curse you, Thomas Teacher

Well, week 2 started off pretty uneventfully. It was only slightly difficult to get up at my usual 7am, which was actually pretty good considering the weekend I had.
All went well at school. Our one female kindergartener didn't seem quite so hateful towards me, most of the time. I taught 2 middle school classes on my own...the one I dreaded the most, grammar, actually went the best. It was very simple grammar, granted, but I was pleased with the outcome. The students actually seemed to understand. Score!

On Wednesday I am getting my own group of 5 year olds/kindergarteners. Which in American age is really more like 4 year olds. They don't even have English names yet, let alone know any bit of the language. I'm a bit apprehensive about that one. But hopefully it will go ok! Maybe the first day we'll just sing songs and play games? I don't really know where to start with them. Hopefully they are as cute as my other Kindys, Thomas and Hanni. I just love them. Their facial expressions are just priceless. Especially when they get mad, which is often. Is that mean of me? Well, it's true.

Apparently we are hiring a new American teacher next month some time. When she gets here, I may have to move to a larger apartment that we will share. Which I think will be nice, in a way. She's older (38) so presumably won't be totally crazy. I think being on my own at first was good, since I've grown accustomed to my own place over the last 5 years. One adjustment at a time. But I think it will be nice too to have a roommate, so I can share the experience of a new country with someone. But, i'm not totally sure about having to move...I'll need to get clarification on that.

There is another good side to moving...the utilities. So apparently, the teacher that my school had before, his name was Thomas. He did what we call a 'midnight run', in which the teacher leaves one night after work without any notice whatsoever. Just doesn't show up on Monday and turns out they've left the country. I've heard a lot about him since I've been here, and he sounds really weird. He would only eat chicken, a dunkin' donuts' donut, and a glass of milk every day. He wouldn't go out drinking with the staff, he wouldn't try any Korean food. One of my middle schoolers told me that she likes me better than him because I speak slowly so she can understand. The kindergarteners all scream when someone threatens to have him come back. So I guess his leaving was ok in the end. Except for me.
Since I have his old cell phone (which he left behind), I now have to deal with it not sending any messages or making any outgoing calls, because he didn't pay his bills. And, the mystery of the hot water was solved...he didn't pay his utility bill, so they shut off the gas. I'm just waiting for the lights to blink out on me any day now.

Today after work I wanted to explore, but 1) don't want to go to far without a phone in case I get lost. And 2) the building super was scheduled to come over to look at my hot water heater. That was an interesting experience. They didn't speak a word of English nor I of Korean, obviously. So I tried to explain to them that the hot water didn't work, and I showed them the error message on the control panel. But the guy seemed to be looking at the water pressure at first. Then he brought in a woman and they talked for a while and I tried to explain again the problem. Then finally she looked at the control panel. Then she tried to explain the problem to me. I just shook my head and said 'ani-oh' (no). (I need to learn 'i don't understand/speak korean). So finally they called the director of my school and talked to her for a while. Then the head teacher got on the phone and they gave it to me, and he explained that it was because Thomas hadn't paid his bill so it had been shut off, and it was too late to call but he would call the company in the morning. He thought the cooking gas was off too, but luckily that is not the case, so I can heat water on the stove and go for the sponge-bath effect. I've been doing it for 2 days so might as well continue.
But hopefully all this will be straightened out in the next day or 2! It's really getting annoying. I tried to find this guy on facebook but he doesn't appear to have an account. That right there is a red flag if ever I saw one.

lol.

But anyway, other than a few mishaps like that, everything is going well. I am glad that I went out on Friday with my co-workers. I think it was helpful to get to know each other and socialize outside school. This week I want to get the two female staff members to join me for dinner somewhere after work. One doesn't really speak english, but she is very nice and always tries to talk to me. The other is the one who told me she wants to take care of me while I'm here like a sister..so i guess she's my unni? lol. I don't know, maybe I should ask her. But anyway she's also very sweet. She says her parents want to invite me over sometime for a meal so I think that would be fun.

Oh, one more exciting thing! I was flipping through my 900 channels of satellite TV today and what did I find but Deutshce-Welle Asia! Who knew such a thing would exist? So now I can practice my German AND Korean! When I come back i'll speak some sort of hybrid Kormanglish or something weird like that. Well, maybe not. But I was excited.

늘
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