day four - first day of school... super shitty all around

First time taking the shuttle bus and I missed it. Taking the subway to the place where the shuttle bus picks us up was easy because it's only one stop over, but Scott told me that I had to go out exit #2 to get to street level, find the Hana Bank and that's where the bus would pick us up.

Well, I went out exit number two and looked around. Hana Bank was nowhere to be found. I though I was okay because I had about 13 minutes before the bus was to leave. I thought wrong. I used all 13 minutes asking random people where the bank was and I walked back and forth about 5 times until I finally found a Korean woman who could speak English quite well. I followed her directions, saw Hana Bank, and also saw my shuttle bus pulling away. All sorts of ugly words were spewing out of my mouth at that point.

Yet again, it took forever to get a cab and when I finally got one, knowing I didn't have the school's address on me, I mimed to the cabbie that he had to use his phone to call my school. Thank goodness I had the school's number on me. He was able to get the address, but when we got to the area, we overshot the school because I wasn't exactly sure where it was, but I knew we'd gone too far. So I motioned that we needed to go back in the other direction and about $3 and 15 minutes later I was at the school and, thankfully, not late. Phewf.

That horrible start to my first day paved the way for the remainder of the day. I had no idea what the frig I was doing with my students!!! We had a schedule and lesson plans laid out for us to do, but we were told not to do any of it because it was the first day of school. So all that I had prepared yesterday wasn't to be used today, which means I had nothing prepared. Crap. I asked all the other teachers what they were doing and they seemed to know what they were going to do, but me... no clue. I ended up doing the calendar and the weather for about 20 mins and then tried to remember my kids' names for another 10 mins and the rest of the time was spent watching YouTube clips of Tom and Jerry.

After lunch I was told by the vice pres, Ellie, that we had follow our regular schedule, but not really because it was still the first day. What the heck does that mean then?!!! Ugh!! I just ended up doing a bit of the lesson and then Tom and Jerry for the rest of the lesson. Eventually, it was home time for the kindy kids. Thank God!! But getting them out the door was chaos! Stuffing backpacks, putting coats on, zipping/buttoning up coats, putting on backpacks, taking off inside shoes, putting on outside shoes for 20 freaking kids while 40 other kids were doing the same thing in the same area!!! Thank goodness my Korean partner teacher and I had to do it together.

I am so not ready for kids.

When I got home, I was more than exhausted. I think that was the night I went to bed at 9:15. And rightly so! I also think Dennis' day was just as interesting. He wrote about it. I'll post it up here later because he's too lazy to create a blog and write entries on a regular basis.