-
<
2008년 6월 4일 (수요일) 오후 1:22 > Dear Seongja,
Hi. It has been a long time since I have been able to write to you. Please don't think you have been forgotten. That is not the case.
We arrived in Brunei at the beginning of May and so much has been happening since then. First of all, we were staying in temporary accommodation - it was a hotel - until we could find a place of our own to live in. We stayed there for one month.
My first week here was spent doing an orientation course to learn about the new job and living in Brunei. It was very useful for us. My wife was able to attend some sessions with me.
The second week I started work at my school. I am working at a primary school here called Pantai Berakas. Pantai means beach and my school is about 100 metres from the beach. I am teaching New Entrant children - they would be kindergarten in Korea. There are three classes with 19 children in each class. They are SO small.
The school is located within the army camp, so most of the children are from military families. As an ex-Navy person it is quite funny for me to be back on a military camp.
I have a good teaching timetable with 12 contact hours per week. Each class is one hour long. I have three contact hours on Monday and Saturday. I only hav etwo contact hours Tues, Wed and Thurs. Friday and Sunday are the 'weekend'. I arrive at school about 7.20am and can go home at about 12.30pm each working day. I usually only teach for one hour before I have a break of either an hour or half an hour. The exceptions to this are Monday and Saturday, when I teach for an hour and a half before I get a break. It is NOT hard work.
Living in Brunei is really easy. There is little stress and it seems that people come here and never want to leave here. We have met Westerners and Koreans already who have been here for 10 years or more and don't want to go back to their own countries.
We have now found a house. It is exactly the opposite of what we were looking for. We wanted a small house that was only going to cost about 60% of the Housing Allowance we are given each month. In the end, we have got a HUGE house - four bedrooms and four bathrooms, living room, dining room, two 'spare rooms', etc., etc. It is VERY nice. We have a fenced garden and a really nice outlook over the trees. Our house is fully furnished with good quality furniture. I will send you some photos as soon as I can.
We have a LOT of room for visitors from overseas to come and stay with us - that is a BIG HINT.
In the garden there are pineapples, sugarcane, limes, lemons, durian, lotuses, chilli peppers, pomeloes. and many other things growing. We have even seen monkeys crossing the road from our house. Amazing stuff!!!!
That is all the really great news about our Brunei experience so far. As always, there may be some bad news. Our bad news is that I had an accident at work after only ten days at school and I damaged my back again on the stairs. It was very bad, I ruptured the disc in my back that I had surgery on last year. As a result, I was crippled and had to have another operation on my back. As you can imagine, it was really a worrying and stressful time. At one stage, it looked as if I would have to be flown to Singapore or Kuala Lumpur for surgery. However, the medical insurance policy of my employer covered me and I was able to go into a very good private hospital here for the operation. I had the surgery about 10 days ago and have only just started back at work this week. I have to be very careful now. Everyone here has been very supportive and kind to HK and myself during my ill-health. It has left us both with a really good feeling about Brunei and my employer.
We still do not have a telephone line or internet at home, so I have to use the school computers. That means my emailing cannot be as good as I would like yet. Not to mention the fact I was unable to get near a computer at all when I was sick.
I hope you and your husband are well and I look forward to hearing from you in due course. I hope that you have not been thinking that I had forgotten you in Korea. That is far from the case. I have been thinking about you regularly and have been so frustrated that I have not been able to write to you - it was especially difficult while I was in hospital and recuperating afterwards.
All my very best wishes to you both,
Paul