School finished a few weeks ago, and now I find myself in the vacation period. Unlike their Western counterparts, Koreans do not get an extended vacation for the summer (hence neither do the teachers). Most students continue studying for what is the climax of their current lives; the placement exam. Students go to school in their neighborhoods up until high school. The last year of middle school is characterized by intense studying to get placed into the best high schools, proceeded by studying hard to get into the best universities...which is directly correlated with how much money and success they can expect to find once they graduate. It's the same idea in the U.S., but with much more strict boundaries (they follow this idea precisely).
So I am teaching what is called "Summer Camp," for a few weeks. I teach for a few hours in the morning to a small group of students that chose to take the English Conversation Course. In the afternoon after lunch, I attend a Korean Language Course (provided by my school district for foreign teachers). It's not a bad routine, and is almost as good as the real thing (summer vacation).
Last weekend I traveled to the coast for the annual Boryeong Mud Festival. It's a popular event where the city brings in tons of mud to the beach, and foreigners and Koreans gather to get muddy. It's basically a giant mud fight. Unfortunately, the weather was not in our favor when we arrived (heavy rain), but I guess it doesn't matter much if you plan on covering your body in mud.
We arrived in the morning, and hid under a food tent for a few hours waiting for the rain to subside. After we realized that it would rain all day, we meandered over to the pit. I was excited as ever to completely cover myself, and dove right in. What I didn't realize at the time was that there was a large group of U.S. Military personnel also in the mud pit, and lets just say they don't like to play fair. After getting pelted a few times in the head with mud/sand balls, I decided I had enough. I played in the mud obstacle course for a while, then decided I was mudded out (we were toying with all kinds of mud adjectives that day).
Now with only a few days left of summer camp to go, I'm ready for the real summer vacation. I'll have two weeks off, and my good friend BD will arrive here on Sunday. We'll fly down to Jeju Island for a few days (the honeymoon capital of Korea, although I don't think BD knows that), and then take a ferry to Japan. Should be full of fun and revelry. Hope all is well back home (and not as unbearably humid as it is here).
