Lotte Super and the First Day of School! (aka my Medical Adventure)

Woke up at 5 am, which while certainly better than yesterday’s 2 am debacle, guaranteed a sleepy day ahead. Following a fruitless attempt to go back to sleep, I finished High School Musical 1 and then frittered around with my Korean Language for Dummies book until I realized that it’s just an awful piece of literature. The organizational structure is non-existant – or maybe I just don’t learn the same way most people do. Assuming that most people learn by being inundated with new vocabulary and verb structures in no conceivable order.

Then I was off for my first solo mission in the scary outside world of Pyeongtaek! My goal: buy a kitchen garbage can and frying pan from the Lotte Super Mart – that would be the grocery store. I’m pretty sure it’s a chain store, although the “Super” part is possibly only in Pyeongtaek. I think that “Super” is Pyeongtaek’s motto, or catchphrase, or something. The walk was uneventful, which in fact makes it quite eventful, because it means that I didn’t get lost or get run over at all. Which is a major plus.

Came back to the apartment and tidied up – shocking! I still have to get down to the actual nitty gritty cleaning, but I’ve got all my stuff put away, and more or less organized, as well as acquired most of the basics required for living. Still need proper bedsheets and a pillowcase, but I’ll take my victories where I can get them.

On Sasha’s reccomendation, I purchased some frozen dumplings from the Lotte Mart, which I proceeded to fry in my new pan. My attempts at using the bunsen burner stove were successful, although I didn’t quite manage to cook the dumplings all the way through, so a trip to the microwave was required before they were edible. They were surprisingly good, especially considering that I’m not a huge dumpling fan – if I can figure out how to microwave them without that tedious frying step, I may have found my new go-to food. Although I definitely need to buy me some ramen noodles, which are apparently huge here.

When 2 pm rolled around, I met up with Sasha and Sean and departed for Avalon English Academy! They showed me a couple of the fast food joints in the surrounding area, including a bento-box type place that has Korean food instead of sushi. I have been instructed to try the “bulgogi”, which is apparently some sort of fried beef and is reputedly delicious.

After getting the tour of the school – it’s on the fourth floor of a high rise, and looks very modern, lots of straight lines and lime green – I was told that I would be getting my medical test done today for the “Alien Registration Card” I will need to live and work in Korea. This involved getting into a car with a secretary who spoke zero English, and her brand new assistant who was insanely sweet, but perhaps not as well versed as she could have been in medical terminology.

We drove about half an hour to the Anseong hospital – and by hospital, I mean a weird mix of hospital and clinic, because you can just walk in with a problem and see a doctor almost immediately, but they also have stuff like mammography machines. After some communication fails, we managed to get my form filled out. Thus followed the strangest medical experience to which I have ever been subjected.

First, they took me into a big, kind of shoddy-looking room, and started rambling away in Korean. When they said “Hepatitis?”, I had no idea whether they were asking if I’d had hepatitis, or if I was vaccinated against it, or if anyone in my family had it, or if... etc. Then they went onto the computer for a few minutes, and came up with “Tuberculosis?”, which prompted another round of, “Do you mean, did I have my TB shot? Or have I ever had TB?”

Sasha believes that they were asking if I was vaccinated. My answer was “I don’t know”, and they didn’t seem particularly troubled by it, so I guess whatever answer they wrote down for me was the right one. Then followed a hearing test – which headphone is the obnoxious beeping coming out of – followed by a scale, height measurement, and... get ready... bust measurement. Why would they possibly need to know my bust size? Strange, strange practice.

Then it was off to the “chest xray”, which involved putting on a blue shirt thing that didn’t close, flattening myself against a big plastic sheet, and holding my breath. Nothing too traumatic there. The urine test was worse, because Koreans are fans of the hole-in-the-ground type toilet. Not to mention the bathroom was ridiculously unhygienic. I don’t understand this country sometimes. Most things are completely civilized, and then they have “squatter” toilets. I guess most Koreans prefer squatting to sitting? Hmm...

My quasi-translator was actually really kind, and said the nicest thing to me – “This is my first time doing this, and you made it into a wonderful experience for me”. Well, something like that, but I guess she was just happy I didn’t start yelling when my attempts at communication with the hostpial staff failed miserably. With all the obsession with learning English in Korea, you’d think that doctors would know at least a smattering of English vocab. Apparently not.

Enough about the medical test! Well, the worst part was probably that they made me do it on my very first day of work – although that may have something to do with them wanting to get my “ARC” card as soon as possible. Then I can get a phone and a bank acocunt, so they can pay me! Woo! Back at the school, I got to watch my fellow teachers do their thing – first Sasha for 2 hours, then a 20 minute break for dinner, then Jenna for 2 hours, and then Sean for the last hour.

At first I was kind of freaked out – the ease with which the teachers interact with their students is bewildering. But they have all been teaching for years, so I am going on the assumption that I will develop this repartee with my students as I grow more comfortable with teaching. To quote Sean’s student, a teacher should “smile and be nice”, which sounds like pretty good advice to me. The great part is that we have booklets to work out of, so I don’t have to plan entire lessons from scratch. I guess the teaching part comes from how you get the information across – and how well you can keep your ballistic kids under control, because some of those kids were bouncing off the walls. More the little kids, which will be the ones I’m teaching, so I’d better learn to deal with the insanity sooner than later.

By the time 10:00 rolled around, I was absolutely exhausted. School technically runs to 10:30, but the teachers peace out when the bell rings at 10 pm. What a day! Not at all what I was expecting. At least the medical exam didn’t involve some sort of cavity search – now THAT would have been disturbing. And actually getting to see ESL classes in action was really interesting, because I’ve never actually seen one before, so it was nice that I got to find out what sort of teaching style I’ll be expected to do. It involves a lot of idle chatter and calls of, “English! In English, please!”.

My official start date for actual teaching is Thursday, so I have two more days to soak up all the teaching tips I can manage from Sasha, Jenna, and Sean. Even if I end up being a mediocre teacher, they’re thrilled to have me, because they’ve been working a man down for the last month, which means larger classes and no breaks. Hopefully we’ll never be a man down while I’m around, because I generally enjoy having a break every now and then.