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!