the goings on: a brief summary of my recent past

hi everyone!

right now I'm in the thick of "Winter English Camp Season", because once school's out, the kids here go straight back to school. Actually, I'm at a teacher camp right now for Korean English teachers and let me tell you, it's a far cry from my nightmare of a kids camp this year...but I'll get to that.

As I don't have much time, I'll go through the past few weeks chronologically starting with Christmas. Hopefully this weekend I will upload a buttload of pictures to add a little flavour to these otherwise sparse stories.

Ah, Christmas...
this year, instead of a trip to Seoul, like last year, Carol decided to hold a small get together in Suncheon and by golly! it was wonderful. We had a traditional Christmas dinner complete with all the fixins. The only thing we had to substitute was the turkey (for chicken) but HEY! there are no complaints here. There were 9 people altogether squished into Carol's living room and kitchen: Carol, Me, Mel, Mike (Mel's guy), Matt, Lorien, Bobbi, Rick and Shane. We drank homemade eggnog, we ate and ate and ate, and we had a hilarious secret santa from which I came away with a canister of Swiss Miss hot chocolate. Not too shabby. After that we sat around, cuddled, chatted, drank and Matt was our own personal minstrel on his guitar. After midnight Carol and I opened our presents from our families and squealed with delight and wonder. We all agreed that there wasn't a big hole in our hearts this Christmas...it felt a little more like home (but not excatly!).

New Years
oh mercy. in a word, it was...*blank stare*. Yep, that's right! Me, the creator of such words as "arsome" and "bahnormous" am at a loss for words. Here is a rundown of my day:
I went to Gwangju, the city, with my Korean friends from Boseong, Yeong Min (girl) and Jong Hyeon (guy). Yeong Min and I met two more people there for lunch, Hang Bin (guy) and Ju Mi (girl). After lunch we went BOWLING!!!! I'm terrible, but finally, in the third game, for the first time in my life, I bowled over 100. w00t!

After bowling we met with my foreign friends (Carol, Mel, Mike) and we went out for dinner - Korean barbeque..YUMMY! Then it was off to the dog cafe where we could sit, drink sotea or coffee and play with all manner of dogs and cats.

Finally we made our way to the Speak Easy, a foreign bar in downtown Gwangju, where the drinks are cheap (and strong) and the music is live. There I continued to drink my face right off. More friends showed up during the night and I was on top o' the world! Sometime around 3am a group of us left (Carol, Mel, Mike, Hang Bin and I) to go to a NoRaeBang. There we sang into the wee hours of the morning. I finally lay my head down around 5:30am.
And yes, in the morning, I felt like someone had poured acid into my stomach and then punched me a few times in the gut, but it was worth it.

Suncheon Student Camp
Last year I did this camp with Carol and Bobbi and while the facilities left us cold and unsatisfied, the students were awesome. This year was the complete opposite. The facilities were worlds better (warm, spacious, good food), but my students were not so awesome. These camps are supposed to be for really high level students, however one of the schools decided to send their lowest level students...GAH! No one told the foreign teachers and all of our lessons were way over their heads. As luck would have it, most of these student were in my home room, coupled with other little shits from Carol's school. After the initial shock of students not even understanding "do you understand?" I realised what I was up against...the wall of blank stares and apathy. My co-teacher was naturally stressed out because she had to spend all day with these kids, working harder than the other korean teachers to help and translate (and manage) the kids.

Anyway, i spent five days being the "bitchy teacher" which is not my favourite thing in the world. Suffice it to say, I'm glad that it's over. I did, however, have a great time sharing a room with Crystal and Bobbi, so I guess that's something, eh?

My Birthday
This was a small affair, or at least I thought it would be as it falls at an awkward time of the week and year. Now is vacation, so lots of people aren't around, but thankfully, all of my good friends are still here and most of them were able to join me for a dinner in Gwangju. That day was the last day of camp for many of them and the next day (Jan 10th) was the first day of camp for me...so it was actually pretty fortunate. Anyway, we went out for dinner and they gave me some awesome presents, which I totally wasn't even expecting. Better than the presents, though, was the company and the laughing.

Teacher Camp
As I mentioned before, I'm now at a camp for Korean English Teachers and will be for the next 2 weeks (minus weekends). It lots of work, but way more fullfilling than a student camp (in my opinion). This is my 4th teacher camp and I always feel realy good about my teaching and my effectiveness when I'm here, so I don't mind the work.

The Future
the day after this camp is finished I head off to Thailand to meet Carol and Mel. We will spend 6 days in Cambodia together and then Mel has to go back to Korea. After that Carol and I will go to Koh Tao, a nice little island where we have plans to learn how to SCUBA DIVE!!! w000000t!

So you probably have to ctach your breath now (I know I do). You may not hear from me for a while, but don't worry about me...I'm always having fun!