Climbing, Christmas, and Camp

Happy Holidays everyone! It has been a very busy week for me I have climbed part of Gumo Mountain, had a Christmas celebration with friends, and an overnight English Camp for the Gumi Office of Education for three days and two nights. Click the names for a view of the full albums
Here is a synopsis of it all:

Mountain

Due to some unknown virus the computer that was given to me by the school shut down to the point it would not even reboot! This left me frustrated and powerless so I decided to take a walk because nothing productive was going to come of my day and there was nothing I could do about the lost information. I called one of my friends who flat out told me I probably lost all my information that was on the computer (which in the end I did) and he was not my favorite person after that conversation. So to let out some steam I decided to take a walk up the mountain.

This is a view of my neighborhood from midway up the mountain. I never did make it to the top but one day!

This a fountain at the waiting point. I didn't know that is also doubles as a drinking well. I didn't drink any of the water though. Gumi is known as the Turtle City hence the turtles at the top. Check out the full album for more pictures of the fountain and the mountain.

I made it up to the halfway point and took some pictures and decided to try the unpaved path, I found some graves, and a great view of my neighborhood that unfortunately cannot be seen through the branches in my picture, which makes very funny commentary. I am not a mountain or nature girl so after I made it to a certain point I was ready to turn around when a Korean man invited me to continue to walk with him. It was harmless but I declined when my limited Korean was enough for me to understand it was two more hours to get to the top of the mountain. I wasn't that frustrated LOL

Christmas

Koreans don't celebrate the holiday the way we do in the United States, I am not sure exactly how Christians celebrate but in the commercial sense its pretty low key so I had to work for the most part. But not on the actual day. On Monday I went to dinner at Waegook Cook with the girls and then on Christmas I hung out at Abbeys and also that morning the AKA coat I had made came by delivery! It was better than Santa Clause!

Me, Abbey, and Laura at WC for Christmas Dinner. Angelica was also there but she was not up for being in the picture so she took it for us. Dinner was soo good and check out the full album for a photo of dinner. It was so great having normal food. We actually had a 3 course meal with Pumpkin Soup, Ham and Turkey, and Cheesecake MMMMMMMM!
The staff at Waegook Cook dressed in Santa gear for the Christmas Dinner gathering.

English Camp

This was the highlight of my week. Lets see I climbed the mountain on Sunday, worked Monday, Christmas on Tuesday, then went to camp Wed-Friday, no break for me. But the camp was worth it.

The meeting prior to the camp proved it to be a bit unorganized but it was actually a lot of fun and I did the camp with Abbey and Angelica and I couldn't have chosen two better mates ^-^ in the words of Abbey. Also we each had at least two students from our regular schools present which was a pleasant surprise because the student from my second school was actually my favorite, (see Chin Pyeong School festival 12-20-07 post).

On Wednesday there was an Introduction and interview of the students to determine their level in English. For teaching we each had a different section to teach, Abbey: Songs (which I wanted), Angelica: Games, and Me....Culture and Advertisement, right to 7th and 8th graders.
So I created a power point presentation of the top four cultures that can be found in the US, White, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian. And for advertisements I brought old mags and let them pick an ad an use the questions in the book that was given.

We each were given a group of ten students and they would be our group for the whole camp. We had to create group names and do a presentation at the end of the night. My groups name was Freezing Cool, cause we are so Cool we are Frozen! The kids came up with that all by themselves. Check the video for the presentation. Choreography by me!

As I said before the camp was overnight so we stayed on site in a dorm like room with bunk beds and when we entered the room around 11am it was freezing and we were told that they would turn the heat on around 6pm. I don't know what it is about Koreans and heat but they just don't believe in it in the rooms or hot water. We let them know that that was unacceptable so they turned the heat on for us. This was not the only way we were accommodated; another thing Koreans don't believe in is a proper dessert after dinner and around 8pm we got some bread and was told that there will be milk delivered in 40 min, well we had a real sweets craving and since we were about 20min out of town we asked if we could be driven into town for cake and ice cream. They said no. But! They checked with the person delivering the milk and they had them bring it to us. (There are pictures of that in the album so check it out) Geniuses we are we didn't have anything to eat the cake and ice cream with and we pulled a MI and got into the kitchen and found some bowls, chopsticks and spoons and ran back up to our room unnoticed. It was so much fun. Once we were settled in we all sat around my laptop and watched Sex and the City 'til about 10pm.

Thursday was a full 12-13 hour day that had the three sections, quiz show and trivia games, as well as the mini Olympics. It was fun but man were we tired. There is a video of the Olympics at the bottom. That night we practiced for the play presentation that the kids would do for the last day of camp.

Me with my group Freezing Cool! I had such a great time with these kids!

When getting ready for the Mini Olympics at English Camp my student from my second school quickly ran to the front and began to lead them in exercises I am told is done for soccer. I was so proud of her she is so fearless!



The last day we had the play and it was all pretty uneventful. I think we were all a little sad when the kids just said "Bye Teacher" rather than ask for our email addresses or something. I mean they really weren't trying to keep in touch. But we took it like grown ups and are on to teach another day. I have one more EC to do before I teach teachers for two weeks then I get a real vacation! Until next time thanks for reading!