My first day of school!

Today is my first day of school, and I arrived this morning at 7am, dressed in the nicest clothes that I brought with me to Korea. I was loaded with a bag of presents and another containing stickers, ESL teaching materials, and my "slippers" which are Adidas soccer sandals which teachers change into when they get to school (This is one of my FAVORITE Korean customs; I had no problem saying goodbye to my black high heeled mary janes!) It just so happened that I arrived at school about 30 minutes before my co-teacher, and for this reason had to find an empty room to stash all of my stuff in. My host sister, Eunnae showed me around the school, and I think she really enjoys being seen with me. She said if there was anything I needed, just come and get her out of her class, but I couldn't quite see myself needing anything that urgent. She is very cute, she also suggested putting all of my stuff on her desk until my co-teacher arrived to open my office. If I haven't mentioned already, Eunnae, my host sister will be one of my students. She is a very self motivated, smart, and over-achieving 16 year old and has been my lifeline into Korean society so far, because of my limited Korean language skills (as you might have noted from my speech; I have no problem talking about myself for 3-5 minutes in Korea, but that is pretty much the extent of my abilities.) Shortly after my co-teacher, Mr. Hyun, arrived we went to give my gifts to the Principal and Vice Principal. Just like everything else in Korea, the school is very hierarchical, so we were warned that the Principal's gift must be nicer than the Vice Principal and the V.P.'s gift nicer than the co-teacher's, etc. Whether it was due to a subconscious rebellion against this tradition, or simply my nerves, I will never know why I accidentally gave the Principal the V.P's gift and vice a versa.... I noticed what I had done immediately after I had handed the gifts out and had to switch them... which is probably something that was specifically mentioned in the Fulbright workshop on "What NOT to do on the first day..." I was very lucky though, because everyone laughed and the Principal said something in Korean, which I imagined to be something along the lines of: "My present must be much more expensive." Next, my co-teacher interviewed me about everything from birthdate to family, etc. because he was preparing an introduction to the rest of the teachers at the 7:50 am teacher's meeting. I was happy that he would be giving my introduction for me, as some of my fellow ETAs had to give Korean introductions themselves, either to an auditorium with the whole school or televised to each classroom. I stood next to my co-teacher as he gave an introduction that I think was similar to the one we had come up with together, although it seemed much longer in Korean and there were many laughs from the audience of teachers, and I have no idea why, but hope it was a good sign. I stood there pretending to listen and smile when they laughed; however, in reality, I understood nothing. Next was a 20 minute meeting conducted in Korean and again, I tried to "Look alive!" as my soccer coaches used to yell to us mid-game. I am now sitting in my office at my co-teacher's desk, because my computer is not working and feel relieved to have some of the aforementioned activities out of the way. I start teaching on Wednesday and am very excited. Today I am getting inernet hooked up in my house so hopefully I will have some pictures to share of my room, house, school, etc. so be sure and keep yourselves posted.