One year down....

Next week I'll have been in Korea one year. I'm going back home on Monday for 10 days. It will be weird to be in the States again, I'm sure. Not much new to write about. In fact, I'm considering putting the blog on hiatus until something interesting does happen. When you're new in a country, everything seems interesting, but now it seems like nothing is interesting anymore, or at least interesting enough to write about. Maybe when I get back things will change. Anyway, as always, thanks for reading :)

Some of you may be wondering, just what does John do at this summer English camp? Well, every morning at 8am i go downtown, and a bus takes 4 other foreign English teachers and I an hour and a half outside of the city to sort of the Korean version of Deliverance where we work in a field all day teaching students English under funeral tents.

Hey, it's not that bad. I've made some great foreigner friends and I'm making plenty of money.

Busy and hot

Sorry I haven't updated this week. The summer English camp I'm working is 100% outdoors and leaves me 100% exhausted at the end of the day. Check back next Wednesday for a big update.

English Summer Camp

Today was my first day teaching at the mystery English Summer Camp I've been hearing so much about yet given so few details on. For one thing, it's outdoors. No, I mean the classes are outdoors. Under big tents, like the ones at funerals. And there are rock fortifications everywhere (see picture). I don't know why they're there, but they make the grounds look like Gettysburg. Anyway, I'm so thankful that I have my guitar, because the students are way too distracted by the insects, being outside in general, etc, to pay attention to any real lessons.

Cute student letters.

In Korea, it's tradition for the students to write letters to their teachers at the end of the semester. Here are some of the ones that made me smile.

This is just about the cutest thing ever.

This made my day. Such a great song.

Happy Birthday to me....

I celebrated my first birthday in Korea today with my co-teacher at Hogye Middle School. We went to this buffet called Marché, which was pretty good. I hadn't been to a buffet in a while and I was stunned at how little I could eat compared to the good old days.



Anyway, this past weekend I had a mini celebration with Lily at a nice samgyeopsal restaurant, and we had a good time at the noraebang after that.



Today was my last day at Gangdong Middle School. It's hard to believe in two weeks I'll have been in Korea for a year. I was a little bit sad to leave some of my students there, but there were a lot of problems with the curriculum and the schedule of my coteacher that were not going to be overcome. I hope to be placed at Yeonam Elementary School on Mondays next semester, while continuing at Yeonam Middle School Tuesday-Friday. Here's a shot of me and some of my students.


These students were the "nickname club." They gave each other English nicknames. From the left: E.T., Unicorn, Beaver, Dolphin. They nicknamed me "Teddy Bear."