Vacation~^^

Woooo!

Since I was alone in school a lot, I used some of the different staircases.
Here are some weird sayings that they have on the stairs at my school:

Awesome phrases to know.

I do not think I have ever strung these words together. 

I'm not sure why they need to know these...

I also met Lauren's cat last week!

He loves me

He loves me not

I am on the last day of my vacation, but it's been pretty great so far. Not much in the way of actually, you know, doing things, but a lot of relaxing and fun. And in less than a month, I'll be vacationing in China!!!

Remember my dance performance last month? The studio released a video, so check it out!

Still so proud of my waygookin (foreigner) team <3

So camp actually went unbelievably well. We actually got 0 negative comments aside from "it should be 3 weeks since 2 weeks is too short" from the parents and "9AM is too early to start on vacation" from the kids (and me) so I think it's a win.

Tina was on vacation already, so she came over on Monday. I showed up at home to this:

We accidentally match.

Tina came in to help me teach my dance class, and the kids loved it! I wish I had taken a video of them all coming in, because it was amazing. They kept saying "there's 2 Cesca teachers" and looked like they had been struck by lightning.

Teaching the dance was really fun. I'm glad I had Tina there. But my kids are so adorable and mostly up for anything, so it was pretty great.


Here are the videos we took so you can see how adorable they are:

Okay the one in the red glasses in front prefers her English name, Viola, and it adorable and already knew the dance coming in. You can see that she knows more than we taught them. These are my third grade girls and they make me remember why I ever liked 3rd grade.

Next we have B class girls and boys:

4th and 5th grade girls

And the boys. The one in the green is the one who made chocolates with me, and he was really worried.  

But he is perhaps the favorite performer of them all. 

When I asked them to draw their favorite part of camp, many drew this:

Camp then went incredibly smoothly for the rest of the time. Cooking day was a bit of a mess, as it always is, but it was fun. The kids really loved it. We made cat/animal/??????? pizzas:

Young Shik is here during vacation since he's a contract teacher so he came to help.

Since I live alone and we never order ingredients correctly, I got to take home the leftovers so I made quesadillas and pizzas all week. 

Camp turned out pretty good this time. My 5th graders begged us to let them do camp as 6th graders, and many students wrote how excited they were that they got to learn other things (dance, cooking) while using English because they thought they would only be learning just English and they realized they can do so much more. Melts my heart a lot.

Other things:

Siri knows what's up

I got this for So Jung for her birthday and she loved it. She's like "I LOVE CATS. I LOVE MINT. I HAVE TO SHOW EVERYONE." My whole camp had a lot of cats in it, so it was really appropriate. 

On Saturday I got to go to another wedding. This time, I actually knew who was getting married! She actually lives in my building, and is one of the 5th grade teachers, and was my coteacher for camp both times when So Jung couldn't do it.

I actually got to participate this time (after being dragged around like a child on the subway and to the wedding by some of the older teachers...) and it was beautiful. Really different from American weddings. Like they pick who is going to receive the bouquet. And when you finish the ceremony you go eat then everyone leaves. No big reception or anything. 

But I really had a lot of fun. And Da Yeon looked amazing.

Isn't she a beautiful bride?

 We got to meet her beforehand and take pictures with her.

They take pictures in a few different dresses.

So pretty!

I have another wedding next weekend for another teacher I really like, so I'm looking forward to it. This wedding hall ran out of food though... So Jung is very worried that I have not had a normal wedding experience. Also she loves the idea of a "plus one" that you bring to a wedding. She thinks American weddings sound more fun. Korean weddings are about the families joining, and American ones seem more about the couple in general and especially the bride. 

After, since I was across town, I met up with my friend Helen for coffee and got some cupcakes before heading home.

On Sunday, like everyone ever was busy so dance class was only 3 people. Tina had her TOPIK (test of proficiency in Korean) and like everyone was on vacation in Japan or Vietnam or other exotic places. We ended up learning an old song by AOA.

The song? Like a Cat. 

Featuring one of the dudes who used to be on Abnormal Summit.

I found this totally fitting after my entire cat-based camp, so it was awesome. Also I love this song and I love AOA's dances. If you recall, we did a performance with AOA's "Heart Attack" over the summer, and their dances are cute and sexy and fun.

Since I don't do things halfway, I dressed up in all the cat things I own:

Cat ears. Cat earrings. Cat crop top. Cat socks. 

We also all had a chance to do the dance by ourselves, which was cool and nerve-wracking and fun!

Here's my solo:

I think I look like a cat.

And all together:

And how the dance is supposed to look:

It was really fun! After class we got Korean BBQ at an all you can eat place, then got bingsu. Yum!

This week Tina and I got all our stuff ready for China, and I basically hung out and relaxed and watched TV. We're watching The 100 on the CW, and it was really intense. Megan is watching it too, so it's been really nice to talk about it a lot. My dad has been telling me it's good but it was her recommendation that finally pushed mt to watch it (sorry dad, thanks Megan!) and enjoy. We're in contact a lot more, and it feels like home again.

perhaps my favorite exchange.

It's a bit... no... a lot intense. I've had some nightmares and anxiety stuff from it because it is just that intense. And season 3 just started! Yassssssss! It's nice to watch some American TV that isn't food network or MTV haha.

 Thursday I had plans with Helen again. This time we ventured down to Pangyo to go to the Hyundai Department Store and get some cupcakes!

This is in the subways station at Gangnam. It's Psy's "Gangnam Style."

Their cupcakes are glorious.

Here is how I summed up the experience on facebook:

We checked out the cupcakes, ate dinner, shopped a bit, and came back when we were hungry for cupcakes... Only to find them almost completely sold out! Thankfully I got my red velvet cupcakes or we woulda had a problem!

Like I guess it's good that I didn't get all the cupcakes... like red velvet, strawberry, vanilla with vanilla or chocolate frosting, chocolate with chocolate or vanilla frosting, and carrot cake... I would have eaten all of them myself. Instead I settled for just red velvet, as they only had that or carrot cake left when we got back. Now I know better. We thought they closed at 10 but they close at 8. Also thank god Koreans aren't as crazy about red velvet as I am. Phew.

But now I get delicious cupcakes!!

Also gonna sneak this back in here.... After my long emotional post about it last time, Namho and I are back together. He has a lot of personal stuff going on and some shit went down with his parents, but we talked about it and he realized he can't decide for me whether or not I want to be in the situation. So thanks for all the support during our slump, everyone. Please look kindly on us and cheer us on.

Friday I again slept in (I am so screwed for school tomorrow) and was lazy all day before Tina came over. Then I was just lazy with her. We ventured out into the cold and got dinner before retreating into my apartment for the day to watch trashy TV and chill.

I also got to skype my friend Bryan, which is always awesome. It made me feel excited about my decision to probably go home in August. Also congrats on your engagement, Bryan!

Saturday was soooooooo cold so we lazed around until evening, when we ventured out into the tundra to try B'Muchos, a Mexican place really close to Tina. Lauren came all the way out from across Seoul to meet us. There was a 40 min wait but it was so worth it. We got some hot drinks at Ediya coffe first, then got some cold drinks and some awesome food at the restaurant. 

Coke and Lime, Blue Lemonade, and Grapefruit. All with Tequila of course!

I don't remember... Flautas? They were delicious

Enchiladas Verde

Quesadilla

It was amazing. So delicious. 

After, Tina and I froze our asses off in her apartment and watch a movie, then got ready for bed and the last day of our vacation.

On Sunday, we watched our current Kdrama obsession, Madame Antoine, which is about a psychologist and a fake fortune teller and they will inevitable fall in love. I like both the main actors in this one, so I'm pretty stoked. 

Bang Sung Joon was the villain in Hyde, Jekyll, Me and he play a hypnotherapist. This time he's a psychologist running an experiment to prove that true love doesn't exist. Han Ye Seul is a fortune teller who has the gimmick that she is visited by the spirit of Marie Antoinette (with already hilarious results as she speaks French in front of customers but the French clearly is for fanfare), and she loves love and believes that everyone wants to be loved. When they meet they don't like each other, but obviously that's going to change. It's really entertaining so far!

Bang Sung Joon and Han Ye Seul

Here's a quick trailer:

After, we headed out on another terribly cold day to go to dance class. 

No new comebacks have happened lately, so we're learning more older songs. This week, Hyuna's "Red."

We all dressed the part

I wasn't super stoked to learn this one, but since I like Hyuna and her other song (Because I'm the Best) was fun and I am a fan of Cube Ent (Beast's label) and I like dance class, I went.

Here's the dace as it should look:

It was SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!!!

I really loved it. The refrain was my favorite part. So fast and fun! The lyrics to the song are kind of weird, but that's why I like Kpop" I can enjoy the beat and the music without being turned off by the lyrics.

And here are our attempts:

Me and Katie kill this one haha. I think since we did so much together with iKON and EXO we move together a lot? Anyway, good job ladies.

With some encouraging words like "Put on your sexy mask" and "Be like Hyuna" we tried again

This is Tina's group along with our teacher. She makes it look so easy. And sexy.

All together now!

It was really fun. We got dinner together after since Shannon is going to be gone for a month. 

Now i'm just relaxing in my not quite freezing apartment and waiting to go back to school tomorrow. Sigh. I'm not even a little excited. These two weeks will be a joke, though. So. Whatever. Then it's a week of deskwarming then off to China! Yayyyyyyyyyy!

Until next week, stay safe and warm!