January 5th I started back at school teaching what they call an English camp. Poor kids in Korea don't get any breaks! They are told that school is "camp" to trick them into going when really it's just like summer school. It was only a two and half week camp, and I only taught half days, but I am so happy that it is over! I had two 1 1/2 hr classes per day: the grade 4-6 class and the grade 1-3 class. Yep, they left mixed three grades for each class and gave me no direction as to what to do with them!
I figured things out for the grade 4-6 class that I saw first everyday as their English skills were a bit better than the younger kids and because there were fewer of them.
The headache came from the 24 kids in the grade 1-3 section. Not a single one of them knew more English than a few colours and letters of the alphabet, and 2 of the students had special needs. I was not impressed with my school for abandoning me with this! Who mixes this many kids of such different skill and learning levels together, and for an hour and a half period at a time?!?! crazy Koreans do, that's who! I did my best to keep them busy with games and songs that involved A LOT of activity, but there were always a handful of kids that ran around me in circles and the one boy who is somewhat autistic I think, who just kept repeating "Teacher, teacher! Airplane. Airplane. Merry Christmas" followed by some ranting in Korean, day after day!!!
There was one day that was almost a snow day and that gave me a bit of a break. I had only 5 students show up for the first class and the Koreans are so confused by the snow that one girl thought it was appropriate to bring her puppy to school. I didn't mind one bit as it was the cutest puppy ever and gave us all something to do instead of work!
On my way to school that morning I also got a second example of the snow use of a dustpan... not only does it work as a snow brush for cleaning cars, but as a shovel for clearing the storefront for customers.
Now camp is over and I am now on vacation for the next 40 days!!! I celebrated my first day of freedom by hiking up Ibamsan with Milton. We ran into our friends on the way to the mountain who were also headed for the climb and so we had a nice group hike. We got a nice view of both sides of the city from the top.
We could see our side of the city (Hadang) and our apartment, along with the dozens of other apt buildings there are.
And we could see Yudal mountain and shinae (the old part of the city) which are the other side of the city.
I also got a nice shot of the museum district which I quite like - I was at the ceramics museum last weekend painting a mug and a plate. Nice that they have all the museums grouped in one area so that visitors can do them all in just one day.
Milton and I also did a hike last week on one of my afternoons off. This mountain doesn't seem to be labelled on our map, maybe because it is in the newest part of the city called Namak. It was a snowy day which provided some nice scenery of snow covered bamboo.
I could even see my school way off in the distance - It's the one with the white roof out in the middle of nowhere.
It was a bit snowy at the top!
When the sun finally came out for a few minutes, we stopped for a little picnic to refuel for the descent. And just so you can all see, I DO eat some Korean food! - after picking out the surimi or other traces of seafood of course ;) This is Milton's new favourite snack kimbap - rice and veggies rolled in seaweed.
Apart from camp and our hikes, I've been busy dumpster diving, as we call it. There really are no dumpsters involved, but people in Korea don't like having old or used stuff so they put it in designated spots by the apt building or just anywhere in the street really, and it's free for the taking. I found a nice cosy chair for the living room last week, and this week I found a bike!
We will be taking it easy for the rest of the week - getting lots of reading done and catching up on sleep. The lunar new year is this weekend with the arrival of the new moon and we've got plans to celebrate Saturday and Sunday night and maybe stay up for the sunrise on Monday morning.
Next week we are headed to one of the nearby islands to visit some friends - Milton is pretty excited for this as there was talk of us being lent a scooter for the time we are there! And then we are off to Seoul at the end of the month to catch our plane to Australia and then to New Caledonia. We can't wait! and we will be sure to post pictures of the nice sunny beaches to make you all jealous ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment