Day 9 and 10 of 293

So Thursday is the Day!  We get to see our school for the first time.  Let me just tell you the whole experience.  I feel like I might not be able to adequately describe parts of it, like this first part... the bus ride.

Ok, so we meet at the corner of my building at 8:30, which is the most convenient because it is on the way.  And guess who is here to walk with us, Mrs. Beth Riley, my boss.  She came here to make sure that everything was ok and ready at the Mokkdong campus (It was not!).  Not only was she here, but she came on short notice, with boot on her leg, because she had fractured??? the top of her foot.  So she basically flew across the world, and walked all over Korea, with a boot on her leg!  Can you say "Superwoman!"  So, we meet her and find out that two of the teachers from Mokkdong are going to be joining us at Shema, and one of them, Carol, is not going to be able to make it.  She was soooo looking forward to coming, especially since she had been here before.  Anyway, Yay! the other teachers get to come here!  So where was I, oh yeah, we meet at the corner of my building at 8:30, walk for about 10 minutes to the bus stop and hop on board our bus to go to Shema.  We drive through town, to an area of Meokdeong that I have never been, turn down this tiny little road.  It is the equivalent to a dirt road in the US, but this is not dirt, it is just concrete, that is just wide enough for one car/bus to drive on, except in a few places where there is a little carved out area against a cliff, where the smaller of two cars coming toward each other can scoot over and let the bigger car by.  Let me just further describe this, as a road of concrete with dangerous drop offs on each side most of the time.  For those of you that know me, consider this next statement for all it is worth, I HAVE NO DESIRE TO DRIVE IN KOREA!!!  That aside, the drivers that we have had are AMAZING!  They do things with vehicles of all sizes that movie stuntmen are paid millions to do.

So, we arrive at Shema Campus and it is much nicer that I imagines.  I had not seen many pictures of the campus and I was pleasantly surprise! (I almost wrote presently surprised, but I fixed it, then I told you about it).  Mrs. Yoon and Mrs. Sally (don't know her last name, but totally love her) ushered us into the office,  They had all the English teachers sit in the comfy chairs until they were ready to introduce us to everyone.  Mrs. Yoon then introduced us all one by one, saying what I am sure was wonderful things (I'll never know because it was in Korean).  Then she introduced the Korean teachers to us.  The ones I remember and could recognize today: JM, Mrs Yoon (math teacher, not the other Mrs. Yoon I have talked about so far.  Found out that day that there were two Mrs. Yoons.  Love them both, by the way), and there you go! That's all I can remember.  Many of them I recognize them, as knowing them, but I cannot always remember their names, like right now!!! Can't remember any more names.  After meeting everyone and then closing in prayer (love that we did that) we went upstairs and kind of wondered what to do next.  We moved books, we helped Kathrine pull down decorations from her room to move to the new building that we are going to be moved into.  After a little while of talking, Daniel, Christine, and I went to apply for our immigration cards.  This basically entailed us following Sally to this partition area, then waiting until they could see us, walking over to another partitioned area, handing them our passports, getting our passports back, waiting, standing up to maybe go do something else, then leaving!  Very exciting stuff, I suggest everyone do that at some point in your life.  In the US, maybe the DMV would do the trick!  We went back to Shema and got our books and started working on planning for the school year.  We stayed 5, then hopped back on the bus, road down the narrow concrete road, then back to the bus stop to do our 10 minute walk back home (oh yeah, I should note here that the walk home, is uphill half of the way!  Just something to look forward to after a long day).  I forgot to mention,  we ate at the school cafeteria, extra points for anyone that can guess what I ate??????  That evening we at Korean Barbeque.  I am pretty sure I posted a pic of it at some point on facebook.

Friday, two more teachers are scheduled to arrive.  We all follow the same route as the say before, meet at 8:30, walk 10 minutes to bus stop, ride bus on scary road, arrive at Shema safely.  We take a tour of the new building.  It is going to be beautiful!  They still have a lot of last minute touches to do to almost everything.  Then we are off to work on lesson plans.  We get some more bummer news today.  Karin is not going to be able to come teach this year because of health reasons.  She was going to be my roommate.  I am going to miss getting to know her better.  She wants to come visit some time this school year.  I hope she gets to.  So, the question becomes, who is going to teach her classes.  Answer, her classes are split between the other teachers.  We maneuver, the class schedules again, and whew! I am not teaching a science class.  That is good for the students as well as me.  Science -- not my favorite subject.  We eat lunch, in the cafeteria again, guess what I ate?????   Caleb and Mrs. Riley went to the airport to pick up to more of our teachers, we still have one more that has yet to come.  Waiting on the FBI background check apostilling.  We get done at 5, head back home in the bus, down the scary road, to the bus stop, walk 10 minutes home (half-way up hill, YAY!) and change clothes and head out in a taxi (first time in a taxi) to meet the Ciara and Brock at McDonalds (the place we take all Americans on there first night in Korea).  When they get there, it is like a family reunion.  We are all so happy to see each other, even though we have only known each other for three weeks.  We are all hugging and just talking like we have known each other our whole lives.  McDonalds was pretty good.  I actually felt like eating this time, quite enjoyable.  It tasted like McDonalds in the US.  We finally headed back home, Ciara, my new roommate and I explored the apartment.  She was not afraid to push buttons.  I had pretty much only pushed buttons that I knew what they did and she found out what a lot more of the buttons did within 30 minutes of being here.

Sidebar--funny story that I never mentioned before.  So, I think it was last Wednesday, a guy was coming to put tinting on the windows in my apartment.  Here is how it was supposed to work.  The man would come to the entrance to my apartment building buzz my apartment, I would let him in the apartment building, he would ring my doorbell, I would let him into my apartment, he would tint all the windows, and leave.  Here's what happened.  Man buzzes my apartment, I push the combination of buttons that I thought would let him in, nothing happens....Man buzzes my apartment, again I push the combination of buttons that I thought would let him in nothing happens (not sure why I thought doing the same thing would work this time, but I did, and it didn't) I push more buttons.  I sound the alarm.  I freak out!  I push more buttons to try to get the alarm off!  I give up!  I rush to put my shoes on and try to catch the man at the door to my apartment building 9 floors down.  I get down there and find no one.  I freak out!  I calm down!  I run to Kathrine's apartment building because I have no phone, can't speak Korean, and don't know who to call anyways.  I try to buzz her apartment.  I do it wrong.  I forgot their apartment number.  I run back to my apartment.  Find the right apartment number.  Run back to her apartment building.  I try to buzz her apartment.  I fail.  I try again, different combination of steps.  Success!  I go to her apartment.  Explain my problem.  She calmly says she will call Sally, and she shows me how to work the Buzzer thing.  I calm down.  I go back to my apartment.  I hear the buzzer, but now there is three people at my door, not the apartment building door, but my apartment door.  I buzz them in, and the man had gone to get the owners and they direct him through the apartment.  One of them speaks a little English.  yay!  Ok, so now I have Kathrine making calls that don't need to be made, so I FB message her and tell her that the crisis has been averted!  It all turned out fine in the end.  Sidebar over.

After I showed her around a little bit, we both decide it is time to crash!  We have a busy day tomorrow! Dinner with Pastor Kim!