I'm really here!

We have internet! We have all the teachers! I have a TA and a class! Let's go!


I should probably post first about my students, but I'll get to them later. I finished my second day of teaching today. After the first day, we decided that we should try out the various alcoholic beverages the teachers had bought while we were out on errands over the weekend. So eight of the nine teachers came to the girls' apartment, and we tried some kind of unfiltered rice wine (not as sweet as I'd hoped), a Korean beer (many people liked it, but I thought it was a pretty unimpressive, wholly unremarkable light beer), a Japanese beer (didn't get to try any), two kinds of Korean wine (both weird and not delicious, but in distinct ways), and an Australian wine Sara picked up just because, which was fine, except I forgot I don't like cabernet.

It was really nice just relaxing with everyone, and I feel like it was a good group bonding experience. We'd been getting along before, but it was nice to sit together after our first day teaching and find that no one had terrible experiences, but everyone was a little frustrated with various things.

Today, I spent more of my breaks talking with my TA, who told me to use his American name, Sean. This is good, because I know his surname is Kim, but his Korean first name is still escaping me. My students also chose American names today. Two chose Brendon and Kevin, but the other two choose Moon and Bear. Close enough. Brendon is my favorite. He actually speaks to me, and asks good questions. Plus, he pulls out his ipad and shows me and other students the solar system app, and an app that uses the ipad as an infrared camera, both of which were genuinely helpful during my lectures when I had trouble communicating to them.

The students' English isn't as good as I'd hoped, but I spoke with them all individually today, and all but one could actually understand me and respond. Not fluently at all, but they got their point across. Which is good, because from standing at the front of the room, I'd really thought Brendon and one other kid were the only ones who knew English at all.

Today, when it was time for dinner, Sara and I went downstairs to ask if the guys also wanted dinner. Mahmoud was sitting with his TA and Rebekah in his apartment, just chatting. His TA is named Ha Na, though half the people are just calling her Hannah. Close enough.

This is the girl Mahmoud dragged over as soon as she told him she studies English by watching Gossip Girl and Doctor Who. I asked her if the difference in accents bothered her, or was even noticeable, and she agreed that sometimes it was confusing, because they don't always sound like the same words. She also said American was much smoother, while British people seem to pronounce letters like "t" much more than Americans. So that was interesting.

We asked her where to go for dinner outside of the cafeteria, and she walked us into town and helped us order food. It was definitely the best food I've had since I've been here. She told us the food would be good, but the "building design is very bad." After a brief discussion, the Americans were delighted to explain the term "hole in the wall." And it was. Fantastic food, tiny, cramped single room for eating. We took off our shoes and sat on cushions around the low tables. We ordered too much food, but there were cold noodles with vegetables, spicy tofu and zucchini, spicy squid and peppers, rice and vegetables, and a hot noodle soup. All were delicious, with plenty of seasoning. The owners and Ha Na were really concerned that the squid and tofu dishes would be too spicy for us, but they were really good, and not that bad at all. Spicy, for sure, but most of us had had worse. The Koreans were impressed, but really I'm thinking somewhere, Americans gave a very poor showing at eating spicy food. The rice and noodle dishes were flavorful, but not spicy. They were actually my favorite. And they brought out these really long, thin, green peppers that everyone sort of leaned away from, but Ha Na seemed surprised, and said they weren't spicy at all. They weren't as sweet as a bell pepper, but she was right, not spicy in the least. We dipped them in something like ketchup. Pretty good.

After dinner, a few of us wandered around the part of town near the university. We got taro bubble tea (which is not a big thing here at all, but Ha Na likes it too, so she knew where to find it), some more food at another store, and tried in vain to get Mahmoud a pay-as-you-go cell phone. Everything we found required a contract, though.

It's maybe a 20 minute walk into town, but nighttime here is actually quite nice, so it was pleasant walking home. And now I need to sleep.