Zergling Rush

First things first - here's my mailing address:

Attn: Tyler Stokes
Seoul Language Institute- Suji:
6th Fl., Samgong Bldg.
1082-11 Poongdeokcheon Dong, Yongin- Si, Gyeonggido, South Korea.

My first few days in Korea have been exhausting, but ultimately satisfying. I arrived at the Seoul Incheon airport with little fanfare and less difficulty, the flights being a bit delayed but well within an easily-dealt-with margin. Sun-Jun and Eric, two of the Korean teachers at the school, picked me up from the airport and we drove out to Suji. Eric and I talked about movies and my relationship status, two topics that I have since come to learn are staples of conversation with foreign English teachers, as nearly every class I have taught so far has asked me the same two questions.

They dropped me off at my flat, which is small and a little bit dingy but servicable, and helped me with my luggage. I spent a few hours learning what the appartment was supplied with (or more accurately, what it wasn't supplied with) and watching high-impact Korean TV (Pictures of apartment pending).

In Don DeLillo's White Noise, the character Murray is fascinated with the "psychic data" imparted to the American consciousness by television commercials. He says that advertisements of all sorts are the most important cultural artifacts of our age, and I'm inclined to agree, and that they are rich in important subtextual information (the aforementioned "psychic data") that binds viewers together as a community. Assuming that this is a valid statement, Korean TV is a veritable bombardment on the subconscious. The commercials come fast and furious and are loaded with rich visuals and messages flashing by the screen at about 5 per second.

After some fitful sleep on my firm but surprisingly comfortable bed, I figured out that my entire bathroom actually doubles as a shower, and eventually Eric came to pick me up for work.

The school is a mere three blocks from my apartment, about a six-minute walk allowing for traffic, and through a pleasant commercial district. The school itself is on the sixth and seventh floors of a large building housing several other hagwon private schools and an English-language bookstore (probably my new favorite place). After meeting several of the other foreign teachers and sitting in on a few classes (where the students giggle and say "oooooooh" after they ask me if I have a girlfriend), I taught my first class of English. It was, shall we say, very awkward. Fortunately things have picked up since then, and my classes today (I had five of them) went very well, despite a minor mixup with scheduling. My last class was actually quite enjoyable, and there was some real dialogue between the students and I. All of the students are very friendly outside of the classroom, even when they are shy in the class, they wave and say hi in the hallways. Although the job is very difficult so far, I must confess feeling a bit of a thrill when the students address me as "teacher." It's pretty exciting.

The school is taking a short vacation this weekend, so I will not be working tomorrow or Friday. Since I do not have internet in my apartment yet, this also probably means I won't be able to update with any adventures from the weekend until Monday. My plans so far are to finally get out and explore Suji, because I have been too busy and tired up until this point to really get a good look around.

Small world moment:

Yakubu, one of the other American teachers at my school, is from Waterloo, Iowa. As if that wasn't close enough to where I am from/went to school, he used to live in Grinnell. His father was a professor. And here we are, unrelatedly, in Korea. You can't make this stuff up.