Already December 31?! This year has absolutely flown by! And me barely squeaking in a blog post for this month...
This past month there haven't been too many things of note to talk about. School life has been very busy lately, although that has finally begun to wind down as most of the students finished classes for winter break last Friday. Now there are only a few around for my English camp which runs until the end of next week. But the students who do attend are hopefully having fun and enjoying it as I'm trying to give them a fair amount of time to play games instead of just boring textbook work like summer camp. Although all of my ideas were very nearly destroyed thanks to my USB that held all of my school data dying. STRESS! But I guess that's why everyone always says to back things up --- unfortunately for me, I hadn't done so since October, so I lost a fair amount of work, and made a pile more work for myself, having to rush around to redo things in time for the start of camp.
Oh, and I suppose the other thing of note is that as it's December our renewal paperwork came out, and I ended up deciding not to renew here in Korea for a number of reasons, which is probably no surprise, however, that means that I really need to get on my job searching - why are there only 24 hours in a day?? It's really not enough to get everything done and have time to do important things like sleeping and eating!
The past couple of weeks have felt a little bit strange, this being the first Christmas away from the family, and also one of those very rare Christmas days without any snow. I think it was also a bit unusual because Christmas is a more low key holiday here in Korea. Other than in the big department store, I don't think I saw any Christmas decorations anywhere, and it was also very rare to hear any Christmas music (not that I'm complaining on that front, mind you...) It was also rather difficult to get into the Christmas mood because the kids weren't even really excited for it at all - I think that was the strangest part for me. In fact, in the days after Christmas before winter break started when I asked my students about their Christmases, most of them said it was so-so or boring, or something along those lines. AND very few of them actually received a Christmas present. I guess all of the gift giving happens on Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) instead.
Outside of school, I haven't been up to much either, aside from one afternoon/evening out with a couple of my friends to watch the Hobbit (which I loved, of course!). And that turned into a double movie night followed by some shooting (turns out I'm kind of good at that -- beware!) and some conversations. It was a much needed excellent time out!
Also this past week, my klutz self has been coming out quite frequently. Apparently it thinks that I need to fulfill some kind of quota before the end of the year or something like that. All kinds of ridiculous things have been happening. On Monday, I was just walking between my office and classroom, when somehow, with a big, loud crash, I ended up flat on my back on the floor with the garbage can being a casualty as well. No idea how it happened! That same night, I also managed to close my hand in a door and smack my head on the corner of a cupboard door with a rather large amount of force. And those are only a couple of things that happened! Oh well - thinking about it, it's really a little bit funny!
Anyway, that's about all for me for now, so....
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!! ^_^
By the way - it's highly unlikely that there will be any blog post from me in January, but look forward to hearing about my vacationing adventures once February rolls around!
