SCHOOL’S OUT FOR SUMMER

And so it ends. Today was the last day of the semester. It was only a half day and instead of only having one class as I was supposed to, I had three. Did we work? Of course not. What kind of perverse teacher would have the kids work on the last day?

I tried “broken telephone” in class today. You know the game where you give the first person a sentence or phrase and they whisper it to the next. Each child whispers to the next and you see what the last person hears, and if it relates to how the phrase started. The first sentence I used was, “The dog ate the cat”. At the end of about 35 kids it was just “dog”. The kids thought it was a hoot and we did it a few times. They got better.

Min Kyung wasn’t there today. I was told she was in the hospital. She’s sick, but I don’t know of what. Maybe her nerves have finally burst open. I feel bad she’s in the hospital, but I wasn’t shocked. This was a woman who I felt was making herself sick. I truly hope it’s nothing serious.

The last part of the day was a staff meeting. Do I know what it was about? No. I guess it’s not important that I know because no one tried to explain anything to me. So, that works for me. I’m not a meeting person.

After the meeting the vice-principal asked Mankee (the science teacher with good English) to wish me a good vacation. That was nice of him so I asked Mankee how to say, “have a good vacation” so I could say it to him. He told me how, so I went to the vice-principal, said my Korean line, and bowed. Have to do those little things. Then I stopped in at the principal’s office and threw “have a nice vacation” at him. He was a little surprised I think. There was a teacher in his office with him and she was surprised too. He then started saying something to me in Korean and for some reason I figured out he meant “don’t forget about camp next week” or something like that. I repeated it in English to him and he affirmed what I said. Considering he doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Korean, it’s great we understand each other. He then gave me a parting in English. “See you tomorrow”. I just agreed. Tomorrow, next Monday, what’s the difference? Language is just words. It really doesn’t matter what they mean.

I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. I looked up the doctor I have an appointment with on the Internet. It seems the hospital he’s at has a website in English. This guy is the head of the cardio-vascular department and he taught at Georgetown University in Washington for 20 years. It looks like I’ve hit the English jackpot. I just hope he helps me with everything because I don’t feel like having to see four specialists to get my drugs and monitor my health.

I will actually need to do some planning for camp next week. I only have a rough outline of what I will be doing and I don’t think I can dance for four hours a day. Most of the kids will be first year middle school students so the English level won’t be great. I really would have liked a camp of kids who spoke some English so we could have conversations with sentences. I think it depresses me to think about camp.

I have no idea what I will do with the rest of the week. I really should have made a plan but I suppose this has turned into real life. What is real life? Is it having no get up and go? What about my plans to see Korea? This is turning into just another place I’ve lived. I admit this is not good. I am not taking full advantage of my opportunities for enrichment here. Is apathy setting in? All I know is that I don’t know anything. And after all, isn’t that all there is to know?