Day 326 - Tickets Home and Forward Thinking

TICKETS HOME
Yesterday I got an email from my program with the information for my plane tickets home to America this July. Since I'm extending my grant for another year, I'll only be home for a month. In just 51 days, I'll be on my way home. I've already got a list of food I want to eat and things I need to stock up on before coming back to Korea in August!


FORWARD THINKING
I applied to stay at this same school -- yes, the school I am constantly complaining about. I talked to the other English teachers this week, explaining that things can't continue like this. What I mean is the disrespect and complete lack of manners. It's to the point now that I realize they're probably not going to be enthusiastic about what we do, but they still enjoy seeing me because it means they're not memorizing standardized test prep.

Last semester didn't seem so bad. Maybe because this semester I resolved to actually *teach* them something. Next semester I'm going to go back to just giving them a period to be high school students. They enjoy playing games, they enjoy the contest with the other classes, so I'll focus more those than trying to salvage their English skills in the waning years of their educational careers (again, probably not going to college, so they're done in 3 years, tops).

In other news, North Korean refugee classes are coming to a close -- just two more and a field trip with the kids to the Seoul zoo. While that volunteer opportunity is wrapping up, Doyup has approached me, asking if I would be available for his military English class. A handful of the soldiers at his base are studying English for a military scholarship to go to the States and one of the big things they're studying is "English for daily life", or conversational English. They're excited to meet a real, live native speaker to use these skills on, so that would be a fun opportunity to take advantage of living in Nonsan.



In ooooother news, I'm planning a jungle safari in Malaysia with my college friend during my long weekend in June. How many people can say *that* for their job?! She's doing an English teaching grant with the same program as me, but in Indonesia instead of Korea. She mentioned last year wanting to travel more before going to grad school, so I suggest she check out my program. Now we're both out in Asia, soon to be trudging through the rain forest in search of elephants and orangutans. Small world.