Well, first off, let me apologize to my avid readers. I know you look forward to my blog posts and I have been slacking lately. I wish I could say it was going to get better. I will try, but things are just so interesting over here, sometimes blogging gets put on the back burner. Along with laundry, showering, etc. Kidding. Kind of. But... the main news is on the facebook page, but I will write some recaps of the month of July. Today is July 27, the official start of summer vacation. I leave for Japan in two days, and I'm super excited to check another country off my list! Adam visited the end of June through the first week of July and then my dad and stepmom visited directly after. It has been a whirlwind of fun and visitors! I was so so thankful that they all got to come. It really felt like a taste of home. It was the happiest I have felt since being here. Adventure is all well and good, but my adventure dreams are changing. I am anxious for the year to be finished so I can spend more time with the ones I love.
Teaching is still amazing. The kids and I are growing closer every day. My assistant teacher retired this morning. It was a sad day for me. I cannot begin to express how much she means to me, even only knowing her for five months. She is the most loving, patient, and kind woman I think I have ever met. She has a way with the kids, as well as with me, to calm everyone down and make things run smoothly. I was a flood of emotion when I gave her some pink roses today and hugged her goodbye for the 75th time. Ah, Grace Teacher. I will never forget her and the memories. There is a bond formed with your AT that can never be matched. I feel like we are connected on a much deeper level than colleagues. She will be missed! Yesterday was swimming pool day. It was kind of disappointing from what I was expecting. All of the kids brought tons of swim gear complete with floaties, goggles, flippers, swim caps, and giant inflatable tubes. None of them could swim and the water was only three feet deep on all sides, so the whole concept of really playing in the water, didn't happen much. They all had their giant tubes and just kind of sat in them, not being able to move. I waded through the sea of neon pushing kids out of the way. That part was kind of cathartic. The saddest experience happened yesterday. One of my favorite girls, Chae Nee, she is five, ran up to me, wide-eyed and excited and said, "Teacher, ice cream???!" It broke my heart to tell her no. It's some kind of serious injustice to take kids swimming and not give them ice cream. She knew it. I knew it. Today I brought her candy.
Last weekend a group of coworkers and I went to Mudfest in Beoryeong. IT WAS AWESOME. One of the best weekends I have had while being here for sure. There was mud obstacle courses and a mud beach. There were adult capri suns (get the hint) and a lot of good seafood. There were crazy asian boys and crazy army boys all congregated hoping to get a glimpse of girls all mudded up in bikinis. They were not disappointed. It was sort of like Panama City Beach at spring break time, only, everyone was Asian. There was a mud prison in which you were thrown if you did something bad, and mud was splattered on you through prison bars. I enjoyed laying in the sun afterwards and running into the ocean to clean off. I highly recommend this experience!
More to come!
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