Monday, August 20, 2007

English Summer Camp

This weekend I agreed to attend the summer camp put on by the chain of schools which I work for. Ten kids came from my school, and a couple hundred came from Oedaes across Korea.


These two are Henny and Harry from my school,
in the van on the way to camp.

At the camp, each foreign teacher (native English speaker like myself) was assigned a group of 10 prebubescent kids to be in charge of 24/7. Thankfully, I wasn't assigned a group of boys. Luckily, nine of my ten girls were awesome: smart, funny, nice and super laid-back. Unfortunately, girl number 10 was psycho. As in that kid is going to end up locked up in a mental ward at some point in her future. For most of the first day she wasn't a problem - she made friends, fit in, seemed to be having fun... Then about an hour and a half after we all went to bed, I was awakened by another one of the girls, who told me that Anna was very sick. She seemed to be genuinely and very seriously ill: thrashing around on the floor, holding her head, crying and moaning. I called Samson, who called the director of Anna's school (keep in mind that this was around 1:30am and they were both asleep) who both came over... at which point Anna became magically cured and started giggling. The other girls, who had been really upset and worried about her, were pretty furious. They didn't want anything to do with Anna after that, so Anna spent the entire next day doing things for attention like running away, screaming hysterically, trying to ruin group projects, and stabbing herself with a toothpick (drawing blood). The other girls kept telling me things like "Teacher, Anna scary!" "Teacher, Anna crazy!" It would have been SUCH a different weekend if Anna hadn't been there, especially since the rest of my group was so awesome. Ahh well. I didn't take many pictures, although I did snap a couple of my costume, designed by my kids for the Teacher Costume Contest. I was supposed to be a sheep (we were designated the Sheep Team) although I looked more like Little Bo Peep who Cannibalized her Sheep!






This was me with the Sheep Team.
Quality photo courtesy of Samson.
The kid in orange is Anna -
The pic was taken before she went crazy and alientated all the other girls.

The foreign teachers got to go home last night, although the kids spent one more night at camp. I got the following text message this morning from one of the girls on the Sheep Team:

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I looked more like Little Bo Peep who Cannibalized her Sheep!


hahahahahaha. classic.

PS. There seems like there is a little "Anna" in some kids at every school. I had to confort a kid today whos friend stole their cell phone battery.

Crying student: "Teacher, my best friend hide cell phone battery" *pours tears*

You leave soon. We need to plan!

PS. Ill messasge you about Photo Club haha.

Diana said...

In elementary school, we had "outdoor education" where our teachers took us 5th graders camping for a week. I remember it as a lot of fun, but I think it was a lot more drama when I was actually there, what with everyone missing Mom & Dad.

As an adult, I've often thought that whoever thought up the idea of educational camps was clearly a grown-up Anna, so to speak. Such insanity!

Love the makeup--it's brilliant.

Anonymous said...

Great picture. From one of your unknown fans, what does the future hold once September hits? I will be touchin Korean soil myself come early September.

Chris

Anonymous said...

I've seen you in lots of strange outfits, but for some reason this one is really scary to me. When I saw it, I actually gasped! I'm not sure what it is exactly. Though if you ever went really crazy (like psych ward crazy), I imagine you'd look something like that!

Melissa

Anonymous said...

Yeah! That's a picture you should submit to JPG magazine.

annie said...

Rob - Only two more weekends, we MUST plan!!

Diana - See you tomorrow :-)

Chris - Plans are to either do nothing, or possibly get a job in the US. Either way...

Melissa - The thing is, while I love dressing strangely, I like to look good while I do it. Strange but attractive. Unfortunately, the girls seemed to want me to look strange and ugly. Boo!

Greenface - Oh, goodness no! :-)

Anonymous said...

My scary, and somewhat disturbing, student actually bought me the most considerate gift I've ever received from pretty much anyone. She could be bipolar, but it could also just be the theatrics and the "off the hook" tantrums of childhood. However, she saw me eating some green olives the other day with my snack, and she asked me what they were. I told her what they were, and that I liked them. So, today (days before my 2 week trip home) she gave me a present of olives. I was touched, considering that she can be either one of my best students or one of the worst depending on which way the wind is blowing, and she is only 11.

It's also strange that after a year here, some of my best students now were actually some of the worst when I started.