Camp and Apink

Hello all! 

This week has been such hell for so many reasons. First of all, it's a million degrees with a million degree heat index and humidity like ALL THE TIME. Seriously. Something is wrong when it's 80 degrees at 8 AM with 80% humidity. I don't even try with my hair anymore.

Also I had camp. One week down, one to go. Also hell. More on that later.

One bright spot was on Wednesday we had a dinner with a bunch of the SMOE teachers at Rye Post in Itaewon where I ate way too much. Featuring:

Philly Cheesesteak Fries. Amazing.

A Jamaican Jerk Chicken sandwich with more fries.

Sooo good.

Anyway, any excitement I had for camp has been sucked out of my soul by these 5 days. Thankfully I only have 2 actual teaching days this week since the other days are cooking, sports day, and market day/watch movies. Phew.

I love my kids. I really do. But some of their personalities don't mix well, and I have a LOT of third grade boys, who are really tough to handle. Also they get really whiny whenever I make them do stuff in English (IT'S ENGLISH CAMP YOU LITTLE SHITS OBVIOUSLY WE HAVE TO DO SOME ENGLISH SCREEEEEEEEEEECH).  Also they're quite violent. I swear every time I turn around for 3 seconds someone is up hitting someone else. Korean kids in general are a lot more violent in school than we were allowed to be when I remember school in the USA. My co tries to manage them too but damn is is difficult. Also, I tried to level test my kids but the parents were like "no my kid should be in the upper level class" so all my efforts to make things easier for myself were in vain. Whateverrrrr.

Some things worked out okay. I made them change seats and they like refused to participate after because they were mad at me for making them move from their friends. OH WELL. But also one set worked out well. I have an ADHD third grader, and he randomly got placed (through my lottery  system) next to one of my really high level 5th grade girls. At first they didn't talk, and when I asked her to help him she would say "he is not my friend." But he kept trying to ask me something that I couldn't understand so I asked her to translate for me. After that, they get along great. He now follows her around and calls her Noona (in Korean, this is what boys call their older sisters) and shares his snacks with her and it is adorable. It also keeps him more focused since he wants to impress his noona, and it means that I and my coteacher are not taken out of managing the class entirely because we have to focus on him. I adore this little nugget though. He is so hard to handle but he is adorable and tries really hard when he wants to. Plus he likes to give hugs, and I am a huge fan of receive hugs from tiny children. 

I tried to make all this fun stuff like they wouldn't get in boring, regular class, but it seems my camp works best when I run it closer to normal. 80 minutes is too long for them to focus on English, and even when I give them a break the last half hour is like pulling teeth. Oh well. Only 5 days left, then Ronnie gets here!

Coloring their heroes!

Friday was craft day, and thanks to Pinterest I had the students make superhero bookmarks from popsicle sticks and Wonder Woman bracelets. I used markers instead of paint wherever possible because I wanted to make sure my classroom was not destroyed and I do not trust 3rd grade children whom I have to communicate with in their second language with paint. No.

Anyway, craft day was fun since it's very little teaching English on my part, but it's a lot of micromanaging and making sure they don't get marker everywhere and they everyone gets something to take home. The kids really seemed to like it. Here are some pics:

My third graders working away.

My coteacher helps the kids with the difficult parts.

Makin bracelets 

Lots of gems glued on.

Bookmarks!

Bracelets!

My second class is a mix of 3rd-5th graders.

They really like Captain America and Iron Man

Focusssss

I had my good 4th graders and 5th graders help out a lot.

I think they turned out pretty good.

To see the crafts, here are the sites I used: 

Bookmarks: http://craftsbyamanda.com/avengers-bookmarks-craft-for-kids/


Bracelets: http://rachaelrabbit.blogspot.com/2013/04/toilet-roll-craft-super-hero-bracelets.html


I had the kids bring in their own TP rolls, but I had Tina collect hers and I collected mine for a few weeks too. Thank god I did. As expected, some forgot, some started then didn't like their design, some messed up the directions, and literally anything else you could think of. I also, once again, used markers instead of paint because I did not want paint everywhere. I think it worked pretty well. I would totally do both crafts again in a heartbeat.

The weekend brought me to a trip to the dentist (again) after last week's cleaning because I had some cavities. Some of them I knew about from the USA since I never fixed them (oops) and I figured I would have some from the lack of fluoride in the water here plus the change in diet. Dentists suck. I did make a good impression on mine for watching baseball in his office.

The elevator. Like we don't have 13, some places in Korea don't put the number 4. The pronunciation in Korean is "sa" and it sounds like the Chinese word for "death." It's bad luck.  

After the dentist, I met up with Sarah and Tina over at COEX to go to the SM store and enter for a chance to win entry to a Super Junior fansign. We bought the album "Devil" and got a chance to enter. I'm number 792 and 100 people get to go, so my odds look great!!!!!!!!!!


Afterwords we went shopping since Sarah needs stuff for Germany and I needed to feed my shopping addiction. I was looking for shorts since none of mine fit well anymore, but you can't try on stuff at a lot of the little stores so it's a bit difficult. I bought a few shirts but this one is my favorite, paired with a skirt I have.

I love the silver collar.

I may have vainly posted this because I look hella good and want you all to know that I know how good I'm looking these days.

We met up with my friend Helen in Myeongdeong for Panda Express. Mmmmm.

A deliciously terrible taste of home.

I went home to try on all my things and stayed up way too late looking at more clothing online. Don't worry, I didn't buy any more. Yet.I also watched the lightning from a storm, which I haven't done in a while. How nice.

Sunday funday was another one full of dancing with Dance Joa. We have a showcase coming up and we're doing last week's AOA song "Heart Attack" along with the absurdly popular and famous Apink song "Mr. Chu." Seriously, like everyone in Korea knows this song. It was so popular when it came out, Some of my kids even know the dance. 

Here are the lovely Apink ladies doing their dance (starts about 40 seconds in):

Wahhh they're so cute!

So for our showcase we are totally playing up the sexy/cute girl group concept. I'm pretty stoked. I love the boy groups and their dances, but the girl group ones are so fun and amazing too! And I'm better at them haha. 

Here are some videos from our class doing Mr. Chu:

We split into groups before we did it all together. It's so cute and fun. Shoutout to Casey's mom for coming to class and for getting her daughter into Kpop. It was so fun to have her there!

First, group A (with our lovely teacher):

Then Group B:

One more video of group A (Focuses on me thanks to Tina!)

And finally Tina and I twinpowering it up.

Bam! 

Let me once again reiterate how much joy this dance class brings into my life. Sundays used to kill me with worry, anxiety, and overall meh-ness towards the week. But now I have something to look forward to that keeps me going all week!

So overall the week happened. I had a lot of fun sitting at my desk after camp and watching "The Scholar Who Walks the Night" a historical drama with vampires. Tina and I text each other through the episodes so it's like we're watching together. This show is kind of terrible but kind of amazing. It's so fun to watch. 

Just one more week of camp and my awesome vacation with Ronnie begins! Woo!

Stay cool and healthy, everyone!