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!!