Here are many of the Korean teachers in not only their swimsuits but their swimming clothes.
In the previous post, I discussed Korean culture with water. They don't know how to swim, and therefore have a different relationship to water than do westerners. After summer camp, our school often does something nice for its overworked teachers. This year, they chose to send us to OceanWorld. Because Korea is an overpopulated country, it is a guarantee that on any given day, nearly any tourist destination will be packed to the brim with people.
As is typical in Korean culture, caps and life vests were required. For those of us who know how to swim, the life vests were cumbersome and annoying in all but one attraction, the wave pool. I've never used a life vest in a wave pool, and don't plan to once back in the states, however in Korea, I was glad I had it. Because the water was so entirely packed with people that if I moved an arm or a leg, I arbitrarily kicked or hit another person. And when the waves came, if it hadn't been for the life vests, I might have been clobbered and drowned by a piling of others on top of me. I sometimes felt like a tackled football player at the bottom of a pile up. Despite the excess number of bodies, the wave pool was quite fun.
However, in the "rapid river" which was like a lazy river except with bursts of waves, we were required to not only have on a life vest but also a tube. And not sitting lazinly on top of the tube but inside the doughnut hole. It pushed the life vest uncomfortable up my neck making the experience less fun than other "river rides" I've been on. The boys had fun playing bumper tubes, attacking each other mercilessly with their yellow tubes like sumo wrestlers in the water.
All in all, though, the day was thrilling. Ocean World had better rides than I expected. Non of them were AMAZING, but they were fun. The day was then followed by a free buffet in at nice hotel with sushi, salad, and other goodies. It was quite a memorable day. Below is the footage from the day.
I am so lost... I'm studying for the GRE, which in itself incredibly intimidating. I'm smart, one might even call me intelligent, but I'm far from brilliant and this test seems like it was created for brilliant peeps. I've spent about 5 hours studying in the past week, and I feel like I'm being badly pummeled. I'm taking the beating because I want to go back to school. I have a degree in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. It was a fantastic major. I absolutely LOVED my classes. Just about every single one of them. I learned about people, cultures, language and how they all played a critical role in our lives. I loved being at UT, in the top ranked communication programs in the nation. I felt it gave me an edge in the career world.
But so far, I haven't used my degree except in teaching. And my degree is not in education. I'm teaching, not because it's my passion, but because it's a means to an end. We are young, we wanted to travel the world, experience new cultures, and save money and get out of debt so we flew across the world to meet those goals. But our goals are expanding everyday and I've known since I've graduated that I wanted to go back to get a masters degree. I was never one of those students who couldn't wait to graduate. Instead, I wanted to stay in my safe cocoon of academia. It was warm and cozy in there, I understood what was happening. Within the walls of school clear, concise directions and goals had been laid out before me. For my part, all I had to do was to follow. Graduation was not an ecstatic day for me as it is for so many. In fact, I missed my graduation. (I was traveling in Europe) When the day came to walk across a stage in my tasseled scholar hat and cloak, instead of feeling like a warrior going out into the world ready to conquer, I felt the opposite. I felt like a newborn baby being born, torn from the inside of its warm protective mother. I was thrust out of my home of education, a place I had been nourished and coddled for nearly my entire life, and plunged into the "real world." A world with critical issues, inequities, divisive politics and a general "life is unfair, deal with it" attitude. I didn't know what to do with it, so I picked up and ran away. We ran to Chile. I had always wanted to travel, and Chile was an opportunity for me to give back in a way that I had never done before since it was a volunteer program. It was difficult, it was cold and it was life changing. We returned with the objective to teach and make money in Korea. Chile had put us more in debt than school had.
Korea was the land of promise. The land that any foreigner with a degree in hand could teach English in, make money, see a new part of the world and save save save. But we had to get Kyle a degree first. A task that took longer than anticipated, but once it was achieved we were on a plane, together, hand in hand, onto another adventure. We our in threshold of our second year in Korea, and most likely our last. It is a year to save, grow individually by meeting personal goals, and to save for travel and school. I am finally ready to move on to grad school. I'm thrilled, to say the least. I can't wait for school again. Not that I ever really left since I am now a TEACHER at a school.
But I am struggling. I am struggling answering the fundamental question everyone asks themselves, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" And it is a fundamental question that needs a decisive answer for one who is to spend THOUSANDS of dollars on further education. So this is what I have so far...
I am a social scientist.
I love statistics about people. I love learning about how people interact, how they are persuaded, what makes them tick.
I'm a people person
I need to work with people. I'm not a behind the desk gal. I need interaction or else I go crazy.
I want to make a difference
It's cliche, I know, but we have cliches for a reason. I want to make a difference in the world. I want to know that my being here has been for the greater good.
I need skills
although I love the study of people, it only takes a person so far in usefulness. I don't want to be a researcher. I want to be useful, not that researchers are useless, but I don't think it's where I'm meant to be.
I've been considering business
not an MBA, but a background in business will expand my possibilities and broaden my perspectives. I'm looking at an MA at Thunderbird in Arizona. It's considered one of the top International schools in the nation. And they have programs for students without backgrounds in business.
I don't have a lot of experience in business, but I don't think I will be passionate about it though.
But, Kyle and I would love to have our own businesses some day, and having a business degree would be immensely useful.
Sustainability
Recently, I have come to the conclusion I would like a focus on sustainability. Sustainability, with our ever growing world population is a practice that we humans will need to develop more comprehensively if we want to keep from drying up all of our resources and killing ourselves.
Community
I have an interest in communities, what bonds them, what creates them, what makes them and powerful. I want a part in growing communities.
I'm interested in too many things
I have always loved learning. I could have gone into a lot of fields and have been happy, I think, and so I am having a hard time just choosing one thing to focus on.
Reputation
One thing I have been told is important in a school is there reputation amongst their peers. If a school doesn't have a strong reputation or strong network then it doesn't matter how good your education was, the thousand dollar degree on your wall, is not worthwhile.
Two other schools that I have been researching and considering are: SIT and University of Peace
Is there anyone out there who can help? Has anyone attended any of these schools? I'm so lost. I don't even know where to start when it comes to researching the reputation of a school or finding a good school. I'm looking for advice from anyone who is willing to give it. Thanks in advance.
I've come along way, I think from when I wrote my original post, "The Yellow Brick Road" and my struggle with the quarter life crisis, but I am far from knowing where my path leads. And in all honesty not knowing can be fun. I'm not sure I would want to look into a crystal ball that told me my future because it might spoil the surprise. I'm learning to be present in the moment, to enjoy the days as they come and to enjoy the journey.
The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination. ~ Don Williams Jr.
One of the lessons I taught when I first got to the preschool was over emotions. Because the kiddies already had such a strong "Feelings" vocabulary, I decided to dive deep into the emotional sea. The two words they liked saying the best is frustrated and disappointed. It's quite cute hearing their little voices yell out "Frustrated!" It seems so sophisticated for a six year old.
As an English teacher, I am often looking for good Emotion charts with pictures as it is an important lesson for any learner of a second language to learn so as to express themselves. This gave me the idea to not only make my own charts as tools in future lessons, but also as a way for the kids to put the emotions to practice. They really enjoyed it.
At first I had a real system where they had to pick an emotion out of a hat and act it out for the camera. But as I started making the charts, I realized that I was missing specific emotions so I would yell out, "who wants to do angry?" and a few of them would volunteer. Usually, they preferred the happier emotions so I would have to go searching for someone willing to act for me. Some of them were better at acting than others. One of the little boys, Peter, seemed to make the same face over an over no matter if it were happy or sad. I could see he was concentrating but the emotion just wasn't transferring from his brain to his face. My pantomiming skills really came in handy here.
There are three emotions charts. Most of the emotions have two kids demonstrating with two exceptions. Excited has four excited kiddos and surprised as the two teachers, including yours truly, just for fun. I have listed the emotions down below each chart out of order, so that you can try and guess for yourself which face goes with which emotion. Let me know what you think or if you have any questions about which goes to which. Some of them aren't that clear to be honest, but there are fuzzy lines between certain emotions such as frustrated, worried and angry in real life. Have fun and I look forward to hearing your opinions on this little venture. p.s. for the sake of simplicity we taught jealousy as "jealous of a person" and envious as "envious of a thing."
(click on the photos to see them enlarged for better accuracy guessing)
The week of Thanksgiving, I taught my lil ones Thanksgiving vocabulary. It was difficult explaining what a wishbone was to kids who had never seen or eaten a turkey. But they didn't seem to mind. Fridays is either field trip day OR craft day. And because there were no fieldtrips planned, we did two weeks of Thanksgiving crafts. The first one, was the cutest, I think. It was a Turkey headdress. I found the idea here.
The website is pretty specific about what colors you use for the feathers, but I thought it would be more fun if they picked their own colors. They turned out really well, in my humble biased opinion. What do you think? I didn't take pictures of the second one. They made hand turkey Thanksgiving cards. I have to say tho, I love arts and crafts with the kiddos. It brings out my creative side.
Today was crazy hat day. I didn't understand what was supposed to happen. Neither did the people planning this event. The kids were sent home with notes saying to bring a crazy hat on Friday. After taking pictures, I was asked to MC. During the meeting about this event, I continuously asked what the plan was. The response I received, blank stares. Why can't there be some semblance of organization and/or communication? Just a little... So I MC-ed. I didn't know what I was doing. I paraded the children around and then we cheered for the best hats. In the end however, the teachers picked and everyone got junk food as a prize. For a country that seems to take such pride in being healthy, they sure eat and feed their children a LOT of junk food. Besides the little three year olds who seemed to have NO CLUE as to what was happening, everyone had fun.
Jude is a little bit of a trouble maker but he's cute.
Adam has only been learning English for a month and he is so cute. He has this doe eyed look that just melts my heart.
She cried at the end of the day because her mom didn't make her hat. I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture but her hat is a diaper. Her little hair decoration stuck out where the leg normally goes. I thought it was clever. Half of the students had hand made hats or make-shifted hats, the others made a hat in class or choose from our costume closet.
Jasmine was our winner. She is too cute.
This hat is stock full of newspaper filling!
Peter has a bit of a stutter but is very sweet and smart.
Jasimine's mom sent hat shaped cookies for crazy hat day!
The class picture!
These boys are from another class
Her hat was beautifully hand sewn, but Sara didn't smile the entire time. She is only three.
The project goal: protect your egg, aka: what I tell the kids " your baby, don't let your baby break" (Sometimes they crack the egg before it even gets up in the air)
Protect the egg from what? gravity. We dropped the eggs from three stories high to their possible doom.
How to protect the eggs? designated materials.
Really when we started this project, no one really knew what they were doing. We were kind of like ostriches trying to teach chickens how to fly.
To begin with, we split the students into groups of four or five. We gave them designated materials. Originally we weren't set on what the materials should be so we began with ziplock bags. Turns out, ziplock bags don't make awesome parachutes. So the next time you are jumping out of a plane for skydiving, right before you make the plunge, you should double check that your parachute isn't a flimsy ziplock bag.
After multiple bullet-like eggs, screaming obscenities at the stupidness of their instructors on their way down to their inevitable doom, smashed into what can only be referred to as scramble smithereens, we came up with a new idea; Trash bags.
Really great idea, except that we gave each group their own trash bag. It worked a little too well in fact. NO EGGS died in this experiment. Now, it isn't like I wanted my kids to fail. But who feels good after they aced a test by cheating. Not many people. Well... not many people with self respect. And basically they couldn't fail.
So we moved on to newspaper. Newspaper was really a perfect alternative. It works well when used correctly, but allows for more of a challenge.
Other materials we provided:
straw
strings
balloons (for confusion)
paper cups
tape
paper clips
Balloons can actually help but they don't cause air resistance like the kids think it will.
It was really a great class. We did a little bit of teaching and a LOT of observing the kids try and make their contraptions to protect their egg. I like the observing part. My voice especially is extremely grateful. Dropping the eggs off the roof was a blast and everyone enjoyed it regardless of whether their egg lived through the traumatic ordeal or not.
So when we were given the chance to give suggestions for this years camp at my newest school, I of course offered up the option of egg drop, but with added challenges. We offer a larger selection of goods to make their egg drop, except this time, they can only pick ten things.
The materials we use now:
paper cup
string
straw
rubber bands
tape (4-5 inches per piece)
paper plates
trash bag (cut into 8ths)
balloon
paper clips
chopsticks
I have even toyed with the idea of giving them monopoly money and making them pay for each item, making the better materials more expensive. Either way, they have to think harder about the design before making it, and they are never allowed to exchange. The best inventions are made out of resourcefulness.
Its a super class and any teachers and/or esl teachers out there, I recommend this to everyone.
Here is the video I made for the kids to see some examples of egg drops. It isn't great filming, but it does the job and is a little entertaining. Enjoy!
So I know many of you are waiting to hear about our trip to the Philippines, but alas I am exhausted. We came back Sunday afternoon after traveling for 24 hours and then hopped on another bus, subway and finally a taxi in order to get home three hours later. I felt like I could hardly hold my eyes open yesterday. Luckily, however, this week, I am doing one day programs so I didn't have to teach in zombie form. But what that does mean, is that my energies for writing posts are blinking the red light and are running on fumes. Put put put. I can do it, I can do it.... I am sure I will make it to the gas station before I am stranded on the side of the road. Of course that is what I said in the past before having to walk humiliated in the hot sun along the steaming asphalt road towards a gas station.
What am I talking about? I don't even know anymore. I started this post with the intention of sharing something exceedingly funny and now I am rambling about gas stations? Scrambled eggs. Yep, that is what my brain probably resembles right now. Enough with the digressing. Enough I say.
Story:
Our school is starting a Korean preparatory school. And by preparatory, I mean that its intentions will be to allow the children graduating this high school, not only an American high school diploma, but the ability to be accepted in any University of their choice, preferably those with esteemed reputations such as in the ivy league. It won't be run by our administration, so that in itself is a major advantage for the school. How the school will fair, however, only God knows, or maybe he is just watching things as they unfold, sitting in his cushy throne laughing at it as his evening comedy show.
The other day, as the students were being herded into the gym like a bunch of obstinate cats, we noticed fliers on the table of the entrance. They were advertisements for the new preparatory school. Nothing too unusual about that. However, upon closer inspection of said flier, we noticed something or rather someone familiar. Kyle with two students. In the United States, there are strict copy right rules about using pictures of people without permission. In Korea, they don't really pay attention to silly laws such as copyright.
Let's take a closer look shall we?
I am positive these girls don't know they are being used in an advertisement either! And if they did, they would hide their faces in utter embarrassment as all Korean girls do. I swear, trying to take face pictures of Korean girls, you would think we were trying to inject them with some mind altering drug. They hide, scream, cover their face, anything to avoid the EVIL camera!
My handsome husband, on the cover of an advertisement of a school he will never teach at. Korea never ceases to amaze me!
Recently, during a time I had extra prep hours, I used my energies to create a couple of new scripts for our school. We sometimes have drama programs in which the kids, rather than having academic classes focus on putting on a play in only a week. The scripts we have are mostly fairy tales which isn't very interesting for the boy students. Anytime Korean students are allowed to create their own stories, it usually includes zombies, so I felt that writing a zombie script would help encourage the students to be more excited about the drama. As most of you know, I LOVE THEATER. Not just because it happens to be how I met the love of my life, and my best friends, but theater is a creative outlet like no other. It not only allows, but encourages larger than life personalities. It inspires the spring of soul to run freely. And to be honest, I really miss having it in my life. Writing and directing plays has been a completely new and exciting outlet for my creative sparks. Frustrating would also be an adjective I would use, considering I am directing students who often don't understand but 10%-20% of the words that are coming out of my mouth. I have to be even more expressive than in my usual classes, using completely ridiculous and over the top faces and movements to get my point across. And directing dances! Dear LORD! Korean students love their k-pop and they love dancing to them, but directing them is another story.
This play, I directed with another Korean teacher, and he made a few changes such as placing my THRILLER dance in a different location, but the thing that irritated me the most, was at the end of the story the girl was supposed to save the guys life from the zombies, but the Korean teacher, without my knowledge changed it so that OF COURSE the guy saved the girl. I was attempting to make a point with the girl being the strong, courageous one, but I guess I was moving too fast for Korea's feminist movement. I've included the script down below for anyone who might be interested. Mostly I am including the script for other teachers who might find it useful to their students and classes.
Zombie Attack at English Village
14+ Characters:
Bella
Sparky (dog)
Ryan
Kyle
Vanessa
Sylvia
Teacher 1
Teacher 2
Monster Zombie
Mom
Dad
Sister
Doctor
Nurse
Extra students
Extra zombies
Scene 1 (At home)
Mom: Are you ready to go to English camp?
Sparky: Woof!
Bella: Sparky is ready!
(Everyone laughs at the dog)
Dad: Do you have your suitcase?
Bella: Yes dad, I have everything.Don’t worry so much.
Dad: I’m sorry, I just want you to have fun and of course learn English.
Bella: Dad! I will.
Sister: I want to go to English camp too.
Mom: In a few years when you are older.
(Sister makes a pouting face)
Sister: But I want to go now!
Dad: You can come with us to drop Bella off.
Mom: Ok, let’s go.
Sparky: Woof, woof!
Scene 2 (At school in the classroom)
Teacher: Hello students.My name is teacher ________. We are going to play a get to know you game.
Ryan: I like games!
Kyle: Yeah!
Teacher: Everyone write on their paper their name and hobby.
Sylvia; Okay, finished
Teacher: crumple your paper.
Vanessa: like this?
Teacher: yes.Now paper fight
(everyone starts throwing paper at each other for at least thirty seconds)
Teacher: Ok, stop.Pick up a paper.
Ryan: I have Bella’s paper.
Teacher: Good, now introduce Bella.
Ryan: This is Bella. She is 14 years old.Her hobby is basketball.
(Sparky runs into the classroom)
Bella: Sparky, what are you doing here?
Sparky: Woof
Sylvia: Does she have a bite on her back?
Ryan: That looks like it hurt.
Vanessa: Are you okay girl?
(Sparky rolls over and kicks her legs in the air.Everyone laughs)
Teacher: Alright, break time. Bella, please take Sparky back to her room.
Bella: Yes teacher
Scene 3(Outside walking the dog home)
(Bella, Sylvia and Ryan are walking together, Sparky stops and growls at something)
Bella: Sparky, why are you growling?
Sylvia: There is nothing there you silly dog!
Ryan: Dogs can sense things that humans can’t.
Teacher 2: Where are you guys going? Shouldn’t you be in class?
Sylvia: Our teacher gave us break time.
(Howl from off stage (Monster Zombie))
Teacher 2: Alright but be careful guys.There is something strange living in those mountains.
Sparky: (Howls back and shivers before running off.)
Bella: Wait Sparky! Come back.
Scene 4(Later in the evening. )( Students are sitting on the floor during their break time.Teachers are standing in the background talking to themselves)
Bella: Sparky is acting really weird
Ryan: How so?
Bella: Her eyes are red, and her hair color is changing.She is panting a lot.
Ryan: Look here she is.
(Sparky enters walking straight-legged and wobbling)
Bella: Sparky what’s wrong.
(Sparky sees Kyle and runs at him and bites him)
Kyle: Ouch, why did she bite me?
Teacher 2: What is going on here?
Kyle: This dog just bit me.
(Teacher grabs the dog, Sparky bites the teacher)
Teacher 2: This dog needs to leave. She is biting everyone.
Bella: Something is wrong with her. She never bites.
Teacher 2: Did she go into the woods today?
Bella: yes she did.
Teacher 1: You must go see the doctor, NOW!
Scene 5 (In the doctors office)
Doctor: Please explain again.What happened?
Teacher 1: We believe the dog has been bitten by (looks around anxiously and whispers) the monster.
Doctor: (makes a lot of ridiculous noises) he ho hump hogwash.The monster is only a story.
Nurse: Not so doctor, I saw him once.
Kyle: We heard him earlier outside.
Bella: Sparky went into the woods and came back a completely different dog.
Doctor: There is a logical explanation for this.
(Screams from outside)
Nurse: What’s that?
Doctor: Crazy students.They drive me nuts.
Vanessa: Teacher, come quick!
Teacher 1: What’s wrong Vanessa?
Vanessa: There’s something outside.
Teacher: What is it?
Vanessa: I think it’s a monster.
(Everyone runs offstage, lights go off and back on.The monster zombie and Sparky are running after screaming children.Everyone is running circles around the stage. Ryan then tackles the monster)
Scene 6 (In an office with the monster zombie)
Doctor: Who are you?
Monster zombie: (makes lots of noises)
Doctor: Speak when I am talking to you.
Monster zombie: (moves his mouth like he is speaking but no words come out)ma ma ma ma ma ma.
Nurse: Oh my goodness.Is that you Roger?
Monster zombie: (makes a positive noise) uh-hu!
Doctor: My goodness, you are right.What happened to you?
Monster zombie: (bites his own arm and puts out his arm to show that he is now a zombie)
Nurse: Someone bit you and now you’re a zombie:
Monster zombie: (nods his head and begins to cry) boo hooo hoo hoo.
Nurse: poor zombie (patting his head) Can you help him doctor?
Doctor: I don’t know, but I will try.
Scene 7 (Outside students are lying on the ground. Vanessa, Kyle, Teacher2, and Sparky are all there)
Ryan: Oh no, I found Kyle.
Bella: Sylvia is that you?
Ryan: And I think that is Vanessa over there.
Bella: Everyone is a zombie.
(all zombies sit up at the same time when Bella says “Everyone is a zombie”, with their arms outstretched)
Bella: Ryan, what’s happening?
Ryan: Kyle, it’s me, your friend.
Kyle: Hungry (They are all walking towards Ryan and Bella)
Sylvia: Eat people.
Vanessa: Yum yum.
Teacher: Yummy students
Ryan: RUN BELLA RUN!
(They run off screaming)
Scene 8 (In the doctors office)
Doctor: We need to kill all of the zombies
Nurse: There has to be another way.
Teacher 1: What would their parents say.
Bella: You can’t kill our friends.
Ryan: But they want to eat us Bella.
Nurse: There has to be another way.
(There is pounding and stomping all over off stage)
Teacher: They are going to break down the door.
(The zombies break in and run on the stage from all different directions)
Doctor: Fight!
(A fight breaks out. )
Ryan: Help me, help me! (Three zombies are surrounding Ryan)
Bella: I’ll save you! (Bella fights them off)
Ryan: You’re the greatest!
(The nurse accidently hits the radio and THRILLER starts to play.The zombies begin to dance kind of like robots.)
Nurse: Look, they are dancing.
Doctor: It’s a cure. Music is the cure.
(Everyone starts to dance, even the doctor who is a very bad dancer)
Sparky: Woof
Bella: Thank goodness you are better.
Sylvia: Thank you for making us humans again.
Teacher 1: Being a zombie was no fun.I was hungry all of the time.
Ryan: Bella, will you be my girlfriend?
Bella: Of course I will Ryan.(They kiss)
Scene 9 (Parents are coming to pick up Bella from school)
Mom: Bella!
Dad: We missed you!
Sister: We ate ice cream every night for dinner.So there!
Mom: Did you have fun?
Bella: We had lots of fun.
Dad: Did you learn a lot of English?
Sister: What did you do?
Sparky: Woof!
Mom: Sparky learned English!
Bella: I can’t wait to come back next year.
(Howling from the mountain)
Sister: What’s that.
Bella; Oh that, that’s just the zombie monster.
Dad: Stop trying to scare your sister.
Sparky: Woof! Woof!
(Everyone laughs and walks off stage, you hear the howl again, lights out)
This is the long awaited drama video from my Russian students. Although we practiced in the classroom more than my students liked and more than the allotted time, the students never got practice with the microphones, which means the person running the microphones also didn't practice. Unfortunately in our play, the actors performances were nothing short of stunning (says the slightly biased director :) ), and yet, hardly anyone in the audience could hear what we was being said. Despite that slight hiccup of no one actually knowing what was going on in the play except for me and the actors, I was incredibly proud of my students. I chopped up the video quite a bit and only gave you tidbits of the major parts, but I will give you a run down of the story line so that you can follow along.
The characters are as follows: Wendy- long brown hair Tinkerbell- blond hair shorty Jack Sparrow- white pirate shirt The captain of the ship- yellow shirt Peter Pan- girl in the green German looking pants Captain Hook- red Jacket crocodile- the dragon looking little guy on the side. And other pirates and crew.
The storyline:
The Captain is having a birthday party Tinkerbell keeps trying to get Wendy married off- Wendy says Peter Pan is too young Wendy thinks Jack Sparrow is handsome but Tinkerbell disapproves. Captain Hook crashes the party and demands to marry Wendy. She refuses. She spends two days in the brigg. As Wendy is about to walk the plank, Peter Pan and Jack Sparrow rush in a save the day. Jack Sparrow, instead of asking Wendy to marry him asks Tinkerbell. Wendy in a furry jumps in the water and happens to save Captain hook who is being chased by the crocodile. Wendy then proposes to Captain Hook whom she has refused for the entire play. They are married as well. Peter Pan is furious and jumps in the water to plan a revenge with the crocodile. Fun is had by all!
The students really enjoyed the play, as did I. And for the first time since being here, I nearly cried when my students left. I really loved teaching those kids. They were a fun bunch of enthusiastic kids, and I already miss them. I hope you enjoy them (at least their video) as well.
As is typical in Korean culture, caps and life vests were required. For those of us who know how to swim, the life vests were cumbersome and annoying in all but one attraction, the wave pool. I've never used a life vest in a wave pool, and don't plan to once back in the states, however in Korea, I was glad I had it. Because the water was so entirely packed with people that if I moved an arm or a leg, I arbitrarily kicked or hit another person. And when the waves came, if it hadn't been for the life vests, I might have been clobbered and drowned by a piling of others on top of me. I sometimes felt like a tackled football player at the bottom of a pile up. Despite the excess number of bodies, the wave pool was quite fun.
