My new Life

My new apartment is awesome! I was worried, to say the least, but it is so great. It is quite a bit smaller, but there is more than enough room for everything. The kitchen is separated from the bedroom by these cool sliding glass doors, and then the bathroom is it's own room. I have a balcony! How cool! It is enclosed with sliding glass windows. Right now it's a bit cold out there, but in the summer I think I'll put a table and eat out there. I have so many windows in the new apartment. In my last apartment I could see the sun rise over the mountains out my kitchen window. Now I am only on the second floor, so I can only see my neighbor in the next apartment rise out of bed...not quite as cool, I know! :) I live in a neighborhood now and the apartments are super close together, but it is in a great location. I love my new area.

The apartment is really new and they said they just put down the new wood floor and wallpaper before I came. Everything was pretty clean, but I spent most of the day cleaning because Korea's idea of clean isn't always my idea of clean... As I was scrubbing the floor, my room phone rang. I answered (not realizing it was connected to my doorbell) and a man with a deep voice said, "I am the master of this house." Uh, What!? I seriously thought it was someone playing a joke on me, so I hung up! Whoops, it was the building owner wanting to change my lock. Hah!

Moving this morning was pretty funny. The school hired all of the school bus drivers to move us. There was a crew of probably 8 men moving all of mine and Clara's stuff. Let's just say we had a lot. They put it all on this flatbed truck and then loaded us up with things piled on our laps in this sketchy van. I think I made a wise choice to carry my computer with me in my bag considering a lady helping just started chucking my packed things out of the elevator! Ahhh! Amazingly, nothing was broken!

Unfortunately, the new school is not turning out as well as my apartment. The first day of having the kids was awful! Truly. My kids have supposedly all been in school for 1 year, but I am starting to doubt that. As I'm trying to teach, I have one girl talking constantly, one little boy practically laying on the table, one girl playing under the table and one screaming "TEACHER!" Whew. It's a little wild. So, the first two days were spent trying to go over the rules and learning to sit with your bottom in the chair. When one girl came in screaming the first day, I was told that this was a "devil child..." and that everyone knew about her. Great...haha. Ironically, her name is Grace. :) Sure enough, she screamed almost all day long, she kicked me and tried biting me as I was physically holding her so she would not hurt anyone else. Another boy would not listen AT ALL, so I had him sit in the corner by himself. This resulted in him screaming, crying, and his attemps to throw his chair.

Thankfully day 2 was much better than the first. I'm sure it can only get better. I have to remember that it's only been 2 days, so I can't get discouraged yet! After a month or so, I'm sure they'll start to get the hang of things. After the first day though, I was thinking, "I cannot do this!" It's so hard learning everything all over again. Everything is different at this school. My supervisors aren't explaining anything because they think I should know it all already and then they scold me when I don't do things the "right" way. I am trying my best to please them, but I'm just not sure what they want. Hopefully I will learn fast, because I hate feeling like I'm a pain... I miss my old school, my old kids and my old co-workers.

The good news is that I think my sister Beth is coming in May! How exciting!