Since the kids have midterms this week, I do not have to teach a single class at all! I just have to come to school on Tuesday and Wednesday, then I have Thursday and Friday off! I don’t really have any special plans given that I have Korean class on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. I will probably will just spend one day exploring the rest of this city. Even though this city might have a population of 450,000 people, it seems smaller than what it actually is. THAT is because of some bad urban planning. Ironically it is a “new city” which means that it was planned. You can definitely see that from the top of one of the mountains near by. BUT the main issue is that the city has no central point. There are huge tracts of land and then residental/commerical space. Then more huge tracts of land and more residental/ commerical space. Repeat that for the rest of the city limits and there you have Siheung. There’s two spots of particular interest to me which is Wolgot New City and Oido. Both of these areas are on the coast line. I heard that the coast is just nasty, but Wolgot New City always looks kind of cool at night from the bus.
Tomorrow, I am meeting up with a student who just got back from living in the US for about 1.5 years. I think she just literally came back either last week or the week before. She says that she is very lonely because A) her class has already graduated B) she is older than everyone and C) I’m sure she has become accustomed to US high school life and is now having to readjust to Korean high school life. Korean and American high schools are sooooooooooo different socially and academically. She says that she wants to go back to the US and is applying to UCLA and some other schools in California. I’m sure I’ll have an interesting conversation with her. I kind of know how she feels for I went through the same thing when I came back from being a student in Japan. It’s like you’re just a ghost….many of your friends have gotten used to you being gone and have moved on with their lives AND also you have to get used to the hang of things back in your home country. Also being abroad allows you to gain various perspectives on things. I can imagine that she’s having even a tougher time than I did, given she is in high school. When she first came in the room started to talk, my jaw dropped…because with 95% of the students, you get nothing more than the usual “HI TEACHER” *gigglegiggle* treatment.
I love midterm week. I hate that I have to just sit at my desk until 5 doing nothing but puttering around on the internet (my school still requires me to come in), but hey, at least it’s not really work.