Weekend Retreat

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, dogs and cats, Catholics and Protestants, superheroes and supervillains... this weekend I'm going away with the teachers from my school. I've been given (as is their wont) very little information about said retreat, but I was told to bring a swimsuit, pajamas, a toothbrush... and that's it, actually. I mean, I added some things to the list on my own, but I think it's just going to be a relaxing couple of days in the sun. Well, no. It's monsoon season here in Korea, which means there's very little sun to be had these days. Just a lot of rain, a lot of wind, and clouds as far as the eye can see.

I had my first bout with monsoons last week, and I won! It was pretty nice out in the morning, a fresh breeze blowing in through my open windows, a little cloudy, but with patches of beautiful blue sky here and there. Anyway, I thought I'd leave the windows open while I was gone for the day, get some fresh air in the apartment, you know. Well, come about 10:00 in the morning, just after class started, I happened to glance out the window outside my classroom. And saw... well, actually, I saw very very little. This was due, I realized, to the torrential downpour of rain and that weird grey-green darkness you get during a summer storm sometimes. My heart sinking, I started plotting ways to get back to my house and rectify this situation, preferably with no one noticing I was gone. Could I steal one of the other teachers' cars? The women usually leave their keys in the office downstairs. Hmm... if I left at precisely the right time, and ran to my house and back, I could maybe make it on the bus. Finally, my co-teacher Bo Il noticed that I was distraught, and I filled him in on the depressing details. After a couple minutes of thinking, he offered to go to my house and shut them for me. Yep -- he'd deal with this hurricane. And he did. He's like the Wolf, from Pulp Fiction. He fixes things. By the time he made it back to class, it was barely raining at all, which was nice... and when I nervously asked how bad it was, he told me that my apartment was completely dry! I couldn't believe it, because it looked like destruction was flowing in all directions from where I sat, but I guess the wind was mostly blowing the other way, and not into my windows. Anyway, crisis averted, and for the next few weeks at least, the windows stay closed when I'm not home. Stupid monsoon season.

English camp starts on Monday -- 2 weeks, but only in the afternoons, which is nice. That gives me the mornings to get prepared and whatnot. Last winter I had, I think, 18 kids in camp. For this summer, that's gone up to 28. Which is roughly half the school. But I've got a pretty good schedule lined up, I think... should have some fun activities for the kids. I dunno -- my first camp was kind of a blur, I was nervous... I'm not even sure what all we did during that time. I at least had enough activities in my head this time to fill up all 40 hours of class time, so that makes me feel pretty confident. Is it just the overconfidence that often follows from ignorance? That is a distinct possibility. I'll keep you posted.