Life as an English Teacher in Korea

So someone from home asked if they could publish a link to my blog in the Maine Education Association newsletter so that the student members could have a glimpse of what life as an English teacher in Korea is like, and it made me realize that I really haven't posted a heck of a lot about my job. I pretty much just talk about life in Korea. But yes, I do go to work 5 days a week.
Tomorrow marks the end of the first four week series that I have completed as a MoonKkang teacher. I picked up the last two weeks of the previous series in December, but I just finished my own complete series. I got a list of all my new classes for the month of February, and fortunately I was able to keep all of the same classes. I will lose a few students though because they will be leveling up to the next class. I'll also gain a few new students who have leveled into my classes. I also just finished my first round of progress reports. I have 12 different classes with an average of 12 students in each class, so that's approximately 144 progress reports. I have to grade each student in four different areas: participation, comprehension, fluency, and accuracy. Fortunately, I only have to do them every two months because I take turns with my Korean partner teacher, Young Kyung.
I also recently got an email from one of the foreign managers at MK. She only recently discovered that I have a degree in Secondary Education, thus qualifying me for a higher rate of pay. So I'll be paid the correct amount for future months, and I'll get back-pay on the last two months. Sweet deal.
I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but it keeps escaping me when I actually sit down at the computer. Koreans are crazy about rock-paper-scissors (it's rock-scissors-paper here). The kids use it to decide everything. Adults even use it to resolve issues with their kids and with other adults. I once heard my coworkers joking that President Lee Myung Bak probably uses it to settle disputes with North Korea. Rock-scissors-paper is the thing to do here.
I had a piece of coffee flavored gum today. Really bizarre.
And the big news is....(drum roll please).....I CAN NOW READ AND WRITE IN KOREAN! I sat down on Sunday and studied the Korean alphabet, and now I can actually read the signs! Unfortunately, knowing Korean is a two-fold thing: you have to be able to read the script AND know the Korean words. So even though I can read the language I don't always know the Korean word that it spells. I'm still working on building my vocabulary of Korean words, but at least I can finally read the words I do know (as well as the ones I don't).
I'm headed to Busan again this weekend...I'll write again when I come home.