Five Day Training Fiesta

Week two I was spirited away to the outskirts of Suwon for a 5 day training. It was a nice hotel in a tranquil place, but it felt a bit like being transplanted into summer camp, just when my officetel started to feel more like home. The large "resort" near a lake boasted a garden terrace and a well groomed golf course. Good, if one golfed.
They placed us four to a room to accomodate our large group of approx. 190 "Native speaker"English elementary school teachers from all over the province. I arrived last and slept on a small twin bed between a Canadian teacher and a Scottish teacher. Thus my sleep was often interrupted and I felt a bit like the inside parts of a sausage, or "sausag-ee" as the Koreans call it! :)
The training was mostly positive. The timing was a bit annoying, though. I promised Steve I would book plans for the upcoming 4 day Chuseok break, but this proved too difficult to do while at the conference. The resort offered only TWO computers for a 600 person resort. Apparently the hotel assumed that you'd bring your own laptop, but we teachers all assumed more would be provided. I was also deluged with e-mails and text messages from hiking club about a weekend long trip Steve and I are taking with in October. Their requests for documents and deposit payments were hard to cover as I had difficulty just getting on the computers in my time off.
Within the five days of payed training, there were some endkless lectures, BUT, there were also three days of very helpful information on class activities and inter-cultural communication. And lots of great web resouces, which are crucial because the textbooks here are pretty DULLLLLLL... Many of the best ideas came from my fellow new teachers. We shared silly stories and confusing situations in our new nieghborhoods. I realized how sheltered I'd been in the "faux Korea" of my relatively Westernized area of Seoul last year!! There were three abrasive American men there on their first travels abroad, so there were definitely two public moments when one could see all the Americans who weren't speaking (including me) blush and sink lower in their seats. Oye. Then there was the American guy who traveled there with all of his moneey in Korea AND his credit cards in one wallet, no money belt, no bank account yet, no back up funds. Of course the poor idiot got his wallet stolen by someone at the hotel. I felt bad for him, but he was openly mocked by some for his total lack of common sense. Poor loser.
It as a big group of mostly twenty-something Canadians and I felt a bit shy, believe it or not. There was a lot of small talk, which is sometimes interesting and sometimes boring. I forces myself to sit with different groups, and di click with a few folks.There was way more diversity than I'd seen at Poly School conventions, though. I was pleased to meet light-skinned blacks from the UK , Korean-Americans, and a bi-racial man with an Indian last name. It's a credit to our province that they don't see all "Native English Speakers" as blue-eyed blondes like some schools in Korea do. In the end my more mellow roomates turned out to be cool, I went out to the local bar once or twice and I met four cool people from my city. One grew up right near my cousin Missy; small world. All the folks in my area exchanged emails and I plan to invite them to a little brunch that I am planning when I get myself organized in October.
By Friday we were all tired but a few friendships were budding and we'd started a website for ourselves which wil be great for sharing lesson plans and connecting with folks once the winter hits and it's harder to meet people outside whether hiking mountains or going to local events.