Working for a Living

Today marks the end of our second week of school. Even though we don't have everything figured out yet, we have found ourselves in somewhat of a routine for our work week. Some of you are even wondering if we do any work at all over here, so we offer you an entry about a day in the life of Darin Teacher and Jennifer Teacher at Wonderland School.

7:30
Wake up (or rather Darin wakes up and for the next 15 minutes tries to get Jenn to wake up).

*Edit from Jenn* In my defence, it is not that I won't or can't get up it is more like I choose not to. Darin has always been an early riser and goes immediately into the shower and does his thing, which takes around 15-20 minutes. I see no point to rising until I can get in the bathroom to do my thing. Whouldn't you rather stay and stretch out in the bed by yourself too!

*Edit from Darin* I will confer with Jenn's mom and dad on whether choose is the right word for how Jenn gets out of bed??

7:45-8:45
Shower, shave, get dressed, and eat breakfast (so far this has consisted of toast, bagels, oatmeal, Corn Flakes, Frosted Flakes, and on one occasion I even made my secret family recipe of sporng - not a Korean word, but some weird name my mom made up).

8:45-9:15
Leave the apartment, take 6 flights of stairs (or 74 steps - Jenn counted) and walk to work. We expected a 10 minute walk, but it takes more like 30. It helps to wake us up before facing the day. There is also a school shuttle bus that we can catch at 9:00 if we need to. We did that on our first day because we didn't know how to get to school, but since then we have been walking and we are enjoying the exercise. In the case of emergencies (if Jenn ever chooses not to get out of bed until 8:30) or if it's raining, we can call a taxi and it takes 3-5 minutes (the driving over here is out-of-control-crazy) and it costs about 3,000 won (or $3.00).

9:15-9:30
Arrive at school and have a coffee or tea before the onslaught of children.

9:30-11:50
Jenn has 2 kindergarten classes in a row with 3 students each. I usually spend this time planning lessons or reading email or blogging or studying Korean (not learning too much yet, but I am confident things will pick up).

11:50-1:40
Lunch time. We either go to one of our favourite cheap restaurants or bring some ramen noodles (we have been reaquainted with the magic of Mr.Noodles, though slightly more sophisticated, over here. You would think that years of living as students would have turned us off those things, but we seem to be eating them on a daily basis and not minding it one bit).

1:40-6:35
This is the bulk of our day. We either start the afternoon at 1:40 or 2:30 or 3:20 depending on the rotating schedule of classes. For the most part, Jenn has 4 or 5 classes in this time frame and I have 5 or 6. Jenn and I each have our own classroom and they are "themed" rooms. Mine is called the McDonalds/7-11 room and is decked out in empty McDonald's containers and Big Gulps. There are even a few Starbucks cups floating about. It has menus on the wall and plastic food in a display case. Jenn's room is called The Airport and has model airplanes, maps, and clocks with times from different countries in the world. The students we teach in these classrooms are kindergarten to grade 5. Each class is 45 minutes, then we have a 5 minute break before the next class comes in (and 5 minutes is not enough of a break with these kids - you have one group going out the door and the next rushing in). It is in these 5 minutes that Jenn and I sneak away to the hallway to get away from the noise and we have taken to hanging out in the staircase near an open window where we can look at a pagoda in the park across the street - that is our respite before we face the next class.

6:40-7:25
I have to teach a middle school class (grade 6-8) in the evening. Jenn does not, but she waits around for 45 minutes reading or emailing or blogging, so that we can walk home together. One night a week I have middle school until 8:15 so that extends our day a bit.

7:30-8:00
We take the 30 minute walk home and if we don't stop at the grocery store (which we pass on the way) we are home by 8:00 just over 11 hours after we left in the morning. So yes, we are saying that our work day is 11 hours long, but that includes 1 hour of walking time and at least a 2 hour lunch break (sometimes 3). Actual teaching time for me is 4.5 or 5 hours and for Jenn is 5 or 5.5 hours each day, and it looks like we'll be averaging just under 30 hours per week of class time. But this could change anytime, as we have already had some schedule changes, with no notice or explanation.

8:00-10:00
When we get home Jenn puts rice on to cook (we just got a rice cooker so she is extremely happy, no more unsticky or too-sticky sticky rice) and chops a few veggies for our favourite meal (yup, that's it, rice, stirfried veggies, sesame seeds and soy sauce - it's delicious and we eat it just about every night.) Dessert is a ration of those M&M's we were lucky to find (which are almost gone, by the way) After dinner we read, write, and listen to music (thank goodness we packed the ipod with the new Bose speaker, all our favourite tunes with superior sound!) And as sad as it is for two young people like us, bedtime is 10:00.

There are also Activity Days once a month, usually on a Friday. Today is Chusok (Korean Thanksgiving) Activity Day, so there is more of a casual atmosphere and more informal talking with the kids instead of actual lessons. In the morning we will be making songpyon (some kind of rice dough thing) with the kindergartens and in the afternoon we will be having a snack party with the older kids (what a snack party consists of, other than snacks, we have no idea.) More to come on how our Activity Day goes, but it is bound to be full of fun because the motto at our school is: EVERYONE SMILES AT WONDERLAND!!