Noraebang and Me

I'm halfway through my first week of teaching, and time is already flying. My schedule will continuously change, but for the next month I teach morning kindergarten, afternoon elementary, reading club, and I tutor the son of the principal of LCI. It's hard to believe how quickly I have fallen in love with the kids. I teach all different levels, which is wonderful because I was hoping this work would be challenging and it definitely will be. My elementary class is comprised of total beginners... they've come to me with basically zero English. Today after classwork, I began teaching them the Hokey Pokey, which was SO much fun.

<3 Kiddos with Rhonda Teacher<3

There's just as much going on outside of school as there is with my precious kiddos inside of school. The most important of them all is Noraebang. Noraebang is Korean karaoke in private rooms. If you've ever witnessed me playing American Idol Karaoke on Playstation nonstop for hours at a time, you'll have already assumed that I believe Noraebang is my calling. I'll stop there, because I could go on for hours. I. Love. Noarebang. 

 Ginger anime @ my first Noraebang

Aside from teaching children who don't speak my native language and falling in love with new things like Noraebang, jimjilbangs, and Korean BBQ, life is beginning to feel frighteningly normal in Seoul. Yesterday I made the 3.5 hour round trip journey to the immigration office to apply for my alien card (FINALLY). When I emerged from the subway at the office (which is over an hour away from my apartment),  I thought to myself, "Wow, I'm a long way from home right now". The fact that the irony of that thought didn't register with me until a moment had passed made me realize, "Oh my, this is my home now". It was actually a quite profound moment, until I was nearly killed by a man who decided to drive his giant SUV up on the sidewalk (a standard occurrence here... you want to avoid traffic, you go for it, and endanger some pedestrians).

Tomorrow I'm going to check out the Seoul Improv scene, tonight I'm joining a gym with my neighbor, and in February I plan to enroll in a Taekwando class with Stephy from LCI. To top off the first half of my first week, I've quickly fallen into a group of people who are mostly from Canada and who initiated me into Wing Night at a Canadian bar in Itaewon this week. 

Finally, Kelly (also from LCI) LARGELY improved this chapter of my life by taking me to the only authentic Southern BBQ restaurant in Seoul, so I'm pleased to write that I now know where to find my love, my life, my pulled pork sandwich.

Just some good ol' Seoul livin'. Now to hit the gym...