tuesday, november 29th was my last day teaching at 압구정 ��랜드 (apgujung wonderland, the name of my school), and it was probably one of the busiest days of the year.

when i came to the school, i had a week to learn the ropes and observe classes. unfortunately, the guy who was replacing me couldn't come until monday night, and therefore only had one day to follow me around and get a sense of how things worked at the school. his name was ryan, and he seemed to have a good go with the flow attitude, so he just took everything in and didn't seem to get overwhelmed too much.

it was also a really atypical day since we had to interrupted our entire morning schedule to have a teaching demonstration in front of parents of prospective students to the kindergarten. so first period i was practicing with tiger class what we were going to go over in the demonstration, and then second period we practiced in front of everyone. finally at 1:00p we did the actual class in front of the parents. luckily it all went fine, but i felt bad for ryan that he didn't get a sense of what a regular day was like at the school.

finally things calmed down a bit in the afternoon. selena and julie had a mini-party in my very last class of the day, where we said goodbye and the got to know ryan since he'd be taking over the class.

julie also gave me a few korean comic books that she said i could use in my korean language studies. i'm looking forward to trying them out, but i'm pretty sure i have a long way to go before i'll be able to read and understand them.

mrs. kim (the president of the school) wanted to take everyone out for dinner as a farewell to natalie and me and a welcome to ryan and arlene, the other new teacher. before that julie was nice enough to help me go out and get the last present i needed to pick up for someone in my family.

we went to a barbecue restaurant nearby work and had a very nice dinner. it was surreal to think that my days teaching there were finally over. the teachers gave natalie and i really nice thank you cards and each wrote a nice personal message inside. after the meal we got some pictures outside.

some of us are looking in different directions because there were about four or five people taking pictures all at once. after that most of us went on to a bar nearby for one last drink together. it was really nice of everyone to come out, especially considering they all had to teach the next morning. we sat around and reminisced about the past year, especially since natalie and i came around the same time and were in the same boat all year.

finally around 10:30p or so we said our goodbyes and i showed ryan where to catch the bus home after work. it took me a few days to get the route down, but he only got one shot to memorize it, hopefully he did okay. it was a whirlwind day that wasn't over yet, i still had a bit of packing to do, although i had done a lot of it in the previous few days.