I wanted to sleep in a bit but my roommate set her alarm early and I woke up when she did not able to fall back asleep. Just hung around waiting in our room to be called down to return our blankets. Then, it was waiting to be called for our buses to send us each off to our general locations. Our neighbor friend Debbie headed out before us, going to a more southern province. A few of us waited in the hall and talked until they called us down. We loaded up the buses and were given sandwiches and it we were on the road to Seoul. We arrived at the NIIED (partners in sponsoring our jobs) office and saw all our coteachers/school representatives waiting for us.
One of the two vice principals from my school came to pick me up. She drove me to the school and I met the principal and other vice principal and we went for lunch at the school cafeteria. I met my main coteacher Eun Suk. She is basically my "life helper" but we don't actually teach any classes together. She is in her 40's I think. She showed me desk and my textbooks so I paged through them to get some lesson planning ideas. A few of the classes had students that wanted to meet me so they came into our teachers' office and said hello. They were nervous and scared of me. I even heard a few say that they hate English... After my coteacher finished teaching her classes for the day, we left a little early so I could go to my officetel. My principal actually drove us there when he saw we were going to walk. The doorman is very kind and helpful. My bed already had bedding and the school also got a table, chairs, microwave, toaster, clothes drying rack and some dishes for me. The doorman told us all the important stuff about the room and how to set my code for the door (electronic; keyless entry). Then we walked to e-mart (like a Meijer or Walmart) which is about 2 minutes away. We got a few more kitchen tools (school supported--but I think it's from my $300 resettlement fee, which is a bit...disappointing to me because I wanted to use it exactly how I wanted to and from where--instead they got bedding that I didn't pick and got things I might not need-ie toaster...) I also bought some groceries. We unpacked my things and then we ordered delivery food. We ate and then my coteacher left.
Around 7:30 Bohye and her family came with my bags. It's so hard to believe I came with that much stuff! Haha. But I keep reminding myself I'll be here for a year, not a short stay... We went out for patbingsoo (shaved ice with red beans) and I ordered a lemonade. I treated Bohye's family for being so generous. They left around 9:15 and I set about to unpack. I figured the best way was to just dive in so I dumped everything out of my suitcases and went from there. I worked for about 2 hours and went to bed.
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