Napo, till we meet again
Last Friday was my last day teaching at Napo Middle School until March 5th, 2009, when we will start a new year. The Korean school year starts in the Winter (usually February, but delayed this year by holidays), rather than the fall, so the winter break here is equivalent to the summer break in American schools, and lasts two months (with a mystifying brief week in the middle to celebrate graduation); the summer break is only a month long.
My classes on the last day consisted of watching Transformers and playing Soccer (I proved to be quite out of shape, but was still able to make an amazing goal which won the hearts of the graduating third-year's forever). Anyway, in honor of the last day I have decided to finally post some pictures and a video of the school which I took about a month ago. See the flickr album for the full set of photos.
I really enjoyed teaching at Napo (the small class sizes and laid-back atmosphere are wonderful), and am looking forward to going back.
Foul!
OK, it's just unfair that you get a school in a pretty location, with such attentive students, and few classes, and a semi-private office, AND a co-teacher with excellent English (Mr. Sam is a lot better than most of my co-teachers)! And it's so clean, and in one piece. There has to be foul play involved here somewhere...
But seriously, you've got a great school. I'd look forward to going back there, too.
office? looks like a teachers' lounge
That's the biggest office I've ever seen. It's bigger than the teachers' lounge at BU. Nice situation. Did I see a fridge there? By the way, what kind of cold drinks do people drink in Korea? Is there local soda? Western soda? Iced tea? Iced soju? ...
Did your co-teacher know you were filming? I enjoyed the video. Nice to see your route to school. And the classroom scene was very fun - can you do more of that?
Yeah, my napo situation is
Yeah, my napo situation is very nice, and unusual. In Jayang I have the more typical set-up of sharing a room with several teachers (in Jayang's case, all the teachers); at Napo most of the teachers share one large room, but for some reason unknown Sam and I get a seperate one to ourselves (I have not yet determined whether this is a priviledge, or the opposite--but I like it in either case). And yes, there is a fridge. As far as drinks, I have something different just about every day: typically little drinks in little bottles with various herbs or roots pictured on the outside. I have no clue what they all are... one was called honey something, one had ginseng, some are yogurt-related, many have lots of vitamin C, and all are good for digestion, or preventing lung cancer, or making you strong, etc. They have soda here, but don't tend to drink it much, as far as I can tell.
I'll try to get some more classroom videos up soon.