Today was the last day of winter camp. The culminating task I gave them to complete was a board game. Sounds elementary, but they had to come up with expressions of time, use various verbs and some basic vocabulary. Then we played the games. Silly students...they're "playing" and learning simultaneously :)

Three kids lingered around for awhile, asking me the most random questions about Canada. They wanted to know how close polar bears get to communities, how long ago people lived in igloos, what festivals are celebrated in my country that are uniquely hers, if many Asians live in small towns, why we still have a queen, how far back my Canadian heritage goes, and if we blow our noses after we eat. I have never been inundated with so many absolutely out there questions by, well, ANYONE. It was comical.



Then they wanted to see my apartment. If anyone reading this is familiar with the Ontario (or Canadian or American) school system, you are acutely aware of how incredibly incomprehensible this type of request would be to fulfill at home. And after seven and a half months of living here, I've learned that questions like, "Can we come up and see your house?" are not unique, are not inappropriate, and are completely feasible to agree to. So up we went.

The four of us were only in here for about two minutes. It felt strange. They were astonished though at the things I have acquired: the art I painted, the plant, the vast number of English books, the scarves, and the clothes (which, shamefully, were not really put away that neatly this morning, as I rolled out of bed 30 minutes before I had to start teaching and was still emailing 27 minutes later). They said they want to live in a place like this and admired the view of the school from my rather large windows. It was cute.

We then went to the market (if you recall, I posted pics of a market back in, oh July? It had gross fish and meat out in the middle of the hot Korean summer. Recall? We went there. Great thing about freezing cold Korea in winter: meat stays fresh) for some homemade noodles in soup. The kids were so cute: they ushered me in, pulled out my chair, set out my chopsticks and spoon, asked me more questions, smiled at me like proud parents, and thanked me about thirty times for treating them to this $10 lunch (for all of us).

Strange experience, but oddly, the kids made it seem almost natural.




(Here's a picture of my second grade students (they're about 16). They informed me that they cover their faces because they're ugly. And these three are so cute...it's annoying how little beauty they see. Sigh.)