July Update: English Camp and Birthday Fun

Apart from celebrating my birthday and starting English Camp, July was entirely uneventful.

The beginning of the month at school was all coming up with ways to entertain the students because we were effectively just babysitting them for two weeks after they finished their exams but hadn’t started summer vacation yet.

My birthday was the weekend of the 22nd and that Saturday I actually got to play in my volleyball teams tournament!

(Foreigners are usually not allowed to play, something about which I could rant for a very long time but I’ll spare you for now.)

 

 

I’m thankful for my volleyball team for a lot of reasons but on this day in particular I was incredibly grateful for the community. Because there are hardly any foreigners in our league a lot of the other players and coaches kind of know who we are and they really went out of their way to be nice to us make us feel included.

It’s not often in this country that I feel like I’m equal to everyone around me, but I did 100% on this day. Being able to feel competent and really good at something in a place where I often have to ask for help is something I cherish here. And that was probably the best birthday present I could have asked for.

That night, after the tournament, I met up with a bunch of friends for a birthday dinner downtown. We got American style BBQ at a great place in Dunsan called Smokey House and then went out for drinks afterwards.

 

 

 

Some of my friends who live in other parts of Korea came in and it was really lovely to be with them!

 

The next week I went to a baseball game with one of my co-teachers to see the Hanhwa Eagles play. It was about 1,000 degrees which made it a bit uncomfortable until the sun went down, but once it did it was a fun summer night!

 

 

 

 

I was also all excited to do a blog post about this flower cafe that I went to with my friend the other day but it wasn’t until I arrived that I realized I’d forgotten my proper camera.

 

 

 

Oh well, guess I’ll just have to go back again ^^

 

Then it was time to start English Camp. Luckily we got enough students to sign up so that we could split it into two separate weeks. The first week would be grade one and two students and the next week grade three students.

 

 

 

I got really lucky in that all of the students who signed up were really good kids. They listened well and understood the activities pretty well. But since these were the younger kids and it was a bigger group then we usually have at camp AND my school sprung on me that I’d have to do it alone this year, it was a little harder than I expected.

But either way the week finished and now I’m having a blast doing camp with my favorite grade three students.

 

Sorry I haven’t been posting much recently. But between preparing for English camp and just the busyness of the rest of my life I really haven’t had much time ><

But next Wednesday I’m officially off for my summer vacation, and my grand plans include sleeping-in and playing a lot of Zelda, so I should have a lot more time to get some more posts up! I know that a lot of people are about to come to Korea with the new EPIK intake so if any of you are reading this good luck with those last-minute preparations!!

 

Thanks as always for reading and I hope this finds you well!