Now We've Got Kids With Attitude.

I think I'll miss Cooking class. It kept me busier than busy, but I've come to realize I like busy (not that I'd ever force it). Now that the new camp has begun, I am activities coordinator. In the afternoons, I teach Math. The other activity coordinator, Kyle, teaches Math in the mornings. The original American Math teacher fell off the side of a wall at our visit to a Buddhist Temple (of all places) and broke a rib, among other injuries. She'll be in the hospital for the next week...

The kids we teach are in 8th grade. They are bigger, more quiet, fashion forward and teen angsty than the 6th graders were. It's hard for many of us to tell the difference between the 8th graders and the Korean co-teachers now. I noticed it's harder to distinguish genders with these kids as well. For instance, a girl in my class chose for her English name to be "Pirate". The first day, she had short hair, boy cargo shorts and a plain t-shirt. I had no idea she was a girl until the better part of the class was over. Some other fun names kids in my class chose are "Titus" and "Rudolph". There is even a girl named Molly.

Our last camp ended Friday. August 2nd was suppose to be our only free day for the entire camp, but it became apparent that Koreans have a very different definition of "free" than Americans do. To Koreans, the free day meant we had to go on a bus at 10am and go to the beach. Then we went to a music hall. While it was nice of them to do, I was extremely disappointed that I couldn't have even one measly day to myself. After that, we stayed the night at a Buddhist Temple. If you ever go to a Buddhist Temple, don't go with a group of 60 English teachers...it might just ruin the experience. Everything we did there was extremely planned out and all I could focus on was how forced it all felt. We only had one hour that wasn't planned for us, where we could roam free around the temple.

Needless to say, the lack of free time the teachers have on days off has made us all go a little stir-crazy. I feel as though the camp officials are worried we won't know what to do with ourselves if nothing is planned for us.

Luckily, there were about three and a half hours last Friday between lunch and dinner where 6 of us were able to escape and hike by ourselves (unsupervised! oh my...) in Wolchulsan National Park. Due to the time crunch, we vigorously climbed Mt. Wolchul to the Gureumdari Bridge. I took this picture as soon as we emerged from the wooded portion of the hike:

Once we got there:
It was worth pushing my weak little body after all.

Luckily, camp ends the 15th (we have a planned camp excursion through the 18th) and I'm not leaving until the 24th. I found out there is a ferry that goes from Korea to Japan , so some friends and I might visit a nearby city in Japan for a few days. On the 23rd, we will try to visit the DMZ, a buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea.