So my last Korea post had me leaving Gwangju heading for my next camp in Seoul. Let's resume from there. The date would be early September 2009.
Quite possibly the best job I ever had in the history of my life was THIS camp job in Seoul. Let me break it down. The camp was two weeks long for a total of 6 days working, 1 day off, 6 days working, then end of camp. The hours had the potential to be long, but it wasn't that bad, the Teaching Assistants (TA's) got the brunt of the long days. We had three meals provided per day, AND, I forgot to mention, we were housed at the Olympic Parktel Hotel in Seoul near Jamsil. It was supposed to be 2 people sharing each room, but my roommate was married and lived in Seoul and would often just go home after the camp was finished! This left me with my own room, sort of!
There were five native teachers, four from the US: me, Erin, Lauren, and Stanley, and one from South Africa, Richard. In reality, we had four different camps that lasted for 3 days each, but the first day of each camp didn't start till 1pm and the last day of the camp ended around noon. Anyway, I'm complicating things. Bottom line is, life was good. The first day of each camp we'd play games then teach them for one hour, the second day was the long day which included athletic competitions, ice cream, museums, baseball, pizza, ice cream, then late night drinks for staff! Third day was tying up loose ends, then students leaving. Sometimes, naps (for the English teachers) were part of the day to day activities. The poor TA's had to wake up early in the morning and take the students for morning exercise. I tried to get up and go six different times, but I just couldn't make myself roll out of bed. What further complicated issues (for the TA's) was that my room became a sort of late night hang out complete with food, drink, and conversation until 3 or 4 am. Not that big of a deal when you had to report to the camp at 10am, but a bit of an issue when you (the TA's) had to report in at 7am.
My TA and I with one of my classes
At one of the four baseball games we went to over the course of two weeks!
Piggyback racing was a normal daily activity!
By the end, we had been to 3 different museums, a baseball game, and an outdoor sculpture park four different times (one time for each camp)! Nevertheless, the fact that you can get paid to live in a hotel, have all your meals provided, and your work entailing 1-2 hours of teaching English and playing games with kids is just plain awesome!
More photos available at
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2559099&id=14815291&l=5121acb2c9
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