I was not a potato

This week was lots of hot weather and English camp, so not so much fun stuff going on. 

It didn't rain this much but it was super hot and humid.

Timehop reminded me of what I can look forward to,

How I feel about Pokemon Go/Kpop/LIFE

Wednesday we went to see Train to Busan, as zombie movie starring my first love Gong Yoo.

He's So Jung's ideal type.

In a zombie apocalypse, this man will surely save us.

Watch the trailer. It's awesome.

Grace and Tina and I were really wound up an emotional after the movie. It was so scary and sad and amazing that we all felt so many things. I had to stop eating, Tina kept eating, Grace was a ball on her chair. We clutched hands and hit each other a lot, and I cried. Grace wept.

So we got Coffee Bean after since it's my favorite and Grace's, and we just chatted forever and it was wonderful.

Grace and I take the same subway line home, so we went together.

In the movie, there's a big scene with escalators. A bunch of areas are roped off, and they are forced to go down the escalators unaware that the zombie outbreak already hit there, so then suddenly they have to turn around and go back up. It's terrifying.

So when Grace and I saw this on our way down to our subway line, we almost peed our pants.

are we in Busan haeng??

We held hands as we walked down the stairs. We lived. But it was such a good movie and I want to see it again! I saw it without English subs and loved it so I'm sure it will be even better with them

Everyone see it!

Friday was craft day in camp and we made fans.

I'm not super artsy so I chose a design that has minimal effort. Rilakkuma!

Bigger than my face!

I teach two classes for camp so in my second class I made Neo, one of the Kakao Friends from the Korean texting app.

Also my face size.

My kids did great and didn't destroy anything!

Camp is a lot of work and stress for me but the kids are kinda cute sometimes. I will miss them a little,

Playing cat games:

Doesn't look like that's quite right. 

I watched Crime Scene a lot and got to leave school early Friday, so that was nice.

Saturday Tina and I were lazy til the evening when we met Grace and Jonghyuk at Hyehwa for a raccoon cafe experience, then Mix and Malt since JH has never been.

Dancing with the raccoon. This guy works there otherwise why would you be so close to it. 

Turning off the lights.

They're so cute but I cannot help but panic when they get near me.

They loved Tina this time. Trash Pandas and Tina:

It wanted her bracelet

Laughing in terror

Finally when she stood up it went away. It was funny. It broke her bracelet a little, but it was a really fun experience right?

We met up with Helen and got Mix and Malt, which is always delicious.

Then we got ice cream because why not.

It's fun to be around people and speaking alternating Korean and English. It's gonna be weird to not have that when I go home.

Tina introduced me to a show called "W" or "Two Worlds" and I am in looooooooooove.


It's the same writer team that did one of my faves, Queen In Hyun's Man, and the actor I like from many dramas is the lead.

Lee Jong Suk is always adorable as a lead, but this time he's even a lot sexy haha. I loved him in Pinocchio and I Can Hear Your Voice, and he is a great lead in this one too.

Lee Jung Suk plays Kang Chul, a manhwa (In Japan, manga, in English, comic/cartoon I guess) webtoon. When the author tries to kill the character, the main girl (Han Hyo Joo) gets dragged into the manhwa and saves him, inadvertently altering the storyline and becoming a character. She goes back and forth between the two worlds, and Kang Chul's character begins to become aware of his situation as a fictional character. 

Only 4 eps are out but holy hell am I 100% invested. It's sooooooooooo good! I love the main character and the fact that it plays on some of the funny things that happen in manhwas. For instance, she knows that she can only leave when a chapter in Chul's story ends, so she tries ridiculous things to shock him to leave a cliffhanger so she can get back to her world. And Chul often complains about "context" and how the events in his life don't make any sense. Someone tries to murder him and the truck has no license and the driver never stopped and then the truck disappears after driving away. He complains that the events have no context and weird things happen to him, as is often the case in dramatic webtoons. So good. 

Can't wait to see more!

My good mood from that was really messed with in dance class. We had a different teacher from the studio, and we were doing a song I really don't like and a dance that was really hard.

Here's Gfriend's song "You and I" which is the translation of the Korean title because I cannot for the life of me get the English title right. It's Navillera. I had to google that right now because I first typed Naverilla.

The dance to me makes about as much sense as the title.



It looks good when they do it, but they have a reputation for their dances.

Our attempts:

It really looks fine. But I have never disliked a song and dance so much. I didn't like GG's "I Got a Boy" but I could manage the dance. This one I had no idea what was going on most of the time.

Pau had a good sentiment as we muddled our way through: "Well, I was not a potato today." That's about as optimistic as I could manage.

I'm also not used to this teachers style, so it rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like I wasted my time and it sucks that we only have a few weeks left and can't do a song we like with our teacher and instead have to do this one. I paid for the card so I lose out if I don't go, but it put me in such a bad mood that I feel like I was wrong to go.

I don't like to learn the dances and look stupid. I like learning things and looking good. It's fine if I like the song or all my friends are there and we all look dumb together, but most of the other foreigners didn't come today and most of the class was just as frustrated as us. And I think this song sounds too much like Gfriends other songs, which I do not enjoy a ton. Sigh.

One week of camp and then I'm done done done!!

I hope it goes smoothly.

Not much else to update on. Stay well! I'll be home in a month. Time sure does fly!!

I Could Really Stand to... Cheer Up!

Hello, everyone!

Let me just say... Holy Hell. This week was one for the books as far as exhausting all my emotional wherewithal. 

Random things first:

Sunset over Seoul. Man am I going to miss this... 

On Tuesday night I finished marathoning Orange Is the New Black so that was emotional.

Then Itunes managed to delete all my notes beyond recovery, and wiped my library from my phone and my computer.

Cannot play songs. 

So Wednesday when I got to school I was a wreck. 

Managed to fix that by pulling a library from last month. Unfortunately I am missing songs from albums that I packed away already, so I can't put those all back on yet. Alas. 

Also Wednesday a fucking bird managed to find a way into my classroom.

Like... How. 

 So I ran to the subject room and enlisted the help of another teacher to go in and open all the windows. This warning from the principal just in: Stop using the AC. Open the Windows.

The windows have no screens, and this bird got in while I had all the windows closed. I shudder to think how it will go with the windows all open all the time.

We also got informed that we couldn't order anything online for camp, which has since been resolved, but overall Wednesday was a shit day. Friday I left school early and went to Costso to look for things for camp and turns out it was a fruitless search since we can't buy things from there. Shit shit shit. At least we can order things online now...


Thursday the young teachers took me out to dinner for the last day of school. It was lovely. I was very sad because I love them all so much.

Now the main part of the week:

I had to say goodbye to my students this week, and it went about as well as expected. I cried a lot.


My last class surprised me with a box of random gifts, mostly things so that  would remember Korea.

Like seaweed.

When they walked in with the box I burst into tears.

Me, crying uncontrollably at the sweetness of my babies

Me, unable to get my shit together

This is them at the end of class. 5-1, the sweetest angel babies.

Hahaha

I also made the English leaders and the ones who gave me big presents redo it so I could have an appropriate reaction.

Wow! SO SHOCKED.

OMG!

The last class. Definitely the hardest to say goodbye to. 

 Here are my pics with my other classes:

6-2. The girls cried a lot in this class. They're a tough class but they kept getting better and better as the year went on.

They're supposed to be making hearts.

 6-3. They told me to come teach them in middle school when I come back, and gave me directions just like our lesson. "The Sinsa Middle school is IN FRONT OF the Nammyeong School." Also they thought I was 40.

God dammit. I'm tearing up looking at them. 

 In 6-1 one of the students has an aid so So Jung got in too!

In the front is my boy who lived in America for 3 years

The girls cried a lot too. I cried a lot. 

5-2. The first class I had to say goodbye to this week. They fucking love pictures.

Try to find me I blend in.

 Dear god this isn't any easier today.

5-3. They always finished all the activities like 10 minutes before everyone else because they were really quiet.

What is this

What are you looking at?

 Seunghee took pics with my 3rd and 4th grade classes, but she hasn't sent them yet haha. Also my poor heart broke so much with 5th and 6th grade. I had them for 2 full years, and I met them often. My school is small, so I met my 6th graders all 3 times they had English in a week. I met 5th grade 2 times of 3.

I met my current 6th graders twice in 4th and 5th grade, and 3 times a week in 6th grade, so I'm really close with them. I know all their names and a lot about them, so my god does it hurt to leave them. I really, really love them a lot. I watched them grow up a lot in these 2 years...


Anyway, here are some of the gifts I got.

On the day my Itunes broke, one boy brought me a massager.

I know it looks weird. But he spent his allowance on it and it feels great on my shoulders after a long day on my computer, so I cried a lot when he gave it to me. I was pretty emotional that day. 

It's also to tighten your skin...?

A boy in 5-1 gave me a book on Korean culture so I would't forget Korea.

It's really pretty!

 Some of my students visited me individually to give me things.

My 4th grade girls

5th graders

 So Jung also organized for all the 4th-6th grade students to write me letters and somehow I didn't notice, so now she's binding them up for me together. I don't deserve her.


On Friday we had a staff meeting and I had to say goodbye to the teachers too.

I wrote some notes in Korean and everyone was really surprised. Tina helped me sound better than I actually am.

 I told all my students and the staff the same thing: "Please love the new teacher. But don't love them more than me." Cue laughter. Actually a lot of the teachers laughed really, really hard at that one.

 Then they presented me with a small gift.

The 6-2 head teacher doesn't really speak English but he threw in a "thank you" and "be happy" after saying them in Korean. 

After, a lot of the old teachers came up to say goodbye and I cried a lot again. Like the one teacher who teaches us the drums came up and (she had said this to me before but reiterated to the other teachers) "She's learning the samullori drums and she's really good. But she only learned 2 of the 4! How can she leave?"

And one of the subject teachers told me it was so nice that I could speak Korean and she'd never met a native teacher who spoke Korean before.

And one told me "I will miss your bright smile."

And "I've met many native teachers and you are the best."


I legitimately had to stop writing for a second because I'm crying again.


After I collected myself, I went outside. All the teachers were going out to lunch with their grade levels for the last day, so I went to meet the 6th grade teachers.


But...

I found all 9 of the young teachers waiting for me.

Not pictured: Jin Sang the male teacher who is also one of the youngins 

They gave me a box. Seunghee announced, "We know purple is your favorite color and that you wear a lot of accessories, so we got you this."


It's a traditional Korean jewelry box.

So pretty!

How it's made.

I've always seen the boxes but never bought one for myself. Now I have the most beautiful one ever and I will never, ever forget the people who gave it to me.

Especially these lovely ladies. 

I may not know all their favorite colors or what they wanted to be when they were kids, or anything like that. It was hard to communicate sometimes in English and Korean. But these are some of the best friends I have ever had, and they are seriously such a wonderful group of people. I've never met a more beautiful group of young women in my life... Each one of you is a star. I don't know enough ways in English, Italian, Korean, or any other known language to tell you how much admiration and adoration I have for each one of you. I love you all so much!

This group of people made my time in Korea interesting to say the least. 

Nammyeong Elementary School... I'll never forget you~

It's been very hot here recently, so on Saturday we met up with Lauren and Gahyeon for some margaritas at Gusto Taco, since we gotta frequent our faves while we can. 

Sunday brought us to dance class where we did Twice's "Cheer Up!" again. 

It was really fun! And I needed to Cheer Up!

Featuring Tina singing the whole god damn song. 

Lol we learned more this time! And the studio has been using the Facebook Live function a lot, so you can see that being filmed too. 

It's impossible to be sad during that song~ Even watching it now cheered me up from the sadness of reliving my goodbyes. 

Only English camp left. Then it's all last minute travels and things and packing up my life. 

This week felt like I'm making the wrong choice to go home. I hate goodbyes. 

Trying to channel GRAY this week:

"Quit doing useless things

Go ahead and do it

Just go ahead and do it

If you worry too much about everything, even things that should work out don't

So just go ahead and do it

...

It's not something that'll work out as planned anyways 

So let's have fun enjoying it

Just go ahead and do it"

Just gonna go ahead and do camp and the other things this week.


I started watching this show called "Crime Scene" at the recommendation of So Jung, who has never steered me wrong.

It's a variety show, so famous people are the main cast. Hani from EXID and Hong Jinho (a professional gamer) are among them, and the other people are pretty famous too (Park Jiyoon, Jang Jin, Jang Dongmin) and there is also a guest. Each week they are given a scenario and role cards, and one of the members is the detective. They have an elaborate set and lots of clues, and they all have to figure out who is the criminal. If they guess right, those who voted for the criminal get money. If they are wrong, the criminal gets money.

They mostly stay in character but it's a variety show so they're also always dicks to each other in really funny ways. And they have really funny references like a reporter from Bispatch (Dispatch is a famous trashy tabloid in Korea that gets scoops on idols) or having things like the Up & Down hotel (EXID's breakout was from a fancam of Hani performing their song Up & Down) and things like that.

It's amazing!

Anyway back to work tomorrow. 

This week should be less sad, and I'm sure camp with remind me why I want to go home. Here's to hoping this week has less tears and more smiles than last week~