The last day of the first week

I have made it through the first week of teaching and all in all it went pretty well. I feel like I have a good handle on my classes, both in class management and knowing their levels and how much I can challenge them. Today just seemed off from the start though. I was running over in all my classes and my second to last class was late 5 min last to Ballet because I went over time with them. Then my last class it all fell apart! Since I was late to getting to class I didn't have enough time to cover everything we needed to cover. With about 10 min left in class one of my girls kept saying she wanted to go home. I told her to hang in there for 10 min. Then with about 5 min left that same girl said she had to go to the bathroom. By now I was just thinking she wanted a way to get out of class. So I didn't let her go to the bathroom. Then sure enough, she peed right there standing up! I felt horrible!!! I ran her to the bathroom, told her it was okay, that it was teachers fault and that it was an accident. She was crying and was so embarrassed. I felt so awful! Thankfully it's Friday and hopefully no one will remember by Monday. And hopefully by next week I will be in more of a groove of things.

The past week I have brought my work home with me and I did again this weekend to try to get as much stuff done over the weekend as possible so I can enjoy my nights after work. Our days are long and hard and I want to enjoy my evenings. We have to be at school by 9am but if we want the free transportation offered by the school we get picked up at 8:10 and we are at school by 8:20. This first week it has been nice getting there early to get some last minute things done.

Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays we teach after school classes. The kids we teach are Elementary school kids who come to Helen Doron for extra tutoring. The classes are 50 min and we each teach three classes. So after our normal school day, which ends at 2:45 we have to teach three more classes and aren't done teaching until 5:45! Makes for very long days! Tuesdays and Thursdays we don't have afternoon classes but we still have to be at school until 5:30. Needless to say I want my nights free to watch a movie, read a book or just hang out with my co-workers. I am hoping to get enough done this weekend so I don't have to take my work home every night next week.

This weekend we are planning on going into Seoul on Saturday night for dinner, drinks and Karaoke! Korea will finally have the privilege of hearing my wonderful singing voice!