Eeek!

One night, I woke up in the middle of the night and felt something tickling my chest. I put my hand on my chest and then jumped up with a bit of an 'eek'. In the process I killed what had tickled me. After that, I couldn't get back to sleep as I kept imagining more as soon as I closed my eyes. Needless to say, the next day I bought a gift of a bunch of raid baits for them. THIS is the (not so little) little bugger that fell out of my shirt when I jumped.

Nice cockroach, eh?

Oh...

I forgot to mention this interesting little tidbit.
My first visual after getting off the plane was an airport security guy watching everyone go past, picking his nose. Not just picking, but digging. Yuck!!!!
I guess I should be used to seeing things like that. I've seen it so many times in Korea (though usually they are driving, stopped at lights or such).

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!!

I FINALLY got my net and phone line installed. After more than a week of waiting. Now I just have to wait for my closet and book shelf, pots and pans and other such things. I was told to expect them today/this evening sometime (my boss told me before I left work today). Hopefully that won't be postponed yet again. My home is still a mess, as I can't really organize anything without the shelves and closet and such. I need to know how much will fit before I do anything else.

Today was the second day of classes. It went fairly well, I suppose. I am still not yet into the hang of it, as it is very different from the other schools I have worked in.
The schedule isn't very strict. It is basically:
9:00-9:40 welcoming students, getting coats and bags put away, etc.
9:40-10:40 class time with 6 year old Milky Way A class (my homeroom class)
10:40-11:00 snack time (with my homeroom class)

11:00-11:30 class time with 5 year old Moon class (younger 3 year olds)
11:30-12:00 class time with 5 year old Rainbow class (older 3 year olds)
12:00-1:10 lunch time (with my homeroom class)
1:10-2:10 class time with 6 year old Milky Way B class
2:10-2:30 circle time with my class and getting kids organized to leave (getting coats, etc)
We don't have to follow that schedule exactly... It depends on the kids, really. Today I didn't start the Moon class until around 10:10 and then finished the Rainbow class at around 11:45. I basically let Stephanie (a Kyopo: Korean that grew up overseas - she is from New Zealand), the Milky Way B class teacher decide, as I do things the same time as her, only opposite.
I am surprised at how much work it takes to fill an hour of class time with a bunch of 4 year olds (the Korean 6 year olds are Western age 4).
I love my class. They are all so sweet and relatively well behaved. I have 12 now. Almost the entire time I am with my class, my Korean partner (she doesn't speak much English) is there. The Milky Way B class is a bit more problematic. There are a few boys in there that are very obnoxious and overbearing. So far, the Korean teacher that is in that room has not done much to stop such behaviour. If it continues much longer, I will complain about it. It can get a bit stressful trying to deal with things like that without neglecting the other students that actually want to learn and pay attention. Ignoring them is not an option, as they are extremely loud. Both days so far, they were shouting "Panties" instead of every word in the songs we were singing. I asked them if they were babies. That stopped it for a little while, as they didn't like being called babies, but then they got over that and started again.

Today's snack was not milk and cookies or anything like that... it was milk and little dried fish that the kids here seem to love.Yuck.

spit

One of the things I hate the most about walking around here is trying to avoid the gobs of spit that are EVERYWHERE (not to mention the puke). It is disgusting. Apparently South Korea isn't the only place/country with a spitting problem:

Foreigners gobsmacked by Shanghai cab spittoons
Foreigners are spewing bile at China's latest plan to curb spitting in Shanghai, the country's financial capital, which is slated to host the 2010 World Expo.
Authorities here -- eager to put the city's best face forward while under the international spotlight -- plan to distribute 45,000 "spit sacks" to Shanghai cabbies, to curb the common habit of rolling down the cab window and expectorating onto the street.
But the proposal has foreigners spluttering with rage.
"This solution is a recipe for disaster," seethed one reader in an email printed in the Shanghai Daily on Saturday.
One of the many risks of the plan -- which involves fixing a sack to the metal grill which surrounds the driver's seat -- is that the bag may spill and unleash the "malodorous aroma of spit," the reader added.
Another respondent said he was afraid drivers might toss the bags out of their windows and be encouraged to hawk even more.
Local authorities are stunned by the livid reaction, the paper reported.
"We will persuade the drivers not to spit in the presence of passengers, and consider stabilizing the paper bags in unnoticeable corners near the driver's seat as improvements to our plan," health promotion campaign official Ni Yanhua was quoted as saying.
The "spit sack" follows an earlier innovation in Shanghai's public hygiene, after the city attached spittoons to garbage cans on sidewalks.
The spittoons were not seen as a success, since residents mistook them for ashtrays.