. Thanks also to my mum for spoiling me rotten!

The reality of co-teaching

I have heard good and bad things from my fellow native teachers and in fact I have had both good and bad experiences myself with co-teaching. I work at a very large school (1500 students) and so I have 5 co-teachers that I work with in different classes throughout the week. A few of my colleagues only have 1 or 2 co-teachers that they work with and from what I can gather the experience differs vastly depending on who your co-teacher is and what their attitude is toward your being there to teach. There seems to be a lot of bad reviews on the internet so let me start with the good stuff. The co-teacher I had when I first arrived as my "main co-teacher", in other words the teacher directly responsible for me, was fantastic to work with. She was organised and made sure that I got to attend all sorts of interestign programs...and wait for it... actually gave me warning about upcoming events and things I needed to do (this is surprisingly rare in Korea). She was considered to be a very strict teacher but all of the students loved her because she was fun and she really cared about them and what they were doing / achieving in class. We developed a great routine, I would do the lesson planning but she took a very active part in the lesson, questioning the students in Korean about what I had said in English and asking the kids to answer her in English. My lessons with her always felt much more in depth and like the students learned a lot more. We worked well together and we also worked well outside of class and developed a friendship. A great experience co-teaching. While this is not always the case there are wonderful co-teachers out there so do not be put off by all the bad reviews on the internet! Because I have 5 co-teachers each class is dramatically different, a few co-teachers are easy to work with, one co-teacher barely speak however the students are very advanced (compared to the rest of the school) and I feel like they probably learn more from me than many of the other classes anyway. I should also mention I am a qualified teacher and I am confident standing up in front of a class so having to manage the class and discipline does not worry me as it might worry some people...I also generally find that bribing the students with video's helps as they then start yelling at each other to be quiet! Putting it delicately I have a few classes where I have a little difficulty.... where it is clear the teacher does not like the students, does not want to be there, and so consequently the students are a nightmare. With this teacher I am constantly cut off mid sentence and frequently find myself wondering why I am even there when the attitude is that I am more trouble than I am worth. But again, this is not the case with all co-teachers! I have also had, and heard about, issues with discipline and native teachers feeling like they do not receive any support when disciplining students. In some cases the students are aware that you have very little authority and so do not offer the respect that they give to their other teachers. I have also heard a few horror stories...but I am not going to include those as you don't have to search to hard to find them on the net! Now to the "reality" side... The contract really should be re-written so we know what we are in for... it says "assistant teacher" which is why we are paid less than Korean teachers, though we do the majority if not all of the lesson planning, the majority of the classroom management and discipline and in most cases the majority of the speaking and actual teaching. It really works the other way around. Co-teaching can be fun when you work together as a team, sometimes you must expect to act as though you are teaching alone, and sometimes you may actually teach very little...it depends on the person you are teaching with, the day, their mood, the mood of the students etc etc. To be a good co-teacher you must be flexible! If it is really going to work the way it is supposed to then you must also be really comfortable with your co-teacher and both approach it as though you are working together as a team. Building some (any) kid of relationship with your Korean teacher will help somewhat! To anybody reading this...if you have had good or bad experiences co-teaching please feel free to post a comment below because I would be really interested to hear some other stories! (and suggestions perhaps on how to manage difficult co-teachers!)

Opening Hours

Generally the opening hours are from 9am to 8pm, for normal shops, bigger chain stores like E-mart and Lotte Mart are open from 10am till mid-night - which is very convenient if you suddenly need more shampoo or a hammer at quarter to 12! Though even in Osan on weeknights there seem to be a large number of stores that are still open at 10pm. From my experiences it would seem the majority of restaurants still serve till around 10 or 10:30pm though this may be later in Seoul as it is much busier than little Osan! There are even a number of restaurants that are open 24 hours meaning that if you have had a little too much to drink or are getting in from a late flight and desperately need that fix of Galbi at 3am...you can have it! A large majority of the convenience stores are open 24 hours, 7 days, and the people who do the night shifts seem to be remarkably cheerful! Convenience stores are also everywhere, 2 or 3 to a street, and on every corner (again I am referring to the area from Osan in towards Seoul I am sure there are places in Korea where they are hard to find). They sell a very random selection of items, offer facilities to re-charge your T-money public transport card, and a good friend mentioned that they will even re-charge your cell phone battery for less than 1 Aussie dollar. Basically everything here is geared around people that work long hours, my lovely co-teacher, Yun, once said to me that she liked that she finished work at 6 or 7pm and she could still have a life after work. Given a lot of people here work till 9 or 10pm then it makes sense that things would be open later!

Winter Camp January 2011

Technically I had two weeks of Winter camp but the first week they designated as "extra conversation classes" whereas the second week was officially called winter camp. Winter camp is a bit of a misleading name as well, it really just means the kids come to school each morning to have extra lessons, its not like they get to go anywhere. I was very lucky in that I was given free reign to do whatever i wanted to do in terms of lessons and activities, they just asked for a rough plan of what I wanted a few weeks before, so they could work out a budget for resources etc. I have friends who were allocated up to 4 weeks of winter camp and were only allowed to work directly from the text on theory - Rosie I feel for you! Either way below is a brief description of the activities I ran for my "official" winter camp! Monday: I had a last minute change of plans for Monday's lesson - based largely on the fact that I bought a video camera on the weekend - and I could inally put into action something I had been thinking about for a while - provided that I had enough students! I had seen this thing on youtube where an English teacher over here had done the Daft Punk song "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" with his students by writing words and parts of words on sheets of cardboard and holding them up in time to the music. An absolutely brilliant idea...so in the spirit of sharing I decided to immitate (imitation being the highest form of flattery) and I ran the same activity with my class. I had two groups on the monday, so the first group made the cards and then we practiced for a bit and with the second group we just practiced and had a test run - with a few words missing. The next Day I asked all the students to come at the one time so that we could video it and get it right. Tuesday: All the students arrived early and we had a few practice runs and then video'd - twice to be on the safe side. I told the students I would take it home and edit it and then show them the finished product the next day. After that we ran what the Korean teachers referred to as a cooking class - which was really just making sandwhiches. I did teach them a bit of vocabualry before they started eating and they seemed to really enjoy the whole activity. I was stunned to discover that half of them had never had nutella! It is easily available at E-mart but some of the kids had never tried it! As a reward at the end of the class I let them watch a bit of a movie while they ate their sandwhiches - they bounced out of the class at the end seeming to have really enjoyed themselves. (I have included some footage in the video at the bottom of this post of this performance and below that you can also find the youtube link to the full performance) Wednesday: I ran a sewing class - I knew this would be more for the girls than the boys but I figured I was doing a sports day on the Thursday so I had to balance it out a little. I taught them basic backstitch and then printed pictures off the internet for them to trace onto the fabric so they could stitch them with pretty colours. The girls seemed to pick it up really quickly and I was surprised to see that even the boys were giving it a go and were really focused. They all achieved quite a lot within the class and by the end they were all stitching away happily - even the instructions hadnt seemed to hard to get across but I guess thats because it was really more "show" than "tell". It also happened to be Australia Day... so I wore a pink Kangaroo costume to school, wrote a whole lot of facts about Australia on the board and bombarded the kids with Australian music - everything from Slim Dusty's "Waltzing Mathilda" to the National Anthem to "We are Australian", "I still call Australia home", and "Land Down Under"...hehe - it was pretty fun actually! Thursday: Sports day - I taught the students how to play netball. For the American's among my friends Netball is kind of like basketball except that once the ball is in your possession you cannot move your feet - no stepping - if you want to bounce the ball you may only do so once and when you are passing to someone else - and there are defined areas that each player is allowed to go in. Similar concept though and the kids were all very familiar with basketball so they picked it up pretty quickly. Again they seemed so keen to learna nd get stuck into it. I ran a bit of a skills class in the morning that the girls really seemed to enjoy but when it came to actually playing a game (I had enough students) the girls werent too keen...possibly because the boys play hard! They had so much fun with the lesson it was obvious and at points they had me laughing till I was in tears. I was a bit concerned when one of the boys had his glasses broken when an errant ball hit him in the face - but he really didnt seem to concerned... and kept playing without the glasses! Friday: This was the final day so I had put together a video the night before which had clips of the things they had done and photo's that I had taken throughout the week which I intended to show them before they left. But the lesson I had planned was probably the best of the week - special mention goes to Meresa who gave me the idea after running it with her class! I checked with my co-teacher the day before that it would be alright if they left school grounds, which it was, the rules are a little different here in Korea! I sent them on a "photo scavenger hunt" the basic idea being that I gave them a list of things they had to find or do and they had to take photos. Each item on the list was allocated a certain number of points and the team with the most points when they came back at 11:30am won the game and got a prize. (I will attach the list below!) At 11:30am all the teams came back and were eagerly showing me their hilarious photos and working out how many points they had earned. I awarded prizes and then the vice-principal came in to give a little speech. I decided to show the students the video I had made so the vice-principal could see it too and gave them all a chocolate biscuit cake thing to munch on while they were watching it. The vice-principal seemed very impressed and after a very short speech he departed. My favourite co-teacher was still there to help out because I told her that I wanted to give the students a quick survey to do before they left for the week. It just had basic questions like what did you like, what didnt you like, what would you have liked to have done etc. But I wanted to students to be clear on what I was asking - or to write in Korean if they had something they really wanted to say. That done I asked them all to thank my co-teacher (in english) for all the hard work she had done behind the scenes of organising and getting the resources I needed etc. which made her smile! Then the two of us went through the survey responses - overall they seemed really happy with the camp (there were no names so they could say anything they wanted!) and about half of them, without talking to each other, said they would like summer camp to be 1 night and 2 days - they want to sleep at the school! I told my co-teacher I was happy with that instead of doing 5 mornings... It will exceed my teaching hours for the week I'm sure but I think it could make summer camp loads of fun! Over-all it was a great week - I had a lot of fun - the kids seemed to have a lot of fun - and the school was really happy with me...so happy they gave me an extra day and a half of as "self study time" at home over lunar new year! The Great Photo Scavenger Hunt Take a photo of:

A group photo (more than 3 people) A very relaxing place The biggest tree The funniest thing you can find Something that begins with the letter “M” Do exactly what the sign says (any sign can work) An unusual perspective -- could be everyone's shoes, or the just top of their heads Make yourselves appear really small Picture with an animal (the more unusual the better) Catalog pose Can you find us? Having fun on a Swing Set Harry Potter Imitate the Beatles crossing a crosswalk (I had a photo here) Jumping in the air (must be off ground) making fire by rubbing sticks together Footprint in the snow A pizza sign Teammate doing a limbo Teammate dancing A teacher (not Teacher Mia) The vice-principal You & the vice principal together Someone who works at McDonalds A bus Take a picture with a mannequin A bicycle A sports ball Someone younger than you An English sign (not at school) A taxi A mop Making an English word with your bodies Take a picture of another team’s member taking a picture of you Acting 3 different emotions Take a picture with one of the tester ladies at E-mart Take a picture of a Hagwon A high-school student A chocolate bar A phone An icicle Something pink Green grass Someone drinking coffee

If you would like to see the students full performance of the Daft Punk Song "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" please click here too be taken to the youtube video.

Korean Apartments

When teaching in Korea (public or private schools) the contract will most likely include accommodation which is often referred to as single furnished housing. What you get depends a lot on your employer. Generally what is provided is a studio apartment, they vary greatly in size, and in condition. My apartment, for example, could charitably be referred to as a shoebox with a bathroom. It is so small that I cannot even fit a couch or a double bed, yet at the same time it also has almost everything I need, there is a bed, a desk and chair, a large fridge (my fridge is fairly impressive compared to others I have seen), a cupboard, a very small kitchen, and a very small bathroom. Notable exceptions are the lack of oven and lack of a proper shower. It is very difficult to get used to not having an oven, especially if you like to cook, though I am told you can pick up a toaster over relatively cheaply. I am completely confused by the fact that there are no power points in my kitchen... I have to put my toaster on my computer desk... The lack of a proper shower is harder to deal with, quite a few of the other teachers I know here managed to score an apartment with a proper shower, but my bathroom is a lot more like what you would find in the average Korean apartment. When I say proper shower what I mean is a shower with a shower curtain at least, or a shower that is separate from the rest f the bathroom. What you get in Korea is a shower-head that hangs over the basin, the entire bathroom gets wet, in most apartments the toilet also get soaked, and I even have some friends who have to cover the toilet roll every time they take a shower. It is probably the biggest downside of Korean apartments! On the other hand I have an exceedingly efficient Air conditioner, and all apartments in Korea have in floor heating, which could possibly be the best invention of all time - especially when it is -20 degrees Celsius outside! There are little things that you learn to remember after you have been here for a while in regard to heating etc. For example, you have to turn the heating on so you have hot water every time you want to have a shower or do the dishes. Some apartments also have a switch that you have to turn on to get the gas working on the gas hobs in the kitchen...I am lazy and use mine a few times a day so I tend to just leave it on now. I have also heard that what is in your apartment varies depending on your school and who was living in the apartment before hand. In my apartment I had a few bits and bobs in terms of plates and cutlery, my co-teacher had bought me a small frying pan, a large frying pan and two new pots, as well as a new duvet, sheets and a pillow. There were two plastic cups (which I detest so I bought glasses the first day) and a brand new toaster and microwave. The teacher who had been in the apartment before me had left behind some computer speakers, a phone charger, some bits from a camera and bike lock...most of which is in a bag in the cupboard because I figure they will get passed on again after I leave and they may find it useful! I have spent a fair bit decorating and adding to my apartment since I got here but again it will all be useful to me when I move on, or it will get left for the next person, its a sharing and caring kind of thing. So the apartment itself is included in your contract...you are, however, responsible for all the bills, apartment maintenance fee and a bond (also called key money) of 900,000 won which is take out of your first 3 months salary. The maintenance fee is not huge, I pay 50,000 on per month, and the bills vary a little from apartment to apartment but they are monthly and shouldn't average over about 100,000 won. Given that the lowest salary offered through GEPIK is 2 million won, it is more than manageable! The bond you get back at the end of the contract provided that there has been no damage done to the apartment. The location is generally pretty good, within 5 or 10 minutes walk from your school, though there are a few people here I know who have decided to live further away from their school so that they are not in such remote areas or closer to convenient things such as E-mart and Lotte-mart. While I have heard / seen pictures of the occasional horror story, the apartments I have seen here are pretty decent and the schools seem to be reasonably keen to keep you happy and so a fairly flexible - the key seems to be that if you aren't happy - tell them!

Desk Warming

What is Desk Warming?

To put it simply it means that when the students are away on school holiday, and the school is closed, many native English teachers are still required to come to school and sit at their desks. You are generally required to be there for the same number of hours that would be at school normally, for some that is 9-5, for others that is 8:30-4:30.

On the positive side you have access to a computer and the internet but there are no students to teach and there is only so much preparation that you can do. Many teachers like to sit and watch movies or streamed television and facebook becomes your best friend! Some people alos use this time to study - online courses are a great idea - and there is plenty of down-time the rest of the year so you will never feel under pressure!

This is not a formal policy so at some schools they will allow the teachers to have the time at home but for other teachers, like myself, we are required to be at school for every minute of our contracted hours.

Most of the Korean teachers get most or all of this time off, which is fair when you think about the hours that they put in during the rest of the year, and how hard they are working all the time. Really when you think about it desk warming is just getting paid to sit and do whatever you want for 8 hours a day... but I would still rather be at school where they keep paying me and let me spend the time "working" from home!

How Long Do You have to Desk Warm For?

Again this really depends on your school. Winter holidays are the longest running from the end of December through until February. Some schools will run a "winter camp" during this time, which is really just extra classes still held at school, but I believe those are voluntary and the parent have to pay extra for that so sometimes class numbers can be low.

Of the teachers I know the winter camp length seems to vary from 1 week right up to 4 weeks and the numbers of hours taught per day vary as well. The other variable is your annual leave time. You get 20 days of holiday per 12 month contract and you can divide that between Summer and Winter Holidays. The days where you are not teaching winter camp and where you are not on annual leave will be desk Warming days.

My schedule this year is a good example of this. The students left school on the 28th of December and I warmed my desk on the 29th and 30th. I then had 5 days of annual leave. After that a week of desk warming, followed by 2 weeks of winter camp and then another week of desk warming. Then I am fairly certain we have Chinese New Year holidays (3 days of public holiday plus weekend) and soon after that 2 weeks of spring vacation which I am assuming I will be desk warming during as well.

Can't complain too much though...I am amusing myself and the money is really good!

Thursday December 2nd 2010

Last Wednesday to Friday I attended the GEPIK (Gyeonggi Province English Program in Korea) Winter Orientation. It was basically a three day, 2 night conference, where they talked about everything from classroom management to things to know about living and working in Korea. Given this is the internet I am not going to spend too much time deconstructing the program and what I though of it...instead I thought I would just mention some of the fun parts! I think the best part was getting to meet a whole lot of other people from similar areas, when I say people I mean foreigners, and when I say similar areas we may be in the same province but you can travel for 3-4 hours and still be in the same province!

There were a few people though who are a lot of fun, and through facebook it will be easy to keep in touch! It was also good to be able to share the different experiences with co-teachers etc. and what we are all required to do by the school. Some people have to submit full lesson plans a week in advance, and teach from the text book, while other literally just show up to class and don't have to prepare anything. I think I have the happy medium as far as that is concerned - I don't have to worry about lesson plans and I don't have to teach from the textbook - they just show up to my classroom (I see each class group once per week) and they expect me to be prepared and ready to go which I always am!

 Was really interesting to hear some of the stories about other people's co-teachers as well and what they go through, most people only seem to have 1 or 2 co-teachers (I have 5) but some people seem to have really bad experiences, or difficult people they have to work with. I guess I have 1 teacher who is a little up and down (ok...a lot up and down) but I also have a couple who are awesome to work with. I am also really happy with the area I am in, a lot happier after speaking with the other teachers, some of whom are stranded out in the middle of the countryside with no big shops or other foreigners in sight. I can see the appeal of being left alone on occasion, but I think it would get very lonely, and very tiring never being able to speak English at a normal speed!

 One of the really interesting things that was talked about a lot, and I had heard it before the Orientation, was how strange it was being surrounded by other foreigners. It almost gets to be too much, you are so used to never really understanding what is being said and being able to just tune out and be in your own little world, so to all of a sudden be surrounded by people when you can understand what they are saying gets very noisy! There were many times when you would see people (especially those who had been here for a long time) just wander away from the group a bit and stare off into space, or disappear up to their rooms for some quiet time.

I think that maybe this life makes you a little too accustomed to having your own space and being left alone - I know that by the end of the three days I was completely drained and just wanted to hide from the world and not talk to anyone! Other than talking to people I also really enjoyed the calligraphy class that I attended, it was run by the loveliest older lady, who was very encouraging even though she couldnt speak a word of english! She had an assistant to help translate if it was needed, but you could figure out what she was saying most of the time from her expressions and body language. She wrote a few things on the board for us to copy down and then you could make special requests if you wanted her to write something specific so that you could copy it...it was so much fun! All that was missing really was music, a few of us talked about the fact that we needed some nice calming, meditation-type music!

The opening ceremony was also pretty cool, with some traditional dance done by guys with long ribbons attached to their hats...and wow, the things they could do with those ribbons! (Wish I had taken photos of that!) There was also one particularly good session on classroom management... I did a whole semester on classroom management at uni and this guy summed it up better in an hour (my uni was a joke...and this guys was great...lol.) he even through some teaching terminology in there which made me feel very knowledgeable! Friday night was fairly quiet, a nice dinner, and a reasonably early night!

From memory Saturday was pretty quiet as well - during the day anyway! Saturday night we headed into Gangnam in Seoul, started with Burger King (Hungry Jacks) for dinner, which is always thrilling because the burgers are quality and the closest Burger King to me is Suwon which is quite a distance to go for a burger! After the burger we made a quick stop at Krispy cream for a doughnut and coffee (this is why I am getting fat!) and then headed on to the Hippy Bar... The Hippy Bar (which may or may not have an actual name) was definitely an experience! We smoked apple tobacco through a hookah and drank buckets of singapore slings...very very strong buckets, they were not shy at all about the alcohol!

For the first little while we were there, there was a really terrible band playing, but fortunately they finished after about 30 mins! Then the place felt a lot more chilled out - and it's a hippy bar right, it's supposed to be chilled out! It was Korean style in the fact that all the tables were low to the ground, you sat on cushions, you had to take your shoes off when you come in... oh and one of the best things about Korea?? When you go into a place where you must sit on the floor they provide little blankets for the women so that if you are wearing a skirt nothing is visible! Brilliant!

So we stayed at the hippy bar for quite a while, lounging around on the floor, feeling very much like hippies...then tried to catch the bus back to Suwon. Missed the bus by about 2 minutes... enjoyed some Korean street food, and hopped in a taxi, bound for the No rae bang (singing room) at about 1am...yes they are still open and they still let you in! At the no rae bang we all sang till we were hoarse (I had a go at "the real slim shady" which left me out of breath but I was feeling pretty proud of!) and then kept singing! I really feel for the people who run those things because they sit out the front and you can hear like a medley of all the atrocious singing from all the different individual rooms - surely they would think about investing in better sound-proofing just to protect their sanity?!

We almost literally stumbled out of the no rae bang at 3ish... so slept around 4 / 4:30ish...and then got up at 8 am to get organised for some shopping in the technology district! Again we started at Suwon, and caught the regular train out to Yongsan. Wow! This place was incredible... and I spent a small fortune! Mostl due to the fact that I bought a new phone, some really nice snow boots, and a PS3 with 2 games and an extra controller etc... Though I have to say for those of you that know about this stuff... I got the PS3 console, extra controller, COD black Ops, the new Grand Turismo and an HD cable for about $390...hehe...not bad huh?! I love my new phone too...seriously cute and substantially bigger than the little stone age thing I was using before! And I really will need the snow boots... especially because it snowed that night! 

That's right! My first snow in Korea! The first time I have seen snow in about 8 years! I was so excited that I stuck my head out the window of my fourth floor apartment and watched it fall for about 20 minutes, by which time I realised that my apartment was freezing and I couldn't feel my fingers or my nose...oops! Worth it though! I have been really disappointed that it hasnt snowed since then... I keep hoping! But it is not due to snow again till next week, either way I took photo's of the snow the next morning as evidence that it really happened, and I was thrilled when the snow was still there at mid-day the next day - which just goes to show how freezing it is here! Fortunately this morning I figured out how to turn the heating on in my classroom - it is controlled by a central switch in the main office - but when they turn it on I still have to turn it on in my classroom to get it to work!
Sunday by the time I got home I was positively exhausted... played my new PS3 for less than 30 minutes and then went to sleep! I almost forgot special mentions for the week! Karel and Jaco for getting a score of 100% at the No Rae Bang on a bee gees song! Ashleigh and myself for getting a score of 100% on a Kelly Clarkson song...lol. All of the above for helping me secure my new phone and PS3! Rosie, for being a legend and moving to Osan! Meresa for being hilarious... I will never look at a dove the same way again!

 Fortunately this week has been / is pretty cruisy! The students all have exams, so yesterday, today, and tomorrow I have no class - I just get to sit in my classroom (which is now warm) and do "preparation work"... hehe. I have worked out next weeks classes, and I have spent plenty of quality time on facebook and youtube...and very shortly I may watch an episode or two of Grey's Anatomy (which I have recently become a little addicted to because I have been watching it from the beginning!) so all in all life is pretty good right now... and Friday night I get my fix of Budae jjigae which will make me very happy...and now that Jisan is finally open we can go snowboarding on Sat! Anyway...must go and do some "work"! Totsiens!