DUMBR

K-Pop Slam 2

2011-12-13T17:12:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with a PPT game. I made a game called K-Pop Slam, its been rather successful and many Korean teachers have asked for the file as well as Foreign teachers. Figured I'd share it on here with you all along with some preview images.

The basic gist of the game is I give them the English words found in K-Pop songs and they must guess what the K-Pop song is. Starts off easy then gets progressively more difficult. The students love it and has them speaking and signing in English so all the better.

And a link to the Download file: http://tinyurl.com/c3pzon7

Scavenger Hunt

2011-11-30T15:38:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Wintermute here. Long time no see. Last week I gave my students a list of things to do or find. They had one week to complete as many as they could. Which ever team had the most won a pizza party. Most of the classes were doing really well until they found out that one class in particular had finished almost the entire list. Afterwards almost everyone gave up.

I figured I showed some pictures of my favorites:

All students had to be turned opposite of the board with a teacher in the room.

Every member wearing tin foil hats.

3 students in an elevator, sitting on chairs, with a stranger.

one student shaving another.

There was a total of 100 items on the list.

Your Teacher,

Wintermute

Videos

2011-11-07T15:26:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Wintermute here. In my last post I forgot to mention I filmed one of my classes. We were playing a game. Basically I play a snippit of a song and they have to guess what it is. No pictures or words, just an audio clip.

This particular class did very very well and I had many of them singing and dancing. Quite amusing if however rather long. It does start off on its side but eventually flips up right. BTW: My students did not know they were being filmed most of the hour. Some caught on in the front I think.

enjoy.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Speaking Test

2011-11-06T15:40:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with some desk warming goodness. So for the next two weeks I have to give a speaking test to the students. This is really quite ridiculous. It's a waste of a perfectly good two weeks that could be spent teaching and learning. On the plus side it does make my job easier, but trust me when I say this job can get a bit too easy and boring. Hopefully I can get through it.

On a much brighter side, Skyrim comes out this week!. Sadly Korea has no release date, so I had to preorder it, have it shipped to my ma, who will then send it to me. Nevertheless it will be mine, and I couldn't be more excited.

Your fanboy,
Wintermute

Nanta

2011-10-27T16:53:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Miss me yet? I was gone for a week in Seoul. It was a fun trip, good food, good people. Didn't do a whole lot. First I went to some castle like thing. Basically its where the King and Queen would live. Apparently they lived in separate buildings and were not allowed to visit each other. Which is why Korea has not had many emperors in succession. Also the Queen is not allowed to leave her house, ever. So long story short, it would suck to be the Queen of Korea.

I also went through a secret garden where they boasted a 750 year old tree. I was expecting this huge thick trunk landmark, but instead I got what looked like a 750 year old tree. It was sad and droopy, split down the center, branches laying on the ground. Most of it was held together with ropes.

Also went to a show called Nanta, which was pretty impressive. Nanta is performed in 41 countries. Basically its a comedy show. There are 4 people chefs who are given a task to make a certain sum of food for a wedding. The two to be betrothed are selected from the audience. While cooking the dishes they discover that music and rhythm can be made from their utensils. Thus starts a whole Orchestra of slamming of knifes and plates. While impressive most music was performed from an audio track and not a lot of actual live performance. It was meant to be a comedy play and not so much a musical.

And it was very funny, the audience was all English speakers so there was not much Korean spoken and a lot of intentionally bad English used. If like me you can go for free, I'd recommend it.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

100

2011-10-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here for what may be the last DUMBR. We made it to 100 post and I finished off with a grand total of almost 2 readers. Thats 2 more than zero, so I'm happy. We laughed, we cried, we stopped reading half way. I'll still be on blogger guessing Shutterbugs pictures, and wanting Shonas food, and climbing Mt. Aenos ever increasing my vocab.

Thursday and Friday my school will host two "festivals", first sports day, and then some kind of school festival. So no teaching for me. My kids are super pumped and excited making teaching very difficult. I'll be in Seoul for a week. I have plans to go get Dark Souls tonight, I hope I can find a copy here. I also have to preorder Skyrim, ship it to the US, and then have them ship it here, as Korea will not be getting Skyrim :(

That's it for my life, if anything big or important comes up, you'll be the first to know.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Kpop Slam / Pokemon

2011-10-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with some Dumbr. I have not posted in a really long time, not due to laziness, just lack of desire. Figured while I'm here I'll talk about what I'm doing this week.

With the boys:
We are talking about Pokemon. You might think, "wow, what a terrible teacher". But you'd be surprised the amount of new English words I am able to teach from this lesson. First I go over what an element is. Then go over what elements the Pokemon world has. The students can usually describe them but do not know the words for them. Then I go over a bunch of Pokemon, what element they are, what animal / item they are, and then how they got their English name. They really enjoy the snivy (snake-ivy), servine (serpent-vine) collection. I'm surprised they know what Chandelure is supposed to be. I make a Pokemon with them on the board, they really enjoy that part even though its very kindergarten. Then I have them make their own Pokemon at their desk.

With the Girls:
My girls love Pokemon too, but I don't think it will hold as many students attention and for as long as with the boys. So I play K-POP Slam. Again it might sound like a bad idea, but it gets them talking in a lot of English. Basically each Korean song uses a lot of English words. I give them those English words and they have to figure out what song it goes to. There's also 2ne1 surprise buttons, they can be either good or bad if you choose to take them. There's a whole PPT to go with the game complete with videos, .GIFs, and so on.

It has gotten to the point where I no longer teach anything substantial and instead my lessons have reached a point of obscurity. My students know this and expect this, when I walk in they ask what game we are playing today. Truth be told I feel like I'm doing a wonderful job as I make my students speak English all hour and they don't even know it. I don't have to force them and they seem to enjoy for the most part. You do get those super brainy kids with their nose in their book looking at the students with disgust, but oh well.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Witch Hunt

2011-09-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with some DUMBR. Last time we talked about a game for the boys called Zombie Attack. The correct answer was Scientist because he might be able to cure the disease. The Hunter because he has a gun. And the Teacher because he is smart and resourceful. Someone asked how old my kids are, they are mostly 15.

For the girls I will play a different game, its called witch hunt. Sadly its hard to explain and a bit complicated. First You get everyone in a circle. They are all the townspeople. You tell the town to go to sleep. You select two (or more) to be the witch by tapping their head. You say witches wake up, the two witches wake up and have to select one student to kill. No matter how many witches their are, they all have to agree to kill only one towns person.

Then everyone wakes up. It's a brand new day and they find that one towns person is now dead. It is up to the other towns people to talk among them and decide who they think is the witch. They must select two people, then those two people each give a statement as to why they are NOT the witch. After each statement the town picks only one person to execute. If they are wrong then another towns person died. If they are right there is one less witch.

Someone made an good point. In this game you can add other characters such as Police officers and Judges. I may or may not experiment with this. I think it would be a good idea as it would keep more people involved.

Your Teacher,
Witnermute

Zombie Attack

2011-09-22T16:24:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with some daily DUMBR. Every kid in America loves zombies and apparently so do Korean kids. This week with the boys I am doing a zombie attack survival scenario.

Basically I tell them there is a zombie virus outbreak and now there are zombies everywhere. There is a safe shelter about 5 miles away but only enough room for you and 3 other people. Of the 6 with you, you have to decide on which 3 would be the best to take and help you make it to safety.

There is; The Doctor, The Teacher, The Cheerleader, The Scientist, The Fireman, and The Hunter.

The student must weigh the Pros and Cons of each individual and then pick their three. Each person comes with a bio and information about them to help the kids, which I wont post them all but, which team do you think stands the best chance of making it to the shelter?

EDIT: My kids have given me some new ideas and some really good pros to choosing the cheerleader. (Haha) so the point system has changed. and I added two new classes. The Priest and Football player. The priest is immune to the zombies, but that's about it.

Your Teacher,

Wintermute

Open class

2011-09-20T20:22:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Your tired Wintermute here with some quick DUMBR. I just had my open class in front of the principles and all the English teachers and some random people I don't know. It went well. I picked the right class.

They walked in very nervous, so I was very fun and happy. Class started and I could tell they were not ready to talk as even attendance made them nervous. I did talk a little fast once or twice as I was a bit nervous but that's all. After attendance I brought out the 2ne1 ball and said my joke, everybody was laughing, it really helped break the tension. The teachers didn't laugh.

We then did some review, which went by so fast because they are my smartest class. Then we played a matching game. That too went twice as fast as usual. I then skipped a step (and didn't realize it until class was over) which is really bothering me still.

We moved on to charades, which I thought was going to be fantastic with these students. Buuut stupid Winter thinking a student wants to perform silly chores in front of her teachers and principles. She was sweating and red. BUT she gritted her teeth and did ...okay

Then the Haikus. We talked about syllables, they loved it. They were clapping along and doing too good. So that went fast. We did the worksheet a little fast. And then we did rhyming, which I have a lot of fun with. The kids and teachers were all laughing. And then it came time for the kids to write their haikus, I pass out the chocolate and let them write. This is supposed to entertain them for like 3 minutes and the bell rings. I checked the clock... I had ten minutes left. Ohh fudge.

So because I picked my smartest and best behaved it went very good but very fast. So I improved and my kids played along very very well with me. Because they did so well I bought three pizzas and am about to go to lunch with them. I'm glad its over.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Couple games

2011-09-19T16:39:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here to talk about teaching, welcome to DUMBR. I'm not sure if I have mentioned these things, if I have its always good to review. I have Open Class tomorrow so I am doing a lot of things to make sure it goes well.

Popsicle sticks:
I have placed everyone's name on a Popsicle stick and put them in a cup, when its time to call on someone I shake the cup and draw out a name. This is good because the sound of shaking will get the students ready, and it makes sure I call on everyone. Generally speaking I know who my good kids are and tend to just call on them when need arises. It is possible I will draw a bad kid stick, but then I can just help them which makes me look good too.

2ne1 Ball:
I am overly proud of this ball. I bought a ball and have written questions on it. I throw the ball to a student, they read the question then must answer it. I call it my 2ne1 ball because I can throw it... to anyone!!! DOOHOHOHO. My students like the joke...anywho, this is good because again it gets the kids attention and ready to catch. Its worked better than I thought.

Haikus:
I am also going to do Haikus for my open class. It helps teach syllables, which for Koreans is very important. They tend to put too many syllables in words, even my name. The start of my name does not exist in their language so they supplement it with an extra syllable. I have them clap along with the words we speak. They tend to enjoy it and write more haikus even after class.

I picked my smartest class for open class which is good...and bad. Things tend to go faster in that class, so I will have to try and really slow things down so not to end early.I guess we will find out tomorrow.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Blogs to Read

2011-09-15T23:08:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with some daily DUMBR. Over the months I've stumbled upon hundreds of blogs, many of which are worth no mention. However there can be no dark without a light so today I bring you the light and recommend some blogs I believe you should look at. Truly I would not have you waste time away from my blog to visit others unless I thought absolutely essential. Before I continue though I would like to point out the blogs on the left of the screen, those are good too.

Mr. B. Natural's Bad Movie Review Archive

Why you should go: The blog has been around for five years consistently reviewing movies that would otherwise be looked over given their bad production value. There are many out there who enjoy watching bad movies, there's even been T.V. shows about it. This blog is for those few who would nine times out of ten pop in "Plan 9 From Outer Space" instead of "Citizen Kane" here is a blog that helps navigate the overwhelming world of awesomely bad cinema.

Blog:

Facebook

thingamajig

Why you should go: It's a blog hosted by the cute shutterbug that provides a good brain exercise in the morning with your coffee. On the 1st day she post a picture of a random item, but there is a catch, you never know what the item is as the lens has been magnified to only reveal a small portion. On the 2nd day the whole image is revealed. The site itself is very user-friendly and keeps you coming back everyday for more.

Blog

The Joy of Cultured and Fermented Foods

Why you should go: The name really speaks for the blog. The purpose is to give helpful tips so you yourself at home can easily and cheaply enjoy cultured and fermented goods. Most of the authors post are experimental attempts, so its fun to follow along and see what happens next.

Blog

Tae Kwon Do (sp)

2011-09-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here. First off thanks for pointing out the typo in my last post. Made me laugh though how well it fits.

Last night the foreign teachers invited me to train with them at some Dojo they go to. I went. I was not impressed. The teacher was 70 some odd years old, so he had experience. He looked just like Master Roshi so that made me happy.

He had me fill out some paper work, I left most of it blank. He wanted 30,000 won for the uniform with a "emblem" on the back resembling some anime kids kick boxing. Admission was 100,000 won a month. I was told I would train for 3 days a week. 1 hour a day. The first ten minutes of every practice is spent meditating.

So assume there are 4 weeks in the month, that's 12 hours of practice. 10 minutes each hour spent meditating is a total of 2 hours a month. Meaning I only "train" for a grand total of 10 hours a month for 100,000 won. I'm not against meditating, it's just, I don't know.

When I got there, there were about 40 students, if he makes that much money per student and has that many students per hour, then he is not hurting for cash. Something tells me this guy is in it for the money, OR he does not charge 100,000 to everyone.

In fact the guy said that because we are foreigners we get special foreign training no one else gets (WOW, SO LUCKY!). Something tells me we got a special foreign discount too.I will let my fellow teachers play DBZ, I however will opt out.

Chuseok

2011-09-13T16:25:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here. Korea just celebrated its only real major holiday called Chuseok. It's their thanksgiving so to speak. Everyone leaves home and goes to the grandparents house to eat food such as seongpyeon. That's about it really.

Sadly during Chuseok the whole country is closed, no stores are open. I had to travel for 2 hours just to find an open McDonalds and one of my smartest students who thankfully had forgotten all English and was unable to bother me.

For the majority of the four day break I just played video games and got back into the habit of cooking. While I wanted to message people and friends I figured it best not to bother others during their holiday and family time.

Now school has started back up on a Wednesday and I want nothing more than lots of sleep.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Stalker

2011-09-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with a fun foreign fable in our daily dose of Dumbr. I went to the store to use the ATM there. I first wanted to check my bank balance, as i was typing in my pin number some guy came up and stood not 2 inches away from me. He saw my pin number and saw how much money was in my account.

I then took out some money. The guy started talking to me. He was the friendliest person on Earth, so friendly that surely nothing could be wrong about him.He just wanted to be my friend and bud.He started asking for my name and then my address, he wanted to know where I lived. He then began asking for my cell number. I told him I don't know where I live, my name is Winter and I don't have a cell phone. I'm pretty sure he could see the indention in my pocket outlining the shape of a cell phone because he kept insisting on the number saying I do have a phone.

He told me he just wanted to help me out and show me around, he asked how could we meet again. I told him same place same time same day. He said excellent. To be perfectly honest I feel a little insulted. I mean this guy didn't even try, to think I am that dumb, how rude. At least put some effort into it, get to know me a little, take me out for dinner or something.

Anyway, to those of you who travel abroad, don't be dumb, avoid people like this.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Syllabus

2011-08-29T16:41:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with another daily dose of DUMBR. Do you remember the first day of school? You go between 7 classes and in each class the teacher goes over the roster and then the syllabus. I'm starting to learn the power of the syllabus.

Yesterday I just about had it with the boys. Its the same routine every time. "I'm sorry teacher", "I wont do it again teacher", "its okay teacher", "give me one more time teacher". Sadly I dont do warnings, or one more times. I had about a whole day of this, and then I got a good class. Every student was quiet and paying attention and even asking questions! All except two.

They were hitting each other, saying every bad word under the sun, laughing loudly, talking, so on and so forth. I said stop, didn't work, so I had to move them. They wouldn't move. Oh man I snapped, made the two boys cry, which is okay, and then carried on with class and every body was laughing and having a good time so all ended well.

HOWEVER, I am now in the process of making a syllabus, and I will have every student sign the syllabus saying they understand the rules. I do this because of the excuses and sorriness. I do this for every time they say they did not understand, or did not know that was not okay. Which is BS of course, but now I will have their signature. I suggest all do the same.

Your Teacher,
Wntermute

Constraints

2011-08-28T16:32:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with some daily DUMBR. Kept myself busy this weekend with inFAMOUS 2. Finished it on hero route, played through most of evil. Good game, worth a pick up if you have a PS3.

It always bothers me how I never seem to have time to make good lesson plans for my classes. In Korea most schools pile on busy work for you to do to keep you busy. They don't want their foreigners having it easy. I understand this as most foreign teachers do take it easy and don't make lesson plans and just sort of wing it all the time.

The worst part are the excuses, right now I have to write 40 individual test, one for each class. They say its because they don't want the students cheating, but honestly the kids don't care enough about this test to try and pass, and they sure as hell don't care enough to cheat. Each test is about 25 questions, so that's about 1000 individual questions from my little noggin.

The time spent on this is time that could have been spent on making real lesson plans for my classes. I feel bad as I have a class thats completely free topic that I teach for about 3 hours a week. I could literally do just about anything. However with no time to prepare I just have them watch Modern Family.

Long story short, test suck, even for teachers.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Fireside Chat

2011-08-25T16:37:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with some DUMBR. I finally got a PS3, and am very happy. Spent the whole night re-DLing all my games off of the PSN. HOWEVER, because I got the PS3 in Korea it is an Asian PS3 meaning the buttons are mapped differently.

O is enter and X is cancel. Now I will say while it makes since when written out, my hands are permanently registered and wired to want to press X for enter. If you can remember the days of the Metal Gear Solid Menu screen or playing FF7 for the first time, it's like that. It makes every game have a different feel to it, and its a bit hard to get use to.

Some one asked if I'm leaving my Girlfriend for Japan. First off I'm not leaving until February, and I have no problem leaving people to satisfy my own selfish dreams. I would never base my life off of a relationship and I highly recommend you all do the same. Nothing is forever. I have left kith and kin on a daily basis, it gets easier.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

2011-08-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with DUMBR in the classroom. Miss me yet? School has been pretty good. Taking a bit to get back into the routine of things. I'm a little sad, Wednesday is my favorite day and favorite students and now its over, I have to wait a week to see them again. It was a very good Wednesday though, we just spent all hour talking in the classes. One hour was spent doing a critical analyses of 2ne1s music videos.

I am happy to see that a lot of students did do their homework and I have gotten some really good presentations. In fact one of my worse did the best. She didn't read anything, she was fully prepared and able to just talk for a solid 5 minutes.

The boys however have been terrible as expected. None did the homework, and have forgotten my rules, and gave me many opportunities to remind them.

I have begun applying for new teaching positions in Japan. So hopefully that goes well and gets me out of Korea. I am still searching for a PS3, its been hard. The rest of the world dropped the price to $250 but not Korea, and playasia.com still has them for $400.

Next post I will go back to writing about possible lesson plan ideas, you know, the point of this blog.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Back to school

2011-08-18T16:50:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with your hopefully more daily dose of DUMBR. School started back up this week so its back to teaching. Personally I'm very happy, I was getting rather bored over the vacation. However I am hoping things start off slow, I am still lagging a bit from 3 weeks of being lethargic.

On the plus side the temperature has dropped from an average of 36 - 40 to a now 21 - 25. It's raining and supposed to keep up all Month. I will begin looking at all of your post again in my off time.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Expenses

2011-08-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

Hello.

Wintermute here with a dear DUMBR diary. i feel like this summer has been a complete waste. i could have gotten in so much gamming. i am really considering buying a ps3, ive taken to watching lets play videos on youtube all day long.

I am also really missing american food. the first thing im buying when i get paid is a pizza hut pizza. and fried chicken. being low on income i have taken to eatting nothing but tuna twice a day. sadly i ran out of mayo and replaced it with honey mustard.... i dont recommend it.

Also someone asked me how i asked yuri to be my girlfriend. i was corny and did it in korean. if you are looking to ask a korean cutie out its "na rang gil re". Or something like that.
And the reason why the koreans age the same as chinese is because they both use a lunar calender. which is why i call them moon people.

To shona. i could not find your facebook. A thousands sorrys to you.

i gave my students summer vacation homework. im really curious to see if anyone did it haha. sadly most of my students resemble konata and not kagami.

your ten minute pastime,
Wintermute

Facebook Official

2011-08-08T19:07:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with some mibile DUMBR. Im trying to compose this message from my phone which is proving rather difficult and upsetting me. I took a short vacation to glorious nippon. I must say i am very proud ofmyself as i was able to understand most conversations while walking around. needless to say teachers pay did not permit me to stay long and now im bored beyond believe. thankgod for movie marathons on tv and doudecim. In case you were wondering about me and kimyuri it is now facebook official. sadly however shes away in seoul for the week on vacation with her parents which she says is really boring.

some of you asked about the diffence korean age and globla age. when a korean is born they are one year old as opposed to zero. also koreans use a lunar calender making the first of the year our febuary 26th. Why is that important? because koreans dont "age" on their date of birth. they age on the new year. Meaning in feb. everyone goes up one year. so what this means is everykorean will be at least one year off of their real global age or maybe even two. i had a friend born december 25th. which means when she was 2 months old she was considered 2 years old by korean standards. this is why you will see 4 year olds already in real school.silly i know.

Stay cool and bug bite free.sorry for the hundreds of typos.

your teacher,
Wintermute

Love and Boredom

2011-08-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here with some Dumbr. So its only the third day of summer break and I wish I had brought my PS3. I'm really considering buying a new one here. The boredom is maddening.

There is a restaurant I frequent called Hans Deli. I go there every other day. They know me well there and I get a lot of free food and drinks. recently a new girl started working there but only for a short while. I got her number and we've been talking non stop ever since. Sadly however I am dreadfully shy around her in person, I never know what to say and I sound like an idiot when I try and talk with my corny goofy smile.

Thankfully she is shy too, and clumsy. Yesterday while staring in one direction at me and walking in another direction away from me she dropped five plates she was holding which then broke into millions of pieces. I wanted to help clean but I figured the restaurant people would not let me.

She said she will be my girlfriend if I learn more korean. So I don't want to jump the gun and then sound like an idiot in a later post, but things look good. Most of our phone conversations last until 1 or 3 in the morning and usually consist of;

Me: go to bed,
Yuri: no i dont want to go to bed i want to talk to you, you go to bed
Me: I dont want to go to bed i want to talk to you, you go to bed.

and then there's

Me: I miss you
Yuri: I miss you more
Me: I miss you most

this goes on for about three hours a day.

And yes her name is Yuri, make all the jokes you want. She is 20 years old Korean age, so about 18-19 years old global age. I do think its rather funny though that my job is to train people to talk, yet I'm incapable of even saying hi to her sometimes. I hate being so shy. I'll take a picture of her so you all can see, because I know you love pictures.

Your Love Struck Shy Teacher on Summer Break,
Wintermute

Elementary School

2011-07-31T17:21:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wintermute here for some Dumbr. All last week I had to teach at various different elementary schools in the area. It was rather exhausting running all over the city trying to find these schools. Usually there was no body there waiting with any kind of instructions. So I would just roam the halls until I found some students.

I had to teach about recycling which was a major drag and hella boring. Most of the kids knew everything there was to know about recycling. The first day I was naive, I ran up full of smiles, and asked "WHY IS POLLUTION SO BAD?!?!?" The kids looked at me and said " teacher, pollution causes holes in the o-zone layer which allows the suns ultra violet rays to harm our skin".

So my lesson plan literally consisted of maybe 20 minutes talking about recycling, the other two hours spent talking and goofing off. The kids loved me and it was a lot of fun. Some really bad kids, some really special kids, some really smart kids correcting my English.

Thankfully the kids really enjoyed making piggy banks out of old bottles. Sadly some kids brought these heavy duty bottles, like power-ade or worse. So I had to cut them with a knife, I messed up and slit my thumb. With blood gushing everywhere the kids asked, "does it hurt teacher?"

Since you guys don't read and only want pictures, here are some pictures. You may notice the kids look old, because they are 13. 13 is a normal age for elementary students in Korea. Some pictures are middle school summer camp as well. I done for the next 3 weeks. I'm at my school now, I'm the only one here, but its the only computer I have. I'll stop in every other day maybe.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

Build a bridge

2011-07-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

Hello,

So I don't have to much time before my next class but this week is summer camp and we are building bridges. It's a 3 hour class and my first attempt was horrrrible. It went so bad. The kids were tired, its Monday, its summer, no one wants to be here. So I've made improvements, I hope the 2nd attempt goes better.

Will post updates regularly, off I go!

Update:

Okay, so second attempt did go better, however nobody really finished. It seems kids really don't like working with glue. I have wax paper now so I hope that helps. I'll tape it to the desk. I also won't spend the whole time on bridges. I'll open up with a fun game, then go into bridges. I'm also going to make the groups larger. Do girls against boys.

Update II:

So on Tuesday morning the school decided against building things. Which means the teachers all had to think of something else. None did however except for me, I am now just playing games for 3 hours with the kids. Which is going very well and we are having a lot of fun. To the one who posted saying you wanted to see the bridges, I have already posted mine. I did take a picture of one kids.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute