Wednesday, July 11, 2012

30 Days and 30 Nights in South Korea

I'm back!

Well, bless my lucky stars; I'm back! Apparently, Korea has a strong magnetic force and I am by no means immune. It's been just under a year since I last laid foot in the good old Republic of Korea, and I'm glad to see it is doing just as fine as ever! The intense summer humidity, distinctive architecture of Incheon airport and tantalizing aroma of Deli Manjoo cream cakes in the subway station flooded my mind with the fondest of memories from 2010. I was thoroughly reminded of how exciting it was to come here two years ago as a first-time English teacher and continue to be instilled with excitement for the next six weeks.

Perhaps, dear reader, you are wondering by what means I can return to Dae Han Min Guk for such a short time. Well, back when I was a TaLK scholar,  a certain un-named summer camp was responsible for our extensive month-long orientation. Through their remarkable organization and workshop instruction they were able to effectively train over 200 brand new TaLK scholars. After a year of teaching, I left South Korea thoroughly inspired and came back USA to begin work on my MATESOL program, but I soon found that I distinctly missed the experiences of teaching and living in South Korea. So, around January I looked up the camp again up again and applied for their summer 2012 program in April. After a rigourous, tedious, treacherous, viscious visa application (with which I am sure all fellow English teachers are familar and love), I finally recieved confirmation that I had been hired for their month long camp. I will be based in the same tiny town where I lived for a year previously in Chuncheongnam-do province, darling little Jochiwon.

I thank my lucky stars for the ample summer break provided to graduate students and public school teachers, so I am able to teach at Camp Korea for a month and return to my job and studies. I am SO excited to be back and am ready to teach English the FUN way. Hapshida!