On Being a Teacher in Korea

Something cool just happened to me that I just have to relate. To begin with, I'd like to state for the record that I think Korea (specifically, the Republic of Korea, a.k.a. South Korea) is a great place to be a teacher. Now, is it a great place to teach? I would agree that it is, but I want to differentiate the two. Teaching involves working for a school, making lesson plans, giving students lectures and exams, correcting homework, and everything else that teachers normally do. Being in Korea doesn't really change the work of teaching all that much, because their educational model was adapted from the U.S. (I do believe that the discipline is easier here.) However, the social status of teachers in Korea is quite enviable.

Despite the fact that few Koreans explicitly practice Confucianism as a way of life, Confucian thought still strongly influences their society, even Christians. One of the teachings of Confucianism is reverence for teachers. In fact, a good teacher is at the top of the Confucian hierarchy. That means that, if I meet a doctor, a nurse, an airline pilot, an engineer, a lawyer, or a politician, and I'm not significantly younger than the other, when I bow in greeting, there's a good chance the other person will bow lower as a sign of respect. Here, the school nurse is old enough to be my mother, and she bows quite low when we meet. Those I've never met before, when I bow slightly in greeting, will sometimes bow lower, indicating deference.

This keeps showing up in great ways. Today, I had at least three students seek me out to talk to me outside the classroom. One was in the teacher's workroom doing something for another teacher, and he came over to speak with me. Then, at dinner, I was eating outside, rather than in the teacher's area, and two of my girls came over to talk to me. They complimented my appearance, and my use of chopsticks, and only talked about math when I brought it up. (One or both might have a crush on me, but that's a different story.) But the most impressive example came after I'd finished dinner, and occurred because of a hitch in transportation.

The school provides a somewhat beat-up van to transport the teachers between our apartment complex and the school. One teacher, Josh C, has the responsibility of being the shuttle driver. His wife, Meagan C, is learning as well. (The clutch/transmission on that van seems to be pretty tricky.) Josh and Meagan both coach volleyball as well, boys and girls teams, respectively. This weekend, both teams have an away game. (In fact, I substituted for Josh in one of his 11th grade Bible classes, supervising a writing assignment.) This meant that Josh and Meagan were not available to drive the shuttle; in fact, they may have taken the van with them, to help transport the players. (Also, they don't have a car of their own; that van is their usual vehicle.) So, we had to find rides to and from school on our own.

Finding a ride to school was easy. Many teachers and staff at the school, both Koreans and foreigners, live in the same apartment complex. I just stood by the way out of the parking lot, and when one of the drivers recognized me and stopped, I asked if they had room. (Their daughter moved to the backseat to make way for me, I entered, and off we went.) They were quite respectful, of course. They asked where I was from, what I taught, and were very polite. The really impressive thing, however, happened on the way home.

After dinner, which I finished at about 6:30, I started walking the school grounds parking areas, looking for people who were getting into vehicles, and asking where they were going. The first van was simply taking seniors to the farthest dormitories, a bit up the hill. The next person I asked, a woman wearing a tinted visor, didn't speak much English. But her son did, and her son's friend, and they were all extremely helpful.

I asked if they were going to my apartment complex (I can pronounce the name pretty well), and they were not, but they offered to give me a ride there anyway. They asked where it was, and I named the town, which was not on their way, but they offered to take me there anyway. I was not in a position to pass up such an offer, so I accepted. They asked for the exact address, and I didn't know it (I haven't looked at the street sign that closely), but they said they had a GPS, as many here do. They plugged in the name (in Korean hangul), and my apartment and building number (part of the address), and found the complex.

When I got in the car, the son offered me a mini-donut from what looked like a Dunkin' Donuts bag. I said I would have one, only if they had extra, because I'd just had a good dinner. He said something I didn't quite catch, something about "for a teacher", or something. (Clearly, in his view, teachers merit extra generosity.) In this country, it's not polite to decline a gift, so I accepted. They also offered me a half-liter bottle of Evian. I had four liters of filtered water in my bag, as well as a cup, but I accepted the water out of courtesy. (I did decline a second donut, saying I had a big dinner.)

The ride home was quite pleasant, and very smooth. I asked the son about the statuaries that I saw, which I had been wondering about, and he agreed that they seemed to be selling grave markers. (Here, the grave markers can be very large and ornate, and many can be seen by the side of the road, where people were buried on their own land. They look more Buddhist or Shamanist than Christian, and the burial traditions seem to be strongly influenced by Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shamanism.)

I can't see this happening anywhere else, where people I just met would go out of their way to do me a favor, and not grudgingly, but cheerfully, with generosity and deference. From what I've heard, this is typical, and not just for teachers, either. Foreigners in general, at least westerners, are often treated with great kindness and deference. I'm sure there's some explanation that has to do with Korean culture. But really, why try to explain it? It's great! Just receive it gratefully (thank you is "gomap-seumnida"), and enjoy it!

For those of you waiting for pictures, I apologize. My camera is still at school; it would not easily fit in my bags with all I had to bring home. Now, for the most important part of my entry.

Prayer Requests

First, thanksgiving and praise! Praise God and thank Him for consistently providing for all my needs, including transportation (as mentioned above), food, filtered water (from the school filters), and everything else I need. Praise God for helping me adjust to the unique challenge of living in Korea, which is probably easier than it would be if I was teaching at another school. Praise God for the chance to worship Him in fellowship with my Korean brothers and sisters, not once, but multiple times per week. Praise God for the chance to study Tae Kwon Do on campus with other staff members. Also, Praise God that I was able to develop a lesson plan overview for the entire year, that covers everything I need to cover, mapped down to the day.

I've been having more students asking about their grades. In truth, I'm quite behind in grading. I've finally figured out how I'm going to grade homework, so that should go more quickly. Please pray that I get all my grading done this weekend, and that I'm able to stay caught up.

I'm still having to enforce more discipline than I like to. Now, as junior high kids go, this is probably pretty tame. I've confiscated two electronic dictionaries, which are forbidden at school. I've sprayed a few kids with water for nodding off in class. I've referred a few kids to detention, mostly for doing things other than listen and take notes while I'm speaking, not just a little, but consistently. (Examples: exchanging mild blows, and playing ro-sham-bo.) One I referred for giving the digitus impudicus (a.k.a. middle finger) to a friend in the lunch line, and lying/evading when questioned about it. Two students also failed to show up to take a make-up test, though I did place a sign at the classroom, directing them to my office. I will have to give them both a 0 on that test, unless they show me a good excused absence note. Please pray that I would earn the kids' respect by teaching well, and that they would all understand that I love them, even when I want to smack them for not paying attention.

I've been getting to know my colleagues a little better. I learned that the twins, Sarah and Rachael, were born in Korea and adopted by American parents at about 18 months. Sarah's desk is right behind me, and Rachael's is on the other side of her. I'd like to get to know them better, and my other colleagues as well. Please pray that God would show me His will in this matter, and that I would use the time well while I'm waiting on Him.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for praying. Now, as the Koreans, say, annyeong-hi gyeseyo, "remain in peace".

So, What's it Like in Korea?

Well, today I inadvertently left most of my things at my desk in the teacher workroom, as I rushed to get to the school-apartment shuttle after Tae Kwon Do. (The school TKD instructors offer an evening class for staff. It's great, and many staff, including some of those I report to, attend.) Having left my school computer, my books, folders, and all writing implements at school, there's not much work I am able to do this evening, except update my blog. So, here I am. My goal is to give you some of my impressions of Korea. (Unfortunately, my camera is one of the things I left, so pictures will have to wait.)

So, what's it like in Korea? Well, it's different, that's for sure. Besides the language, the people, and the food, there are a lot of little things that are different: the plugs (of course), the light switches, the road markings and street signs (not just the language they're written in), and lots of other things. Most apartments don't have ovens. (Baking is apparently not a traditional Korean cooking method.) The cars are smaller, the vans are more crowded inside when full, and they drive and park closer together. (Many cars have special mirrors focused on the bumpers, to aid in parallel parking. Some also have pads on the doors so they don't bang the car next to them when they open.) However, there seems to me to be a theme to many of the differences; an underlying difference between Koreans and westerners that is reflected in the many differences that I have learned about. Two related words keep coming back: closeness and connection.

Koreans seem to be more closely connected, more tightly knit to each other, than westerners, particularly Americans. You can see it in the immigration laws. No foreigner can receive a permanent resident visa, or become a citizen, unless he or she is related to a Korean by blood or marriage. So, the Korean-American teachers at the school can get F-class (family) visas, as long as they can trace their ancestry to Korean nationals, no matter how far back. I, however, would have to marry a Korean or Korean-American woman to establish permanent residency here.

Another thing that gave me this idea of connection is the way they support young trees. In America, we usually drive one or two stakes deep into the ground, and use ties to support them. Here, I saw a grove of ornamental trees, and they were connected by staves lashed to the tree-trunks, each supporting the others in mutual interdependence. A solitary tree was supported by three staves lashed in a tripod arrangement to the tree trunk. Again, connected.

Similarly, they require less personal space, and less privacy; in other words, they're closer to each other. When they line up for anything, they stand closer together than Americans would. In the teacher's workroom, students will wander in just to say hi, or use it as a passageway to the gym. (I never even saw the teachers' workroom at my high school.) The students' desks seem to be closer together. They will share cups at the water fountain, even though they make sure to only drink from the filtered water.

Yesterday I gave one student detention for tripping another student on the way back to his seat. First offense, no warning, straight to detention, do not pas Go, do not collect 200,000 won. He said it was just a joke, and even the injured student said it wasn't a big deal. Solidarity, again. I made a point that to do that in my classroom, is an offense against me. Just like stealing is an offense against God as well as the party who was robbed. Don't know how much of that got through, but the student got a yellow slip all the same.

There are many other things I see, some I can't even describe. I have over 100 students, mostly 7th & 8th graders with a few 9th, among five classes, and I'm sure at least a few of my female students have crushes on me. Some will come up and quiz me to see if I remember their names. One girl, doing this, put her hand on my arm. Another came up to me, told me about another girl, saying, "She loves you." I'm sure there are some others I haven't noticed yet.

I'm not really surprised that some of my girls have developed crushes on me. Considering my age, position, and appearance, the care I have for my students, and the high respect most Koreans have for teachers, it's only natural.

Personally, I feel that it's best if I consider all the students like my own children, or at least my nieces & nephews. I feel I can love them better if I take that attitude. Then, right actions will naturally flow. I thought of that when I walked two girls home from dinner last night. They are the teenage daughters of a colleague, and though the walk wasn't far, I wouldn't want my own daughters walking home at night unaccompanied, so I went with them. I just said it was for safety. They seemed to accept that.

Socially, Korea is a great place to be a teacher. Korea is still strongly influenced by Confucian thought, and a good teacher is higher than any other profession in the Confucian hierarchy. (I don't know how well that is reflected in the salaries.) One of the ways people show respect here is bowing, and the lower person should bow more deeply. I had occasion to interact with the school nurse, being treated for a pre-Korea skin injury. She spoke very little English, but such was sufficient to treat the injury, which she did with motherly care. While I was there, I helped her fix the electronic thermometers that they use to make sure the teachers aren't developing a fever.

Apparently, the school nurse is now a founding member of the Korean chapter of my fan club, because she told all her friends about me (I could see that, even if I didn't understand the words), and she bows quite deeply when she meets me, as a token of deep respect. She's probably the equivalent of a nurse practitioner, and to see that she holds me in higher esteem than herself, is quite a welcome change from the U.S.

As far as the physical appearance, the school sits in the middle of farmland, with mountains in the distance. So does the apartment complex. (I would have a better view of them if I wasn't on the first floor.) I do see plenty of farms on my commute to and from school. Here's my impressions of Korean agriculture:

They seem to use as much of the farmland for farming, as possible. For instance, I see rice paddies (first time I've seen rice paddies in August/September, and with no mosquitoes), and on the edges of them, I see other things growing. Like temporary greenhouses for watermelon. Or as much corn as they can fit into the edges. Or other crops I've never seen before. There are plants under rows of black, slanted shelters. I'm told they are ginseng plants, which is a root crop, and must grow for seven years before it should be harvested. I've never seen plant shelters in that configuration before, but then, I've never heard of ginseng farmers, so there you go.

None of the farms seem to be divided into rectangular sections. They're all following more natural contours. I'm told that this is family land, and they will only sell the land at great price because of that, and because that's where their ancestors are buried. (You can see stone monuments everywhere, which I'm told are all grave markers.) It doesn't look wrong, just different.

I'm told that, despite being very efficient with their farming practices, Korea does not grow enough food to feed its entire population, and must import a lot of rice from the U.S. Since the government uses a comprehensive system of tariffs to maintain a positive trade balance (they export plenty of manufactured goods, like electronics and cars), anything imported is expensive. That is borne out by the price I paid for brown rice, which was enough to dissuade me from buying that kind again. And I thought rice would be cheap in Korea! (I did find something, apparently a white rice & barley mix, that is inexpensive, cooks in 15 minutes, and makes a good breakfast porridge with milk & sugar.) I've yet to find a good, inexpensive source of whole grains.

There are, however, plenty of red-pepper plants. This region is apparently known as the red pepper capital of Korea, and it shows in the school cafeteria cuisine. (Apparently, they don't use tomato paste; if it's red, it's pepper paste. Much of the food has a red tinge, including the kimchi.) At the apartment complex, you can usually walk around and find at least one place where someone has put peppers out to dry. It could be on a car dashboard, or on a reed mat under a clear plastic rain shelter, or some other arrangement. (Note: These are not bell peppers. They are hot red peppers. You can also buy them green, and those are plenty hot as well.) It's a good thing I like spicy food.

As far as food goes, I have a pretty good deal. In addition to housing and medical insurance (the school will pay for any doctor visits until I get the necessary paperwork complete), the school provides two meals per day while I'm at the school. Lunch is in the American Café, which serves western-style food and plays K-Love radio streamed from the Internet. Dinner is in the school cafeteria, which serves Korean food, of course, always including rice, kimchi, and soup. I think I'm starting to acquire a taste for kimchi, and I can almost always tell if I'll want a small portion of the dish or a large one.

Well, it's after 10:00, I took my laundry out of the machine a while ago, so I think I'd better get to bed. One more thing I want to mention, before my prayer requests, is about the plugs. Everything runs on about 220 V here, but my computer and phone charger can take that voltage, so I only needed an adapter. I bought one from REI, the store brand, that said it would work in most of Asia. Well, it does work in Korea, sort of. It fits in the plugs, and it usually connects OK. The round prongs, however, are a bit narrower than the plugs here, so the connection is flaky, and moving it slightly can make it loose. This has apparently caused some spark-scarring. Fortunately, the school has provided me with a computer with the right plug, and that's what I use most of the time. So, if you need an adapter to work in Korea, don't buy the REI generic. Check them out more closely. I'll be willing to look at e-mailed pictures, with a coin for scale, to see if they're the right size.

Prayer Requests

Please continue to pray for the visa situation. The current goal is to get a D-6 (religious worker/missionary) visa. The school used to sponsor those directly, but apparently there was some abuse of that visa class in Korea. In the subsequent crackdown, most of those that the school sponsored were denied renewal, and only a few, like a pastor and his wife, were accepted. However, the school is part of the General Baptist Assembly in Korea, affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention in the U.S., and they could sponsor my D-6 visa as a missionary to Korea. I think that would not be stretching the truth. Despite being paid fairly, I am in a ministry, working for a nonprofit that depends partly on donations, ministering to the kids, sharing my faith as well as my knowledge of mathematics. Please pray that I would be able to get a D-6 visa soon, hopefully before I have to renew my tourist entry permit.

I'm rather behind on my grading, and only staying a day or two ahead with lesson planning. (Lesson planning for math is not a big deal. With this teacher's edition, the lessons pretty much write themselves, and I have taught lessons with no preparation, but it's best to have a plan.) I have figured out how to streamline the correction process somewhat. Please pray that I would be able to catch up, post grades and return papers in a timely manner, and get some breathing room.

I gave my students a pep talk yesterday and today, and a couple of new handouts: a set of homework guidelines, and a survival guide entitled: "Help! My Math Teacher Doesn't Speak Korean!" I emphasized the importance of dedication, hard work, belief in yourself, and not giving up. I don't know how much of that got through. Please pray that the students would understand how dedicated I am to their success, and that they would respond with similar dedication to their own success.

Two nights ago, my mom forwarded me a link to another blog she reads. A Canadian knitter was writing about seeing her 20-year-old daughter off at the airport, to go to Australia for 4 months. She described (in rather earthy language) the difficulty of a mother dealing with that situation. It reminded me of how much my mother loves me, and how hard it must be for her to know how far away I am. I got a care package from her today, and the contents reminded me again of how much she loves me. Please pray for both of us, that God would give us peace, and help us deal with this separation in a healthy way. I know I can do it, because I'm an Enlightened Warrior, but a warrior's job is often difficult unless he's also a Wizard, which I'm not yet, at least not consistently. Please pray that it would be easier for both of us to accept this situation.

Well, I think I covered everything important that I wanted to cover. There's lots more I have to say, of course, but it's way past my bedtime. In closing, thank you for reading, and thank you for praying for me. I appreciate both, but the prayers especially. From somewhere in Korea, good night, and God bless you all!

Test Day and Church in Korea

Well, it's Monday morning, about 10 minutes before the morning assembly. I gave half my students a test on Friday, and the other half get it today. We'll see how it goes when I grade it; I may end up making several of the problems extra credit.

Church last night was pretty good. I went to the evening service here in the school chapel. All students are required to attend, which I decided was no different than parents requiring their kids to attend church. Nonetheless, I think there is some serious fath there.

Pastor Josh Kong talked about asking students about their faith. The key question is, "Why are you going to heaven?" He posed that question to the congregation, and I waited to make sure he wanted an answer from someone.

Then I said, very clearly, "Because Jesus died for my sins!" Several people applauded. I'm glad it's that real here. Most people just don't have the courage to answer like that.

Also, when they pray independently, they pray out loud, like the ancients did. It sounds like babble, but that's just because I don't understand Korean.

Well, it's about time to start helping the students line up for assembly. I'd better sign off now. Next post, hopefully some of my impressions of Korea, along with some prayer requests.

First Week in Korea

Well, it's been a week minus a few hours since I first touched down in Korea, and I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto. :-)

Where do I begin? The flight was excellent in every respect. Singapore Airlines has world-class service and amenities, there was hardly any turbulence, I had a window seat next to a vacant middle seat, and the retired Hindu woman in the aisle seat was very friendly. I had no problems with immigration, customs, or health screening. Baggage claim was uneventful & accomplished at warrior speed, and my promised ride, though not the person I expected, was waiting for me, right where I expected, and recognized me immediately.

My first disappointment came when I tried to change my traveler's checks for Korean won. The currency counter at the airport charges a commission for traveler's checks, and I didn't want to pay that. I forgot I had some dollars that would be hard to spend in Korea. So, I arrived at the apartment without any spendable money. I also arrived later than I wanted to, because my driver got a little lost, since he was unfamiliar with the route and his directions were not very clear. Also, I won't get a decent paycheck for over a month, and I don't have an up-front settlement allowance. But, things are much better than they could be.

For one thing, the previous occupants left shampoo and other toiletries, so I don't need to buy those yet. For another, the school provides two meals per day while I'm working, so I only need food for breakfast plus the weekends. My roommate shares what he has, and Josh C, the guy who drives the school shuttle and picked me up from the airport, took me to the store and paid for some food for me. Cereal is expensive here, so breakfast is mostly fruit, like bananas, apples, and nectarines. (I could really use some granola, though.)

For another thing, in asking around for some help getting a ride to a bank, I learned that one of the school secretaries was looking for dollars for some reason. I made contact, she got some cash from the ATM, and I changed all the dollars I had for won. The rate was fair, and now I have some money to buy groceries. Since I don't have to pay for transportation, and my roommate won't ask me to kick in my share of the utilities until I get paid, and the school provides up to 10 meals per week, I should be OK.

One of the downsides of being where I am, is that there's not much within easy walking distance. For another, hardly any of the Koreans here speak any English. On the upside, the air is clean, the crime rate (aside from public drunkenness) is virtually zero, and the people are pretty friendly.

I've been very busy. On Sunday night, Josh C told me that I would be expected to start teaching Monday morning. I felt unprepared, not to mention jet-lagged, but as a warrior I can do whatever it takes to do whatever I have to do. Teaching math when I'm jet-lagged and disoriented is nothing compared to the challenges I conquered at Warrior Camp.

Then, on Monday morning, I met Chris Lee, who seems to be Dr. Cho's right-hand man. (Dr. Cho is the principal of the school.) He told me that, because of my recent arrival and the government's strong recommendations about containing the H1N1 (swine flu) virus, I wouldn't be teaching for a week, although since I was healthy I was free to come to the school, work at my desk, eat meals, etc. So, I got my books and computer, and I wasn't in any hurry, because I had a week to prepare lessons for two different classes.

Then, on Monday evening after 10pm, the doorbell rang. It was Chris Lee, and he had come to tell me that Dr. Cho wanted me to start the next morning, September 1. (That was the date I had originally promised that I could start.) Again, it would be hard, and it might not be pretty, but as a warrior I can do whatever it takes, so I agreed. The kids had been in study hall instead of math class for over a week, and Dr. Cho didn't want to lose any more time. I can't blame him, although the timing of his decision was not the best.

So, I started my teaching career on Tuesday, 1 September 2009. (Yes, this is a red-letter day for me.) First we had to get the textbooks, and then I had to teach without having prepared anything. I've often thought that I could do that, and it turns out that I can. However, I don't recommend it as a habit. By Wednesday I had a plan, and on Thursday and Friday I was able to cover two lessons per block, which is necessary to get through the required material on time. (No, I haven't planned it out with a calendar yet. I'm just doing as much as I can.)

Between teaching, settling in to the school, planning my lessons, settling in to the apartment, and trying to study Korean, I haven't had time for much else. So many things here are different, there are challenges everywhere when trying to do the simplest tasks, which makes them take much longer than they should.

For one thing, the unified laundry machine is labeled in Korean. (Thank God there are English instructions available!) Trying to do a load, I was convinced it hadn't dried them properly, so I tried to run a dry cycle. Again, not convinced. Then my roommate comes home and tells me it uses steam to dry, so they won't be dry like home, I have to shake them out. I hung everything on hangars wherever I could find a place to put a hook on my side of the apartment.

Then, on Friday, I had my biggest challenge in Korea to date (outside of the classroom):

It started because there was no shuttle available on Friday afternoon, since Josh C. and his wife Meagan were coaching the volleyball teams at their away games. So, I caught a ride home with Dick & Sherry, before dinnertime, which meant I needed to prepare my own dinner for the first time since arriving here. Not having enough of my own food in the apartment for dinner, let alone the weekend, not feeling comfortable using that much of my roommate's food uninvited, and finally having some won of my own to spend, I decided to do some shopping.

There is a small convenience store here at the apartment complex, that sells some necessities and sundry items. Between that and the farmers' markets that take over the streets every 5 days, I could buy all the food I needed. However, Friday was not a market-day. There is also a shuttle bus that I learned about, chartered by the management of the apartment complex, which provides transportation between the complex and the downtown area at no charge.

Feeling adventurous, and not finding what I wanted in the convenience store, I decided to take the shuttle. The driver spoke more English than most Koreans here, which isn't saying much. I was able to communicate that I wanted to go shopping in town, and that I needed food, not a restaurant, but food to cook. (At least, I think he got that message.) Where he let me off, I didn't see what I wanted immediately, so I decided to walk up and down the street.

I went into one or two stores, I crossed the street twice, and then I finally found a little side-street with a few open-air produce stands. I had been looking for brown rice, but I didn't even know how to say "rice" in Korean, or spell it in hangul. What I ended up buying was a handful of bananas, a few brown potatoes, a few yellow onions, and 10 brown eggs. The eggs were in flats of 25 (on the metric system, of course), and I used hand motions to show that I wanted fewer. The woman at the produce stand put 10 eggs in a bag, without additional padding. (Needless to say, I was very careful with that bag on the way home!) I offered the woman two 10,000 won bills, she took one and gave me two 1,000 won bills and a 500 won coin. Seven and a half thousand won for a handful of bananas, a handful of onions, a handful of potatoes, and a metric dozen eggs. Not as cheap as Imwale's, perhaps, but not bad, considering I started with over 150,000 won to last until payday. And, I should be able to cash my traveler's checks before then.

(This shopping trip taught me a valuable lesson: Be flexible in my purchasing plans until I know where to find what I want. Instead of putting "brown rice, lentils, eggs, tofu, milk," I need to write: "carbs (complex), protein, lipid/oil, calcium" as the nutrients that I need to shop for, and get what I can find to meet those needs.)

I walked back down the street until I was near the place where the bus driver had dropped me off, and looked in vain for the bus stop he had mentioned. (If I saw a bus-stop sign, I didn't recognize it.) As Providence would have it, before long I saw the bus itself, with the logo of the apartment complex, and I waved and ran (carefully holding my bag!) to meet it. The bus stopped, the door opened, I boarded, saying, "Go-map seumnida," to the driver (which he acknowledged with "ne"), and carefully took my seat.

At the apartment, I put away my purchases. I found one of the eggs was broken, and 9 whole. It was better than I had feared, but not as good as I'd hoped. Next time I go shopping, I'll bring something like newspaper for padding. (There was a Korean newspaper by the door on Saturday. I can't read it, but that doesn't make it usless!) I sautéed a sliced onion and ate it with spaghetti sauce, which was good. I also made two eggs in a hole with some bread from the fridge, and cooking oil from the pantry. That was dinner on Friday.

Saturday I mostly worked on lesson plans. Didn't finish with all the plans for next week, but I am prepared for the next two days. Now that I'm familiar with the lesson planning software/templates, I should be able to get caught up by Monday evening. For lunch, I baked a potato in the microwave, and sautéed a chopped onion and pepper (from the fridge). Next time I'll seed the pepper first! Wow, was that spicy!

Saturday I also went shopping again, this time at the convenience store. I got some spaghetti and a small bag of what I thought was brown rice. Since there's plenty of spaghetti sauce in the apartment, I cooked some of that first (after translating the instructions with my computer), which was good for dinner.

Sunday, I spent a fair bit of time translating the writing on the "rice" package. (When you need to translate Korean cooking instructions, Google translate is worth its weight in gold. So is a computer that can type in the source language.) It turns out the "rice" is some kind of rice-barley mix. It cooks in 15 minutes, so it must be white rice. I'm not sure how much of a complete grain the barley is, but the package says (in Korean) that it's an excellent (quantified) source of dietary fiber. It has kind of a nutty flavor, and I bet it would be good with milk for breakfast.

I'd like to post some photos, but the job of teaching and settling in to Korea hasn't left me much time for photography. I'll try to take some shots of the farms and grave markers on the road between my apartment and the school. That's about the only time I have when there's nothing else I need to be doing. If any of them are good enough to post, that should give you a flavor of what my commute is like.

Prayer Requests:

First, praise God, and give glory to Him, for enabling me to learn a few words of Korean and some of the Hangul writing system before I left! Thanks to that, I know how to greet people and take their leave, thank them and acknowledge thanks, introduce myself and say where I come from, and ask people their names and where they come from. Also, I can slowly sound out the writing. While I can't really use the language to get things done, this limited vocabulary is still very helpful. It makes a great first impression, when I bow to someone I've just met, and say, "Mannaso, pangap-seumnida (Pleased to meet you)." It's also good for impressing my students. I'm pretty sure I'm the only new foreign teacher at the school this term who introduced himself in Korean, or asked a student his name in Korean when there was a problem communicating in English. This brings me to my next prayer request:

Please pray that my students would be able to understand me. Some of them don't speak or understand English very well, which is very understandable, considering how slow my progress is in learning Korean. I'm trying to make sure that everything important is also written down on the board, because students of a new language usually master reading more readily than oral comprehension. Please pray also that I would develop a habit of speaking slowly and clearly, to help my students understand me.

Please pray that the visa/currency conversion situation would get worked out. (Because the provincial ministry of education refuses to grant accreditation to my school, it is very difficult to get a school-sponsored work visa. Most of the non-Korean teachers used religious worker visas until the government caught on and refused most of the renewals, which created the vacancies that I am helping to fill. That's why the school is planning to move to a different province within the next two years. Green cards are even harder; I would have to marry a Korean woman to get one!) What concerns me is that I will eventually need to convert won to dollars, to pay some bills incurred in the U.S. Official currency exchangers will stamp my passport every time they do so. If I leave the country on a tourist visa, and the immigration officials see that I've been converting a lot of won to dollars, they'll wonder if I've been working illegally to earn that many won. While immigration officials recognize that the government doesn't grant enough E-2 visas to meet demand, and they don't go around to schools checking teachers' visas, they can hardly ignore evidence that's right in front of them. Please pray that God would work everything out in His time.

Finally, please pray for my relationships with my co-workers, especially my roommate. There's no cause for concern yet, and they're mostly a pretty cheerful, easygoing bunch, but I'm still working on finding my place socially. Language barriers are part of the problem, as is the limited time that we have to get to know each other. Also, I've only been here a week, and most of them have been here longer. I'm taking Tae Kwon Do, starting next week, which should help. (Other foreign teachers are also signed up, including the Korean-American twins, Rachael and Sarah. I'm looking forward to getting to know them better, so I can tell them apart!) The instructor's English skills are quite limited, which will make things interesting, so I'll need to pay close attention.

Thanks for reading. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you. And, until we meet again, may the Lord hold you in the palm of his hand.