Week 27, 28, 29 and 30: Half way there
Hello everyone! I am back with another post. I seem to be only capable of posting only once a month so I am sorry about that. I know in my last blog I said I’ve been crazy busy but truly this past month has been crazy busy!
So for the past month, I’ve been busy planning and organizing the English Summer Camp that I will be hosting and teaching at my little school. There is only 19 students (but that’s all of my 4th, 5th and 6th grade students). My school asked me to theme it around American Holidays as that’s what they did last year. Last year they learned the major three of Christmas, Thanksgiving and Halloween. This year I decided to make each day based on a holiday so I will be doing New Years, Independence Day and Easter. I have activities, crafts and games they’ll be doing throughout the camp including an Easter Egg Hunt! I’m excited to see how this will go. The camp starts this coming week, so hopefully it goes well and the students are interested in it.
I am also on summer break now except for my English Camp that is only 3 days long. I have until August 30th so it’s a decent break. Summer breaks here in Korea are much shorter than the States but I’m glad we even get a break because some people don’t really even get that. Many of the students continue going to their academies even throughout the summer break. My host sisters have to continue going to their English, Math and Piano academies which they don’t like. Some schools hold English Summer Camps for two weeks which then usually only gives the students two weeks of actual summer break. Thankfully, my school‘s English Camp is only 3 days.
This past weekend, I went to an island called Jeju Island. It’s suppose to be the Hawaii of Korea. To be honest, I feel like it was a wee bit underwhelming but that maybe because I’ve gone to a lot of coastal places. I’m sure if this was my first costal island, it would be amazing. Don’t get me wrong, Jeju was very pretty and I’m glad I went but I think everyone hyped it too much for me so I was expecting more. I will say, Jeju has a different vibe from mainland Korea. The people are more chill and relaxed and the locals speak a lot more English. I think that’s because they are use to foreigners. While in Jeju, I ended up hiking one of the biggest mountains in South Korea. The mountain is called Hallasan Mountain. In general, they say it takes about 10 hours round trip to get to the top and come back down. However, I was able to hike it in about 6.5 hours. I don’t really know what made me want to hike the mountain, but I did and I’m glad I did. It was such a pretty hike but grueling. It‘s been a couple of days since the hike and my legs are still in pain whenever I walk up and down the stairs. The top of the mountain was so pretty because we were up in the clouds and the fresh air was quite nice. Anyhow, besides Hallasan mountain, I also went to a fall water and basically just cruised and explored Jeju. I would go back again because I think there was still a lot to do that I didn’t have time for and wasn’t able to get to.
Anyhow, after coming back from Jeju, it was my host sister’s birthday so we celebrated that and and went to another mountain and just caught fish and chilled. After all of that I finally went to my long anticipated doctor‘s appointment. I FINALLY GOT MY COVID VACCINE!!! South Korea has been quite slow on the vaccinations so I’m just lucky that I was counted as a public service worker (teachers) who are able to get vaccinated early compared to the general public. I got the Pfizer vaccine yesterday and I will say, my arm hurts so much. I think this is the worse reaction I’ve gotten from any vaccines I’ve previously have gotten. It honestly may just be a combination of body fatigue from Jeju, school semester ending and stress with the summer camp stuff but man does my body feel exhausted. However, I am so extremely grateful that I’ve been partially vaccinated. Can’t wait for my second dose!
Like I said, this coming week is my Summer English Camp which is only 3 days. After summer camp, the very next day, I get my eye surgery! I think I mentioned it in a previous post but I will be getting Lasek surgery on both eyes. I’m super pumped and can’t wait for that. After my surgery, I have about 3 weeks before I have to go back to school so I will probably just take some rest to recover and maybe do a sole trip. But because of my eye surgery I won’t be able to go to kickboxing so I am going to miss that for awhile and hopefully when I go back, I’m not too far behind everyone. Anyhow, that’s all I got! Stay safe and healthy everyone, miss y’all!
Enjoy theses pics and videos. Yes some are of me struggling during the Hallasan hike.
