The last 72 hours have been super eventful. Orientation ended with a bang in a circus tent closing ceremony (and the most ridiculously huge buffet line I've ever seen). The next morning we threw our stuff in the back of a truck and boarded a bus to our respective destinations. It was like leaving summer camp, in a way, since we'd gotten to know each other over the past week and didn't want to leave our comfort bubble of Western-ness. It was a three hour drive to Daegu from Jeonju through some pretty spectacular mountains. The bus dropped us off at a large auditorium where the teachers were having a meeting. At the end, our names were called one by one and our teachers greeted us and took us away.

And then I was really in South Korea. No other newbies with me, not even my wife. Just me and a Korean woman driving to a Korean school, where we were meeting more Koreans. 

The woman who picked me up was Hyon Ji, one of my three co-teachers. She is very friendly and speaks English well (I mean, she's the head of the English Department at the school, so she has to speak it at least sort of well!). Like always here, it's super humid out, so I'm grateful for the plentiful A/C in her car. Orientation prepared us with some Korean phrases that might be important in the context of meeting administrative superiors at school, so I tried to review them in my head. We make small talk until we get to Maecheon Elementary School, my new place of work. It's an older building with pink outer walls and several wings, the kind of place where it's easy to get lost if you're not paying attention. We get out of the car and the humidity hits me again. Blah! I'm sweating bullets as we walk through the un-air conditioned hallways. Hyon Ji walks me up to the Vice Principal's office where she tells me to take off my shoes. And then I see it:

There's a hole in my sock.

Yes, in this culture of taking off your shoes in homes and at work, one does not galavant around with a hole in the big toe. Lucky me, I grabbed one of the only pairs of socks I have with a hole in them, and I was about to meet the Vice-Principal. In a blur of panic, what little Korean I know is scattered in the distant corners of my brain. I try my hardest not to look like an idiot, which means, usually, that you look like an idiot. We walk into the office and Hyun-Ji and I bow to the Vice-Principal. That much, I remembered. I then tried to glean what Hyun-Ji and the Vice-Principal were talking about, but didn't want to stare so I politely looked around the room, smiling. I read somewhere that Koreans don't really put their hands in their pockets when in conversation, so I played with my fingers until a use for them arose, praying that he didn't look at my feet, even though he had to have when he bowed to me. Hyun-Ji bowed, so I bowed too, and we left the room.

"Let's go meet the Principal."

Ah! The Vice-Principal didn't seem to notice my holey sock (and if he did, he didn't mention it). I wasn't so sure I would be lucky twice. Down the hall is an even larger office, and the Principal is sitting at his desk, beckoning us in. He stands and greets me. I shake his hand the Korean way (left hand supporting the right wrist), even though he shakes the American way. They speak some Korean while we (or at least I) have an awkward moment of not knowing what to do next. Again, I watch Hyun Ji for my next move, but the Principal motions that I should have a seat. Do I sit before he sits? I don't remember sitting being covered in orientation, and this is a culture where you wait for elders to do some things (perhaps just eating, though). His hand is still extended toward the seat, so I sit down. My foot is directly in his line of vision. We then have a roughly minute and a half conversation about the pronounciation of my name (first name, not last), throughout which I try to curl my toe in my sock so the skin isn't as noticeable. I then try to pronounce his name, at which I am equally bad. The principal and Hyun Ji stand, so I stand, we bow once more, and we leave the office.

The hole in my sock was either unnoticed, or the first three Koreans I met outside orientation were exceedingly polite. 

The rest of my time with Hyun Ji, while shoed, was still stressful. I spent my whole time wondering if I looked normal, if I was doing things the way Koreans do them. A conversation with Hyun Ji yesterday helped a lot. She mentioned how Mel, the EPIK teacher I'm replacing, was very organized, and how despite her attention to detail, it still took her a few months to really find her feet. So Hyun Ji said "relax. Take it easy."

It will be a long time, possibly never, before I can fully function here, but each day brings a little more confidence and one or two pieces of information more fully engrained in the mind. It has been very humbling, being constricted by language and cultural barriers. It's a good kind of humbling, though.