Dear New EPIK Teachers, I think a lot of you will be walking into your schools to work for the first time on Monday. It wasn't all that long ago that I did the same exact thing and to be perfectly honest I'll be walking into school again on Monday with my own set or…
An Open Letter To My Students (Because that's never been done before...) To any of my students past or present, Should any of you ever find this by accident, hello! I hope life is treating you okay. I am writing this to you because there are some things that I want you to know.…
June has been a good one. I feel like last year at this time we were already well into the worst of the dead summer heat. But as of Wednesday rainy season has officially began and I still feel like we haven't gotten to the worst of the heat yet. (Except that my school still…
Continue reading ➞ June Update: Pretty Sunsets and The AC Scare
What Korean Middle School Students Are Worried About (Or: What my kids wanted to tell me when they had 2 minutes of my undivided attention.) I'm just about finished with all of the speaking tests for this semester and as always it's been the most fun I've had with my students so far this…
Continue reading ➞ What Korean Middle School Students Are Worried About
Why I Moved Abroad When I was 17 I stood in the doorway to St. Peters Basilica and cried. At the time I was just overwhelmed by how beautiful and huge it was. But looking back, I think it was because I was experiencing for the first time the comforting, overpowering realization of how…
When The Shine Wears Off This is year two for me living and working in Daejeon, Korea. So that means that, for two-thirds of my students this is their second year with me. It means that the novelty of me has worn off for most of my kids. That manifests itself in good and…
Tips for Surviving Your First Day as an EPIK Teacher If walking up to my school on the first day amid a literal sea of students staring and gawking at me wasn't enough to make me nervous, then standing in front of my first class of 30 something 15-year-old boys was. Your first few…
Continue reading ➞ Tips for Surviving Your First Day as an EPIK Teacher
Story Time: Teacher's Trip to Tongyeong. Alternatively, the first time I was, within the bounds of Korean workplace culture, forced to do some embarrassing in front of my co-workers. It involved a bus full of teachers, soju, and the US national anthem. But I digress. Let me start from the beginning. So on occasion…
역시 is a word that I've spent a lot of time trying to work out its exact meaning. Before I moved to Korea I remember asking some of my Korean friends what it means and they had a very difficult time giving a particular definition for it. And now that I live here, and I listen…
Breaking into a new culture in the workplace is not an easy task. Every job, and office, and company, or any group for that matter always operates under different social expectations even in our home countries. If I started a new teaching job in America it would be much of the same, but easier…
Hours and Miles 