Sam's First Day

Sam: After a week of intense preparation (read:

sleeping until twelve) it was finally time for me to start my job at AB Academy. And, despite the fact that I still hadn't heard from my employer and had no idea where to find her, I was excited and ready to start. Sure enough, I received a message from her a full three hours before work, leaving me plenty of time to hop on the subway with Chloe for the hour-long trip. In fact, we got to the station early, and had some time to scout the area for places of interest, seeing as how I would be working in the area. Unfortunately, it turned out that although this was the closest subway station, it was still about a ten-minute drive away from my school.

After meeting Jane and driving to the school, I met my two Korean co-teachers (Erica and Karen), as well as the English teacher whom I would be shadowing for a week before replacing (Chris). Chris was possibly the most boring person I have ever met. It was like meeting a wet towel. Also, after a year of teaching English to children, he had omitted all pronouns, adverbs and prepositions from his vocabulary. For instance: "Chris much tired. Many days little sleep." Even when speaking to me. It was terrible. So for the first few days, I sat at the back of the classroom and watched Chris wallow his way through two hundred screaming children. It was like that scene in Wrath of Khan when the worm things burrow in to Chekov's head. Only way longer.

Later that week, Karen made grilled PB and J sandwiches. At least, I assumed they were PB and J. They turned out to be PB and J and H, where H = ham. It was weird. Later on, she offered me another. When I said "no thank you, I don't really like ham," she replied "don't worry, this one doesn't have any ham in it." Excitedly, I bit into the sandwich, only to discover it was a PB and J and C, where C = cheese. Korea!

One final note on teaching Korean children. Korean children LOVE Uno. They will do anything to play it, even (God forbid) their homework. Their favourite part of the game seems to be screaming "One Card!" This leads, of course, to a rock-paper-scissors between the child with one card and everybody else. It is, therefore, almost impossible to get down to one card. So the game can go on forever.