Job.

Job. That's what I'm doing here for about eight tenths of my time. This is the first time in my life I've actually had a full-time real-deal job, so it's unclear which parts of my impressions are Korea-specific and which parts are just plain ignorance.

My job is to teach English to high schoolers in the mornings, then teach psychology and speech to high schoolers in the afternoon. I am not qualified for this work. Doesn't matter.

My teaching environment is Gwangju Foreign School. For a school that costs about $12,000 a year, it ain't much to look at.Please note the vending machines by the front door. There you can buy coffee made with melanine-tainted creamer from China. It's the only way to start your day.

Across the street is a fish processing plant, down the road is a pig slaughterhouse, and next door is a GM service center with a surly attendant. Down the street there's a Coca-Cola bottling facility (no tours available) and a middle school.

Turns out, teaching is hard. Probably even harder than actually being in high school, which, as I recall, was a stupid waste of time and testosterone. Only 2 in 5 kids actually care ("But aren't Koreans so hard working?" you may ask. No. High schoolers are high schoolers.), and having a couple of smart students means that I actually need to know my stuff. Alas. The upside is that I'm on American work hours - many Korean public schools go from 7:30 am till 10:30 pm.

Co-workers are good. Boss forgot to pay us last week. It's a mixed bag.

I live here.It may not look like much, and it's only being held together by the wallpaper, but to be fair, it's got a lot of wallpaper (because that way, you don't have to paint). I live on the third floor with Max Winston, another Princeton in Asia-er. We don't have cable or a toilet seat, but we've got a great view of the guy who showers in his laundry room with a hose and a bucket. We also have three airsoft guns and enough open space to do some target shooting. There are plastic bbs all over the floor. Good times.

There's a dog who lives outside. She's a Jindo, and her name is Friend 3. She ostensibly belongs to the handyman and brother of the boss, Mr. Myung, who really deserves his own post. So I'll tell you about Friends 1 and 2 at a later date.

I'm currently supervising the high schoolers who aren't taking the PSAT today. Two of them just walked out of the room. Guess it's time to go do the extra-contractual part of the job: crowd control.

High school rules!

This is Not a Blog

This is my abandonment of TravelJournal.com. They have failed me. Please pardon our appearance while we relocate. Here's what is supposed to be my first post, circa three weeks ago:

First of all: Hello again. Thanks for visiting.

Second of all: I feel weird about writing a travel journal. (Let me call it a travel journal and not a blog; blogs are places where e-hip bloggeurs rant about things like web comics, cosines, and IKEA furniture. I don't want any part of that.) I feel weird about the travel journal because I don't keep a journal when I'm not traveling. I only do it when I'm out of my comfort zone, which means that it must inevitably devolve into how one place is different from what I'm used to, and how one group of people is different from what I'm used to. I feel weird about the travel journal because it raises my risk of only seeing myself as a tourist; a person who is somehow outside and perhaps above his surroundings. So tell me if that starts happening, Okay?

Okay. Thanks.

Third of all: I've been here for a month and this is my first post. I'm sorry. I'll explain.

Where am I? Why, South Korea, of course! For the next year I'll be teaching high school at Gwangju Foreign School in sunny Gwangju, Republic of Korea. Let's have a quick summary of events.

I arrived in late July after a plane ride that isn't worth mentioning outside of the amazing toilet seats at Tokyo's Narita Airport (I've never felt so clean - or is it cleansed?) and the abrupt change in airplane food from peanuts to ramen noodles as soon as we crossed the International Date Line. I got to Incheon Airport really tired . Imagine that. The hostel was closed for the night, so I staggered over to a Best Western and talked the receptionist down from $250 a night to $90. I'm still not sure if he was messing with me or taking pity on me.

A few early impressions:

- Korea is hot and humid, at least in the winter. On my first full day in the country, I began sweating at precisely 7:42 am upon exiting the hotel. Awesome.

- People are not as short as I had imagined (or perhaps secretly hoped). I'm tall here at 6 feet, but not monstrous. My feet, on the other hand, are far too large for Korean shoes.

- There is less spoken English but far more written English than I had expected. Nearly every store that isn't a restaurant has an English sign out front, even here in Gwangju, which is 4 hours away from the cosmopolitan Seoul. Of course, very few people could actually tell you what that English sign says. I've just got to learn Korean.

- The countryside is gorgeous and surprisingly empty. Korea is about the size of Florida but has way more people, at least 48 million, but nearly everyone lives in high-rise apartments in the cities. The bus ride from Incheon to Gwangju was beautiful; craggy mountains, green rolling hills with farms built into them, and evergreen forests, punctuated by the occasional urban oasis.

Okay. My psychology class is about to start. Here's a sneak peak of some upcoming episodes: Utilities and Bureaucracy, in which I explain why I still don't have Internet; Waeguk! Waeguk! in which we explore how fascinating white skin and big eyes are to some Korean children; Old People, where we'll begin to understand why Korean streets are so clean; and Where's Wando, where I'll regale you with tales of my time with a national celebrity and his brother the mob boss. Seriously.