The Best Student Festival I've Ever Been To

Yesterday.... the festival. It was a lol'rcoaster of a day, from start to finish.
When I arrived at school in the morning, everything was chaos. Teachers and students were buzzing around like mad chickens, cleaning, "getting dressed" (?!), preparing snacks, and generally being stressed out and upset. It was really weird. I just kind of sat at my computer and calmly stared into space for a good three hours.

We had been scheduled to perform sharp and early at 9AM. Shockingly enough, the schedule changed last second (not once, but three times) and the performances ended up beginning after lunch.

Everyone had been walking on eggshells to please "the parents." I had never met my students' parents before, and there was a lump in my throat thinking about it after I had witnessed my co-workers change from happy, normal people into crazed nervous lunatics. It's funny that the second the parents step foot in the school, all of the sudden, we have toilet paper in the bathrooms again, a giant snack spread has been laid out, and the garbages have been emptied. Haha.

So, I walk into the gym, pretty apphrensive, and I look over to the "parents' section" which is basically three rows of chairs in the middle of the gym. And there are five pleasant looking people sitting there, including one infant, eating their snacks on their little perfectly arranged plates. They weren't scary.... at all. They just looked bored.

parent "snack plate"

"the parents"

It was just about this time that Ellen came up to me and said, "Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you." (Her most overused line) "Tonight teachers will eat pork together and sing at norebang." (Not optional)

So the first few acts go on, most of them the exact same performances I had seen two weeks earlier. Then it's time for our "songs," which were supposed to be sung in Korean (I never learned the words properly) and our guitar player "dropped out" because he was "too busy" to practice with us. I'm set to sing acapella when, whoosh, out of the shadows, comes the art teacher with a guitar! We sing the songs, my microphone wasn't even turned on, and soon the humiliation was over. Phew. I've already blocked it from my memory.

Next was a weird, hilarious, and humiliating act by the boys of Youngcheon, the Ms. Youngcheon pageant. I was a judge.

the happy panel of judges

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Things took a sharply awkward and sexual turn of events as soon as the boys hit the stage, dressed in drag. (In the end, the slutty dancer with the big boobs won, furthering the lesson that the right moves and a big rack will get you just about anywhere in life. Above is first, second, and third place respectively. All three actually made pretty decent women.)

Next scene: 6:00PM, an eternity later, dinner with the co-teachers, who are getting wasted and stuffing their faces (and mine) with pork. I compete in a "one shot" game (exactly how it sounds) with my 65 year old Vice Principal and start winning.

the unsmiling reaching man is my terrifying principal. 

We then go to the norebang (karaoke) and stay there until 10:45PM. I did things I'm not proud of, I sang a few hilarious songs, my Principal (whom I've never even seen SMILE) slapped me on the butt with a tambourine, we all grew closer.

@ norebang..... it got very late.... very quickly

Ah me.
<3M

Kiss of the Mumdi

Halloweekend was a right sloppy mess!
Friday I went out for delicious pork BBQ with Aine, Gareth & Gareth, Eoin and Mikey. I hate taking cabs in Jinju (for obvious reasons, haha), mostly because I can almost never communicate properly with the cab driver, and usually end up in the wrong place. Friday night, again, I ended up in the wrong "dong" (neighborhood) at about 11:30PM. By some miracle I managed to get home before midnight! I much prefer the busses- because I know the routes and where to get off- but they don't run after 11PM.

Saturday my friend Eve came into Jinju at about 2 in the afternoon. We went to the craft store downtown and bought a load of stuff for her to be a bunch of grapes as a costume. Next, we went to my favorite thrift store and bought even more good stuff, including a giant graying curtain for me to tear apart and be a mummy. We went back to my apartment, got some wine and snacks, and began working industriously on our costumes while watching dramatic teen TV programs from the UK (awesome). Our other friend Morgan soon joined us, and by 7:45, we were wined up and dressed to meet Aine, Gareth, and CR for dinner downtown.

The walk from dinner to the bar was (conveniently) about seven steps. The night was kind of a haze, and included a lot of dancing, laughing, my costume falling off all over the place, making friends with koreans, and most of all, shots. A highlight of the event was that the bartenders let me DJ, which was awesome. I chose the set for apx. two hours of rawkus partying, and overall it was a success. I had forgotten how much I love forcing drunk people to listen to music that I like! There was a fire show which at the time, everyone in the bar (myself included) thought was awesome, but the video looks really lame, haha, and I did NOT choose the music for this part. (see: video)

Also a lot of phone number/facebook exchanging.

my super adorbz friends eve and morgan in the costumes we spent all afternoon making, haha

grapes, "william wallace" and mumdi

The night ended with Eve cutting me out of my costume, and us sitting on my kitchen floor at 3AM eating ice cream and ramen noodles. Though Sunday, I was a bit of a useless mess (I only left my bed to walk to the nearest fast food restaurant.... MEAT BAR)

my kinda place

All in all, it was another great weekend! Fall is finally here in Jinju, though in a rather whimpy fashion as compared to the mighty colors of Western New York.

Love and miss you all!
<3M