Dear Mama.... English Winter Camp is OVER! Yay!

During Christmas week I had to rush planning for an unexpected camp and during New Year's week I had to rush buying and preparing materials for the camp in the middle of moving to a new building because of the construction. Then, the next week was camp. This past weekend I was invited by another teacher to her house for dinner so it was a nice break from the chaos of planning for winter camp. She was so nice to invite me. She said, "Everytime I see you around school you look so lonely so I wanted to invite you." (lol) Her oldest daughter who is in high school spoke English pretty well and they are a generous Christian family that volunteers their time and home to handicapped and less fortunate children. There were two deaf children that were also there for the day. The oldest daughter showed me around a very large and popular market called Moraenae. I had some Korean street food for the first time: bungeoppang and hotteok. It was really tasty! They had a really big apartment in Lotte Castle, one of the biggest apartment complexes in Korea. For dinner we had bulgogi and we talked and the daughters played the piano and violin. I stayed there for 7 hours! The youngest daughter at the end was like "Are you going to spend the night?" Her mom asked her, "Do you want her to?" and she said "Yes." Awww...

 

Then, before I knew it, it was time for winter camp. AAAHHHH! On Monday, I was running around like my head was cut off. It was a very stressful week. I even lost my precious USB that had so much important information on it, especially for my portfolio. :( On top of winter camp there was also after school class that I had to do. I had to prepare so much by myself. I expected my head co-teacher to be there to help me but she was M.I.A. the whole time except for the times she popped in to take pictures or drop off the end of camp gifts. I had a circus theme so one day was clown day. I expected the students the paint their faces like a clown and I thought it would be something they would enjoy because most students in America enjoy that. They were having no part of it. Talk about frustrating because that was supposed to take up a significant amount of the class time. Thankfully the last class of the day participated. After all is said and done, I think the kids enjoyed the camp and the male co-teacher that was "helping" me complimented me that I did a great job! Of course, I am hard on myself and there are many things I wish I could have changed but what can you do. If this was hard and it was only a week, I better mentally prepare myself for how hard the summer camp will be because it can be anywhere from 2-4 weeks!! I already started thinking of themes for that now.

* I forgot to take pictures of Animal and Trainer day where they made animal masks and whips.

Now, I can finally focus on my vacation and birthday plans which are fast approaching. Japan here I come!

Dear Mama.... Christmas and New Years in Korea

Ho Ho Ho and Happy New Year!

I am have been M.I.A. for far too long so I think it's finally time to update you on how my holiday in Korea went. 

First, to start of the week of Christmas I went to see The Nutcracker. I always wanted to see it back home so I thought I would take advantage of seeing it here. It was a beautiful show but of course I got a little sleepy and dozed off on some parts. The music was just too relaxing lol. Since I was in Seoul, I decided to see what else was going on and found the Design Festival at COEX exhibition hall. It was interesting to finally be around the Korean artsy fartsy crowd for a change.

I also decided to throw my after school class a Christmas Party on Christmas Eve. The only unfortunate thing was that the day before the party, my co-teacher informed me that the winter camp they kept reassuring me was cancelled due to school construction was now going to take place and I would have to give her the plan for it the next day. Arrrggh! My mind was already checked out in Christmas mode, especially since I am not used to working on Christmas Eve...so all I brought in the next day was the theme. Right before my Christmas party, I had to come up with the schedule of the camp on the fly. The good thing was that it would only be for one week (as later I was told it was shorter because of construction and is normally 2-4 weeks). Luckily, this did not hinder me from having a good Christmas party. I put up some decorations, brought in drinks, cake, ice cream and cookies, brought presents, put on Christmas music and had fun Christmas games planned. The kids even helped make and put up decorations. The only thing that was a little disheartening was when the kids opened their gifts and some gave me the impression that they didn't like them. I took a lot of time picking out all different gifts based on their Christmas lists that they wrote to Santa and improvised for the ones that did not give me a list. Only one student said thank you...I probably should have let them open them at home so I wouldn't see their reactions.

On Christmas Day, I was fortunate to spend it with a really sweet American family...and eat American Food!! They were so nice to give me take home plates, bags of candy and let me borrow a blow dryer with a comb attachment  (I needed so bad)! They had such a nice, big, warm in cozy house out in the boonies of Korea. It was torture getting to them but it was worth it. Then, I met up with Anakaren and her friends and we all had drinks and snacks while we talked. Her studio is much nicer than mine and she had put up Christmas decorations her mom sent so it was really nice.

Thank you for my gift too mom!

New Year's Eve, I had one thing in mind...to see my favorite Korean group: Dynamic Duo! But like always I did not know anyone who wanted to go. The tickets were about $50 but I didn't care because it was a big New Year's Eve celebration, like NY Times Square but inside a mall in Seoul called Times Square. Anyway, I waited too long to buy tickets and had to find something else to do. At first I thought I would just stay in my neighborhood, go watch the fireworks and then come home and go to bed. After a lot of coaxing, I met up with Anakaren in Bupyeong to hang out at Shelter, the bar that a lot of foreigners and English teachers frequent. Standing in front was another teacher from our orientation, John, and we just hung out until the countdown. For some reason I forgot that I am in Korea where New Year's Eve is not a big deal and they don't really countdown so of course we missed the countdown by 1 minute and did a late countdown lol. It actually turned out to be a fun night as a 60 year old man told Anakaren that he loved her and kept trying to kiss her on the cheek. After the bar we went to eat and there was guy that kept trying to talk to us through his translator app on his phone. It was the most hilarious sentences ever that made no since whatsoever. But you gotta love him for trying! The next day I went to Seoul to see a musical play called Bibap. It was a comedy show about two chefs competing to be the best. There was beatboxing and breakdancing. There was also audience participation and for the last act they chose me! So I had to come on stage and be the judge of the last dish the two chefs made, bibimbap. It was a lot of fun and I got an autographed book from the actors and took a picture with them.

 

 

Overall, I had a wonderful and special holiday!