Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Okay, I over-reacted... and camps

So, I just want to say that I was totally out of line complaining about being given only two days notice on a mandatory meeting that was being held out of town. First off, that's way more notice than people usually receive for things like that here, so I should just be thankful.
Really, it wasn't the lack of notice that bugged me, just the fact that I had made plans and now I had to change them. And I was quite happy with the original set.
But I over-reacted, and for that I apologize.

So anyways, let's talk about camps. Friday afternoon was the meeting in Muan, and that camp looks like it will be a lot of fun. It has a very low budget. It's going to be held in an old abandoned school, and there are no beds or facilities. Just mats on the floor. So that should add to the whole "camp" part of the experience.
There will only be thirty students, which will be awesome. Thirty students, three Canadians (myself, Steve and Chris) and three Korean teachers. Good ratios, I think. We only have to run three classes (45 minutes) each, which should be easy enough. And then we have to run three "fun" camp activities. I got "ice breakers" (which I'm fine with), "Making team posters" (which will be dreadfully easy) and "learning an English song" (means I can bring my guitar). The academic classes will be fun too, I'm teaching them a fable, talking about taking a trip to Canada, and about preparing for an Englsih camp.
Five days and four nights, for about $500. Not too bad. Not really competitive with the other camps, but the fun should bring them right up there.
After the meeting I headed to Bucheon. I stayed with Steve and Crystal again, and that was a lot of fun. They are great hosts, even when they have a really busy schedule already. They even took me on a trip to Costco, which meant that I had a 60 litre backpack full of granola bars and cheese on the trip back.
On Saturday morning at 10:00 I met the father of one of Steve's students at the local Walmart. We were meeting to discuss the university camp for teachers in August that I will be teaching at. Apparently they have a really difficult time finding teachers who can work at it, since so many local schools run mandatory academic camps that mean local teachers can not participate. Fortunately, no-one where I live wants to learn English, so I have no camps and a free schedule.
That camp is two weeks long, six hours a day, and I will be teaching elementary teachers from the Bucheon area. The best part is that it pays about $2300. That's a lot of beans!

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