unwired in Korea

Now I have time to post, but I'm not sure if anyone can read it. I have been trying to access my blog from Korea, but have not been able to see it. I'll write this post and hope that it can be read from the States.

I am now in Ilsan, a northern suburb of Seoul. Ilsan is a planned community, and is mainly inhabited by Koreans who no longer wish to live and raise a family in Seoul, but still want to keep their high-figure salary. Ilsan has all of the amenities of Seoul, but to lesser volume including a lesser population density. It has a movie theater, shopping centers, parks, and even has a Wal-mart. One of the nice things about Ilsan and where I live is that there are plenty of trees and mountains all around; if I could offer an analogy of my initial impression, I would say that someone has transported a mid-size town from the Pacific Northwest of America and placed just outside of Seoul.

As I've begun to settle down in Ilsan, the past few days at work I've been observing the classes I'll start teaching on Monday. My initial impression was WOW. Most if not all of my classes have a high command of the language. Given that a bulk of my classes are children who have lived and studied English outside of Korea, I am essentially teaching them English straight from an English book from back home. Its as if I am a 6th or 7th grade teacher teaching an English class. Its a good thing I have time each day to prep for the classes, otherwise I would be completely overwhelmed at this job. I believe I can no longer go into a classroom and wing it... besides after going through my TEFL course, it just wouldn't seem right. Hopefully, I will become a better teacher at this new school.

I am writing this blog post at a PC room and the smoke and heat are becoming overwhelming. I'll quit here.