School's Out!

... except for 25 days of so-called "Winter Camp" running from Jan. 4 to Feb. 3. It is only half-days, too. Which means I have the rest of this week, and the month of February, free. At this point, I'm hoping to plan a little jaunt to a sparsely populated beach in the Gulf of Siam to warm up in the sunshine and read a good book.

I finally got the details of camp, and my class rolls today--after being told class sizes would be no more than fifteen to twenty, first period has 25. Which is really just too big to have the kind of conversational tone and speaking activities I put together. Oh, well. On the other hand, if it's true to form, the student attendance will dwindle rapidly to reasonable numbers.

Second period has 16 English-enthused souls, since I am informed everyone voluntarily signed up to take English with me, third period is planning, and fourth period, just before lunch, has only eleven.

Today being the last day of school, we had a brief ceremony followed by a free lunch of galbitang--with makkuli and beer. For some reason or other, I was singled out by the principal to stand up and be applauded. I clarified later that no one was under the impression I was leaving anytime soon. I guess they just appreciate my diligence, enthusiasm and creativity. Hey, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.