Veni- I Came

EPIK (English Program in Korea) orientation overall was a blast. For all of those that don't know I work for a public teaching program funded by the Korean government. Technically, I guess you could classify me as a Korean civil servant (which sounds a lot better than- so what do you do? O, I teach English in Korea). Koreans, at least at the governmental level are obsessed with teaching their youth English. The reason behind this is totally beyond me given that Mandarin (which is also taught in schools) and Indian (or more accurately Hindi if India actually has an official language- not taught in school as far as I'm aware) should be far more useful over the next century than English will be. It goes without saying but the sheer numbers speak volumes about which continent will follow the American Empire (and yes we are an empire militarily, economically, and culturally speaking). Nonetheless, I'm stoked that Koreans love English so much because it has given me a job that allows me to travel and work overseas. Horray English! Back to my main point of telling you about our program orientation. Our eight day orientation was held at Dankook University in the city of Cheonan (located in the Chungnam province). We (EPIK teachers) lived in the dorms which I'm pretty sure were brand new and very nice. The bus ride to Dankook University from Incheon International Airport (the main airport if you're flying to Seoul btw) was two hours but it seemed like an eternity given how tired I felt after the 13 hour flight! The EPIK staff coordinated our flights to arrive at the airport around the same time; as such, we rode in a massive convey of buses to Dankook University. Getting outside the airport I quickly realized that one sweater does not keep you warm unless you live in Southern California pretty much your whole life. The first day of orientation was fairly laid back- the staff obviously realized that most of us were completely jet lagged so all we had to do was go for our medical checkups (you need a medical checkup to obtain your alien registration card 'green card'). Some people bitched about getting their blood and urine taken but I mostly lamented about how cold I was and worried about what kind of things they were testing for (thankfully, cannabis wasn't one of them or I'd be back at home:). Afterwards, close to dinner time, we gathered in the auditorium for our opening day ceremony. As with any opening ceremony it was a lot of 'welcome to ----' blah, blah blah, followed by some traditional dances- kind of boring but it was cool seeing how many of us were there in the auditorium. There were 500 teachers from literally every native English speaking country. Surprisingly I met loads (you can tell I've been hanging out with Brits, Kiwis, Aussies, and South Africans when I start using words like this) of South Africans; 30-35% of the teachers there had to be from South Africa (don't know why so many?). Americans made up the biggest contingent which to tell the truth I was a little disappointed to find even though I made good friends with a couple. The wake-up call (each room had an intercom) every was at 7:30 which was a little rough because of the time difference and my general sleep pattern of getting up around 10 everyday. Breakfast was from 7:30-8:30 (don't know anyone who actually made it to breakfast before 8?) and classes started at 9. Most of the classes naturally dealt with how to teach English and life in Korea i.e. the vast culture differences, how to cope with culture shock, and what to expect throughout our year here. The latter lectures were by far the most helpful because in my first week of teaching I've learned teaching is really trial and error (emphasis on error- more on that in a later blog). Most days classes were done by 5:30 and and we were free to do whatever we wanted. Like many Anglo-saxons often do, we ventured into nearby downtown Cheonan to check out the towns nightlife. The first thing I noticed is that many places in Korea do not have bars in the sense Westerns know them as. Most Koreans instead get together at restaurants and

drink there- if you're with a group of friends it can actually be quite fun. That being said, Cheonan and most other big cities do have true bars even though I didn't find many Koreans go there except to find Westerners maybe. I'm too tired to continue this blog and I think it's getting stale so I'll end here abruptly.. Until next time, Cheers!