Winter

So, it's been a while. Like 2 months. I'm a lame blogger, I know.  But, now I have lots to talk about as a ton has happened in that time. Honestly, I can't believe its only been 2 months. There is like a weird time/space something or other that goes on in Korea.  Time seems to go really slow and really fast at the same time.  For example, I feel like I've been here forever and yet I still feel like I got off the plane a week ago.  I want time to go slowly, theres so much I want to see here still, but at the same time I want it to pass to I can head home. Bah!

Anyway, the first 2 weeks of Jan were spent teaching winter camp. Torture. Seriously, they should make prisoners at Gitmo teach middle-school Korean students English during their winter vacation in a FREEZING cold classroom.  I actually got frostbite on my little toe one day.  It was 7degrees farenheit outside and possibly colder inside. Heating is just a myth.

I had one week of second-going-on-third graders. That was the worst. They just sit there with this look on their faces thats like, "Really? You really expect me to do this?" And really, who can blame them? During the year the poor kids go to regular school from 8:30 to 3ish everyday after which they head to Hagwon (private school) until 10 or 11 at night.  Some dont even get dinner in between. Then comes vacation, the time to relax, the time all American students count down to and look forward to with glee.  Do these kids get a break? No! Their parents make them come to winter camp (granted it was only like 10-15 kids and only from 9-12) and most of them have Hagwon after. No break! Can you imagine this happening at home? I think not! There would be mass rebellion!

These lovely students that I had that first week looked positively miserable the whole time. I tried, really tried, to make it less horribe. We played games all the time, but really how fun can you have in a freezing classroom when your supposed to be on vacation? After the week was over one of the students texted her home room teacher (yes, they text teachers. some even have my number and text me) and told her how much fun she had during winter camp. That was nice to hear, espeically since I never would in a million years have guessed that.

The second week wasnt quite as bad.  It was the 1st-going-on-2nd-graders. Much cuter. Much more enthusiastic. Still freezing. But not quite as torturous. And they do some funny stuff.  We played taboo one day and one of the rounds went like this:

Clue: Made in....
Class: CHINA!!!

Loved it!

To get me through this I just kept counting down the days till my vacation, where I would be warm!

You really cant understand how blah Korean winter is. Its so cold I never wanted to leave my nice warm apartment and as a result sat around eating which, as you would expect, led to a bit of weight-gain. Now, for someone who recently lost a lot of weight and cant actually find clothes that fit in the land of the little, this is a bigger problem than it generally would be. Luckily, its getting warm, I'm once again willing to leave my apartement for the gym and hiking is starting again soon. Happy!

The other thing that I spent alllll winter doing was studying for the LSAT. WORST test ever! But somehow I managed to pull out a 164! 90th percentile!!! OMGOMGOMG so relieved! Now just to continue waiting for acceptance/rejection notice :-(

A lot of time (like a good month, at least) was spend desk warming. Imagine 2-months of incredible boredom. And cold. I soooo cant wait for warm weather to get here!

Alas, that has ended. School started full-on today. I have 5 45-min classes a day. Im exhausted. But not bored :-) And I'm getting extra vacation time for teaching over my contracted amount of hours, so yay!!! I'm hoping to save it all to head home early so I can actually make it to law school orientation/not miss the first couple days of classes.  Its all going to depend on how nice my new principal is. Fingers crossed.

Thats another thing; in Korea teachers can only stay at one school for 5 years.  As a result, my school just had 27 teachers leave along with the principal and vice-principal. Everyone seems alright, but its only been a couple of days. Hopefully everthing stays good.

OK, thats enough for this post. What have I learned? Winter in Korea=blah. Next post: VACATION!!!