Good-bye Dear Samcheon. It's been a Year!

As July rolled around last summer, Melissa had the difficult and relatively unenjoyable task of saying good-bye to a number of dear students at both Seongcheon Elementary School and Bongam Elementary School.

At that time, Melissa Teacher was nearly certain she'd enter the world of Korean middle or high school. However, mid-August 2011 revealed that Daejeon Ministry of Education had other plans and would be sending her to Samcheon Elementary School. From the moment she learned of this teaching assignment throughout the following year, Melissa Teacher has experienced the roller-coaster of emotions typical to working in South Korea. Frustration. Elation. Surprise. Apathy. Understanding. Anger. Gratitude.

27 on the 27th: A Golden Weekend

One week ago, Melissa awoke to the day she has so long anticipated, April 27th, 2012. Even before learning about the blessed 'golden birthday' (the birthday on which ones new age matches the day of the month), Melissa was sure being 27 would be the most fabulous thing in the world. (Recent reflections have convinced her that getting older seems a bit more promising than daunting, anyway, reflections for another time and place).

Seeing how Melissa's birthday was on Friday, she was required to wake upon the regular morning hours and make her way to Samcheon Elementary school where she'd be required to energetically and enthusiastically teach five classes of 4th grade students. Fortunately, these are some of her favorite students and her classroom as well as the school halls were filled with sweet voices singing the Happy Birthday song or shouting birthday wishes for Melissa Teacher. Not to mention the gifts and sticky note messages, hand made cards and candies that also filled Melissa Teacher's desk.

Aside from all the attention afforded by students, Melissa was also honored to receive an ice cream/gelato cake from the subject teachers, although the flavors ranged from grape to strawberry to cheese (as in processed cheese), the thought was quite nice and the fruit flavors quite lovely.

Samcheon Winter Camp 2011

For Melissa Harrington, this years Winter Camp was professionally encouraging. Nearing the end of the MAED program she began in October of 2010, Melissa was able to see a number of things she'd learned over the course of the year take shape and create a positive learning environment for students, not to mention having a phenomenal group of 5th and 6th graders.

Highlights from Samcheon Winter Camp 2011:

• Hidden Talents (splits and yo-yo tricks)


• Daily tasks undertaken with committment (vocabulary rating and dictionary making)


• Our friend 'Joe'


• Laughing snails, crying bears, jumping rabbits, kicking dogs and so much more


• Mixed-up People (students who are tall like giraffes, can sing like IU, and are scary like dragons)


• Making Kimbap


• Guest Appearances


• Watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs


• Writing Role-plays


• Playing Woosh Ball


• Being given a Korean name: 김맬리사 (Kim Melissa)


• Playing Evolution Tag


• Practing Role-plays


• Wearing a chicken apron


• Making and Eating Hamburgers (being hand-fed Hamburger)


• Watching How to Train a Dragon


• Performing Role-plays


• Writing and Creating Stories

Want to see for yourself how wonderful English Winter Camp 2011 at Samcheon was? Let the video and photos speak for themselves.

My FAVORITE thing out of camp ever!