Training, Visits and Mold

Well, I passed training! Good news is that I get to work and continue living in Korea. The bad news is that I won't be returning to Washington and living in my parents' basement in shame for the next year. Well, bad news for you. Still good news for me. It was pretty intense, but I think training went pretty well. April (the part of ChungDahm Learning that I'll be teaching for) is focused on young learners, so I didn't have to learn a lot of complicated grammar concepts. I get to ask questions like "Ok, what's blue? Good! It's a color. What can you see that's blue?"

The worst part was that at the end of training we were all whisked off to our respective schools and I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to any of the friends I made. We didn't have a chance to exchange emails or anything. It was pretty crazy to get into a cab all by myself without having said goodbye, and really sad! About 5 minutes into my cab ride, the driver pulls over, hand me his cell phone and someone says, "Is this Jennifer?" I said, "No, this is Elaine". She said, "Ok, let me talk to the driver". All I could think was, I can't communicate with this man at all and he doesn't even know who I am or where we are going. Then we u-turned and got back on the road and I was driven to my branch. I was met by one of the bosses, then was told to take a 2 hour break. Then, I had dinner with my direct boss, who seems like a pretty cool guy. I start teaching unsupervised tomorrow afternoon. I can't believe it! It feels like getting here took soooo long, and now everything is going so fast.

Yesterday marked a very important day in my Korean life: Nadine and Brendan were here!! They had a 12 hour lay over in Seoul. We met in the center of the city and basically just ate. It was so surreal to see them here, especially so early in my year. I feel like I'm just getting adjusted and getting things figured out and then suddenly it was just like being home! It's almost like it never happened. They had a great trip and it was fantastic to hear about it firsthand and not just over email. They also brought me phenomenal gift of a plate with their photo. It looks perfect in my apartment.

Speaking of my apartment, I've moved in! It's cute and I have a seperate shower, which is pretty unusal for Korea. The only problem is that it's DISGUSTING. The person who lived there before me must have been really, really dirty. I can't imagine living like that, let alone leaving something like that for someone else. It smells like mold and every single surface is disgusting. Oh, and the bathroom sink leaks. There are dishes in the cupboard, so I took out a bowl to catch the water from the sink and that was dirty, too. I can't see the pipes for the kitchen sink, but it's making the same noise as the bathroom, so that will be my first major complaint. I've already put in a bunch of time cleaning and after I leave this internet cafe, I'm cleaning some more.

For now, I'm trying to figure out the neighborhood and hoping to find something to eat. I won't have internet in my apartment for a couple of weeks, which is lame. But it also means no skype. I also do not have a phone, which is double lame. For now, it's not that big of  a deal because I don't really have any friends, but hopefully I will soon and then I'll need a way to contact them!!! Ok, I hope that was enough information for you. I'll post again soon!