2002: The Most Exciting Year Yet

The year 2002 covered the end of my second year and start of my third year at JLS. By now, I was feeling right at home with the firm. Daniel was still the senior teacher until mid-year, when he moved on to a university position, but I began to take on more responsibilities that I had hoped would eventually lead to a promotion within JLS.

First of all, I was continuing to work Saturdays for overtime pay. Around this time, Mr. Huh had decided to dramatically increase the weekend overtime rate to 50 000 won/hour (roughly $60/hour). Second, I joined a curriculum development committee, where I was to work with Patrick developing course materials for our middle school TOEFL classes. I spent the entire year working on this committee, which not only produced some good materials for us to use, but also contributed to my ever-growing salary. Speaking of which, my third year salary was 3 million won per month. I literally felt like I had fallen into a pot of gold.

Of course, in addition to making money, one of my objectives while living in Korea was to travel, and the year 2002 saw us making three overseas trips. In February, during the Lunar New Year holiday, Heather and I took our baby Renee to Guam. Although we were there for just three days, and the weather was somewhat rainy, we had a grand time experiencing the tropics in the middle of winter.

In August, the three of us once again travelled -- this time to Singapore and Bintan Island in Indonesia. Being located almost exactly at the equator, we experienced intense sun and heat like never before. It was fantastic!

In the fall, Heather and I managed to escape on our own for a visit to Tokyo. We found Tokyo to be extremely enjoyable -- so energetic, yet easy-going in the sense that you could see people being comfortable as themselves. For anyone who has taught in Korea, visiting Tokyo makes for an interesting comparison.

When Baker was with JLS as our supervisor, he was very generous with the teacher get-togethers. Basically, if anyone wanted an excuse for the teachers from the various branches to get together, he was willing to pay for the drinks. In 2002, we had many such parties because the school was getting bigger as a whole (the native teachers at Bundang increased from five to eleven, for example). As I look back through my photo albums, I can see that I took a lot of pictures from these events. For instance, here we are in March and April.

The grandest event of 2002, though, was the FIFA World Cup, which was co-hosted by Korea and Japan. I've never been a big soccer fan, but I can tell you that this was the greatest party I have ever witnessed. At this time, I purchased my new camcorder, and the first event I recorded was the World Cup match between Denmark and Senegal, which I attended with Ryan and Jeremy.


But the real World Cup excitement only began to make itself known as the tournament progressed, with Team Korea winning match after match against top soccer powers such as Portugal, Italy, and Spain. The match against Italy was one of the most amazing spectacles of the tournament, and a number of us joined with a crowd of Koreans at a local restaurant to enjoy the evening.


Towards the end of this action-packed year, our second child was born. It was a fitting way to finish a year that was exciting from beginning to end.

As I think back to the year 2002, this appears to be the zenith of my time at JLS. The school had reached its height in terms of class size; we were partying on a regular basis, and the money just kept coming. And this was also the year that more teachers came to our school, including Rachel, Colin, Kaylene, Tim, Mike, Steve, and probably more whom I have forgotten. In retrospect, I think JLS got too big, and within the next year or two the school would begin to contract.

But it was a great year while it lasted!