Bang Bang!

This week was one of extreme highs and lows, but as I sit here on Sunday night I can say that the weekend was one of the best I've had in Seoul and it definitely felt like I won this week. 

I had another week where someone cried in all of my 3rd grade classes.

My 6th grade students won't try in English. They don't listen to the simple things I'm saying .

I feel like a dancing monkey at school most days. It was exhausting this week. 

I can't really remember the things that made me mad this week because the weekend was so good, so there's that. Here's some random things from the week:

This is a corn dog crusted in corn flakes...????

I went to Tina's on Wednesday and saw this cat.

Monday and Tuesday I stayed home and cleaned and such. Somehow I managed to completely fuck up my internet so I had to reset and reinstall it, which took longer than it should have partially because I couldn't find the installation disks since I installed this a year and a half ago. Sigh. Technology has hated me lately. My phone has been acting weird and then my internet. Sigh.

School was busy and frustrating this week in the mornings but pretty easy in the afternoons since I have lessons from last year to just tweak instead of making all new materials. 

So I've been watching this show called Produce 101 since my co is obsessed and we were doing a song from it in dance class this week.

Premise: 101 girls from all different agencies compete to form an 11-person representative girl group. It's based entirely on the national producers aka the viewers and their votes. In theory it sounds great. But then when you get into the editing and the fact that some girls already debuted as parts of other (less successful) girl groups, or were on survival shows already, it gets too complicated. And comparing like apples and oranges and steak when you judge different songs in different styles or whatever. So Jung and I make fun of how badly done the show is, but the girls are so talented and just want to be idols. It's a bit depressing, but it is good TV. I hope some students watch and see how hard it is to be an idol and all of the unfair things they'll have to deal with and the see these people following their dreams no matter what. I'll see who gets into the final group and probably see what they come up with, but still. 

The week passed in kind of a blur because it was so up and down. 

Friday, Tina and I had plans to go clubbing (literally for my second time since getting to Seoul) with Shannon and some other friends. 

First, we got dinner:

Japanese-style ramen! 

 I never really go clubbing anymore, so it was nice. Actually, on Friday at school I was like nope no way I'm going. But Tina and I made each other go, and it was worth it.

Vanity moment. This dress is awesome. 

We went to Ellui, and EDM club. Thankfully we downloaded an app that let us get in for free (normally $30) and get a free drink too!

We also happened upon an event at the club where they were giving out makeup, so we tried some on and got free stuff! The makeup was $18 per lipstick, so we felt like we got paid to go there.

Tina and I modeling our lipsticks the next day

EDM is not really my thing. People kept throwing napkins from the balconies? When we walked through the tables guys would like grab us and try and get us to drink with them. These are the things I don't like about clubs.

But we got to dance like crazy and our group of 6 was too big for too many guys to lurk. The brave ones who did try to get in were babies. Seriously. 20 Korean age. Which is like 18 or 19 American age. No wonder they were so bold. 

We got a lot of free drinks and some more free things from an event during the night, and it turned out to be a pretty great time, honestly. We also easily got cabs and nothing was too expensive. Quite a win in my book.

A fairly accurate representation of the evening.

Perhaps my favorite part was at the end of the night. As we were leaving, a handsome guy in a turtleneck that we had all spotted earlier was also leaving. Shannon lamented that she had had her eyes on him but he never really approached our group. He stopped to smoke and Shannon thought about approaching him, but said "I need a wingman."

I'm not sure what it was, but those words spoke to my spirit. My slightly drunk spirit took control.

Almost immediately I stepped up and yelled to him in Korean "Hey. Do you speak English?" With his "a little" response, Tina explained in Korean that our friend thought he was cute. He shuffled over (literally shuffle shuffle) and handed his phone to Shannon and said, "number?" Thus, Shannon got Turtleneck's number. Apparently I am a good Korean wingperson. Woo!

We made it home without any difficulty, and since we didn't drink too much we didn't have any issues. Yay! 

It was a good thing too since Tina and I had longstanding plans to see Swan Lake on Saturday. After sleeping in til like noon we still managed to make it across town to the theater.

Selfies of selfies with our new lipstick!

Idk if you know how much I love this ballet

Swans

Swan Lake is my favorite ballet and I was soooooooooooo excited to see it! I was upset that when we saw Giselle it had nothing of the original ballet (story, music, choreography were all different... It had no business being called Giselle..) since that's another favorite, but I was so pleased with this one that stuck to the original Some things were a little different - Odile (the black swan) had a tutu woven with red tulle along with the black, and the effect was stunning! Siegfried was awesome, and Odette/Odile was flawless. The costumes were so beautiful and the dancing was spot on.

Our dumb asses forgot our binoculars but got to rent fancy opera glasses!

 The show was so good. I almost started crying when there was a happy ending because it was everything I was hoping for.

So good!

I wish I could express how much I loved this show. I think I like dance so much since you can express so many things in such simple movements. Ugh so good,

They came out after for a fansign!

After the ballet we were on cloud 9. We met up with Lauren at our now favorite restaurant in Hyewha, Mix and Malt, so we could try more of their fabulous cocktails and food. 

Parmesan wings. Bangers and mash with baked beans. 

I don't remember what these were. Blue Moon and whatever mine was

Lavender Gimlet

We of course got the chili macaroni and cheese again. We decided to splurge and get a second round of drinks in the interest of trying more of their cocktails. 

Bijou

Singapore Sling

Frozen Mangorita 

So good. I would go there every week if I could. 

Tina and I retired so we could get ready for dance class on Sunday. First, we downloaded this app called Neko Atsume, or Cat Collector. You buy things and try to get cats to come to your yard.

IT'S THE BEST.

Catsssssssss

These two cats are really named Bandit and Smokey <3 I was emotional about it. I miss them,

LOOK AT MU KITTIEEEEEEEEES

Best. App. Ever. 

Sunday brought us to dance class again. Last week, before I watched Produce 101, I was not excited. I watched the dance and was like ehh it looks fine. But I wasn't happy about not doing kpop.

Oh how things changed. As I watched the show and got invested in some people and saw how passionate they were, I liked it more.

Plus, I thought this was the real choreography. Come to find out, one of the girls in the group made up the choreography for their dance evaluation. So cool! Here's the performance on the show:

Chungha, the one in the pink shirt and high-waisted shorts who starts the song is the one who made the choreo. Somi, the one who has a jean jacket, is Canadian Korean and almost made it to the group Twice (she was cut from the survival show and is part of JYP, one of the top companies in Korea) and we mostly followed Yoojung (white shorts and flower jacket) who is one of my personal favorites on the show. 

This dance was sooooooooooooooo fun! It was really fast so it was hard to keep up, but we killed it! Take a look!

I could totally be a kpop trainee~

I'm hella sore, but it was really fun. 

I had a really wonderful weekend and I'm having a crisis since I feel like I'm crazy for wanting to give this up and go home to America. I know it's only because I had such a good time recently, but I have to remember the things that I miss or the things that frustrate me too.

For now, I will ride this high and hope Monday doesn't get me too much!

Other songs from Produce 101 were pretty good too:

Fingertips (with Chungha again! Haha and Sejeong -pink shorts- one of my faves from Jellyfish Ent, the label for Park Hyo Shin and VIXX's) 

Yum Yum (With Somi and the red and yellow and Yoojung in the yellow sweater and pink/purple skirt)

In the Same Place. This one won for best concept, and I do like the song the best but I am not a fan of a few of the girls in the group. It was produced by B1A4's Jinyoung and appeals to a lot of people. The innocent little girl cute strong dancing was done a lot by Gfriend of late, and they're so popular currently that I think it sticks better. I also recognize more of these words (it's a simple song, really) so I can remember it better. It's been the one stuck in my head the most since the show, so even though I liked the other two better on first view, this one stuck with me more. I guess that's how it goes. I really like the lyrics a lot, and this video has the translation. You really should check it out.

Anyway that's about all for this week! Looking forward to some warmer weather! 

Stay well!