[July, July, July // it never seemed so strange]

The spring semester ends on July 16th, which means I have two weeks of class left. Even less actually, since the end of the semester if rife with tests (yay, only one day of actual teaching next week!) and fact that the last period of the day has been canceled due to unknown reasons for the rest of the semester. It would have been nice to know in advance - I could have rushed the axed classes through the last lesson, or at least said goodbye to students I won't see again until September - but that sort of forewarning is asking an awful lot of a Korean school.

I could not be more ready for semester to be over. The kids are restless and ready for vacation to start. They're also far more preoccupied with their upcoming national exams than they are with Lesson 8: What Will You Do This Summer. (My favorite answers so far come from 6-5 class. One rather rotund little boy plans to eat 100 ice cream bars. Another simple wants some meat.) (That being said, I was super proud of my 5th graders today. They're normally highly unmotivated and well, not very bright, but I was trying to explain why "Let's go baseball" and "Let's play swimming" are incorrect. We ended up doing some brainstorming on the board and a decent number of students realized without being told that "Let's play..." was used when talking about games or musical instruments whereas "Let's go..." was used with locations or the present participle and I actually got examples that hadn't been used in class and just, that's a big deal. It was one of those moments where I could see the students understand the lesson and actually learning, and those moments are few and far between, especially with the 5th graders.)

I also had my last after school class last Thursday, which is probably for the best, since I had completely given up caring. I made the world's weakest attempt to teach comparisons, said "Oh, fuck this," half way through and gave the students a word search. And then we watched part of School of Rock. Between being sick and the classes being a joke in the first place, I just could not bring myself to care last week.


Not going to miss the classes. Am going to miss play time with 3rd graders.
Once the semester ends, I have two weeks of English camp. Last year I was ~super~ stressed out about the camps. This year, I'm far more confident in my ability to BS a lesson plan in the half an hour before class starts and subsequently way calmer. I will also have one of my regular co-teachers teaching with me, which means I'm not responsible for ever single facet of the camps myself. In fact, I'm so calm, I've yet to even begin planning. My co-teacher and I are going to the bookstore to buy textbooks for the camps tomorrow and I'll spend my days off next week writing up the lesson plans, but in general, I'm not worried.

Then, once the camps are over at the end of the month, my mama and little sister are coming to see me! We're going to spend a few days in Korea, and then hop over to China for ten days - five days in Beijing and five days in Shanghai! I am all sorts of excited about seeing (half) my family for the first time since February and getting to show them around Korea, and also going to China. And, of course, visitors from home means they can bring me things from home! Tell me, does anyone have any thoughts on the best way to transport hummus on an airplane?