TYPHOON BOLAVEN -- The Great Leaf Massacre of 2012

I mean it was windy and stuff. The tree outside my window got its butt kicked a few noticeable times. I went out for Tuesday (Typhoon!) Trivia and my umbrella got wrecked on the walk to and from the subway. But that was about it. Lots of trees lost their leaves on 8/27/12...never forget...

GOOD NEWS was that the school let all the teachers out at 11. Above is a picture of the clouds before I left. I heard some schools got let out at 12 or one, and one school let the female teachers out at 11 and the male teachers out at 12 for some odd reason.

Below is the tree outside my window, during probably the worst of it all. (Note: I don't know why these pics are such bad quality. Riddle me that, 'Siri'.

I was just a little worried though because if one branch fell it might hit this mess of power lines and then I would prob lose power and that would be a drag. Total drag. Probably would not have been a big deal comparatively (sorry, Gulf Coast) but just saying.

So everybody, BACK TO WORK.

  .

Tonight us subject teachers are having a dinner to welcome/initiate a new member. Rumor has it of a Bennigans into a karaoke sorta night. Outrageous, I know!

TYPHOON PREPARATION.

There's a typhoon coming! So tomorrow I still have to report to work along with all the other teachers, but all students do not have to report to school. I guess if s*** hits the fan it'll be easier to manage a bunch of adults? Don't make much difference to me.

Here's a picture of the midday sky: 

Looks chill enough yeah?

I just finished a book about living after the apocalypse so mental I feel preparedish. Here is my survival kit I have here at casa de Matteo:

Candles, four hard-boiled eggs, two cans of corn, a can of tuna, favorite (cheap Korean) beer and some good reading.

Even if things get messy tonight or tomorrow, I'll just remember the mantra on this 5th grader's shirt:

Let's typhoon.

LIBRARY ADVENTURE, EXERCISED IN THE TIME-TO-SPARE METHOD

Nestled deep in the heart of boredom, amidst a half-month of all-encompassing downtime, lay a dilemma of gargantuan proportions: .... man, books are sorta expensive in Korea.

So I figured, check out a library!

 

 My vacation was like this. Only just the foreground, ignore all those other grounds.

I had previously been going to the pretty great English book store called What the Book? and they have a good used section for paperbacks and new paperbacks if need be (usually between $5-$8 bucks a pop, $10-$20 for a new paperback usually), but I had been going through two to three books a week and that's just not economically sustainable....well, preferable.

Through the grapevine last year I heard various whispers (slash words, in sentences, from my friend, who told me to my face) of the Ilsan public library and their respectable section of English books. Not super psyched to trek for an hour up north, I searched 'libraries Seoul' on and found out that there was one in Dongdaemun, which is on my same subway line as Hyehwa and only one stop down. Seen here, center of the map-ish, for kicks.

One morning, the last morning of break, I got up early -- like 8 AM early, which converted into vacation clock is 5:15 AM exactly -- and headed to Dongdaemun, ready to read me some free books! Yeah!

Hey guys, wanna come over and check out my Vacation Slideshow?!

 And it's over! By that I mean vacation as well as the first semester/ 1/2 of this year's teaching contract.

The biggest difference between this year's summer vacation and last years -- The last one was four days, from Tuesday - Friday, plus a weekend. This year's was 2.5 weeks!! This year however, like last year I didn't venture far outside of Seoul. Read: I didn't leave, and chilled. I still stayed busy-ish! Five books and a lot of trekking around town later I'm feeling pretty good about the time spent.

I think I'll just chronologically go through the pictures on my camera and use them as bullet points for to cover the 12 business days of chilling bliss. Enjoy!

1. My friend's balcony has a great view to kick start the break.

Second Summer Session and Open Biases

The second installment of Summer Camp wrapped up last week!

I have to say that this second session was AWESOME. The first week I think that my CT and I were still hammering out the details of the class, and there were also a few students who would rather have not been inside during break. So the class was a bit wobbly but the second week the days were set in stone and all 18 students were excited to be there and to participate.

The participated to the point of excess even! We spent some of the budget on boardgames for the students, which were utilized in the first week, but in the second the students enjoyed the activities so much we would just extend the lessons to the full three hours. Below are the (fantastic) 3rd graders doing a portion of the scavenger hunt. It was about 96 degrees and humid outside and we almost called it off because ALL the students were so engaged that the were sprinting around in the heat! I didn't know little people could sweat like that, but they were all about it.

Below is Napoli! She was a great student during class but also so clever. For a portion of the scavenger hunt the task was to "Go to class 3-3 and read the sign" and as you can sort of see the sign says "finish the worksheet" which are in the yellow box next to the door.  If I could go back again I would have made that task much more clear to the students. They thought they only had to read aloud the sign and then take a picture of the sign. After I explained that to Napoli's group what to do they started doing the worksheet and I left for a while. When I came back she told me this story:

         "Teacher! I lie. Other group and come take picture. And they say, 'Take picture only is ok?' to me and I say 'Yes yes you are okay' and then they go away! hahaha"


Sign her up for Survivor.




Below are name tags. The students were supposed to write or draw what the like on the back.

More journal fun!

Hahah OUCH! That last one burns deep. Either way last week was a blast! The students came with a lot of energy that in turn fueled us teachers and I think I enjoyed the camp as much if not more than they did!

Now off to break

Second Half of "Hollywood Week" Summer Camp

Finished! This week FLEW by incredibly fast, I think finishing at noon + afternoon nap helps a lot. As for the camp, this week's crew of 18 students are finished and next week's batch will start on Monday. I hear that there are more 6th graders and less 3rd and 4th graders so hopefully some aspects will run smoother.

Above are the snacks! Caramel popcorn curtsey of my Co Teacher Amy ("So easy! But I hate cooking and now I'm tired.") Also home-stirred peach and lemonade. Also a little something I learned from my first grade science fair: chocolate and cereal crushed to together, held tightly for to melt, and cooled in a fridge to make a nice crunch ball!

SUMMER CAMP!

Hey! Apologies about the month between posts. Let's get back in action with some pics from summer camps. Summer camp are a couple of weeks, and mine started on Monday. It's called 'Hollywood Week!' and it's most based around movies. So, for example, we'll practice ordering food at a fake concession stand, we talked about clothes by using superhero costumes as examples, and so on. 

It's very different from normal classes because there's half as many kids, but it mostly feels like twice as much work because I have students from 3rd, 4th, 5th, AND 6th grades who are all at various levels. Thus breaking them up into groups and making sure they understand directions varies greatly between every student and requires a bit more energy.

But good news is that the camp ends at noon! So I get a couple hours of general prep and free air conditioning every day!

Above are the students practicing their 'trailers'. We watched a few trailers and they rated them with stars. Then I had a few greatly abridged versions of the trailers for Shrek and Kung Fu Panda typed up and here are the students practicing before they filmed themselves (on their own smartphones haha).

Below is a few exerpts from their journals. "Hot because is Earthot" is so factual, it's scorching outside!

Lastly below was the final activity for the day: a scavenger hunt to end on a fun note! Also, they instead of having to watch them complete all the challenges they can just take a picture of the missions on their phones...While I relax.... : )