Good gravy, it's been an up and down couple of days. Yesterday morning, I decided to finally watch Harmony, the Korean Sister Act. It was sooooooooooooooo cute. It played me like a fiddle and I cried my face off like 7 times.
Then I went off to the bank, praying that I still had a bank account and that I could somehow figure out how to communicate whatever needed to be done to get me a working account and bank card. I was a bit nervous and when I bopped upstairs with my terrible "sorry, Korean language, a little,*" the woman replied in perfect English. Oh, big city life....you're the best.
* I'm a serious douche-b for not even knowing how to properly say "I'm sorry, I don't speak very much Korean," after living here for a year... >_<
So, good news there, then it was off to the hospital for the round of pokings so that I can work in the country. I really, really suck at peeing in a cup. I don't even understand the trajectory that happened in there. But again, there was NO WAY I could have done my med check by myself last year. Well, besides the fact that I was a bit overstimulated, Eun Ju and I had to run all over the hospital to different buildings and floors and I think I would have just sat on the floor and cried. The Good Kang-An Hospital in Namcheon was easy as pie. There was a desk for foreigners to ask questions, I got directions, and off we started. I bopped around the numbered stations that were all in the same large room. For some reason, my bust was measured and the nurse ran out of tape. That was pretty priceless. It was mind blowing that I was able to do it alone. The nurses were really sheepish about their English, but they'd think a minute and say "oh! urine sample!" SO MUCH ENGLISH. AH, THE CITY.
The big adventure today has been hauling ass back to Jeolla province to see Sujin & Co. and grab my stuffs from Whit and Lindsay's. Soooo late for the first train, grabbed a cab, bought a later train ticket. Then I realized I left the bag containing gifts for Sujin's family and my army bag to haul my shit home IN THE TAXI. So I ran around hoping the ajushi would have left it near the entrance or given it to the ticket people. Then I gave up and decided to get on the train. And stood at the platform as it slowly left (I missed it by about 30 seconds). Well, then I did sit down and cry. For a second. And then got a new ticket and tried to leave my address at the ticket counter. The woman there to me to try lost and found (oh, duh...). It seemed pretty hopeless, but I explained what happened and the man there took me down to a mini police station AND THERE IT WAS! Oh, the dance I did. And now I'm chilling here in Daejeon where I had to change trains. The two KTX lines are like an atari symbol. Busan is the end of the right leg and Naju is about 3/4 of the way down the left leg. So in Daejeon there are 2 train stations on the opposite sides of town and you can swap lines. CRAZY MORNING and it's worked out pretty well, despite looking pretty bleak for a while there (at 7am, mind you). Thank G-d.
Now on to work stuff.
I did get Wednesday off of work! Thank G-d, I needed it. Got in, bought some food and a broom (at the department store with the small box fiasco), passed out, and cleaned.
My first day of teaching was ok. A bit boring as I only had 2 classes, no computer, and none of my drawing stuff, but the classes were AWESOME! The lesson plan were super easy to implement, the students were super smart, eager, and curious, AND there was only 5 or 6 of them per class. BADASS. And my foreign co-worker IS really nice dude in person. We work with 3 Korean teachers (who speak such good English!!! AHHHH!) and they're pretty cute. Although our department is kinda new and they're running their asses off doing a million things to get things proper and would kind rather not do a bunch of translating for us to speak with the director. Adam and I don't really like the arrangement either...they're our co-workers....they don't need to know that my gas wasn't working. But our director doesn't speak English and the "team leader" who was going to help with our logistics quit for some reason. sigh.
Yesterday was not as fun a teaching day. There were missing books, books with lots of Korean (which won't be a problem once we work on translating together, but it was a shocker at first), missing CDs, pissy kids, and messed up schedules. I had 5 classes (not bad in and of itself, but it was a big jump from 2) and my last class finished at 10:10. I finished up with a class of two ja-sa (advanced) boys and we did some story writing. That was nice. Then home to pass out (still have jet leg. blech) and up again at 5am to go on TODAY'S crazy adventure. Eeesh.
I'm typing this in a tiny pc bang in the Seodaejeon train station. In about 2 hours, I'll be in Naju again with my Korean family!!!!! YAY.
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