"I DID MY EPOLY!!!!!!"

KIDS

Well, Day One of work involved the observing of classes and the discovery that we will be working ten hour days.

Ten hours of observation: Honestly, kind of dreadful, especially in grammar classes where the kids were shy at best, aloof at worst...They were probably pretty smart, but would clearly rather have been outside playing. Well, clearly isn't the right word. These kids are so disciplined, so quiet, and respectful. But, I mean they're 9 and they've been at school for eleven hours. Shoot, I can empathize.

So here's the way it works: Poly (they pronounce it "pole-y") is a hogwan, which is a private school. Within the school there are two programs: the morning program and the afternoon program. The morning program is divided among preschool, pre-kindergarten, and kindergarten-aged kids. And they are wonderful. They have energy, they are adorable and they are so delightfully smart, but young enough not to be arrogant about their intelligence, or really their high capacity to learn. They have an innocent pride about knowing they did something correct, and that they've pleased their teacher. So, adorable, smart, eager to please. Every teacher's dream students. (PS--When I observed my first class one student was so excited that he got a question right, he started jumping up and down, clapping, and yelled, "I did my ePoly!!" ePoly is an online supplemental program for the kids. Korean schools love to give homework--even to preschool kids.)

I wish I could capture these kids in words so you all could understand just how delightful they are. They are pretty shy at first, but they're so excited, so they become trusting and affectionate pretty quickly. And they love their teachers. Walking around in the hallway, Stephen and I heard giggling and lots of "ooohh new teacher!!"

So, ten hours of teaching won't be so bad.

The afternoon program is more like an English tutoring program for older (elementary-age) students. So these kids aren't really ours in the way the little kids are. They come to us after spending the entire day at their regular school. They're supposed to sit quietly and do English grammar problems and read English stories out loud for 40 minutes. Poor kids!! They are at school until 7:30 or later (some of them go from regular school to our school to some other academy and then piano lessons...) and then they have to go home and do homework! When do they play!? We're kind of appalled by the pressure put on some of these kids.

FUTURE HOUSE

Our apartment is really pretty awesome. We live in a building called Posco (or so we're told, and taxi drivers seem to know it...but it doesn't say "Posco" anywhere on the building. There's just a big letter "D" on the front. Whatever.) And according to some of our coworkers, living in Posco is a pretty big deal. Directed at Stephen: "Dude, man, if you were single..."

So how perfect is this place? Well, it's a less than five minute walk from our school, which is amazing. Most of the other teachers have a ten minute bus ride (suckers). We have a big kitchen (by Korean standards), sooo much room, and HUGE windows, which is a dream come true for me. I love how this place fills up with sunlight. It's beautiful. The windows overlook a park, and a really great view of some city buildings. This building is only a year old, so it has some really funny space-age-y features, like the automatic door-lock that plays a little robot jingle for us. Kind of like the sound a car makes when you lock it. But, honestly, it's way better. It's almost as if some pleasant little person is saying, "Okay sweeties! You're all safe now!" Our microwave also functions as an oven (or the other way around...?), and it took us three days to figure out how to work our high-tech kitchen sink. We also have a computer screen connected to cameras so we can basically check out wherever we want in the building. It also lets us control heating and cooling, tells us the weather, has a subway map, can be used as an alarm clock...it's ridiculous.

So the deal about Korean bathrooms: I feel like this could be a source of controversy among Westerners, but let me just say Stephen and I have made up our minds, and we're pretty set, although we've surprised ourselves a bit. Okay, I don't know if some of you already know this, but it's basically a big shower outfitted with sink and toilet. So the shower is hooked up to the sink, and you basically have to make sure you put away anything that you don't want getting wet before you shower. Which is nbd, because there's plenty of storage space (in our bathroom anyway) And there's a little cover for the toilet paper.

It sounds weird and awkward maybe, but really it's super efficient. A really good space and money saver. And cleaning the bathroom is simplified. The only real drawback is the bathroom floor is wet for awhile after someone showers, so if you have to go to the bathroom your feet are going to get wet...but we are going to Hi-mart today to buy bathroom slippers. No problemo.

Oh! And the toilet seat is HEATED.

!!!!!!!!!!

And it has a bidet, which I totally can't get into, but Stephen loves it. In theory I'm with him--Yeah, it's definitely cleaner than, you know, just using toilet paper. In practice...Idunno. I'm weirded out. I might change my mind. But if I do, I probably won't let you know about it.

So, we're mostly totally in on the Korean bathroom thing.

THE FIFTH LARGEST BRIDGE IN THE WORLD

Okay so back up. The New Songdo Bridge opened about five months ago. (around the time Stephen and I got married, come to think of it) The bridge connects Songdo to the airport. Before the bridge it took an hour and a half to get from ICN to Songdo, but, after a 14 hour flight, it took us only half an hour or so. And most of that time was spent on the bridge. Can you imagine half an hour of crossing a bridge? We were driving pretty fast! SUCH a long bridge!!

It was amazing. Imagine crossing the Brooklyn Bridge to get into Manhattan times about ten. We had an amazing view of the sun setting over the ocean, and a landscape of skyscrapers and mountains. It was so beautiful, and pretty humbling actually.

It's all so wonderfully designed--the Earth, and the modifications man has made to it. They complement each other almost perfectly, aesthetically anyway.

We could see the bridge as our plane descended, so you can imagine our delight in getting to cross it so soon thereafter.

-Andrea