Bill.

My 5 days of Summer Vacation has officially begun-WOOHOO!! My schedule is already super laid-back, but it will be nice to sleep in and relax and not worry about anything for a few days :) We're still in the middle of Monsoon Season, so that's been wonderful...It's pretty much been raining since I stepped off the plane. We've had a few dry days here and there, but otherwise, torrential downpours. I realized pretty soon after I arrived that my pink, travel-sized umbrella just won't do in this weather. It's convenient that it's travel-sized, but not so convenient that it doesn't completely cover me when it's raining.

I'm very fortunate that I live on the 3rd floor. There has been so much flooding here which is scary. A lot of the really bad flooding is in Seoul, where cars are underwater and the streets are flooded. The mudslides have been the worst. In a small town nearby, CheonCheon, a group of students were staying in a hostel when they were swept away in the middle of the night. Within the past 48 hours, we've had the amount of rain that typically falls in June and July combined. Please keep South Korea in your prayers over the next week!!

One of my 7-year-olds, Bill, made a huge improvement today in class. When he came to the hagwon, he didn't know any letters of the alphabet. He was struggling a lot, and wasn't fitting in with any level of our classes. All our students are pretty advanced, so he was just put in the lowest class. Over the few weeks that I've been here, it's been quite a struggle for him. In Speaking class, he tried to memorize what other students said so he could pretend to know what he was doing. It was obvious that he wasn't really learning though. His parents have gotten him an extra tutor on top of his academy AND hagwon tutoring, and it has obviously paid off. Today, we had a reading test. I gave the students a passage to read from their books. He read every single word correctly, ON HIS OWN!! It was such a victory!! I was so excited for him! We high-fived, and Bill's three classmates clapped and cheered for him. It felt so good. It definitely made my whole day. I bragged about Bill all day today, and told everyone how proud I was. It was a wonderful teacher moment for me :)