A Day in the Life...

Inspired by a good friend.

Just an average day in the life of an average English teacher in Korea...

7:15am- Alarm number one goes off. Alarm number one gets turned off.
7:45am- Alarm number two goes off. It's decided who will brave the Arctic temperatures of our apartment floor first. Greg runs to the shower. Get dressed. Check email. Play a Scrabble word or two online. Put in a load of laundry.
8:30am- Eat breakfast. Peanut butter on toast! Mmmmm.
8:50am- Hang up laundry to dry. Turn on the fan (otherwise that laundry will be there for the next three days. I miss dryers).
9:00am- Walk to work. Make it right on time.
9:05am- No morning kindergarten classes today. We were going to do some prep work for afternoon classes, but a last minute change has us going to another kindergarten to observe classes for the morning.
10:00am- Observe class number one. The kids are cute. One troublemaker I hope doesn't end up in my class for the next school year (which starts in two weeks).
11:20am- Observe class number two. The kids are cute. One little guy is literally a head smaller than the rest. Hope he's in my class.
12:20pm- Class ends and we are told that we have to head back to school right away. Out in the parking lot, some big moving trucks have other plans. They are blocking the exit. We can't leave. One of the teachers tracks down the driver. Asks him to move the truck. Fifteen minutes later, we are on the road.
12:40pm- Lunchtime! Lunch is served buffet style and includes (surprise, surprise) kimchi, white rice and kimchi soup. Also, some kind of meat in some kind of spicy sauce (tasty) and a green salad (a more recent addition to our lunch menu).
1:15pm- Prep time! Photocopy worksheets, put out books, write on the whiteboard, etc.
2:20pm- Teachers meeting. Talk about the next school year a bit.
2:40pm- Kids start arriving for the first class of the afternoon. I have to once again enforce the seating arrangement and convince one girl that the boy sitting next to her won't give her a deadly disease. Strangely, all the boys are absent today. Suspicious.
3:45pm- Starting a worksheet with the kids. Two boys burst into the class. Send them back outside. Apparently, "the bus didn't come"... Suspicious. Anyway, give them a talk about coming to class on time. Send them back inside to work on the page.
4:15pm- Mission accomplished. First class over. No deadly diseases contracted and the teacher still has most of her hair. Time to reset the class for the second session.
4:25pm- Most of the kids are already here. See the last student from the window walking up the path to the school.
4:30pm- Start class.
4:40pm- Last student makes it into the class. Why in the world did it take her fifteen minutes? Lucky for her, she's cute.
5:00pm- Start a game that will hopefully help improve the class's phonics. Some kids are really struggling. Game doesn't go over as well as planned. The losing team looks like they want to cry. I give them a prize as well to cheer them up.
5:55pm- Send the kids off on the bus. Head back upstairs to clean up and write class evaluations.
6:30pm- Supper time! Nothing fancy, I'm afraid. Sandwiches.
7:30pm- Clean up. Head to Yoger Presso, our favorite coffee shop. It's almost at the point where we have "usuals": hot chocolate for me, smoothie for Greg. The owners chuckle a little when we order. Possibly because we always get the same thing, or possibly because we just butchered the Korean language...
9:00pm- Head home. Put on pj's. Crawl into bed with a snack. Turn on Big Bang Theory reruns. They are good every time we watch them. And yes, we probably shouldn't eat snack in bed, but when you don't have a couch (or a kitchen table for that matter), you make do.
Next day: repeat.