Seong Dong winter camp

This week was my first week of teaching camps here in Korea. I have 4 weeks of camp straight through the winter break and then about a week or so before classes start back up again. (For 2 weeks, and then we have another week off for 'spring break'... in February!!!) This first week was great! It's the only week that I'll be teaching at my main school with my kids that I teach all the time, so it was nice being able to have them in classes that were a little more fun than their everyday schoolwork. We had a few classes that actually taught language and parts of speech and such, but then the rest were just fun classes taught in English to give them an immersion style language experience. We were able to do some hip hop dancing to learn directions and parts of the body, create and draw our own inventions, make s'mores and sing a campfire song, and even play a little with some trick photography- which I think was my favorite :) I had two days of classes with my 4th graders (about 15 of them) which went far better than I'd anticipated- I was a little nervous about having them for such a long stretch at a time- and then two days with my 5th graders (about 20 of them) who were a little slower to start than I would have guessed, but got into things by the end. Because of the timing of the school years here I wasn't able to do anything with my 6th graders, they'll be moving on to middle school now... new school year starts late February/early March following the Lunar New Year. I hope they all had as much fun this week as I had teaching them... wish I could do things like that with them more often :)

Muju

The second weekend in December I got to go to Muju Ski Resort with some friends from here in Sangju. It was a lot of fun but sooo very cold! (The resort thermometer said -8C, but I think it may have been colder still... we'd been getting down to -10C here in Sangju that week.. or maybe it just felt colder since we were rolling around in the snow!)Jessica and Julian organized the trip for us, Dan and his friend Lina from a nearby town came, and Simon who had only been in Korea about a week or so at the time came along as well (he just started teaching at one of the Hagwons in Sangju.) Jessica managed to rent a van for us to drive over in- no small feat with the language barriers and such here- which saved us from having to take like 3 buses and a ton of time to get to the resort. And the van having the built in GPS that all the cars here seem to have gave us step by step instructions on how to get to our destination, warned us of upcoming tolls, and yelled at us (in German no less!) anytime our speed got above limit or we'd somehow veered off course! Amazing stuff this technology! We were able to rent ski clothes and equipment from a little shop once we got near the resort. Lina is from Oregon and used to teach snowboarding lessons there, so Dan, Simon, and I all decided that instead of learning to ski we would let her show us how to snowboard. I had been snowboarding once before about 5 years ago and done fairly well, but I think my beginner's luck has worn off! It was a very fun day, but I don't think you could call what I did snowboarding so much as falling down a snow covered mountain repeatedly with a snowboard strapped to my feet :) The guys did much better than I and were making full runs by the end of the day. We stayed for the night skiing session as well which was beautiful being out there in the dark with all the stars... but by the end of our 8 hours that first day I was definitely ready for a rest! We all had rooms next to each other in a hotel right there at the resort which was very nice. We were going to try to go to the outdoor hot springs that they have at the hotel, but unfortunately by the time we finished night skiing we were too late to make it there, so we just hung out in one of the rooms for a while before crashing for the night. An authentic Korean experience- our neighbors were barbecuing inside a room down the hall from us! As a result, the hallway and our rooms were all a little smoky and smelled of pork :) There were no beds in the hotel just a blanket to lay down on the floor so between that and my day of, umm tumbling, I was pretty sore by the next morning. Everyone else wanted to ski a second day but I decided to play photographer and enjoy some nice sightseeing and lodge time instead :) I was able to get a ticket to ride the enclosed gondola to the top of the mountain, see the other part of the resort and have lunch with my friends before they made their last run down the mountain. I don't think they really intended it to be their last run so early, but a bit of a blizzard hit as they were going down and you could hardly see 2' in front of your face. I was definitely glad not to be struggling along with them then! So we all bundled up back in the van and made it back to Sangju in time for an early night before teaching the next day... and only a little sore :)

Namjangsa Temple

I've Arrived!

Well, after months of paperwork and preparation (and 25 long hours of travelling) I've finally arrived in Korea. Despite being exhausted the last few days, I'm really enjoying it here. I'm training right now at Jeonju University in the Jeollabuk-do region. On our first day here we were able to attend an orientation ceremony in which we were shown some of the traditional historical songs and dances. There was a professional performance group that did an Ogo-mu (Five Drum Dance) that was amazing to watch. Two men sat on the floor drumming out the rythym of the song while women in beautiful costumes danced between their sets of drums drumming and dancing in unison. Then a couple of the girls that are working here at the conference performed as well. One of the girls sang a portion of a Pansori which is a song similar to a Korean opera and is a traditional way of passing down their culture's oral history. The other girl danced a Bucheachum, a traditional fan dance that was absolutely gorgeous. That first day we were also able to take a quick walking tour of the campus and join together for a big welcome banquet which would probably have been more enjoyable if we weren't all drenched from the sudden downpour that started halfway through our walk up the hill. Must be why it's so green and beautiful here! The second day we had our first couple lectures and were able to set up bank accounts, order cell phones which will arrive next Wednesday before we leave for our provinces, and begin our now nightly Korean lessons. But the majority of the day was spent fasting for our medical exams- 6 hours with no food or water in the heat and humidity of the afternoon made walking up hills and staircases to get to classes fairly painful. A couple of people passed out during the day, though luckily I wasn't one of them, and I developed a horrible headache from the dehydration. The medical itself was set up in various stations on a big stage and reminded me of old army movie lineups. They weighed us and took our height, gave us vision and hearing tests, tested for colorblindness, took our blood pressure, drew 3 vials of blood, took urine samples (in little paper coffee cups!) and had us all fill out health questionnaires and speak with a doctor about any health questions or concerns we had. I hope to never again have to read an eye chart through a migraine! I seem to have passed though, so I'm glad it's done now. Today we had our first full day of lectures. I'm not used to sitting in a chair being lectured at for 8 hours anymore, but they were all very interesting and informative. We learned some different teaching styles and techniques that should come in handy, learned about the Korean school system and how they teach the English classes here, how to work with Korean co-teachers, a little about the cultural differences and how to approach them, and were able to look through the books that we'll be teaching from. So much still to learn, but tomorrow we have off for a field trip to one of the historical villages nearby. With lectures all day, Korean classes in the evening, and Korean movies at night they are long days, but I'm enjoying getting to meet other teachers and get a feel for what's still to come! :D