Ugh. My first summer camp has finished already. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't much fun. First, the host Native teacher was a real pain in the ass. She's been teaching ESL for 6 years and now talks to everyone like they're a 9-year old Korean student. It's grating. Or she could just be slow, but given the attitude on her, I doubt it. On the first day, she chose to offer her two cents on the election(she is American, but she might as well move to France). First, she gleefully announced, "I'm practically a hippy peacenik." Oh brother. I swear I did my best to keep my mouth shut. I loathe talking politics because everyone I talk to wets themselves and flops into a sputtering rage. Then she offered a bizarre conspiracy theory about how Barack Obama is going to have the election "stolen" from him by John McCain. At this point McCain is just happy he's remembered to wear pants every morning. I don't think he'll be "stealing" anything. Either way, this was the first day that we met. In fact, first conversation. By the end, I just stopped speaking to everyone in hopes that conversations would just die out without my help.

Then, I was informed that I had to put on some kind of performance with the kids. This was five minutes before practice began for the performances. Mine was lame. I freely admit. Here's a recording of the song we sang. We made signs for each of the feelings...



Sellers just made this his ringtone. My kids were in 3rd grade and I wanted them to understand what they were saying. I stand by my choice.

Then, we had the actual classes. They were 50 minutes long. I'm used to 40. I also discovered that Korean kids LOVE Mr. Bean videos. I played the one were he got the massive turkey stuck on his head. The class was three seconds away from wetting themselves.

The Korean staff was helpful and by helpful, I mean did nothing to get in anyone's way.

The rooms were air conditioned, so I had that going for me.

I went out for beers with the other teachers(except you know who) the night before the performances. Great people. It was the first time I hung out with Canadiens and didn't want to strangle them. Good times! We killed 6 pitchers between 4 people. Actual conversation. "You know, North Korea has people volunteer to do civil service. I wish other countries were more like that!" My response? "Is it "volunteering" if the other choice is getting shot or thrown in a concentration camp?" The response, "Well, I don't agree with all of their policies..." My response? Laughter. Morons.

On the last day, the head Korean teacher asked about our nationality. It was explained that we were 3 Canadiens, 1 Englishman and 2 Americans. The lazy, fat hippie chimed in with, "But! I'm a GOOD American." My response? "What the fuck does that mean? You pay taxes? You celebrate the 4th of July? What?" Then I was told that when she hangs out with Canadien friends, they introduce her as "An American, but she doesn't act like it." I would walk out of any bar where someone said this about me. Ugh. America's Fucking Hat, eh? Assholes. I'm going to start saying, "Doug is Canadien and he totally fucking acts like it."

Either way, the kids had a fun time with me. I'll post a pic of two of the thank you cards the kids made soon enough. Adorable. I had to do songs. I did the Hello Song with the younger ones and The Beatles, Yesterday, with the older ones. Good times.

My camp starts next week. I can't wait.

We have a guy from St. Louis who has been a total piece of shit so far. First, he wants to teach my kids about burping and farting. His assigned topic is "Table Manners." When he was asked to change his lesson his response was less than cordial and he refused to make the suggested changes. Then, my principal asked for drama scripts for the camp. He wants the classes to do skits in English. This guy threw a fit. He called the request, "absurd." I had to explain what absurd meant to my co-teacher. I thought she was going to cry. Then, in an attempt to smooth things over, he engaged me in a lengthy email discussion. My point was that he's wasting more time emailing me than he would if he just did what he was asked. I won. I got him to submit a script. It was awful and way too difficult, but I got him to do it. Matt's will is like the fucking force. Everyone bends to it, eventually. We're not using his script and sent him an email to that effect. I haven't heard the response, but I can imagine that it's priceless. If its good enough I'll post it here.

Less than 3 weeks until my vacation. I NEED A BREAK.