Today is Friday so it's time to reflect on the week that was. It's weeks like these, by the way, that make me stop and realize just how nice we have it here. The only days I taught this week were Monday and Tuesday, which isn't too shabby.
Flash digression! - days taught the last 5 weeks or so.
-This week (Oct 18-22) - taught 2 days
-Last week (Oct 11-15) - taught 4 days, Friday's classes got cancelled day of
-Midterms (Oct 4-8) - taught Monday, desk-warmed rest of week
-Orientation (Sept 27-Oct 1) - taught Mon and Tues, went to GEPIK Orientation in Anseong rest of week(soooo much to talk about that lil gem of an event ie the other "interesting" English teachers in Korea)
-Chuseok or Korean Thanksgiving (Sept 20-24) - desk-warmed on Monday, went to Busan rest of week, see 'Busan videos'
-For those keeping score, I haven't taught a Friday class since mid-September. Which is sweet because Fri is my worst day of classes. 5 total. Mostly middle school 3rd graders (8th graders in USA). Mostly painful.
Ok! Back to the mission at hand. All week, the kids and teachers alike have been preparing for Wednesday's school festival. Hours of after-school sweaty dance rehearsals. Endless practice free kicks. Band practice. The whole 9 yards. The brisk Wednesday morning started with a trip down from the teacher lounge to the soccer field. The entire student population was on the field doing warmup-stretches in unison not unlike something you see Communist armies doing. On the sidelines, in the meanwhile, a group of mothers was setting up a Korean concession stand with all the usual suspects: dokbokki (my go-to), udon soup, instant coffee, cold seafood corndogs (ironically called "hot bars"), cow/pork? liver, and my new fave, sundae! (pronounced soon-day) which is a pig intestine casing stuffed with cellophane noodles and congealed pork blood. Sounds gross I'll admit, but once you realize you're eating noodles and some mystery organ, it's pretty tasty. It was a sight to see to say the least. Lucky for me I brought an appetite and my [Mom's] Flip cam (vids coming!!!).
The rest of the morning entailed all of the kids on the sidelines and in the stands watching the soccer tournament pan out. Teams were based on homerooms and as to be expected, no matter where in the world you are, the boys went nuts for it.
After jamming on sundae and cheering for some kids I recognized, I ate lunch and headed upstairs to the gym to watch the performances-aspect of the school festival. I walked in to a hot, stuffy gym packed with enough middle school boys to make Michael Ja......mm nevermind. Apparently the MC for the event (oh yes there was a hired MC) was some popular TV personality and the kids went crazy for him. Didn't catch a name. Remember the Lady Gaga kid from last post? No? You didn't read last post? Mmkay well forget you then. I got there just in time to see him and his 2 cohorts breaking it down to "Telephone" while wearing head-to-toe animal costumes. You gotta see it to believe it (remember vids coming soon). Also, a local high-school-girls dance team made a special guest appearance and broke it down to a few k-pop jams including Miss A's "Bad Girl, Good Girl". From what I've heard from other English teachers, it's the go-to song for these school festival dance performances. If you haven't heard it, I recommend it. Kinda catchy. Yeah I said it. You'll also most likely hear it on the school festival vid I make. The best of there dance was seeing the boys at an all-boys middle school go absolutely bananas over these high school girls. It's similar to what would happen if David Hasselhoff walked into a German Mary Kay party. Boys were freaking out at the sight of 5 girls with not-so-conservative dance moves. So funny. The rest of the afternoon was filled with other dance teams and wannabe boy bands.
Overall, the day was too much fun to put into words. I'm really excited to get this video online. Ccub.
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