So yesterday I experienced my second day of work and my first day of work at my second school (of four). It was definitely interesting.

First I met the school bus near my apartment. I initially thought I'd missed it because I was told it would come between 7:50 and 8:00 and it didn't turn up until 8:05. I would have just assumed it was late but there were about 5 other school buses that arrived and left in that time. I'll be honest, I freaked out a little. Luckily, just as I was about to head back to my apartment to messafe my coteacher (via Kakao because I didn't have a phone that works in Korea yet) the bus pulled up and one of the other teachers at the school hopped out and invited me in. The little school bus went round all the little villages in the area and picked up one or two kids at every bus stop and then dropped us all at the school.

First, I was expected to introduce myself in front of the entire school. Remember, this is my tiny elementary school of 30 students total, so most of them were on the bus, so it really wasn't a big deal.

Then classes started for the day. First there was a 2 hour period of 3rd graders. By 2 hours they really mean 2 classes of 40 minutes, plus a 10 minute break in the middle. Korean teachers (and students) call each class period an hour, so 2 hours is actually 2 class periods of 40 minutes.

The 3rd graders were cute. Their English was pretty bad (and by pretty I mean very) but they were mostly engaged and paying attention. They were a little rowdy but I guess that's to be expected and there were only 7 of them anyway, so it wasn't too bad. My coteacher taught the lesson and I merely watched and helped occassionally. She also told me that, from now on, she will teach one period of the class and I will teach the 2nd. 

Then it was 2 hours of 5th and 6th graders. This was a combined class and still only totalled 6 students. It was a pretty fun one. They watched the scene in Harry Potter where the kids all met on the train and then studied the script and acted it out in groups of 3. It was a fun class and a couple of the kids got really into the acting.

Then it was lunch. Again, we were provided lunch and, I was informed, that every school has a nutritionist that designs the meals for us and the students. I have also been informed that, because I am so skinny, every lunch lady ever will give me extra food. Which is ... nice I guess? But there's going to be a lot of food wastage on my part.

The school had this cool system in place for Englist learning. Actually, all round this school was really good for English teaching. They have more hours of English classes than any other school I'm working at and they put in more effort to make the kids use English outside of lessons as well as in them.  

So, when the kids had finished eating, before they were allowed to go outside and play, they had to come to me and ask me a question in English and basically make small talk of some sort with me. It was highly amusing and I got some really funny questions, especially from the really young kids who hadn't had official English lessons yet:

• Do you like poo?
• Do you like blue?
• Are you married? (not that unusual, I have come to realise)
• Do you have a son? (To which my coteacher replied, 'she is not married')

Then, after lunch was 1 period of grade 4 which was... ok, I guess. The students were mostly well behaved and cute but nothing super memorable happened. Their English level was quite a bit higher than the grade 3s (impressively so) but still not that strong.

Then we had no class for the rest of the day, so I asked my coteacher to take me to the bank where we set up a bank account for me. This was a a super trust exercise for me because I had to hand over a load of documentation and sign a load of paperwork that I couldn't read a word of. So here's hoping nothing suspicious was in those contract. Although, currently, there is no money in my account at all, so I guess not too much can happen :P

Some information on the banks here. I got an account at NH Bank which is a ubiquitous bank in Korea. It's not the best bank by a long way but, out here in backend of nowhere Gangwon-do there's really not much choice in banks, NH is apparently a farmer's cooperative bank, which is why it's out here in the rural sticks as well as everywhere else. So, although there are arguably better banks in the country they;re really only available in the cities. Which is cool and all, but banks don't open on the weekend and are only open until 5 on weedays, so I barely have a way to get to the local bank (I have to get time off work) but there's no way I can get to the city. 

So, when you make a bank account, you have to apply for online banking seperately (which is even more forms), which I did, and you also have to get a seperate account for international transfers (which I am yet to do because I have to go to Wonju, the nearest big city). When you've successfully applied, you get given a cheque card (which is a debit card but is unusabele online apparently) and a bank book. Now the bank book is freaking weird. It's like a relic of the past, really. It's a book which you put into the ATM and it prints every single transaction you make. It's like a slightly updated version of the really old books where you write your transactions down manually.

So yeah, that was my day.

I did some cool stuff today too, but it's late, so I'll write it up another day (possibly tomorrow) :P

Fun fact, every class ever seems to learn the word 'robot'.