Onto the EPIK quest

Now at the end of orientation we met with the education department for our different areas. We all knew what cities we would be placed in but most of us didn’t know our placements. Now I was one of the lucky few who heard from the school in advance…

But I was not lucky.

See my school didn’t have an apartment. Yeah, there’s a lovely clause in our contract that says they’re required to give me one but whatever. It was like a weeks-long fiasco but I’m finally in my apartment.

So the Thursday of orientation (just over half way through) I get a facebook message (appearently they tried to email me but that didn’t work…). The old teacher is writing to me to let me know that the school doesn’t have an apartment. Or storage space for the furniture. So I was going to have NOTHING when I walked into the city.

Well he was super super awesome and left his key money (an insane amount of money required here for a deposit, it works out to be THOUSANDS of US dollars).

So he moved on to Seoul, I stayed in his old apartment and well I had nowhere to go after this and I didn’t have close to five grand to put down on a new apartment. Lots of issues ensued, eventually I got my own place. It was a long and messy story and I think my teachers (well one at least) slightly hates my guts right now, but whatever. I needed a place, I have a place, and I hardly see him at work normally, so not overly problematic.

I hope.

N-E-WHO

So I met the two youngest teachers in my school, they’re the ones who came to pick me up after our gut-wrenching drive through the typhoon. Everyone else is quite a bit older than us but they are 24 and 26, I’m squashed right in the middle…it all works out pretty well I suppose.

Turns out I’m at like a super conservative school. As in like 3 years ago or so women couldn’t wear pants…the students are only allowed to wear skirts. No bright colors or patterns on your clothes…yeah it’s strange. So far I don’t think I’ve offended anyone yet but they might be avoiding saying anything…

I’m in an all girls’ high school, it’s a commercial high school so it’s kind of like our vocational schools, but without the focus on a single vocation ( or even vocation type). It’s just there to prepare the majority of the girls to go straight into the workplace.

My co-teacher said the smart ones will become like bank tellers and the others will work in factories for like Samsung and LG and shit…a few might go on to college (as in a 2 year college, like community college. Universities are 4 years). Basically I’m trying to teach English to rooms full of girls and maybe 10 per grade will actually have some use for it down the road…maybe a bit of an exaggeration but probably not by much.

So back to the apartment, I had no idea how to use the washing machine, the guy teacher kinda shrugged and the girl kinda shyly laughed and said her mom still did her laundry. Sweet. Very helpful. They gave me the basics on how to use the hot water but I think they missed an important step…long story but it shut off all the time in the shower because it was a terrible on-demand system…probably not being used right.

YUPs

The AC took some button pushing but it wasn’t too difficult…basically I thing I figured out pretty much everything on my own. Oh, they did show me how to use the microwave which was awesome because there are no numbers on it..the one thing I SHOULD be able to figure out and I can’t. C-RAP

My co-teachers did super awesome things for me though. I can’t get a bank account (well…probably can but no debit card or anything, so it’s useless because I can’t get there during banking hours), I can’t get internet or a cell phone though for sure…ok well there are ways around the cell phone but that’s a discussion for another day.

Basically I was kinda up Shits Creek if something happened so one of my co-teachers went home and found an old cellphone noone needed and set it up under his name as a pre-paid/pay as you go type system…not really sure which. The other one got me an old transportation card that was kicking around and filled it up for me, at least enough for a few trips. Again, super awesome.

Plus they found my apartment which they totally aren’t supposed to be responsible for, the school is. But they’ve just done a lot that they weren’t technically required to. That and all the other teachers have been super nice too…well I just feel pretty damned lucky.

Really considering some of the crappy apartments some of the teachers got, and some of the other horror stories I’ve heard (few and far between, and mine is likely to go down in horror story history now too… but they do exist) overall I got super lucky.

I just have to share this random little bit before I go…I have written overall an obscene amount of times and the only reason I know is because for some strange reason today, and only today, I have spelled it overally EVERY time. Maybe the girls are starting to rub off on me….watch-e, beach-e, overall-y?? I see a pattern….