My second Blog - The day to day life of Amy

Well here it is. My second posting. It's 10:43pm here and I'm pretty wiped. I had school all day and for some reason I was just not feeling teaching today. I mean the kids are great but some days I just don't want to stand in front of the classroom and instruct and try to get them to do what I want and learn what I need them to learn. Especially when I'm already tired to begin with, talking all day just makes me more tired. So I treated myself to a $5 pizza for dinner after work.
Since my beautiful sister was inquiring about my day to day life, I will explain a typical day/week for me here in Seoul. My Monday - Friday life anyway. So I wake up anywhere between 8am and 9:15am. I shower in my bathroom that has no tub or shower door...essentially it has a drain in the middle of the floor and a showerhead that rests on a holder on the wall. So I shower standing in my bathroom, it's a weird but common thing in Korea. Anyway I make myself some breakfast (usually consisting of oatmeal and fruit or a peanut butter sandwich and fruit or an egg) and leave my apartment around 9:30am.
I walk to school, it's about a 5-7 minute walk from my apartment. Two other teachers live in the same building as me and I usually walk with this one teacher Liz.
School starts at 10am and every Monday morning we have a teacher's meeting to discuss events for the upcoming week. I teach kindergartens from 10am - 2:30pm with my lunch between 12:40pm and 1:40pm. I usually pack my lunch or walk home and make something. I'm trying not to buy food because I want to save as much money as possible while I'm here. Then from 2:30 - 4:10pm, Monday to Friday I teach post-kindergarten kids. It's a group of about 8 kids who are about eight or nine years old. They are all right, I enjoy teaching them more than the kindergartens. Then on Monday/Wednesday/Friday from 4:10pm-5:30pm I teach 2 older girls who are twelve. And on Tuesday/Thursday from 4:10pm - 5:30pm I teach a group of 4 girls who are about seven years old and they are definitely my hardest class in terms of getting them to learn English. They are very far behind, worse than my kindergartens.
After school I usually walk home and make dinner. Then I veg out for a bit and watch tv, write some emails, work on my masters proposal, clean yada yada yada. Nothing too exciting during the week. If I do anything during the week nights I will meet up with Amanda and Louise or do some errands like grocery shopping. Everything I need to do is accessible by subway which is great.
I actually was just shown, by another teacher named Jackson, a really awesome grocery store nearby my house within walking distance. It's called Good Morning Mart and is in the basement of this strip mall of stores. It has EVERYTHING! I went there yesterday after Jackson showed me where it was and bought Heinz ketchup, chicken breasts, tangerines, butter, mayonnaise, salad dressing, toilet paper and laundry detergeant all for $17! This grocery store had all the fruits and veggies imagineable plus the comforts of home like ketchup :) So I found my new grocery store for the next year. It's about a ten minute walk from my apartment. Something else very interesting about Korea in general is you really need to look at the buildings you're passing. You need to look at the signs on the top floors as well as signs for the basement. Buildings in Korea use every available space and you'll find some really interesting places in the basements of buildings or stores. Same with the top floors.
When we go on adventures during the weekend we take the subway everywhere. All the sights we've seen so far have been right off a subway stop so that's been convenient. The subway costs about $0.80 - $1.00 depending on how far you go. We have these subway passes called T-Money cards. You put money on your T-Money card then swipe them when you walk into the subway station so you don't have to pay cash everytime. Very convenient. $5 on my card lasts me a week usually. Taxis here are also very very cheap. It costs $2 for the first 5 minutes or so many kilometres than goes up from there every minute. It's very reasonable for cabs but again I try and use the subway to keep money spending to a minimum. The subway also cuts down on getting stuck in traffic.
So living by myself is definitely something that I've had to get used to but it's not that bad. It gets lonely at times especially when I realize how long it's been since I've spoken out loud but I just pick up my phone and call someone if I feel really lonely. But I have my computer, music, movies and television to make noise if I want it. It's also very nice only having to clean up after myself. No roommates, no added mess. I can clean and not clean when I want.
Well I guess there's some general information about my life in Seoul so far. Not very interesting but more information for my family to know! I love you guys and miss you guys!!!
ALEX: I miss you, I hope you are learning a lot in school! Give your sister a hug for me!
CALISTA: Take good care of your sister and mommy. Give them lots of hugs for me, I miss you!