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Monday, March 24, 2008

Hong Kong

     Plus One sent me to Hong Kong last week to get my E-2 visa. The reason that they send their teachers to Hong Kong is that it is supposed to be a one day process there. Yes it can be one day, but the policy is two days. Luckily the lady that works there has a heart of gold and she did mine in one day, and I was able to catch my flight.
     I had a working day to kill while I was waiting on my passport so I decided to kill it by going to see the largest-outdoor-bronze Buddha in the world. It was a good choice as it really did kill most of the day. I left the consulate at about ten in the morning, and I made it back just a tad after three. And that included taking a detour to look around Kowloon station.
     To get to the statue take the Tung Chung line on the Hong Kong subway system. You want to go all the way to Tung Chung, currently the last stop on the line. When you are exiting the station just follow the signs for Ngong Ping. The fare for the cable car was less than $100HK for a round trip.
     Just as a side note. The Incheon airport in Seoul is now trying to double as an art gallery. They had an interesting, though slightly annoying display of art by Nam June Paik set up on the first floor.

hongkong

Plus One

     I have officially started at my new job. It's amazing that I can work a "long" day at the school, eat supper, buy some necessities for the apartment, and still get home before seven. Coupled with the fact that the owner of the school keeps telling me not to rush or to try to go through the lessons in a certain amount of time, I am feeling mightily relaxed. The school has this crazy new idea of actually teaching the kids so that they learn, not to level them up in classes, sell books, or to feed the mommies' egos. The difference between this school and everywhere else that I have been is like night and day.
     The school has recently moved into a new building. They own the whole building, and it is very well designed. I personally wish I had one less window so that I could have more shelf space, but after the plastic wrapped window experience of POLY I will not complain at all. I am up on the third floor. I have my own room that I teach two and a half set of kids in. In the mornings I teach my prekindergarteners. These are children that are Korean age six (four to five years old by western counting). They are learning English at an alarming rate, and they are reluctantly relinquishing their dominance in our power struggle. Originally there were seven students, but we gained another student last week. I teach the same children from nine:thirty until three in the afternoon.
     After the prek'ers I swap to my first graders. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I teach what is dominantly a reading and conversation class. These students are a kick to work with because their English is very good, but this is their first hakwon experience outside of Kindergarten. They had very little concept of how to keep up with their homework, so I bought them a set of notebooks to write everything down in. These classes run from three:thirty until five, with a ten minute break near the middle. The Tuesday class is a mix of some of my reading students, and a couple of students from another reading class. The schedule is the same, but this time we study a north American science textbook and do a small experimenttowards the end of class. It is really fun, and I think I enjoy it as much as the children. On Thursdays I go home at three.


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