How could I not?

Lucky for you all, I can never sleep the night before I travel. As such, I will bring you a few insomnia induced photos from third and fourth grade Harry Potter English Camp ie: The Best/Cutest Thing Ever.

See what I mean??

A day that I love my job.

Almost done with Summer English Camps and, in honor of a really splendid day, I bring you.... 

What Emily Teacher and her 3rd graders do

when they are not pretending to be wizards:

2 days 'til Cambodia!

Anyeong[hikheseyo].
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Some things have no cultural boundaries...

And, as it turns out, making pirate ships out of cardboard boxes is one of those things...

 

I just finished teaching my first round of English camps, which were just fab. So much work but also so much fun. Lest you be concerned, we also did other things.... like make pizza, and turn ourselves into sea monsters. Remember how this is my job ?? nbd. 

언녕하새요, from Banji English Camp! One week until Cambodia and Vietnam!!

The least American I've ever been.

Some of you may have noticed that this past Monday was the Fourth of July. As such, many of your weekends/Mondays were probably filled with this..

this...

and maybe a little bit of this...

source .  source .  source.

Not mine, my friends. Not mine.
How did I commemorate America's independence??
Like this...

[ In the top picture, the principal is wearing a white shirt, three seats in from the window. The woman in pink shirt is one of my Co-teachers Julie and the man in the front staring into the camera may or may not have told Julie he wants me to convert to Christianity. So there's that.]

Yeah, that's right! Teacher Dinner! Surprise!

Literally.

Monday afternoon, I was midway through deciding whether or not I was going to trek into Itaewon, Seoul's foreigner hub, or try to hit up one of the army bases in Pyeongtaek for some good old 'Merican festivities, when I was informed that the 3rd grade, 6th grade, and English teachers would be going out to dinner with the principal and asked if I would like to join?

After a few moments of trying to figure out whether the other English [read: English Speaking] teachers would be attending, and realizing that I really didn't want to spend four hours of my evening on the subway, I was in.

Fast forward to 4 o'clock. I hopped into the back seat of my co-teacher Julie's car, and sat chatting with her and the other teacher we were driving. Next thing I knew, we were pulling into my little block in Jangdang and picking up the principal. Yeah, the principal. The man who apparently lives on my block. Also, the man I have spoken to approximately 4 times since my arrival. That isn't to say he is unfriendly, I have simply only seen the man a total of 5 times since I came to Banji, all of which have been pleasant, but slightly awkward, encounters. A point of interest is that one of those times was around noon on the same day as said dinner. Having arrived at lunch earlier than usual, Juha and I ended up sitting directly across from the head-hancho himself. I made a valiant attempt to gracefully eat my BBQ chicken wings with the provided metal chopsticks; but, really, I think that's asking a little too much.

Moving on. After a short carpool-to-soccer-practice-esque backseat ride with 교감선생님, we pulled into a restaurant a bit further of the beaten track than I have ventured thus far in Songtan. As it turns out, on this particular  evening we would be eating a super traditional Korean meal called 한정식 (hanjeongsik) or "set meal." A set meal is comprised of upwards of 30 small dishes serving a variety of traditional Korean foods. Many of these dishes are considered Banchan (side dishes) but our meal also included hot plates of Bulgogi (thin marinated beef) as well as steaming bowls of Samgaetang (Chicken Ginseng soup ^.^) and Dwenjangjiggae (Spicy Soybean broth, with tofu, peppers, and zuchini).

NomNomNomNomNom.

Overall, a large quantity of deliciousness was consumed and a good time was had. The principal even attempted to make conversation and then proceeded to drill Julie about my life story. He then poured me a few glasses of Makgoli (rice wine) and demanded a do-over when I did not finish my last glass (which is actually a small bowl) in "one shot."

In the absence of Disco Papa, I rounded out the night with a bit of Pyeongtaek convenience store loitering, before hopping on the subway and crashing like a sack of Korean taters on the princess bed.

Looking back, this may have been the least American (and most Korean) way I could have possibly spent the fourth; but, I have to say, the entire afternoon/evening was great.  I have recently (read: since the onset of Monsoon Season) been feeling a bit nostalgic for bonfires, lakes, and American BBQ, but then something will happen which reminds me that Korea wont last forever. All those other things, they will be back in my life before I know it. Korea, on the other hand, will be ocean's away. ㅠ.ㅠ

Also, I realized this afternoon that I have 4 weekends... Yeah. 4. TOTAL. weekends. left in Korealand.
I almost started crying in my office. On that note...


Dear life, 
If you could chill out for just moment that would be great.
감사합니다,
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Blog Preview Trivia #2: Who has the largest personal collection of BluRay DVDs in the world (over 1.5 million)???

TwinkleTown MusiCAL.

Ok.
Confession Number 1 slash Exhibit A of "Weird things happen when I don't have roommates to talk to"..... I just did this for a good 10 minutes..

Confession number 2....I am psychic.

See, you all thought I was simply filling this here blog with the random goings on and bits of fluff within my brain. What you didn't know is that I am very in tune with all of your dearest hopes, dreams, desires and worries. For example, as you read this I am fairly certain my fam (read: parents) are already loosing sleep over the potential food born ailments I may contract during my next summer adventure in South East Asia. The rest of you, I am sure, are loosing sleep over far more important issues. What exactly am I doing at 2pm every Wednesday, for example.

My parents, most unfortunately, will have to wait some months before their burden of worry is lifted. For the rest of you however, whose deepest desire is to know how I spend my humpday afternoons, I have prepared a little gift.

Wednesdays are rough by all accounts. I teach four (or sometimes all five) of my 5th grade classes, whose behavior generally leaves something to be desired. I spend large portions of my day tapping my marker against to board, waiting for the entire class to respond to "How many fingers am I holding up?" and staring at my classes in annoyed silence while those students who would like to learn some English marshal the rest of the class.  Basically my nightmare fourth graders from last semester have graduated to nightmare fifth graders, some of which have literally NO idea what I am talking about as they haven't paid attention for the last two years of English class. Not Awesome, to say the least.

The silver lining, icing on the pile of poop, BEST THING EVER, about my Wednesday's, however, is a real gem. At approximately 1:50pm each third day of the week, Juha and I lock up our office and head to the yellow room for "English Musical Class."

Yeah. That's right. Me. Musical. Teacher.
Awesome. Horrible. Ridiculous. Wonderful.

I will say it took a while to get over my initial fit of giggles and bout of horror from being told I would be teaching "Musical" class, after which I attempted to explain to Juha that my extensive itunes musical library does not mean that A. I know ANYTHING about musicals or B. I have ANY musical talent. But, initial reactions and self-doubt aside, English Musical is THE BEST CLASS EVERRR.

Basically, I spend an hour with around ten of my favorite 4th-6th grade students, all of whom are super enthusiastic, all of whom WANT to be there, and all of whom speak quasi (elementary) conversational English. We practice scenes and songs from a bizarro Korean elementary adapted version of "The Wizard of Oz" during which the students some how manage to change their roles ever week. It's really just a grand old time.

This week I took advantage of my role as director and decided to film a few of the scenes after one or two rounds of practice. The hope was to have to students take it somewhat seriously, and to use the tapes next week before working out stage directions (or whatever they are called).

So, my friends, with out further adiue, I bring you scenes four and five from Banji English Musical Class presents "The Wizard of OZ."

Anyeong[hikheseyo].
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At last, the missing piece.

You know, I always thought the Beaver Waddle/Fun Run/Spring Fling were missing something...

The missing piece, it seems, was waiting all along, halfway around the world, in South Korea.

What is this illusive ingredient? The one thing that brings it all together? The coco in the chili, the vanilla in the french toast, the nutmeg in everything?

The answer is this, plain and simple...Choreography.

 

While I have only fleeting memories of the Willow Grove Beaver Waddle and Ivy Hall Fun Run, and slightly more accurate recollections of my high schools annual Spring Fling, I can say for certain there was no school wide choreography to be seen. Yes a pep rally was involved at the high school level and we may or may not have done some stretching in the early years; but, most of my memories involve a sort of Beaver t-shirt clad free-for-all ending when the first two students from each class got to pick up the Gatorade and bring it to their meeting place. (I got to do it in the fourth grade. Just saying.)

 

Sports Day in Korea is no Beaver Waddle, it is a different animal all together. Some sort of Godzilla-My Little Pony hybrid, if I had to say. And it. is. awesome.

After having my teaching schedule disrupted, altered, canceled, rearranged, and generally trodden upon for the last three weeks, and being told these alterations were to accommodate "Sports Day rehersal," I was pretty anxious too see what the day was all about.  Especially as my own experiences have taught me that little to no practice is required for the general chaos that usually result from such events. My anticipation was non-the-less having caught glimpses of students running through the halls with colored parasols, and snippets of barked Korean orders spewing from the outdoor P.A. during rehersal times.

My dearest Banji ES did not disappoint.  Sports Day started off bright an early at 8:30. While parents found places to stand, or sit on the hill opposite the school, Banji 1000 students were gathered and organized by class on the sports field. Many classes were sporting matching painted t-shirts, others wore their blue and yellow gym uniforms. After some opening remarks, which I obviously didn't understand, we were ready to go. The students sang the national anthem (it think) and school song (I am pretty sure) in unison, and then got down to business. I am told that ever Korean student, at least in the last decade, has learned a set of choreographed stretches or warmups for such events. I am also told this is on of the series of audio orders I have been hearing for the last 2 weeks. After one of the teachers popped in a CD and connected it to the loud speaker, and one of the male teacher was summoned to the announcing area to lead, all 1000 students began a series of stretches, lunches, and jumps in preparation for the days events. Here is where I began to understand the need for hours of rehersal.

Once warm-ups were out of the way, the day progressed through a series of races, relays and games. There were two different renditions of tug-o-war (the second of which was aided buy 10 dad's rounded up from each teams supporters) and a few games that involved activities like turning over as many squares of cardboard as you can (the team who has the highest number of their colored squares facing up is the winning team) and throwing hackey-sacks at your teams suspended plastic spaceship looking container until the bottom drops off (the first team whose space ship looses its bottom half is showered with ribbons and confetti before being declared the winner). The day was capped off with boy and girls relays with one student for each class, as well as a teacher and parent relay. 

 

While this may no seem like an excess of choreography, I assure you I have saved this important addition for last. Thus far I have failed to mention that in between each set of activities we were treated to preformances by after school groups such as Korean drum class and Latin Dance class (which apparently exists at my Korean Elementary School...).  There were also entire grade choreographed performances from Kindergarten through third grade, costumes, props, and all. When the time came for the actual sports day competitions, students were lead by peers and teachers in large cheering sections. Basically it looked a little something like this...

 

 

and IT. WAS. FABULOUS!

The day came to a close around lunch time when, after a final series of singing and stretching, I was ushered upstairs into one of the teachers offices where we feasted on fried chicken and Vitamin C Drink provided by (I think) the equivalent of the PTO.

So Fab. So Rad. More pictures to be posted in time, maybe a video if I get ambitious.
Anyeong[hikheseyo].
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