The Ego Has Landed

Ever had someone turn round to look at you, then visibly appear shocked and exclaim, "WOW! You're so beautiful!"?

No, it doesn't happen to me often either. But I've discovered that being a pale Irish young woman in Korea prompts just this sort of reaction. I was expecting to be told I'm fat, and I have big feet, and I have bright red cheeks; just wondering how long the novelty will last, and the kids will turn to these comments!

Had my second day of class today, and man, are these kids enthusiastic! I've never had applause before for being called Jeni or for being from Ireland. And they know about Northern Ireland being part of the UK, and they even know where Wales is! These are smart kids, a much higher level than I was expecting, so a drastic rethink of the plans is in order. We were asked some highly intelligent questions, questions I wouldn't expect from similar aged students in Western countries.

Done 5 different introduction classes so far, and got another 8 or so to go. It gets a bit repetitive as it's the same thing over and over, and I'm trying to come up with new stories and/or new ways to tell them. Need to learn to keep talking, talking, talking, as from next week onwards I won't have my fellow native English teacher (NET) with me, and he's been doing most of the talking up until now! He spent a year teaching in Korea already, so I'm trying to learn from him.

It was strange leaving school today: I know I'm finished at 5, but none of the other teachers left then, and the students don't leave either, because they board at school and they do self-study until 10 anyway. But it was strange being the only one leaving campus - felt like I was sneaking out in the middle of the day.

As an interesting sidenote: I think my landlord has been leaving me gifts! The last 2 days, I've come home from work to find a little plastic bag hanging off my door handle, containing 2 little cartons of what I think is milk! Very strange. I can only assume it's my landlord leaving it. I wonder if milk means anything in Korea...

Anyhoo...time to make dinner in my mouldy kitchen (seriously need to get that seen to). Ta ta x