Okay, so the last day of elementary school in South Korea isn't quite like the last day of middle school/high school in 1976 Texas, but it's close. Right now I'm still kind of in disbelief at how quickly two years has flown by. Technically I have two days of "goodbye" classes when I get back from vacation in August, but for all intents and purposes, today was the last day regular classes for me. I have two weeks of English summer camp coming up to close out July and that's pretty much it. I apologize for the long time in between blog posts the last few months. I want to make the content I put up on this blog as interesting as possible, which is why I have kept from posting some of the more mundane experiences that I've had here. That being said, this blog post is gonna be pretty long because a lot of funny and interesting things have happened in the last few weeks.
I'll start with a little school story that happened a few weeks ago. Back in February my school had a decent amount of changeover in the teaching and administrative staff. One of the new administrative staff, a man named Mr. Song, joined our school. His main duties, as I understand them, are to stock the cafeteria with the necessary food and cooking supplies and to also help out in the administrative office with paperwork, etc...the normal school bureaucracy routine. Anyways, Mr. Song has a real passion for learning English, which naturally led him to me. So, back in February, when we had a lot of free time and no classes, he would drop by and ask me some questions and I would try and help him understand the answers to his questions. Obviously once school started up again in March, neither of us had the free time we had before, so we couldn't meet up and chat as often. But, now that the spring semester was coming to a close, we had some more free time again. As it so happens, Mr. Song found out that I really like music (he's heard me playing piano from time to time), and as it turns out, he has been practicing/learning guitar and is pretty good. He started up a band with a few other teachers from my school and another elementary school nearby. They have been learning a few Korean songs, but a few weeks ago, he came to me with a question about an English song. He had come across the song "Come on Feel the Noise," by Quiet Riot, an 80's hair metal band. He had a question about the spelling, because the version he came across was spelled differently (I'll let you use your imagination to figure out what was misspelled). I had to explain to him the difference in spelling without revealing too much or cracking up in hysterical laughter. Well, it turns out, the reason he wanted to know about the song is because he wanted me to sing LEAD VOCALS on the song with his band. I put this off for a few weeks because a. I don't really know the song all that well and b. I didn't really want to do it all. Finally, last week I gave in and tried to channel my inner Roger Daltrey/Eddie Vedder (I think that's what I sounded like, but I can't be too certain) and gave it the old college try. Apparently I wasn't too bad and now they want me to perform the song for all the teachers on my last day (I'm not so sure about this, lyrical content aside), so we'll see if this actually happens. Anyways, here's what I'll look and sound like if we do end up going through and performing for everyone.
The last two weeks of school have pretty much been a joke. Last week the students had final exams on Tuesday and then we went on a field trip to a water park on Thursday. Originally my plan was to just hang out with the other teachers indoors or out by the pools, but I still brought my swimsuit just in case. Two of the younger male teachers decided they were going to go swimming as well and I decided that I probably should join them or fear the wrath of the entire student body. So I went in and almost instantly I had ten students dangling off of each of my arms. Swimming at a water park in Korea is a different experience than it is back home. In Korea, everybody needs to wear a life jacket and a bathing cap. I didn't have a bathing cap, so I lasted in the water as long as I could before any of the lifeguards noticed. I remember going swimming with my cabin at camp but that was tame compared to swimming with all of my students. It was so crazy, I'm glad I'm a pretty good swimmer, otherwise I might've been in trouble.
Then, last weekend, all the teachers from my school went on a teachers trip to Seonyudo, an island on the west coast of Korea, about 2 1/2 hours south of Suwon. I didn't know what to expect from the trip, other than some awesome seafood meals and a decent amount of alcohol consumption to celebrate the end of the semester. We took a bus from school down to Gunsan, where we hopped on boats to cruise over to the island. Seonyudo is part of an island chain and we were able to check out the other islands by boat before landing at Seonyudo. Our approach to Seonyudo reminded me of the scene in Shutter Island when Leo and Mark Ruffalo are approaching, the combination of fog and rain set the mood. That night after we settled into our pension, we had an incredible seafood dinner, complete with many varieties of raw fish and spicy fish stew. After dinner, the restaurant brought over buckets, literally buckets!!, of shellfish that we grilled and ate outside our pension. The next activity was a trip to the local noraebang to belt out some classics and standards. I am proud to say I rocked the Temptations,"My Girl," for a 100%. It was definitely a fun night and Saturday also proved to be a fun day. Originally we were supposed to bike around the island, but it was pretty wet so we took golf carts instead. Afterwards, it had cleared up a bit and we were able to bike around for a little while before we had to depart. We stopped for lunch in Gunsan afterwards and had a great crab meal. We got back to school Saturday afternoon and then I headed in to Seoul to celebrate Judy's birthday.
Sunday was also a pretty eventful day. The spring league Frisbee playoffs had been postponed due to the monsoons that have dropped down on Korea the last few weeks. If you haven't seen in the weather, it's been pretty wet here since July began. Anyways, Sunday was the new designated day, but the field was so soft and muddy that cleats weren't allowed, so we played barefoot (getting back to our roots!). My team finished 2nd in the league, so we had a bye into the semifinals. We ended up winning in semifinals 13-9 and got to watch the other semifinal to see who our finals opponent would be. The finals was close to start, but my team went on a pretty long run and ended up winning the final. It was a little anticlimactic, but it still felt good. This was the first tournament that I had won in quite some time.
So, that's about all from here. This weekend is Mudfest down in Boryeong, which if you don't know about or don't remember, you can check out my blog post about the event last year. http://wolfishinkorea.blogspot.com/2010/07/wethotmuddy-fun.html
Otherwise, I'm cashing in on all the Harry Potter hysteria and made a Harry Potter themed summer camp, hopefully the students enjoy it.
Here are some pics:
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| Some of the teachers and myself on the boat over to Seonyudo. |
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| CHAMPIONS with our PIG OF GLORY!! |
What I'm listening to: "Jemimah Surrender" by The Band
