A walk to school

This is our building from below! We live on the 10th floor

There is a gas station right on the corner of our street. Every single person on a scooter drives down the sidewalk for half a block to a driveway instead of getting back on the road at the gas station. Also, every single day we see people cut across traffic to start driving the wrong way down the street so that they can drive up on to the sidewalk to get to the gas station (instead of going further up and doing a U turn and not going into oncoming traffic)

A view of the street we walk down to get to work. You can see across the street most people park their scooters right on the sidewalk. It makes walking difficult :P

The ridiculously massive propaganda poster inside of the police station down the street.

I caught a gecko! He stayed with me for the whole walk home one day! Mike thinks he was playing dead, but I knew he wanted to be my pet. I set him free though, sigh

Dueling Cultures

Just as I was starting to think that maybe I was beginning to chip away at understanding Vietnamese culture, I get thrown for a loop and school starts. And we’re teaching an almost exclusively Korean population. I thought it’d be hard enough to understand the intricacies of one culture, but now I’m faced with a daunting task - tying to reconcile with these two totally different cultures simultaneously…

For instance, I’m beginning to learn very fast that Koreans and Vietnamese have different learning styles and expectations from their teachers. Not only that, but the Vietnamese are vastly outnumbered in our school, making them feel like outsiders in their own country. And don’t even mention our Iranian student - she is a fish out of water through and through - nobody (aside from her parents) speaks her native language, whether it be in or out of school.

But so far, I’ve found my students to be pretty fun. The smaller classes can be a little… intense sometimes. Especially my tenth grade class, which is totally packed to the gills with one student. Yep, ONE STUDENT. By the end of class, he is ready to go find a corner to crawl into! Poor guy. Overall my first week has been a positive one - I’m already starting to feel like a teacher, although I know that I have so much more to learn. The week has left Sara and I totally drained and in dire need of a respite, that we plan to find tomorrow in the form of the Daewoo Hotel’s grand lunch buffet spread…

Until next time,
Mike

My classroom before the start of the first day!

I will write about how the first day went, but for now here are a few photos of my classroom :D

Sorry its a bit blurry, but here is my sign on my door

I only have two students right now! But each desk is all set up with their bell ringer

The daily schedule, which we are not totally following yet because we dont have books/textbooks/materials/uniforms/etc yet 

I will write more soon, but for now just be assured that Mike and I made it sucessfully through the first day of school! Now for the second....

Sara

The first day

Well, it is finally upon us. Tomorrow is the first day of school.

I am super nervous, and still have a lot of preparing to do tonight but I am still very excited! I have, unfortunately, dropped from having three students to having only two. Its going to be very interesting! I met both Joon and Kim on Saturday, they are both very excited and surprisingly proficient in English (they are both Korean).

My room looks pretty nice if I do say so myself, it is MUCH more decorated than any other elementary room, I am a little surprised. I will make sure to take some photos tomorrow before the day starts at 8:30

I think the first few weeks are going to be a total shit show honestly, so that is why I am not completely freaked right now. Some rooms dont have furniture yet. There is no playground. We dont have books. No bookshelves. No textbooks. No uniforms yet. Still missing a lot of materials. so I don't feel that worried, everyone is in the same boat as me!

I will let you know how it goes tomorrow, WISH US LUCK!

Sara

Sara's Classroom -- SO FAR!

Getting things all set up!

 There has been a lot of frustration regarding setting up our classrooms, but I feel a bit better now that I have an okay organization (I nabbed a few wooden tables from the unused room next door!) and was given a bunch of decorations by a teacher who ended up leaving.I have my desk at an angle in the far corner away from the door. I doubt I will be sitting there much during the day, so I wanted it out of the way.

The view of the classroom from my desk area

 You can see the three wooden desks I will use for centers/small group activities. I have only 4 students right now, so there are 5 desks set up facing the white board. I am excited to keep decorating, and FINGERS CROSSED -- we should have all out books/rest of the furniture by tomorrow or wednesday.

One of the first things that I set up. Right on my desk is my photo of my little friend Will :)