SMOE Orientation August 2009 -- Day 2, Notification: Everybody on the 10th floor gets 'relocated' due to 'construction hazards'--uhm, excuse me?

It's now the end of Day 2 at the 2009 SMOE Orientation in Suwon at Sung Kyun Kwan University . . . and all the foreign teachers on the 10th floor of the dormitory where several of us (about 460) have rooms just saw this at about 9pm.

Our coordinator was walking from door to door knocking to see if the foreign teachers were inside (some people were out at the optional evening classes/activities, exercising, chilling out with friends, or watching the evening movie), and if we in our rooms he told us that we had to pack up our stuff and come down to the coordinator's office. We would then hand in our old room keys and get new keys for rooms on the 8th floor.

I saw the notice sign he was taping on every door and asked him what "construction hazard" meant. I was wondering if it was something serious that we might need to find out more about in case we'd been exposed to something or whatever. He apologized and said he didn't know. He was actually really cool about it and not trying to put up a bullshit smoke screen to cover up something, or worse yet pretending that this wasn't that big a deal . . .

One foreign teacher answered the knock on his door half-awake . . . he'd been sleeping . . . not a nice way to be woken up, eh?

I asked the coordinator what he wanted us to do, and he asked us to go downstairs and turn in our old keys, and get the new room number and keys. Then we needed to come back up to our old rooms, pack, and move our stuff down to the new room. Luckily for me I hadn't really taken much out of my suitcases so I stuffed a few things back in, and got ready to move after less than 48 hours in the room.

While waiting for the elevator I saw what looked to me like a father and son carrying luggage with them coming out of the elevator and walking down the hallway of the 10th floor rooms . . . were they moving into vacated rooms--if so, why? What happened to the 'construction hazard?'

Moving down to the 8th floor I walk into a much larger unit. Here's the entrance way.

Inside there are four small rooms. Here are some examples.

Each unit has four bedrooms . . . and there's one shower for the unit. Luckily, as of right now, there are only 3 of us occupying the space so far.

Oh yeah, one sink and one toilet too.

There's a common area with table and closet.

I don't know if I prefer the old room where it was just two foreign teachers . . . or the new one with 3 of the 4 rooms filled. I guess only time will tell. I will say that I like that I have some privacy now where before I didn't.

This is the old room . . .

The bed is just long enough and I have to wonder how some of the taller new teachers are with the length--there are a few that I think must be close to 6' 6" . . . lol.

Nice closet space for each person.

I really liked that in the old room the shower and toilet are in different rooms (they are in the new unit too).

Well, time to go to bed. Tomorrow I'm not supposed to eat breakfast as I have to go for a medical check sometime between 12 and 1:30pm . . . I'm curious to see whether or not we'll be back in time to eat lunch . . . and if we're late what will be done to feed us.

Here's hoping that everything goes well tomorrow.

Wish me luck,
J
p.s. I'm still working on a post for Day 1 at the orientation, and for Day 2 . . . I'm still jet lagged, and the orientation schedule makes for long days when you're still adjusting. That being said the lunch break is a decent amount of time, 12 to 1:30pm, and the afternoon lectures end at 5pm. If you choose not to do the optional evening classes, activities, and/or watch a movie you have a good amount of free time to do what you want to, and rest if you need to.

I'll try to post Day 1 in the next day or so.