Friday, pay day, and one month

This morning I was standing at the bus stop when a car pulled up. It was 3 of my students and their mom, and they wanted to drive me to school. It was so nice! The boys were all eating suckers (at 8:30 in the morning) so mom gave me one too. I impressed her with a few words of Korean, and talked to the boys a little bit in English. It was waaaaaaaaaaaay better than riding the bus!

Today is also my first pay day in Korea :) We were told at orientation to bring a gift for the staff today, so last night I bought a box of oranges. In America I would have brought treats, but unfortunately Koreans would rather be healthy. They acted like it was the best thing in the world! The box was finished in about an hour. I think I'll do this every few months just to keep them liking me :) I was also extra grateful for the ride this morning because I wasn't really sure what I would do with a box of fruit if I had to stand on the bus...

I have lived in my apartment exactly one month today. On moving day, all the English teachers rode a bus from orientation to Ulsan. We were dropped off in the middle of a parking lot, and our Korean co-teachers came to find us and take us away. At that point nobody had cell phones or internet, so we weren't sure when or how we would find each other again. Yu-ri took me out to a really fancy Korean restaurant. I remember there were probably 20 bowls of food. Then she took me to school, where I met the principal and saw my awesome classroom. Then we dropped my suitcases off at my apartment and went grocery shopping. By now it was afternoon, and I was so overwhelmed, and also really sick. We were wandering around the grocery store trying to find food I knew how to cook, and I was trying not to cry because I was feeling too overwhelmed. It seems really silly now, but that was such a crazy day. Then she brought me and all my food back to the apartment and she left. The guy who lived there before me didn't do the greatest job cleaning. I think it took me 3 days to get the place looking nice. That first night I pretty much did the bare minimum - bed and bathroom, and unpacked, then went to bed. About an hour after I fell asleep I woke up to my doorbell ringing. My landlady wanted to make sure my heat was turned on. It was nice of her to be concerned, but my heat was already on, so I was mostly just crabby about being woken up.

I have come a long way since then, and it's only been a month1 Crazy!