email: i get around

Subject: sha
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 10:19:34 +0000
dear mom & dad,

my first day of training is now over. of our group of 50, i am the only black among them. and the only filipino. there are a good chunk of korean-americans, the rest are white.

at orientation, there was a lot of emphasis on CDI (the company) professionalism and compassion for teaching. many of these esl teaching jobs in korea are said to be overpaid babysitting where you give the kids word searches and play hangman all day; there was much emphasis today that at cdi, you do teach. we saw a video of an actual cdi class, it was wonderful, im really excited to get into the classroom.

in the afternoon, we all had to go to the immigration office to get our alien registration cards. i went with Joel and Leo, two of the guys i met the first night here (we were all on the same plane from tokyo to seoul).

getting to immigration was a bit tricky, it was our first encounter on the subway. the maps looked a lot like the trolley in san diego. before i could step up to see where we should go, a really nice young korean man named Lee saw us struggling at the subway map and he accompanied us all the way to our proper stop.

oh, if only we were so lucky to find another Lee when trying to get back to the hotel! we were so hopelessly lost! we stopped about 4 taxis, asking all of them if they knew where KTF tower is, or Hotel Major, and not a one knew. We had the addrss written in english, but still no dice. we eventually wandered into a building to use the phone and call one of our recruiters from cdi for directions. three and a half hours and a lot of walking later, we eventually made our way back. this is what i get for letting MEN lead the way. i was fine by myself yesterday!

tomorrow morning we have a grammar test, so i best be off and study for it. the weather doesnt seem so cold anymore. dad, thanks again for these sneakers; all that walking today and my feet didnt feel a thing. ~sha.