The day after I arrived in Seoul, I found a 2 week job working an English Camp. I was stoked, I had never worked at an English Camp but it sounded fun. It is basically a camp that parents send their kids to during Winter or Summer vacation. The camp is supposed to be a completely English speaking environment. There are some English classes, but there are also a lot of regular camp type activities done in english.
After getting the job I had a few days to explore Seoul and I figured one thing out really quickly. Seoul gets really cold in the Winter. Most days the temperature was around 20 degrees Fahrenheit (-5 Celsius). Not ideal weather for sightseeing. I could only handle about 20-30 minutes outside at a time, so I spent a lot of times in malls, boring.
By the time that Sunday came around I was really excited to start work. I had more than enough idle time on my hands. We met at Sadang station exit 7. There was a bus waiting for us that would take us all to the camp. This was the second week of the camp and most the people on the bus worked the first week. I felt a little out of place since I didn’t know anyone.
I can’t remember the name of the city where the camp was but it was about 90 minutes from Seoul. We had a quick meeting and the told us what we would be doing tomorrow, but they never gave us very specific instructions. After the meeting I went to the bunk where I would be living for the next 5 days. I shared a room with two other Americans Matt and Fernando, who came out from the States just to work the camp.
The next morning the students arrived. I was one of the teachers selected to stand outside and greet all the incoming students. I was out there for about an hour and a half and by the time the last group of students arrived my hands, feet, thighs and faces were almost completely frozen.
The was over 300 students total and they were divided into classes based on their ages, each class was named after a country. My class was Mexico and they were all around 10 years old. I met my students and we had an opening ceremony then Lunch in the Cafeteria. For the duration of the camp I would eat all my meals with the students in the cafeteria.
The first day was rough. I we had to keep the kids busy and entertained from 9am to 9pm. By the end of the day I was beat and I wondered how I would be able to handle 4 more days of this before our weekend break between sessions. The days however got easier. I got used the schedule, and I started to have a lot of fun with the kids. Watching kids this age is a lot of work. There was 20 students in my class and 2 teachers, me and Teddy my Korean assistant teacher. I would have gone insane without Teddy he did a really good job with the children, and he had quite a few more responsibilities than me.
All the days of the camp kind of blended together in hind sight. There were lots of classes, actities, crafts, sports, games and role playing. Between all the activities we ate a bunch of meals in the cafeteria on metal trays. Some of the meals were good, some were bad. Before each meal we would go the auditorium and they call each class one by one to go and get their food. During this process they would play Tom and Jerry Cartoons. I probably saw about 3-4 hours of T&J during the 5 days and I would be happy if I never saw another one of their skits again.
Friday night at the camp each class did a performance. I had no idea what they expected so I let Teddy take this one over. Most the classes including ours did some sort of hip-hop dance. Luckily teddy knows quite a few dance moves so he came up with some choreography. He made a mix or Daftpunk, Soulja Boy and T-Pain and taught the 10 years old a really ambitious dance routine. We had a few sessions in the week when we were supposed to work on it. During the show on Friday night, I was amazed at how good our kids were. Unfortunately we didn’t win, but I still think we should have.
The performance was basically the grand finally for the camp. After it we had a snack party with out students the next morning after breakfast they would be leaving.
Saturday morning I was again standing outside freezing and saying bye to all the students. It was amazing how much their attitudes had changed during the 5 day camp. When we greeted them Monday morning it was obvious they didn’t want to be here, but on Saturday some of the students seemed sad to leave.
The first camp was kind of rough, I had to figure a lot of things out and I never really knew what I was supposed to be doing. I was looking forward to the second camp. This time I would know what was expected of me and I would be able to make the camp more enjoyable for the students.
Unfortunently, Friday night after the performance over half of the teachers were laid off. They gave us a heads up on Wednesday telling us that there was some cancellations and they might not need all the teacher for the second week of camp, but we were all surprised with how many of us were let go. The only teachers that were kept were the ones who flew out from their native countries specifically for the camp.
I had a signed contract for 2 weeks of work, but since I don't have a work visa yet there is nothing I could do to enforce it. If I went the authorities and complained I would get in trouble for working illegally.
I was bumbed. I had been expecting to work 2 weeks, now I didn’t know what I would do with myself the second week. I had been in contact with another camp, that just needed someone for the second week, but by now that job was gone. I checked the job boards a week ago before I started the camps there was plenty of English camps, now they were all gone.
When I got back to Seoul I saw someone from CS had put a post about another English Camp that needed a teacher ASAP. I talked to them the camp was only 2 days, and it was about 7 hours away by bus. The pay wasn’t that great, but they would cover the cost of transport and I had nothing else to do. So I jumped on the next bus to Jeaunheung (I think that is the city's name). Arrived there around 10 pm. My roomates were out when I arrived, they showed up wasted around 2:00am. They offered me a beer and I tried talking with them. It’s hard talking to drunk people when you are sober. These guys were pretty drunk and they were waking everyone up, including the students. I was trying to save them from themselves but they weren’t having it. The camp director wasn’t impressed the next morning, but she also didn’t seem too pissed. This camp was pretty easy compared with the other one. I worked one full day and one half day. They had another group of campers coming in after I left but they said they had enough teachers for this camp.
The students left after lunch on the second day of camp, and I could have taken a bus back to Seoul that night, but I had nothing to do in Seoul and I thought it would be fun to stick around one more night and go out with some of the teachers. I went out to a Korean BBQ place with my roomates. We drank beer and Soju (Korean Rice Wine), probably too much Soju I was kind of hurting the next day on the bus.
Now I am back in Seoul. I have a job lined up that starts in the beginning on Feb. Also I will be taking a trip to Japan next week so that I can get my work visa. I’m hoping to find another camp or some kind of substituting job on my free days here in Seoul.
