Because I'm the Best

Hello all! 

What a week! I started off on an epic high from all the fun and good things from last week. School was able to knock me down a few pegs because my students are sometimes jerks, but it's right before vacation so I kind of understand how they feel. Still doesn't make them any less jerks. I had a lot of criers, a lot of stern talking to's, and lots of angry sighs shared between me and my coteachers. 

The new phys ed teacher is apparently much more chill than the old one, but he caught some kids bullying another student in his class and made them all come to the subject room and do some kind of soccer drills (he used to play semi-profession soccer in Incheon) and made them bow and apologize to all the subject teachers for being bad students. This and the time he was walking down the hall holding hands with the third grade boys rank pretty high up there with "times he is really attractive."

 Anyway apparently the music teacher threw a desk in her class because of some disrespectful kids. 

It has been a truly difficult week for all of us.

The first few weeks of school are full of grapes and rice cake as people change schools and whatnot. I hate rice cake, generally, but my new coteacher Seunghee got the only kind I really like: filled with cream (I also like filled with jam):

It was really pretty too! And delicious. 

In other news, I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life. Or at least I'm happiest with the way I look now. All the compliments from students, coworkers, and strangers help.

Me looking beautiful in this dress. 

Also for some part of the week my students didn't make me want to strangle them, just for the record. While grading their tests on comparatives (the categories are definition in Korean/English word/Opposite English word), I came across this gem:

Technically, that is the opposite of being strong. 

I also cleaned the shit out of my apartment because my coworker was going to have a housewarming  party and I thought people might come up to my apartment since we live in the same building. Also because I needed to really clean clean my apartment. Alas, the party got cancelled. So my apartment is now just clean.

In preparation for dance class and to help out with cleaning, I ordered knee pads.

H&M was having a sale, so I bought a sweater.

It says "Meow or Never" and I cannot wait until it's not 80 degrees anymore.

So I also had my language exchange on Tuesday and Thursday. The people are awesome, and they like practicing their English and they think I'm adorable when I speak Korean. Also the one dude is really hot and likes hockey. On Tuesday my normal language exchange partner couldn't come, so he helped me out. And then we went to a sports bar he knew of so we could watch football and eat pizza and wings and drink beer. I think we will get along well. 

Friday finally came, and with it the happy days of the weekend. In the dying days of summer, the mosquitoes and bugs are trying to get their one last hurrah. I felt some itching on my ankles on Thursday evening and woke up to 8 or so bites. I'm not sure when I got them, but they suck. When I walk, even if I'm not wearing socks or shoes that irritate them, they get itchy. Here is a gross picture of my foot:

Very painful and itchy. GO AWAY, MOSQUITOES. 

 Please let fall come and kill all the bugs.

Tina and I chilled with a bunch of native teachers and played Cards Against Humanity to keep our English skills sharp and depraved. Yayyyyy! It was a good way to unwind.


On Saturday I chilled with Tina til we went to try out one of Seoul's newer attractions: the Escape Room. There are a lot of them around here now and my coteacher goes to them like every week. This week, we tried our hand at The Vault.

There are two rooms here: Mission Incredible (4 star difficulty) and Stalker's Treachery (5 stars). We booked the Mission Incredible room. Basically they give you no instructions. They just put you in a room and you have 45 minutes to complete the mission. Ours was to steal a diamond. We got into the second of 3 rooms and got super stuck. Even asking for a hint, we couldn't figure out the number puzzles to get the locks open. Oh well. My coteacher also did one that day at a different location and she got out, so we decided we would try to go together. The drinks were cheap and it was fun, so I will definitely be going back!

More here: http://www.thevaultkr.com/

Sunday brought us back to dance class, this time to try our hand at Hyuna (from 4minute)'s "잘 나가서 그래" or "Because I'm the Best." 

Hyuna gets a lot of shit for being a female rapper and for being too sexy, so this song is basically an "eff all the haters I'm the best" song.

We got cure knee pads after watching the dance video.

This one was slower and sexier than last weeks so I could do the moves better. As such, I am even more tired because I could do it better. And it used like the whole body. We were rolling on the floor a lot. Here's the dance practice video:

This is because I’m the best

This is because I’m beautiful
This is because all envy me
Baby, I’m bad all day

We only made it through about 1:20 of the dance. Our teacher stopped us in the refrain before more knee/ground work because, "Your knees are very sick," she said. Thank the lord. Even my knee pads couldn't save me from all the agony. My knees will more than likely sport sizable bruises for the week. Oh well. 

This was one of the more fun dances we've learned since it has so many different kinds of steps and moves. I really loved it a lot. My knees probably disagree with me. They hated this dance from the first step.

Here is our attempt at Hyuna's "Because I'm the Best/Roll Deep"

I'm off to ice my knees and hope they don't bruise too badly. And to hope that this week will go easily!

In other music news, I may have posted this before but this song has a lot of positive associations for me these days as someone was playing it on piano before I had a really good time at my language exchange and Tina really loves the singer and whatnot:

Park Hyo Shin's "Wildflower."

Dude is incredible. He sand live in this MV.

Hopefully this week doesn't kill me.

I won't be able to blog next Sunday as it's the holiday and I'll be in Jeju!!! Wooo!!! SO excited to go. It's supposed to be Korea's Hawaii. Looking forward to a nice trip. So, until next time!!

Me Gustas Tu (But also I really hate you)

Another week came and went. So Jung and I were talking about how fast it went, and it really did fly by.

My students are doing okay. I am trying to accept that I will not change their lives with my English class and just letting things happen as they will. It's made my life a lot less stressful. I am really lucky to have two wonderful coteachers who are really passionate about teaching and who are so helpful and nice. So I'm stoked about that.

I started going to a language exchange! I can't take Korean classes at the academy anymore since it doesn't fit into my monthly budget, but I am still trying to improve my Korean. Hopefully this helps! They seem really nice so far. I'll have to self study now that I have some basics. Sigh. A lot of free classes are on Saturdays or are during the workday. Alas. 

I am still teaching "Bang Bang Bang" to my 4th graders and I love it but it's exhausting. Also it makes my Thursday quite long as I have 6 classes and finish at 3:30. Phew. But I do look forward to it. I'm pretty happy with my school life these days. Except when lunch is everything I hate. But I live.

Anyway, here are some other random happenings in the week

We had CREAM PUFFS. Omg they were so good.

Wednesday we had this gem. I have no idea what it was but it was straight up delicious. 

Friday night Tina came over and we watched Scholar, our vampire show that FINALLY dragged and stumbled its way to the end. We were going to meet friends Saturday evening so we chilled at my place and went to Emart for wine and other essentials. But still:

Dis bitch thinks she can come into my house...

And steal all my blankets....

Saturday we hung out at my place, finished Scholar, and dealt with Tina having a grand of fraudulent charges on her credit card from the USA. Uhhhhh.

In good spirits, we headed out wayyyyy up north to Suyu to meet up with Janell and Lauren, who both live over there now, so we could get some good eats and go bowling! We went to Camp 229, a BBQ place with a camping theme:

Lauren and Janell as close to real camping as we would like to get

So cute!

Grapefruit Soju

I am the flower queen with my soju

MEAT

Then after some struggles reading signs, we went bowling! The vibe is way different then the USA. Everyone was really serious. Then there's us... Yelling things like "you hit some pins!!"

We were all good friends with the gutter.

I am quite terrible at bowling. My gimpy wrists make it so that I can't actually bowl with proper form. So I just kind of launch the ball at the pins. I actually won the second game with like a score of 93. Woo!

Pro.

Throw the ball and pose.

After taking an hour and a half to get home (which barely phases me anymore!) I stayed up a bit then slept for like 10 hours and it was glorious. I made my way to dance class alone this week since Tina was busy at Young Ah's performance. I wanted to go but I missed dance a lot. Next time!

Anyway. this week we revisited a group that gave me nightmares: Gfriend. 

Our very first week of dance, we disastrously tried to learn Glass Bead:

I don't even have evidence of how bad our attempt was. I almost didn't go back to the class after, but obviously I got over myself and did. 

This week, we braved them again to do "Me Gustas Tu." I hoped that months of practicing other dances would leave me more apt to do this song, but I was sorely mistaken. It was so hard! So fast. But really, really fun. 

Unfortunately, Gfriend has come into the spotlight lately for a performance in which they fall over 9 times during the song. They performed on a wet stage and in a stunning display of professionalism they continue through the dance despite really dangerous conditions. I have so much respect for them. 

Video here:

I hope people can see the hard work and effort put in, since this group really is awesome. 

Grace and I attempted the dance and forgot it even as we attempted it. It's pretty adorable when you get it right. But man am I already sore.

Our attempt after class. I am going to practice this one a lot more! I seriously cannot believe how hard this dance is. Girl groups are awesome. 

In other awesome group news, thanks to Ronnie I have gotten more into VIXX. I posted LR (Leo and Ravi) last week, but here are my two favorite full VIXX songs:

First, Hyde:

Oh how do I explain this?
You’ll probably think it’s all an excuse
Girl, I’m the not same me as yesterday
(There is a crazy person inside)

Don’t leave (leave me)
I love you (no I hate you)
I am both Jekyll and Hyde, don’t run away from me

Refrain:

I’m not a bad person, I love you
Don’t give me those scared eyes
There is a different person that’s not me inside of me
There’s a different me that’s not me inside of me

And a dance performance so you can see more of how cool the dance is, and see the good/evil distinction a bit better:

I also really dig Voodoo Doll. Be warned, the original version is quite gruesome and violent, so much so that the dance and video were banned from broadcasting. A clean version was also released, but I like the gross one for the song:

Voodoo Doll Original Version:

Clean version:

I'm off to practice! I have to study and clean my apartment tomorrow so I can be ready for my language exchange and so that in case people come to my apartment on Friday I look like a decent human. My coworker who lives in my building is having a housewarming party so people might come to my place at some point, and I really do need to like deep clean my apartment. I know, very exciting.

But first, dance!

Have a good week, everyone!

B2ST (Another concert!!)

Hello~~~

The blog title is pronounced BEAST. Beast used to stylize their name B2ST and since I saw them a second time, it seemed appropriate.

I was a bit under the weather this weekend, and I had a special guest in my apartment last night, so I didn't get to blog. Tina had to go to immigration this morning, and since I live 10 minutes away she got permission to go into school late. Woo! So we watched Kdramas and ate too much food, a-like-so:

The chicken place we like near our dance studio opened a branch near me. And we got ddeokbokki. I have eaten ddoekbokki 3 days in a row and it is amazing. YOLO.

Anyway, the week happened. I adore my new coteacher, Seung Hee. She's amazing. She and I have really good energy together and she's really helpful and bright and I love her. My 3rd graders think she is scary, which is great since they're crazy. Haha.

So the most exciting thing to happen to me was the Grand Kpop Festival. We volunteered in August and got to do it again. No dancing onstage for me this time, since you had to be at a lot of rehearsals that were during school. I miss being a student and being able to skip class haha. You know, for the 2 times I ever did that. 

Literally right up at the stage.

Anyway,  our Kpop PIC (Partner in Crime, obviously) Grace, Tina, and I got seats together (after much struggle) and then got moved up! Woo!

Terrible but unzoomed picture of our spot. Second row.

Tina and I also got interviewed. Hilariously they pushed Grace out of the way since she look Korean (She's a first generation American and her parents are Korean, so she misses a lot of the waygookin stuff...) which was a joke for the evening. I embarrassed myself by literally taking every chance I could take to gush about how much I love Beast and especially Doojoon, and Tina managed to speak Korean which was impressive. I forgot how to speak English. Oh well. It was fun.

You know those people who you can't help but think "I wish I'd met you earlier" ... This girl. 

The concert was awesome. The lineup was much smaller than the last concert, so it was a lot more manageable.

Here are a lot of pictures of groups you might not know!

CN Blue. They play their own instruments and are more indie. Love them!

BTOB (pronounced B to B) 

Look how cute and close they are.

EXID (pronounce each letter individually)

Doing their hit "Up & Down"

Chen from EXO (pronounced ex-oh)

Singin' some ballads.

Block B 

Featuring FIRE. I have no idea how they weren't dying. It was so hot where we were. Geez.

SHINee's Taemin

Right before he pulled out a FAKE GUN WTF???

But I adore Taemin.

He's like 22 and debuted when he was 16. Amazing. 

Near the end of the concert was the group I'd been waiting for... BEAST!!

I went from seeing Beast 0 times in a year to seeing them twice in a week and I'm so stoked it's unreal.

They opened with YEY, their new song.

Doojoon, my fave <3

I cannot stress enough how much I was freaking out over this.

Dongwoon (left) and Yoseob, for Ronnie.

They were great at pumping up the crowd and posing for the rush of camera and being adorable.

I must stress that I took pictures of actually them not the big screens. 

Gikwang!!

 Last but certainly not least, Girls' Generation!! They just had a comeback and their outfits are so cute! And Tina has me obsessed with their new song "Lion Heart."

Gee

Here are some videos from the concert!

Beast:

12:30

https://www.facebook.com/francesca.dicillo/videos/10154294063199968/?l=670134039805676158

Good Luck (So excited I know the dance to this one)

https://www.facebook.com/francesca.dicillo/videos/10154294065374968/?l=2002981844047976555

EXID
Up & Down

https://www.facebook.com/francesca.dicillo/videos/10154301038699968/?l=6639450910806591725

Girls' Generation

https://www.facebook.com/francesca.dicillo/videos/10154301074619968/?l=7873626121652372044

Showing some more love to my girl groups this week since all I ever talk about are Beast/Boy groups, here are a few more songs I love!

EXID 

 "Up & Down"

"Ah Yeah"

Girl's Generation - Lion Heart

"I Got a Boy

"Mr. Mr."

"Gee" 

Iconic.

Girl groups are awesome too!

I had a lot of fun at the concert, but I was quite under the weather the next day and spent the weekend watching the second season of Doojoon's drama "Let's Eat" and then hanging with Tina. So it was pretty chill. 

In other music news, since I am literally talking about this song with Ronnie, here's the new song from VIXX's subunit LR (Leo and Ravi from the group, which I find hilarious since Koreans have a lot of trouble with the L/R sound distinction)

"Beautiful Liar"

Looking forward to getting back into Korean classes soon! And having a regular schedule again and whatnot. 

Here's to September! May it continue August's awesomeness.