It is 2010! Holly Jeeeese! This year has been gearing up to be all about work and finding my way outside of school. I began the New Year by celebrating dinner and then drinks with a bunch of the teachers from the Canadian Connections agency. It was quite nice. We ate Galbi, drank makoli and soju and celebrated all things Korean. Haha! Then we headed back to one of the girls' appartments to continue the party before heading over to City Hall for the countdown. Due to the fact that there were many people traveling together and no one seemed to know exactly how to get there, we ended up NOT making it exactly to City Hall but to a random street near City Hall... Which was nevertheless filled with people and music and more riot poliece than I have ever seen in my life (WHY?). At midnight everyone seemed to have fireworks and punctually set them all off in one giant blur of cheep smoke, bangs, sparks and flying ash. Wonderful. Everyone was wired for sound after that, so we all headed over to Hongdae. We ended up at the Zen Bar and met up with a number of other SMOE teachers. It really seemes to be the place to go for foreigners; which is probably why I've never been there. ahaha.
We danced the night away and I ended up crashing at someones appartment. New Years day was a slow recovery, which culminated in a giant shoppiong spree in Myong-dong. Yee whoooo! That's how you start a new year! Some new shoes, toiletries, party dresses and books later, I made my way home. The 28th I began my first winter camp at Gawon Elementary School. There were 4 foreign teachers teaching 16 kids a day with rotating classes. It was a small camp comparatively speaking and the school had really good resources actually. So the first week, I was teaching the drama unit. I had to develop my own curriculum, and after negotiating for what seemed like forever with the camp directors I ended up doing a lesson based on drama games for ESL kids. It actually began with yoga and breathing and stretching, then voice and memory exercises and games and finally with pantomime skits. It went very well. Although they gave us this space which was absolutely FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZING COLD!!!!!! It was the auditorium on the top floor of the school and although it was a nice open room, the school did not seem to understand that it was an unproductive space to work in when it was only about 10-15C and all of the kids were distracted by the fact that they couldn't feel their toes or fingers.... EUGH!!!! The slight inconvenience of cold was made up by the enthusiasm of the kids, the availability of resources and also the super meals and treats they treated the teachers to every day. MAN, I wish my school treated me this well allll the time!!!!!!!!
The second week was super awsome!!!!!!!!!! To be honest, it's really helped me restore my faith that I AM in the right profession. I am an art specialist and therefore this opportunity to create and teach an arts curriculum was a great thing for me. It ended up being more difficult to please the camp directors when I was creating the lesson. I wanted to create an formidable art project. they wanted me to do word searches, fill in the blanks and colouring books. Ummmm...no. I ended up doing a unit on fairy tales where we taught the story and then did a book based on the plot and character summary and development. It turned out really well, but I think it only worked because of all the prep work i put into the lesson before hand. MAN!! Doing art with kids is a whole different kettle of fish than monitoring and guiding teens or University students through their projects. In those cases the golden rule is not to touch your students work and to let them work through their difficulties. NOT WITH KIDS! I ended up doing a good deal of the project (all the paper folding and picture selection) before the kids even got there due to time constraints. It was like ok first we do this, then we do this, now we're onto this step and everyone let's go we only have this many minutes for this step!!! And we're done! It was so different but at least all my experience with managing groups of kids made it possible to get the projects completed! Some more than others.. yet, still all good and individual. FABULOUS!
At the end of camp the last day was a talent show! Every morning and after the main lesson, each homeroom had been practicing and rehearsing their routines. I ended up choosing to sing "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound of Music". Each child was given a favorite thing which they made a poster for and we read and re-read and sang and sang and sang that song over and over again until they had it down. On the day of the show I think my group were the tightest and most entertaining hands down. Now I know what it feels like to be a stage mom!
The only other development in my life in this new year appart from teaching has been a returning interest in the temple and exploring that avenue of my life. On the first sunday of the New Year, I once again made the treck out to the Hagweysa Temple at Suyu station to participate in the guided meditation and dharma talk in English. It was so interesting and relaxing that I finally decided to apply for a temple stay. The result is that tomorrow I head back there for my week of vacation to do a meditation retreat. I don`t know if it will be relaxing, motivating, horrifying, terrible, awakening, inspiring... All I can do is show up with an open mind and a good attitude. And honestly if I really can't take it i can always bail. I'm not becoming a nun or signing my life away, I'm just going to try to spend a week of my life listening and sitting in silence. There are scarrier prospects. Everyone has been super supportive, so I suspect they will also want to hear all about it when I get out. hahaha I make it sound like I'm going to jail or something. Well for now, that's all folks! Talk to you in a week, maybe I'll have discovered the purpose of my life or answered some deep meaningful questions about self and spirituality... or maybe I will have just spent a week not sleeping very much and doing a lot of meneal labour. We shall see...
No comments:
Post a Comment