I’ve officially been in South Korea for a year some chance and I’m finally putting up my first video on life teaching abroad! Even though I’ve moved halfway across the world my day to day is about as normal as I could come to expect. Here’s just a small snippet of my everyday life as a foreign teacher in South Korea!
” Actually, not many people know this, but I tried to come to Korea before I came through EPIK, and when it fell through I was absolutely devastated.”
“You want to…teach. In…South Korea? Why?”
“What on Earth is in South Korea?”
“What happened to you wanting to be on TV?!”
When I told everyone my decision to move to Korea, I got questions like this all the time. As my 6 month anniversary in Korea rapidly approaches I feel like I am finally allowed to sit back and marvel at the journey I’ve taken. There were lots of reasons why I eventually chose to move halfway across the world to a country I had never been before where I could barely speak the language.
Quite frankly, none of those reasons matter now.
What matters is that I’m here, doing something I literally never thought I would be, fulfilling dreams I didn’t know I had.
In the weeks before graduation when I told my immediate family that I wanted to move to South Korea, to teach of all things, they were more than slightly confused. After all, I was about to graduate with a Television Broadcast degree, and at long last it seemed I’d be starting out on my path to becoming the next Oprah, a dream I’d had since I was a child interviewing my teddy bears (Literally. I was crazy.). Though they were outwardly supportive, I honestly don’t think they took me all that seriously until I was offered an actual reporter position not even two months after graduating. I mentally, physically and emotionally struggled with my decision to take this job for days. I was already in the process of trying to come to Korea, and I knew if I took that job I was never going to make it overseas.
In the end I obviously turned the job down, and I have yet to regret that decision even in the turmoil that 
followed. Actually, not many people know this, but I tried to come to Korea through a private Hagwon before I came through EPIK, and when it fell through in August, weeks before I was expecting to step on a plane, I was absolutely devastated. I had turned down a job for this opportunity, put everything on the line only to have my dream forcibly taken from me. When I randomly ran into Greenheart Travel online just after this devastation took place and found out I wouldn’t be able to come to Korea until February, I gave up all that was left of my already dwindling hope. My thoughts were racing with negativity: I had to get paperwork together far too quickly, there was no way I’d be able to scrounge up $1000 in 4 months, and could I stand to go through everything all over again just to be rejected once more…?
Ultimately, I couldn’t tell you what made me finally decide to go through with it, gather the paperwork again and pull myself up by my bootstraps, but I know that from the moment I made the decision to get here I was working my butt off. At one point I was working 3 jobs to save up for both a plane ticket and for when I actually got to the other side of the world. I wasn’t sleeping, I certainly never saw my friends, and my family was starting to worry that I’d gone crazy. Still, I had a goal and a million reasons so I was sticking to it.
When I finally got my placement in late January, I’m not ashamed to admit that I opened that e-mail and cried like a baby. I had been through what felt like Hell and back and what I had wanted for years was finally, finally, real. I had no idea what I was walking into really, but I knew that I had been studying the language and the culture for over 2 years and that I wanted, needed, to make this work because I wanted it more than anything.
6 months later I still acutely remember how stressed I was just over a year ago when my plans first fell through
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along with every bump in the road that came after. While those memories remain, they’re overridden by new ones. Like crazy summer nights on a random beach. That one time I took a crazy 9 hour bus adventure with friends and slept on a stranger’s floor (do NOT tell my mother). I remember (and also only kind of remember…) any and every weekend I’ve spent in Seoul with friends old and new. Instead of thinking back on the tears and frustration I prefer to remember laughing uproariously in noraebangs as we screamed ‘Hey Jude’ into a mic, or when we celebrated absolutely nothing on a Friday night in a bar the one time I had to go in to work the next morning (the results, as you may have guessed, were tragic).
The reason coming to Korea is the greatest thing I could have done isn’t the fact that I overcame so many obstacles, or anything so dramatically ‘Remember the Titans’ worthy as that. Coming to Korea was the greatest thing I could have done because for the first time I did something entirely for me, free falling into an opportunity in which I had no idea what was waiting on the other side. And you know what, I feel like I’m finally making the difference I’ve wanted to make since interviewing those teddy bears at age 5 .
I may not be mic’ed up and ready to give the world’s greatest interview just yet, but walking into the classroom everyday to my students excitedly yelling “TEACHER!” gives me the same feeling as walking onto any stage. Giving out stickers on homework is my new “And YOU get a new car!” equivalent. On very rare bad days when I miss the simplicity of talking into a camera, students will literally half mime-half speak the world’s best broken English and cheer so loud when I understand them I feel more important than any celebrity on the planet.
Basically, my decisions and reasons for coming mean virtually nothing in comparison to what I’m actually 
accomplishing now that I’m here.If you’re on your way here, whether in a week, a month, a year or 10, your reasons don’t have to be ginormous or profound or spiritual. Your reasons for coming aren’t that big a deal, it’s what what you do while you stay that truly matters, and it took me a long time to see that.
I plan on staying for a while yet, and even though not everyday is perfect, it’s the perfect days that remind me why I fought so hard to get here in the first place. I’m sure I’ll get back onto the path of Oprah eventually. For now, I’ll pretend that moments like the ones where my students tell me how much they learned and how much they hope to achieve have been captured on film, and that’s really enough for me.
As August draws ever closer, there are tons of things to look forward to: my birthday, the YG Family, SM Town and JYP Nation concerts and, of course, the next intake of EPIK teachers!
In the month or two before your departure you realize that you’re well on your way to actually beginning your journey here in South Korea, maybe even packing, and excited to see where you’ll be placed! All’s going well…until you find out you’ve been placed in a province/city you’ve never ever even heard of, and when you try to Google it the only thing that comes up are big mountains, being famous for a fruit or, worse, not showing up at all. Chances are that once you find out you’re being placed in a rural area you go through 3 stages: disappointment, worry, slight panic. If you’re anything like me your thoughts will go something like this:
“Where even IS this place…?”
“Ok well, is it close to anything?”
“Thanks Google, that was super helpful. Not.”
“Ok, but this is fine right?! Like, surely there will be other people to talk to in my city…?”
“…but what if there’s NOT?! What if this is all some kind of cruel trick and I’ll be put in a box in the middle nowhere with no friends, unable to speak the tiniest morsel of Korea…?!?!”
“HOW WILL I SURVIVE?!”
Etc. etc.
Trust me when I tell you, I know exactly how all of this feels. Luckily, it’s turned out that living in a smaller are is nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be, so you can officially stop panicking because I promise you: it’s gonna be okay.
Coming from a relatively large city in the middle of one of the biggest states back home, I was a little nervous and slightly dubious about my placement in Chungcheongbuk-do Province. All I knew was that I was in someplace named Chungbuk which, when Googled, merely provided me with the information that it was landlocked and had lots of nature. Thank you for that. But I wound up being placed in one of the bigger small cities in the province (it’s a thing, I assure you). Chungju is still relatively unknown even to Koreans, but it’s cozy and I’ve actually learned to love the smaller city feel after a weekend in Seoul or other, much busier, cities.
Unlike me, several of my friends have been placed in definitively tiny towns that can’t even be technically called cities. I’m talking ‘population of 30,000 people’ towns. However, I’ve heard of more positive experiences than negative. To get other perspectives on small town life, I asked several of my friends to give me their thoughts and ideas on being away from the big city.
My friend Damaris lives in Okcheon, which is a small town about 20 minutes away from Daejeon and she wrote a little to enlighten me on her experience:
“Okay, so I had initially requested Seoul as my preferred location. I obviously ended up somewhere else. I remember my heart sinking when I opened the email and notifying that I had been placed in the Chungbuk Province. I remember thinking “where the hell is Chungbuk?” my thoughts after a quick Google search, “where the hell is Chungbuk?” Not too much information was given on the province except that the Olympics would be held there. I kept my hopes up and just wished for the best.
“During orientation I found out I’d be placed in Okcheon. There is absolutely no information about Okcheon on Google. Absolutely nothing. So, for someone who had wanted to be placed in Seoul, being placed in the small town of Okcheon was a little scary. I thought I’d be in the middle of rice paddy fields.
“I was happily surprised to see that was not the case when I arrived. There are about 15 foreigners in my town and we all live next to each other. Half of us live in one apt building the other half live on the one next door. We are a 10 minute train ride or 30 minute bus ride to Daejeon. We have a pretty big downtown area with many places to hang out. Since we have a bus and train station we have to travel anywhere we want during the weekends.”
I really enjoy the small town feel. Many of the locals know us already. I have made friends with some of the taxi drivers, and already received a service taxi ride when I was sick, made friends with the owners of the bars we frequent and love that I’m so close to the other foreigners.
I guess one of the cons is that I have not really hung out with Koreans. Which also means I haven’t learned or made an attempt to learn Korean. Now that I have visited many other areas in Korea, including Seoul, I am so happy to call Okcheon my home away from home. It’s peaceful and homey.
Tip: I would also suggest bringing comfort foods. Being Mexican, I’m glad I brought some of the spices and foods I knew would be hard to find in Korea. It has helped incredibly when going through homesickness. Also, I made the mistake of bringing no pictures. Bring pictures with you!”
–Damaris, EPIK Teacher
Another friend of mine is also in a smaller town with fewer foreigners than we have in Chungju. She has also lived in Korea before so her experience is slightly different from those of us who just got here in February.
“I knew where I was going to be living when I moved back to Korea so I was excited to be placed in a more rural area than before!The pros for me are that there is less to do and see so I can focus on more of my personal goals, like saving money and working out!
The cons are that there’re not much to do so it can get boring quickly! So you need to have hobbies or things you enjoy by yourself. Definitely take advantage of the opportunity to meet and make friends during orientation!”
-Tiara, EPIK Teacher
Sacha is in an even smaller town called Goesan where she is now the only foreigner, but as much as she hangs out with us I can’t say that that’s ever slowed her down!
“I was disappointed that I didn’t get my choice of city, then when I knew I was going to be in a country area when I couldn’t even Google my area. Mountains and rivers was all Google had to tell me. I decided then that whatever happened I was going to suck it up because going back home was not an option. So I made sure to bring a bag with supplies and products from home to last me anywhere from 3-12 months depending on how hard I thought it would be to find the item. For example, I brought enough of my hair products and shade of makeup to last me for the year.
I definitely say you have to put yourself in the right mindset and always look at the glass as half full or else you’re going to make your time here miserable. Try your best not to complain and find the little things that make you happy. Be open to meeting new people at orientation because that’s your first and greatest opportunity, I feel, to meet people who are just as new and friendless as yourself lol. Get out and see as much of Korea as you can. If you always wanted to learn a hobby I suggest you use your downtime to start it because you might have a lot of that downtime. Most importantly, make the most of your weekends if you know your weekends are going to be quiet!”
-Sacha, EPIK Teacher
The truth is that everyone’s experience while teaching is going to be completely different, but it’s what you make of your situation that’s the most important part. Don’t let how large or small a city is affect your time here, because it might be the only time you have. I say roll with the punches and love what you have. After all, Korea’s a smaller country than you think, so adventure is always just a bus/train/taxi ride away no matter where you are! Here, have some hot Ian Somerhalder to remind you that:
🙂
As promised several months ago while we froze our butts off on a daily basis and cried about how the temperature would never rise above 0 degrees (Celsius, to all of my Western friends who are cringing), the weather has officially changed to SUMMER in South Korea!!!
The good news: It’s no longer cold! I’m feeling brave enough to sleep soundly at night without fear of being found the next morning as a block of ice!
The bad news: It is now hot as Satan’s breath outside. Sleeping before 1 AM is a futile effort as it is simply too hot to lay your head down until the temperature outside goes down.
I can’t complain too much. After all, we continuously begged Mother Nature to warm it up just a bit, and she clearly took our complaints to heart. That being said, I always heard there were 4 seasons in Korea, and Spring was supposed to come in order to slowly prepare our minds and bodies for the onslaught that summer was going to unleash. No such preparation event occurred, which means we are now utterly defenseless and woefully unprepared in the face of our new enemy: HUMIDITY.
I grew up in Texas for over half my life which means I am no stranger to the sun, sweat, or near death defying temperatures. I spent two straight Summers working outside for a camp and there were whole WEEKS when the temperature did not drop below 100 degrees. We would joke together that it was “Only 110 today!” when in fact there was nothing funny about walking outside and immediately feeling like you’d walked into a furnace. But hey, it wasn’t 120 which is both a real and extremely likely scenario in July.
“So if you’ve survived all that,” you may be asking, “What’s the big deal about a little heat? Shouldn’t you have been ready?”
My answer to that, dear friends, is I should have been. The real answer, I most definitely was not. You see, Korean Summer doesn’t just mean ‘hot’, it also means ‘humid’. Texas heat is normally bone dry, continuous and expected. Here, the humidity in the air is downright oppressive. I could probably drink the water molecules straight out of the AIR if I didn’t know it would be the temperature of lukewarm tea. Always just above bearable, the temperature with humidity can make 85 degrees Fahrenheit days can feel like 105 degrees.
I can deal with all of that though. After all, we don’t have to be outside that often. The walk to school in the morning and evening so far haven’t been too bad because the temperatures aren’t as high as around 2 PM. Anytime I go out on the weekend it’s normally at night or close enough to my apartment that I’m not panting by the time I reach my destination.
What I can not cope with is the lack of A/C.
Korea is EXTREMELY energy conscious, which means many places, including school, only turn on the A/C in dire situations. For the most part we just open windows or turn on a fan, which is totally fine if you haven’t just hiked uphill for 30 minutes to get there and want to be cool as soon as you walk in the door. This goes for our apartments as well.
I have both a fan and A/C but have been too afraid of my electricity bill to turn on the latter just yet. I would leave the fan on at night but Koreans wholeheartedly believe in “fan death” and I refuse to be the first foreigner victim because of my skepticism.
So, because it’s not quite acceptably hot enough at this point to continuously use A/C, but also too hot to simply do NOTHING, this is me during the day:
And at night…
I’m sure that we will all find ways to cope during this brief two month struggle against Summer’s death rays. Until then, we will be coming up with ever creative ways to survive. I have taken to napping with ice on my neck. A friend of mine moved his bed to right underneath his window, which essentially means he now sleeps on his balcony. We’ve all given up on hot showers entirely, instead choosing to live like they did in the old days and pretending our shower is a cold stream.
At this point we can only (sadly) look forward to the rainy season which is supposed to be upon us in the next month or so. Until then, if you happen to hear of a puddle on the side of the road, assume that it is me for it probably is.
Tuesday, after we visited the Teddy Bear Museum, I found my allergies strangely acting up. I attributed it to all of the dust and fur from the actual bears, took out my contacts and went on with my life hoping that the slight burning in my eyes would fade overnight. The next morning, when the burning had only gone away in one eye, I decided to take a quick trip to the clinic not too far from our friend’s apartment to get it checked out before we headed off to adventures for the day. I expected to maybe get prescribed some antihistamines, perhaps a topical cream or something for the slight swelling around my bottom lid, but certainly wasn’t expecting what actually happened to me.
Luckily I had 2 of the 3 others with me for the day, and even though I assured them it would likely be a quick trip in to see the optometrist, they insisted on going with me for reasons I’ll never understand. I’m now under the impression that they are psychic. When we walked in the fairly brisk lady at the desk asked me for my passport (I had my Alien Registration Card on me and that works just fine as well) and I was in seeing the doctor in less than 10 minutes despite the fairly full room. He was a very nice older man who spoke near perfect English which was immediately a good sign. What wasn’t a good sign was how he laughed when I showed him my eye and he sat me on a little bench to explain, in perfect English with a straight face that would have made a comedian proud, that I had a “pus pocket” under my bottom lid from “rubbing it too much and getting dirt in it” so he was going to have to CUT MY BOTTOM LID OPEN AND DRAIN IT.
I think I took it fairly well, all things considered. I asked, in perfect Korean I might add, “Right now?!” and he responded, in equally perfect English, “Yup. Now lay on this table.”
Of course I poked my head around the corner and called for my partner in crime to come and not only assess the situation but also to hold my hand while I apparently got my eye split open like a watermelon. To her credit, when she walked in I quickly squeaked out what was happening, she uttered just one oath of disbelief and then set to work holding my hand and reassuring me that I wasn’t going to die on the table. I was given some eyeball anesthetic (not sure of the correct medical term, but it was definitely supposed to make me not feel anything) before the doctor literally told my friend to look away and not freak out. This last part was especially important considering at this point I just knew I was about to get a scalpel through the eye. Since I couldn’t see what was happening (I closed my eyes as soon as he put a clamp on the bottom lid) my friend informed me that he flipped my lid and simply cut it. What it felt like was a light saber combined with a sword made of Valyrian steel cutting my bottom lid off. Let me explain something to you: when I was 5 years old I was at a friend’s house and we decided it was a good idea to jump from the couch in his basement to his fireplace. He made it across but my tiny little legs only carried me halfway and I literally tore my eyebrow almost completely off my face. I had to get stitches and carry a scar to this day on my right eyebrow.
My 5 year old self would have been proud of the 22 year old me who writhed and screamed on the table the entire 10 seconds (10 lifetimes more like) it took to finish. I’m sure people in the waiting room thought I was being killed, especially when he gently put drops in my eye after and Chloe, who couldn’t contain herself when I seemingly started crying blood, let out a movie style “uuuuUUUGGGGH!” and I immediately freaked out because I couldn’t see what was happening. To my doctor’s credit he was incredibly gentle, constantly soothing and reassuring that I was fine so I felt like a little kid after getting a scrape on the playground who needed a band-aid. Instead of a band-aid I got a pirate patch.
True story.
Anyway, the most impressive thing that came out of all of this wasn’t even my cool pirate patch that I got to rep for the next 4 hours but how cheap my bill was. It only cost 9,900 won ($10 USD) to actually go to the doctor and get operated on, then only 3,500 won for my prescription medicine. Side note: Korean medicine is amazing. It was working pretty much from the first second I took the first pill.
After our awesome morning adventure we were on to the next, much more fun, one: HELLO KITTY ISLAND! To say I was excited to go to this Hello Kitty paradise is an absolute understatement. I may or may not have run up to the building in bewildered excitement when we first arrived and I am not ashamed at the fact that we were the only adults there without small children in tow. There was so much inside even I was overwhelmed despite my love for all things pink and awesome, Hello Kitty in a nutshell. I mean, everything was either pink or stamped with an adorable kitty. I saw nothing wrong with this of course, but I can see how it could potentially cause one to want to vomit rainbows at the sheer cuteness.
I was half expecting my waffle to also be pink, but there was strawberry ice cream to I guess it was a good enough trade off.
After Hello Kitty Island I was ready to take on the world, so we went to Chocolate Land which was…not as chocolate-y or awesome as I had expected. Bonus points though: it only costs 6,000 won to get in and they give you a 3,000 won coupon to use at the cafe or little store as a discount. The inside though was just a bunch of boxes with items that may or may not have actually been made of chocolate, but the view outside on the patio was nice.
All in all it was an exhausting and overwhelming day all around, and our week was only half over.
As I try my best to learn the Korean language while barely understanding it being spoken to me everyday, there are some rather useful words I’ve managed to pick up that are both awesome to use and slightly (very) difficult.
Still, if you’re going to be teaching these are some of the words I often hear students use the most.
*Literal sounding out
1. 잠깐만요 (Jamkanmanyo) *Jahm-kahn-mahn
“Just a minute.”
I definitely use this one the most, especially when students are doing an activity and they’re all shouting “SEONSAENGNIM?!” at me like I’m only going to help one of them and then just be silent for the rest of class. It’s very easy to placate them by letting them know I do indeed hear them, loud and clear, but will be with them in just a minute.
2. 잠시만요! (Jamshimanyo) *Jamh-she-man-yo
“Wait a moment.”
This is essentially the same thing as 잠깐만요, but I typically use this one when we are coming inside or going outside and they have to line up at a door or wait for me to get to them to begin.
3. 배고파요 (Paegopayo) *Pay-go-pie-oh
“I’m hungry~”
Self explanatory. Used most often by my students just before lunch and right before their last class of the day. I don’t ever have a real response to this one except “나도…“, which just means, “Me too…”
4. 시퍼요(Shipeoyo) *She-poe-yo
“I want…”
This is a handy little verb that can be connected onto virtually anything. “이게시퍼요, for example, is “I want this.” Basically if I catch nothing else in the sentence but 시퍼요, I can normally piece that together with whatever my student is pointing at and respond appropriately.
5. 기다려 (Gidaryeo) *Gi-dahl-yo
“Please wait.”
This is a tad bit stronger than either 잠깐만요 or 잠시만요 because it literally means, “Wait.” For example, when my students are re-enacting the stampede scene from The Lion King to get outside for Sports Activity, I will have to calmly tell them “기다려” to get them to form a (hectic) straight line.
6. 조용히해수세요 (Joyonghi Haeseusaeyo) *Joe-yong-ee -HEY-sue-say-yo
“Please be quiet.”
Very rarely do I ever use this one, but for rowdy classrooms that just won’t calm down you can use this one. However, normally a simple “Ya” will get their attention and then you can simply tell them to settle down in English.
These are simply useful when you’re asking students “Who’s is this?”, or “What?”, and are useful especially if you don’t know how to conjugate or add onto Korean sentences just yet. Typically I only have to point to someone’s shoes and ask the students, “누구?” Though it is by no means an eloquently put together sentence, they understand what I’m trying to communicate and will tell me.
7. Who – 누구 (Nu-gu) *New-goo
8. What – 뭐 (Mwo) *Moe
9. When – 언재 (Eonjae) *On-jay
10. Where – 어디서 (Eodiseo) *Oh-dee-so
11. How – 어떡해 (Eeoteokhae) *Oh-toe-kay
12. Why – 왜 (Wae) *Way
13. Today – 오늘 (Oneul) *Oh-newl
14. Tomorrow – 내일 (Naeil) *Nay-eel
15. Yesterday – 어제 (Eojae) *Oh-jay
16. Everyday – 하루 (Haru) *Hah-rue
Though this is a very simple list of words and phrases, sometimes it’s the little words that can make the biggest difference in the classroom. I find myself learning Korean not just to get around, but to have my students understand me better. It’s an uphill battle learning a new language, but having my students as my teacher is sometimes the best for us both.
I teach Elementary 5th and 6th graders, and the things that come out of their mouths are both wonderfully unexpected and hilariously accurate…
*During a Morning Activity*
Student 1: Teacher, Obama is my grandfather!
Me: Oh, he is?!
Student: Yes! You, me…COUSINS!
*Pointing to the Statue of Liberty*
Me: “Who is this?”
Student: “Freedom Girl!”
*During Lab we were teaching the kids about the fact that pounds (used to measure weight in America) and kilograms (used to weigh in Korea) are the same*
Me: They are the same, one number is just smaller measurement. For example, I am 54 kilograms in Korea, but 120 pounds in America.
Whole class: *astonished WOAH’s all around*
Boy next to me: *turns to me in absolute wonder, proceeds to look me up and down then stares me straight in the face* WOAH! Teacher…120?!
Me: Yes! *Glad he is understanding*
Boy: Wow…SO HEAVY!
*Trying to April Fool’s prank my Gifted Students today*
Me: Class…Teacher is getting married!! *Shows off fake ring*
Girls: Wow Teacher, congratulations!!
Boy in the back: Oh God, FINALLY!!!
Me:…But I’m not. I was kidding!
Boy: Oh…but teacher?
Me:…yes…?
Boy: When are you going to have babies? You will get old!
Me: “Does anyone know what state I’m from in the United States?”
Student: “Jamaica!”
(They then proceeded to say “Ya man!” for the rest of the week every time they saw me)
The day one of my kids called me ‘Sexy Chocolate’…
*At the end of our first class, I told my students they had 5 minutes to ask me anything*
Student 1: Teacher, do you have a boyfriend?
Me: No, I don’t have one…*pretend sad face*
Student 2: What do you miss most about the United States?
Me: BBQ!
Student 3: …so Teacher, you don’t have boyfriend?
Me: Haha, no!
Student 3: …Teacher?
Me: Yes?
Student 3: …what’s your phone number?
Me (Now dying laughing): I can’t give you my phone number, I’m your teacher!
Student 4: …But you said you don’t have boyfriend…
Me: …No.
Me: “What do you call the people who eat at a restaraunt?”
Student 1: “Hungry people!”
Me: “Yes, they are hungry! But what do you CALL them?”
Student 2: “RICH!”
So after months of paperwork and maybe even years of planning, you’ve finally made it to Korea!!!
It’s a super exciting time, as you can imagine. Even though it can be super difficult and a lot of hard work, our first couple of months have kind of felt like being in college all over again.
1. Everything is fascinating because it’s new. Seriously, the first time I saw a toilet flush here I was like
2. You’re basically going to eat whatever you want because you have to try all the good stuff, right?!
3. You’ll make a million new friends, and everyone will feel like the foreign exchange student together.
4. Those friends will become like your new family, whether they like it or not.
5. Every weekend for the first 2 months is going to be like Spring Break because you just want. To. See. EVERYTHING.
So couch surfing is going to become a fairly regular occurrence when people live where you want to visit.
6. Even though it’s awesome, a lot of things are going to confuse you because everything’s new.
7. Even simple tasks are going to make you feel dumb.
8. At fairly crucial moments, sleep will be absolutely optional. So you had a great time in Seoul this weekend? Great, now where’s your lesson plans for the week??
9. Between learning a new language, working all day and adjusting to life in a new country, some days are going to feel overwhelming…
10. …but those new friends of yours? They’ll be there to get you through:)
If you’re coming through the EPIK program to teach in South Korea, chances are very high that you’ll be placed in a public school much like the ones you’ll read and hear about through various blogs and other people. A large majority go to Elementary and Middle schools with a good few going to High schools throughout South Korea. However, a very small number of us get placed in English Centers, which can be most closely compared to a combination of Hagwons and camps. Our English Center is one of only three in the Chungcheongbuk-do province, and though we all operate differently, our goal is to give students a more natural and realistic setting for them to speak English in. While they are learning, the environment is different from a normal school’s. This gives students the chance to practice English more conversationally while also learning different subjects.
There are only 48 students and four Native English speaking teachers in the whole center, which means that we know every single student by the end of the week. A typical day for us at the English Center is a long but fulfilling one. Mondays and Wednesdays we’re at school from 9 AM to 8:30 PM, which feels long no matter how you look at it or break it down. Tuesdays and Thursdays are slightly shorter with us finishing up our last activities at 6 PM. We get a new group of students in every Monday morning and throughout the week each Native Teacher is responsible for two different Situational Learning classes (about 3 classes a day), Sports Activity, Morning Activity and, on Mondays, Ice Breaking. In the evenings when we leave at 8:30, each Native Teacher has separate duties and activities.
While we are responsible for teaching our students during the day, we also have a separate group of students that we come to us after school from 6:30-8:30 PM. These are our Gifted Students, and we have one class each of Elementary and Middle School students. There are only 15 of them to a class which makes planning lessons and teaching actually much easier, but each Native Teacher only sees our students once a week. I have my Elementary students Wednesday evenings while my partner has them on Mondays. While he’s teaching, I’m doing a night time activity with our Center children who are their for the week. During our Gifted classes it is two straight hours without our co-teachers which is both pleasant and slightly daunting sometimes. Still, our students very rarely speak Korean in the classroom when it’s just me, so it’s ok.
It’s a very complicated process, but luckily the ritual remains the same week to week with only lessons changing for our Gifted Students. We also rotate through Situational Learnings and our co-teachers, so we’re never teaching the same thing for longer than about 4-5 weeks with the same person. It can sometimes feel like you’re trapped in an endless cycle of Summer camps, but I love meeting my new group of kids every week, watching them grow over the course of a few days and then taking what they learned with them. Every Friday they put on skits for us to watch to show off the English skills they’ve picked up throughout the week, then we give them certificates congratulating them on finishing up the course, and we’re out of school by 12:30 which, after a long week full of ups and downs, is just…lovely.
With our first payday just around the corner, I thought I’d address one of the many things that anyone asks about when they decide to come to Korea: How much money does it cost? If you’re coming through the EPIK program, $1000 is the magic number to bring with you to South Korea. You have to get here, then you don’t get paid for roughly a month after that, and you’ll want as much financial backing as possible during that time you have no paycheck. For many, this isn’t a problem. But for some like me, working 2 and 3 minimum wage jobs before I left the States, this was not a simple “Save up $1000 in your free time” process. Of course, I feel like the more money you can bring with you the better. You never know what kind of emergency funds you might need or what you might need to unexpectedly spend money once you’re here. However, I will say that when I heard that number I almost pulled out of the process completely because I just knew I’d never be able to come up with that kind of money. I’m here to tell you that it is possible and if money is your number one reason for not coming to Korea, maybe reconsider.
Like I said, I was working multiple jobs that didn’t pay very much all so I could get to Korea. It was hard work for about 9 months, and in the end I still only managed to come to Korea with about $700 USD. This may not sound like a huge amount behind $1000, I mean it is only $300. But that $300, if you’re not frugal, can make a world of difference, especially when you’re abroad. Still, I’ve actually done quite well with the chunk of money I brought with me. I’ve been here about a month and I’m finally down to the dregs of my bank account. Still, I’ve managed to do and see ALOT with the bit that I did have. I’ve been to 4 cities, shopped in 3, bought things for my apartment, gone out more than a dozen times to enjoy festivities and still had money for several taxis. I think it might be possible to have come here with less than I did to be honest. I may have been pushing it, but it seems like no matter how much money people brought with them we are all down to our last leg. Of course, everyone is different, but I feel like the average foreigner coming to Korea doesn’t necessarily have to bring $1000 with them, even if you have NOTHING in your apartment when you get to your city. Purchasing your phone and possibly food may drain your bank account the quickest, but my co-worker’s phones cost them about $200 and it’s actually been cheaper for me to go out than purchase food for home. Strange, I know, but real.
Now my story’s only one of literally hundreds just this year so your experience may differ. Still, if I had decided just because I didn’t have the money to come, I would have seriously regretted it for the rest of my life. It was a struggle, but now that I’m here every penny I saved, scrimped and spent is absolutely worth it 10 times over. Don’t give up, you can do it! And imagine how relieved and proud of yourself you’ll feel when it happens at last:)
Daebak Dayz 