I Will Survive

For the past few days, I lost all ability to properly function beyond the absolute, bare minimum necessary to survive; this means I was able to withdraw money out of my new Korean bank account, walk myself to the convenience mart around the corner to purchase some instant ramen noodles for dinner and a sugary, powdered mocha mix for my morning coffee, and get myself dressed and to school in the morning. I have been walking around barely a step up from utterly exhausted—close to zombie status. I experienced the same feelings of fatigue my first few weeks in Guatemala—there are so many new stimuli around that take a lot of focus and concentration, and therefore energy. Trying to communicate with people who don’t speak your language, remembering how to find your way back home through the streets, standing in front of five classes per day full of 38 crazy middle school boys and trying, over their constant chatter and movement, trying to tell them things about yourself that ultimately, they may not care about, it all sucks my energy dry. Add to this a completely the jet lag and messed up sleep schedule and it’s a recipe for exhaustion. But, with each passing day I feel better and with each passing night I stay up a little later and wake up a little later (I have progressed from going to sleep at 6pm and waking up at 3am to going to sleep at 9pm and waking up at 6am (quite ideal, yes)… but even this is a struggle as I want to fall asleep much earlier and I still wake up a few times between the hours of 3-6am every morning before my alarm goes off). I know all of this will change with time, along with all of my current feelings and emotions that go along with my overall adjustment, but goodness this is difficult right now.

I’ll just go ahead and say that a lot has happened in the past few days. Unfortunately I do not have internet in my apartment yet, and have therefore neglected to write much of anything (even hand-writing in my journal was too daunting a task). So, I’ll just start here:

My first day at school was Wednesday (although on Tuesday I was introduced to the “important” people in the school). I had five classes that day, but my involvement in each class varied depending on my co-teacher. (I technically have one main co-teacher, “J,” whom I will not teach with at all but is instead in charge of taking care of me, so to speak, and then right now I have three co-teachers with whom I will teach). My two classes with “H” consisted of me introducing myself and answering student questions for about the first 15-20 minutes of class, then she sent me back to the staff room to sit and stare at my computer. “Mr. O” gave me the floor for the entire 45-minute duration of both classes with him—a bit of a struggle, but it ended up alright. Finally, in my one class with “Mrs. G,” I tried to introduce myself and answer student questions, but after about five minutes I realized that there was no way I could get these boys’ attention. And, there was no way Mrs. G was going to help me out. Instead, she engaged in conversation with me, asking me if I’ve been down to the river yet, telling me where she lives, things like that. I was so confused, thinking to myself “Isn’t this supposed to be English class?”

For all of you who assume Korean middle school students are better behaved than American middle school students—think again. This may be true for the girls, but these boys are awful! On my very first day stepping into the school (Tuesday), I followed my co-teacher out of the teacher’s office into the hallway at the very moment the bell rang for lunch. The school is four stories, and as we rounded the corner to the stairwell, it sounded exactly as I imagine a stampede of elephants making way through the African desert. Add to their running down the stairs the simultaneous actions of kicking, punching, throwing things and yelling and screaming and you have the boys of Jinju Jeil Middle School heading to the cafeteria for lunch. I was trying my best to hide my amusement at the situation, as all I wanted to do was laugh out loud!

I walk through the hallways between classes, and the only thing I see is more kicking, punching and shouting. I walk into the classroom and it continues. When they do finally settle down to take their seats (which I think they only did so quickly on these first days because they were curious about the new foreigner), I only have their full attention for about two minutes before this group of four is playing cards, that group of five is chuckling about something, this kid is punching the kid in front of him, and that kid throws a paper airplane (literally). Suffice it to say, I am still looking forward to this experience because amidst all this madness, I’ve found hope.

My hope lies in a few good classes (I had ten total in two days this week) and a few good students. There were perhaps two or three classes that gave me their full attention for my entire time there (and they were all classes of Mr. O, interestingly, which makes me wonder if it’s him or if it’s that he’s male). And, there were always students (who not surprisingly sat in the front rows) whose eyes were always on me and I knew that even if they didn’t understand everything I was saying or didn’t ask a single question because they were too shy or insecure, I still had them with me. So many things about my own life as a student, and the lives of teachers are already beginning to come clear—and I’ve so much ahead of me still.

To all of you teachers out there, I commend you for all that you do!

I’ve had a little fun in class already also. One of my good classes with Mr. O (which I later found out is his homeroom so he had made his students prepare questions) was with me all period, and I was caught completely off-guard when the bell rang 45 minutes later I was having so much fun with them. I was asked if I liked to lift weights; I answered Yes, on occasion, but I don’t do it often. Then, a student followed up by asking me if I was strong. I replied with I’m not sure… then I motioned him to come up to the front and arm wrestle with me to find out. He wouldn’t do it, but a few kids pointed to a louder kid up front to wrestle with me, so he stepped up to the plate. He put up a good fight, but I ended up winning. Okay fine, only because he let me… BUT, I we held it in the middle for quite a while! He was surprisingly strong for a teenage kid. The class tried to make me sing a song (Mr. O said it’s Korean tradition for the new person to sing a song—yeah right!). I said maybe another day, but then I heard a kid singing what I thought was Jingle Bells so I said if he came up front with me I’d sing with him. We both sang the first few words, but I think it wasn’t Jingle Bells he was singing afterall. Oh well!

I’ve gotten some pretty amazing questions in class. The first questions are always “How old are you?” and “Do you have a boyfriend?” Then, they always ask my height, perhaps my weight, why I have come to Korea, if I speak Korean, if I know this famous Korean person or that one, if I like to play Starcraft (the popular computer game here that ALL the boys play), if I’ve ever met anyone famous, things like that. THEN, there are always those random kids who have the guts to ask me questions like when my first kiss was, at what age I had my first boyfriend, how many boyfriends I’ve had during my life, whether my hair color is natural, and whether I’ve had plastic surgery.

If I’ve gotten this much out of spending two days at school, I can only imagine what an entire year holds for me. And honestly, I can’t wait.