First Day of School (again)

Although I am still finding it incomprehensible, today, Tuesday March 2nd, is the first day of the new school year.  Although I've always known that this is the way it works here in Korea, March just doesn't seem like a new school year to me.  But yet it is, and it was abundantly clear to me as I walked into my 5th grade teachers' lounge and found a whole slew of new teachers who quickly glanced in my direction and then continued on with their conversations.  I stood there awkwardly, stepped back away from the chatter and buzz, away from the teachers frantically making photocopies before the first bell rang.  My index finger instinctively reached for my one sharp tooth in my mouth, an old nervous habit I have never bothered to outgrow.  "Can I help you?" one teacher asked me.  I thought about it for a moment.  Why was she looking at me like I didn't belong here?  This is where I have always gone for months now.  "No, I guess not," I replied. 


Finally Sun-hee came into the lounge. (She was my 6th grade English teacher last year)  "Hello Sarah," she said to me and then continued to a computer in the corner of the room, talking in Korean to the other teachers.  After a little while I worked up the courage to ask her what I was supposed to be doing, and if she had a time-schedule for me.  She pointed to another computer and told me that there was a new English teacher and that I should just wait in the classroom for her.  Slowly, humbly, I slinked out of the teachers' lounge and back into my own classroom. 

A little while later Helen came into the classroom and sat down in Eunju's old desk.  "Are you my new co-teacher?" I asked eagerly.  When she said yes I was instantly a little relieved.  But then I remembered how Helen used to come to the my after-school Teachers' English Conversation Class but she stopped at some point along the way.  Her English was good, but certainly not fluent like Eunju's.  Helen is younger than Eunju.  She isn't married but is actively looking for a potential suitor.  She gets a lot of grief from her family about why she is still single.  Helen is going to be my main co-teacher and 6th grade teacher. 

After that I met my 5th grade teacher.  Her name is Park Ji-hay.  She seems nice but I don't know a lick about her yet.

As it turns out, today I have no classes.  That means that all day long today I can just sit and do nothing, plan lessons, continue my online TEFL course or whatever.  Tomorrow starts the first real classes.  I am so scared.  This week shouldn't be any different than it has been for the last several months, yet somehow it is. 

Incidentally, I am not teaching 4th grade this year.  I know that they were debating as to whether I would teach 2 extra classes (and get paid overtime) or not teach 4th grade at all.  Eunju assured me that there was a 90% probability that I'd teach extra classes and so I had mentally prepared for it.  But as it turns out, I am not.  Now, instead of teaching 22 classes like I had last year, I am now only teaching 19 classes.  With the exception of Thursday I teach periods 1-4 only, which means after my last class it is lunch time.  It means that I have 3.5 hours of free time every day.  On Thursday I do have a 5th period, but on Friday I don't have a 1st period.

Instead, they will try to have me do a Teacher's Class 3 times a week.  We'll see how that turns out considering that I could only get 1 "student" to come to my class each week before and now she has transferred to another school!  

So here goes nothing..