New City, New School

I arrived at nine on the dot. It took only three minutes for me to reach school from my apartment, so my main co-teacher said to the week before to “come at nine”.
A big bronze statue of three men I’ll call ‘Atlases’ held up the world in a courtyard between the school and administration offices.
During the previous week I introduced myself and told stories about my life in America. To ease the wall between a new teacher and students, the English director Mr. Do had the pupils in each grade write a letter to me. Here’s a few:    

  In each grade you can see how the students react to my enthusiasm or not. Is it wrong to think some of the students are going to college—and will have no problem getting in? Others I can see have a very low-level of English. In Korea English is a rite of passage—you must do well. Or fail. That is the mentality. This is why I wanted to teach older students, because their lives depend on my classes, and the next teacher’s classes. Or I like to think so. 
This is it.
So I’m here for them. Standing in the hallways during breaks, chatting about goofballs, and best friends, and where students want to go to college, I’m throwing them lines to hold onto with English and just as another outlet. Outside of the classroom my coworkers are welcoming, helpful, funny, and much more generous than the set of teachers that entered Yeongyang back in March.  My desk is nice, my computer works without grand issues, and that’s all I can ask for. english teachers, Mrs. Jang and Mr. Jeong I’m asked to check midterm tests for grammar errors sometimes which I did yesterday. Switching my bills and making sure they were paid has been a pain but my co-teacher Mrs. Jang has been helping me with all of that. I’m happy to help any of them. Mr. Do the English director and Ms. Choi English teacher a bench near a path along the Yecheon river People here ask me how I’m doing, say hello, and two teachers even asked if I could teach them English. We already had one ‘class’. I like teaching older students. They’re more interesting to me. One day, the principal walked next to my desk, looked at me and said, “This is Heaven”. The smile on his face was big and wide, and he has the kind of face that resembles one of those Cherubs. Thus far this experience has been similar to my first semester in Yeongyang (with my first coteachers and coworkers). I still keep in touch with them and was happy to mention that I’d moved to Yecheon. Mr. Do, the English director, owns a duplex-style house near the school and I’m in the first floor of it. Forget five flights of stairs!

Apartments along the river. Here, I only pay for barrels of oil (for hot water) every three to four months and I don't pay utilities. Mr. Do was happy to provide this, as well as a television—and get this: air-conditioning! Nina put it this way—“Mr. Do really enjoys getting to know foreigners.” That, based on where I came from, is a remarkable quality. My Mom put it this way “You paid your dues living in Yeongyang, you deserve this.”  My Korean mentor and international wholesaler Jae Cho was a happy to hear this as well. His hometown is Yecheon. He took me out to lunch after I had settled in. I told him how I met the principal—who likes to be called “Pumpkin”. Pumpkin immediately asked if I knew Jae Cho and then went on to say Jae had said some good words about me. Jae's cousin founded the school years ago.
I’ve never asked anything of Jae and the man has bent over backwards as if I was his son. All there was to say was ‘thank you’—and I did so in a handwritten note.   Next time see what my experience was like over last week’s holiday—I spent the week in Gangnam , a place some see as “the Beverly Hills of Korea” with a friend.  Yours truly,                     Evan