Pyramids, The Sphinx, and Camels! Oh My!

As part of our orientation schedule, the new teachers had an option to go to the Pyramids of Giza. Of course we went! The school provided two buses and about 30 of us went. A returning teacher and his wife were extremely knowledgeable in all things relating to the pyramids, and they were our tour guides. There's really nothing I can say to describe how awesome the trip was. I will just leave pictures for you with a few descriptions.

The whole group

I don't even remember what was so funny!

Zach's camel's name was 007 and mine was Michael Jackson.

We Made it to Egypt

Our trip started in Louisville where we flew to Chicago. While in the Chicago airport, we met so many of our soon-to-be co-workers. We are all going to be working at American International School of Egypt - AISE

Group picture in the airport

It was so great to be able to meet some of the people we would be working with before we even got to Egypt.

We arrived in Cairo on a Thursday night and hit the ground running the very next day to go apartment hunting. The school put us in groups of about 3-4 and sent us with a returning teacher and a realtor. Everyone in our group found an apartment that first day. (Pictures of apartment to come.)

The rest of the weekend was spent bonding, going to meetings, setting up our apartments, and shopping at the mall!

After our shopping trip

This past week, we were able to see our classrooms (pictures to come) and start getting things ready....and going to meetings.

I'm really excited to meet all of the returning teachers this coming week!

A Moving Nightmare In My Own Country

Just because we are living in the States does not mean that moving was any easier. When you are in a country where you don't speak the language, you expect things to take longer and be a little more difficult. However, this past month has been the biggest pain in the butt than any time we've moved in the past, including Korea and China. Mind you, we are renting.

Since we moved in on July 22, we've had the following problems:
1. Washer flooded
2. New washer not installed properly
3. Upper heating coil went out on our water heater (took one week to repair)
4. Zach's credit card number was stolen and someone racked up $600+ at The Home Depot
5. Found out the mail carrier wasn't delivering mail to our building since we moved in because of wasps that aren't there
6. Found out the post office "returned to sender" every single piece of mail we had coming to us (including Zach's new credit card)
7. The realtor's office can't do anything without the owner's approval and the owner wants to fly in from New Jersey to take care of the problem themselves instead of delegating
8. After contacting the water company, we found out that our deposit never went through so we haven't been charged for water/sewer since we've moved in
9. A drainage pipe in the kitchen leaked during a heavy storm
10. Didn't get Zach's first pay check because the post office is holding our mail

It's been a complete nightmare. The post office is sick and tired of me calling and the realtor's office doesn't seem too sympathetic about the mail situation. At this point, the problems we had in Korea seem minuscule compared to what we are experiencing right now.

I post this, not for sympathy, but to show that there are problems everywhere in the world. It's not just difficult to move to a new country - sometimes it's easier.

Teaching in Florida (An Update)

A lot has changed in the 10 months since I last wrote. At the end of July, we moved to Fort Myers, Florida, which is in the southwest part of the state. Zach accepted a position as a 7th grade math teacher in the Lee County public school system. He just finished his first week. Since I haven't passed my ESOL test yet, I accepted a job as an educational paraprofessional (teacher's aide) at the same school where Zach works. We both really like the school and everyone who works there.

Everyone we talk to wants to know if we will ever go abroad again. Our answer is always: YES! We plan on teaching in Florida for a couple of years to get experience, but we definitely want to go back abroad.

Well, that's really the only update I have for everyone. I will leave you with a few pictures of Zach's classroom.

Just An Update

It seems unbelievable to me, but we've been back in the States just a few days shy of 10 weeks.  I feel live we've done a lot but also nothing at all.

We got back on Tuesday, August 26th and my sister, Rachel, got married on Saturday, August 30th.  (Photos by Jessica Strickland.)

We bought a car that next week and took a few trips to Indianapolis.  On September 13th, we took my aunt, Karen, and Zach's brother, Ben, zip lining.

On September 23rd, we took an Amtrak train from Indianapolis to Chicago and spent four nights in Chicago.

There was SMWC Homecoming.

And our last big trip was to Maine on October 11th-18th to see Carolyn.

We've visited with friends and family.  There were several new (and not-so-new) babies to meet.  We've also sold almost half of the stuff in our storage unit and it feels so good!

Zach and I have also been substitute teachers with the Greater Jasper Consolidated Schools.  Zach has been doing it for about one month now.  After having to wait on my FBI background check, I have finally been put on the list and have been in the classroom twice.  It feels good to be back with students.

We have also taken important steps in our certification process.  To be certified teachers, we have to take three tests: General Knowledge, Professional, and Subject Area tests.  We took and passed the General Knowledge test.  We will take the other two this month (and hopefully pass) so that we can get our background checks completed and become certified to teach in the state of Florida.

That leads me to answer a question we've been getting a lot lately: what's next?  Good question!  It's also a hard question to answer.  The plan, for NOW, is to continue subbing for the rest of the current school year.  We are talking about moving down to Florida for the next school year and teach for the next two school years in order to obtain our teaching licenses.  Once we get our licenses, we want to go abroad and teach in international schools or for the DoDEA.

So, that is the plan for now.  As most of you know, those plans could definitely change and I will try to keep you all in the loop as changes occur.

Kids Game or Drinking Game?

Which came first, the kids game or the drinking game?  My first exposure to this particular game was at a bar.  You play by saying numbers in a sequence (1,2,3,4...).  When you say the number, you must stand up.  If two people stand up and say the same number at the same time, those two people must take a drink.  The kids game is very similar except without the drinking.  There are many "drinking" games that are played in school.  Whether the kids learned the games from their parents or the adults are playing games from their past, is unknown to me.  But, I was able to capture my students killing time in class one day.

After doing about five minutes of research online, I found that the name of this game is 눈치게임 (Noonchi Game).

Healthcare in South Korea

Since it's our last week in Korea, I've been going through all bills and receipts that I've collected the past two years.  Yes, I am "one of those people" - I save bills for at least one year.  While going through everything, I came across all of our medical receipts.  In the past two years, we've (I, really) managed to rack up quite a few!

You might think, "So what?  Big deal!"  You're right.  If I were back home, there is no way I would share this information with you.  However, I want to share with you just how awesome the Korean healthcare system is.

As you can see in the picture, one or both of us went to a doctor or the hospital at least 25 times.  When I calculated the total cost, it only came up to 1,607,380 Won (~$1,600.00).  I added in 200,000 Won for the various health checks we were required to get and 300,000 Won for Zach's wisdom teeth removal.  That's a total of 2,100,000 Won (~$2,000.00).

What's more impressive is what the costs included:

• a trip (or two) to the E.R.
• 10 sessions of laser hair removal
• a tubal ligation where I had to spend the night in the hospital 
• a vasectomy
• and countless infections

What's not included is the medication.  However, each time we got medicine, the average cost was about 5,000 Won.

I guess the moral of the story is that if you're going to get sick, the best place to do it is probably South Korea!