A Week Under Our Belts! :)

Sarah with 2 of her co-teachers With a week nearly in the books, Sarah and I are now full throttle into our new and exciting adventure as English teachers in South Korea. We started our new jobs this week at our posts in the district of Seobu, which is located on the west side of Daegu very close to downtown. Me with my 5th/6th grade teacher, Nana at the IAAF World Championship This week I had an incredibly full schedule, teaching 2 days worth of 6th grade classes, 1 day of 5th grade classes, and 1 day of 3rd grade classes, along with all the immense amount of lesson planning that we have to squeeze into what's left of each day. Needless to say, by Friday I am exhausted. Sarah had a little bit slower start to her week but is also full force into teaching as well. We both have kept very busy in and out of the classroom at our schools. I have a feeling we will get the full effect of our jobs next week when we have our full schedule in play Monday through Friday. Time to go to war! Haha! Life in Daegu has been pretty good so far. The place we have found to be the most challenging is on the bus rides to and from school. They are very overcrowded and the older people that ride the bus are particularly grouchy and impatient, especially with us foreigners. We are gracious and understanding of them though. It just makes me think hard about how we treat foreigners in America. Sometimes we can be just as impatient, and many times much more so. The food has been great, our apartment is a wonderful and spacious place to come home to at the end of a long and hard-working day, and the city itself is alive and full of things to do. We have an incredibly HUGE park right down the street (which you'll see in our You Tube vlog sometime in the next week or so), and the IAAF World Championships (track and field competition) are being hosted in Daegu this year at the nearby stadium. In fact, my school took me to dinner last night and then treated me to a night at the stadium to watch some of the track and field events (high jump, triple jump, 400 meter hurdles, 1500 runs, javelin throwing, etc.). We even got to see several Americans take home gold (high jump and women's 400 meter dash. It was a fun and equally exhausting day! Outside of Daegu Stadium, host of the 2011 IAAF World Championship  One thing that struck me very impressively and humbled me was how supportive the people of South Korea are for all the nations competing in the events. Yes, they loved and rooted for the Americans, but they cheered equally as loud for Russia, England, the Ukraine, France, Jamaica, Kenya, China, Japan, and South Korea (who only had 1 single competitor in the entire weeklong championship)...and that's just to name a few. They take unbiased pride in the sport of world competition, and they play no favorites. It is something all of us can learn from, and it made me feel very good on the inside. No enemies, no favorites, no bitterness...just unreserved immense love and support. Very much a feel-good evening!  Men's 1500 meter distance finals at the IAAF World Championship This weekend we are hoping to hit up the center of downtown Daegu for the first time and maybe even catch a free KPOP concert (Sarah is grinning ear to ear at this very second...he he!)! Hopefully we'll have LOTS more to share after another exciting weekend in our new hometown!