Food, Friends, and Fun!

Instead of a Super Junior music video to start out my blog, I present to you this adorable life lesson of "say no to strangers" as shown by a cute Korean child: 

Anywho, after the events of last weekend, it was inevitable that I would have a slow week. I was coming down off of my SuJu high, and this was not a good week with my kids. They have Sports Day coming up, where they all get to participate in vaguely sports related activities, and I think it's really hard to pay attention. My week was full of me and my coteachers trying every trick in the book to get something from our students, but it was slow going. I even had a pencil stabbing incident, and I also had a child pulling out actual chunks of his hair because he lost a game. Oy vey.

In lieu of exciting events this week, I will post a compilation of pictures I call "This is What I've Been Eating, Mom and Dad, and Please Don't Ask Me What It Is." I've been taking pictures of most of my school lunches (sometimes I miss them when I come straight from 4th grade since I don't carry my phone to the classroom), but here you go! A look into the glamorous life I lead.

Here we have 2 of my least favorite things: Soup with whatever meat STILL ON THE BONE, and cherry tomatoes as dessert.  

I could have eaten the whole tub of this soup myself, honestly.

So this day was incredible. We had watermelon for dessert, a kind of stew as the soup, and MANDU!!!

I must interject on the Manday (That is what I am dubbing the day we had Mandu). When my coworkers asked me what my favorite Korean food was on like the second day I was here, I couldn't remember like any of the foods I had eaten except mandu (they're little delicious dumplings with various fillings in them). So of course, I was like "mandu!" and they nodded in approval. But this week we happened to have mandu for lunch, and OF COURSE someone remembered that "Oh Francesca LOVES mandu!" We were a little short on mandu since everyone took like 3, so they called down to the kitchen and ordered more. Then since everyone knew I loved mandu, they kept giving me more. I ATE SO MUCH MANDU. Had this been a different day with a less likable or filling soup (looking at you, seaweed soup) this would have been awesome. But I was so full from everything but I was so flattered that they remembered I like mandu that I kept stuffing my face with them. And everyone ate well that day.

I cannot even begin to describe the taste or texture of the soup. It was good, but I have no idea what I was eating.

YES BIBIMBAP.

So on Wednesdays there is a special lunch. Two weeks ago we had Bibimbap, which is basically a bunch of vegetables and meats and a spicy(ish) sauce. You may recall that I had this in Jeonju (which I mentioned I had been to and everyone was surprised, especially the phys ed teacher because he's from there.... I think one of Tina's coteachers is from there too) in the folk village field trip portion of orientation. This one lacked seaweed, so I was really happy about that. We also had rice cakes for dessert (the amount of rice cake that was happening these last couple of weeks was insane - the old and new vice principal's schools kept sending rice cake and grapes) but these ones had what was basically grape jelly inside them and they were incredible.

Some days we have lettuce wraps.

Last Wednesday we had spaghetti, which is just as hard to eat with chopsticks as you are thinking it might be. No, it's harder.

 Ahhhh spaghetti. Served in the traditional style with a side of pickles (why???) and a roll that had a mini hotdog in it (also why...??) and eaten just as the Italians would have wanted... with chopsticks. I cannot overstate how much of a problem this was. My coworkers asked me if it was okay (I assume they were asking about the spicyness which they always ask about... it wasn't spicy) and I replied that I hadn't been able to taste it yet and gestured with my chopsticks. They all took turns laughing at (really with... I know how ridiculous it looked) me and suggesting I use my spoon or trying to give me tips. It was just one of those days where I had to laugh. I kind of ended up just putting my face really close to the tray and shoveling it in... I would still prefer spaghetti day over seaweed soup day anytime.

Here we have soup with tofu and mushrooms, and some meat that vaguely tasted enough like bacon that I ate it like it was my job.

Lots of veggies in this soup! And a chocolate waffle for dessert.

Please note that I take about a third as much rice as my coworkers. I have no idea how they eat so much of it. I think it all tastes the same despite different colors and extra ingredients. It's nice to mix with the soup sometimes, although I have no idea if that's a thing I shouldn't be doing? Oh well.

So there you have it. My glamorous food lifestyle.

Now, on to alcohol.

On Saturday I went with Lauren and Janell (Tina's friends can be my friends too!) to a makgeolli tasting! It was so fun! Makgeolli is a traditional Korean alcohol made from rice. This is the way I prefer to ingest my rice, honestly. It's not suuuuper high percentage-wise in the alcohol department, but we tried 7 different kinds and they were NOT shy about pouring. We were supposed to write reviews and I think my last one read something like "19% kind (I couldn't be bothered to figure out the name but it was the highest alcohol content so I think they'll know): Strong. Tastes really good."

Lauren's boyfriend is Korean and he always tries to convince us that Koreans invented everything. Such as this pizza.

We were drinking it out of these little pot looking things, and it was really fun! It's much easier to drink than soju haha. I was sad because Tina is in Dokdo this weekend on a trip with the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE), so we only got to see each other for a bit on Friday, but drinking delicious alcohol with her friends was a good substitute.

On the note of Friday, I went shopping and bought some sweaters, a backpack, some cosmetics (they gave us extra free samples because we're twins haha) and MAMACITA!!!!

Buying CD's here is still legit.

Not only do you get the CD, but there is extra stuff too!

For instance, we got posters (not pictured since Tina has them) and in my copy there was a booklet with all the promo photos from the album!

Each one has a collectible card of one of the members from the group. I got Donghae-oppa!!

 So in the world of Kpop fandoms, you have your "bias" in the group: the person you like the best. In Super Junior, my bias is Kyuhyun (pictured above in the booklet picture on the left and in like all of my other blog posts ever). But with groups like SuJu and EXO having like 13 members (let's be serious, even in SHINee and Big Bang where there are only 5...), it's hard to have just one favorite. So Kyuhyun is my bias, but Donghae is what's called my "bias wrecker." Sometimes he makes me question Kyuhyun as my favorite. It might help that I love the song "Oppa, Oppa" which is only 2 members of SuJu (Donghae and Eunhyuk) and also that he is handsome as fuck.

I mean, come on.

To be honest, like any member of Super Junior could be my bias/bias wrecker at any given time. I just happen to love Kyuhyun's voice and think he is hella adorable. Also he's really witty and sassy.

This video is from way back in like 2009ish when SuJu was still pretty new (Sorry, Sorry had just put them on the map bigtime) and no one knew who Kyuhyun was because he was the last member added and because he's the youngest (the maknae is the youngest, and in other terms he's the dongsaeng or little sibling, like me!). He basically gets to talk a lot less than everyone else. My favorite part of the episode (about 3:33 in this clip) is when they have to write anonymous notes on rice paper for 4 of the members. Kyuhyun is supposed to be really respectful of the older members (using honorifics and formal language), but he's known for being mischievous and totally rocks it in this part. He got offered a position as an MC by one of the hosts of this show because he was so clever on Intimate Note. If I ever watch this video and do not laugh, it is because I am dead or there is an alien posing as me. Be warned.

ANYWAY I tried my best to not go in the kpop direction but we went there anyway. Oh well.

This week was full of other small victories, such as impressing my coworkers by saying the correct phrase for leaving (it's different when you're the one leaving or staying), I got internet that I am currently using, I got a phone plan, and I had a fun week!

One of my favorite victories is pretty awesome. My toilet seat has been kind of broken ever since I moved in and was too small for my toilet anyway, so whenever I used it, it would like move around and was stupid. Well, I finally actually broke it on Saturday night because... reasons that might have to do with delicious drinks combined with my inherent clumsiness. So I had to fix it. I walked to Daiso and bought what looked like the correct size seat and a few other things, then proceeded to get lost when I left Daiso but I found my way to the only bus station I understand (my area has a lot of one way streets so at one stop all the buses go the same way and all stop in front of my apartment) and made it home. I then managed to change the seat all by myself!! My bathroom is becoming more and more purple and I love it.

This is what success looks like.

We're supposed to have Sports Day on Thursday, which means no class! The kids are also supposed to practice on Monday, which also means no class! Except it's supposed to rain both those days, which would move everything around. Either way, I have a holiday on Friday, so I at least know that I have Friday off yayyyyyyyyyyy!

I'm feeling pretty good about life right now.  To send you off, here's a song from the movie Begin Again which everyone in my school has asked if I've seen it a million times. They all LOVE this movie. I did too! Here's a song in English for once. It's "Lost Stars" sung by Adam Levine aka the only member of Maroon 5 that anyone cares about:

See ya!! 

Super Junior Super Show

To all of my 3 followers, I hope that you are prepared for a blog that consists mostly of my excitement and exhaustion resulting from Super Junior. I know that you follow my blog specifically for its value in the Kpop community, so this will be especially interesting to you.

Before I get to that though, I have an observation to make. The idea that there is strength in numbers has never been more true to me than here. When I was with Tina and Sarah all weekend, walking around Seoul and riding the subway and going to a concert with an overwhelming number of Koreans was not daunting. But as soon as I left their company today, I was struck by a strong sense of anxiety to be alone. Suddenly leaving my apartment to get pizza seemed like a monumental task. Getting pizza is not hard because A.) I have done it before. Several times, in fact, at the same pizza place. B.) The word for pizza in Korean is pronounced "pi-ja" and pepperoni is pronounced almost exactly like you would think except you enunciate each syllable a bit more so it sounds like "peh-pehr-row-nee." So it's not like it's hard to order. C.) The pizza place is like a minute walk from my apartment (5 if the elevators in the building are stupid).

My anxiety about ordering pizza resulted from 3 things  (as I am very fond of lists suddenly): A.) I was alone again. I did not have 2 people with me who speak much better Korean than I do. With a group of curly-haired and beautiful Americans walking around, we do turn heads. I do too when I;m by myself, but it feels much more manageable when in a group. Being alone means that I can't hide in my group of triplets. B.) The security guard in my building tried to talk to me when I came home, but I don't understand him and he doesn't speak any English, so it was a bit of a difficult thing to come home to. It knocked my mood a bit and it carried over into ordering pizza. C.) I am awkward and overthink ordering pizza.

Anyway, this sort of thing manifests itself all the time. I have been studying some Korean and feel fine practicing with Tina or asking her for help, but I cannot bring myself to utter much in front of my coteachers or the other subject teachers even though I know they would be nice about it. It's something that doesn't bother me most days but some days it's crippling to try and leave my apartment. I also know that I have only been here for a month and a half and it will take time to adjust. I'm getting there.

Speaking of being here for a month and a half, I have already done some incredible things. I saw CATS and the SMTown concert within a week of arriving, I've been to a palace and a folk village, I've gotten the hang of teaching at least a tiny bit, and I have gotten to see my sister soooooooo much!

But easily one of the most wonderful things I have done was go to the Super Junior Super Show! I couldn't take many pictures, but I will do my best to describe the euphoria that I am still reeling from.

EEEEEEEEEEP Outside the venue.

Honestly, I didn't want to go to the concert when the idea was introduced to me, mostly because I WAS STILL IN AMERICA WHEN THIS WAS A DISCUSSION. I had no idea how much I would come to love Super Junior in my time in Korea. Tina and Sarah wanted to go and I was like “well okay that sounds like a thing to do.” Getting tickets to this thing was a nightmare. Not for me, of course, since in this and all other things in Korea I'm the dongsaeng (the little sister/sibling) so everyone just kind of does things for me (and sometimes treats me like a child in the case of my coworkers – this is not an insult; I don't mind being treated like I know nothing here because I am literally Jon Snow and know nothing). This included Sarah enlisting the help of her boyfriend's friend to get us tickets. When I excitedly told my coteachers that I was going to this concert, the first question they asked was “How did you get tickets? Those are so hard to get!” Instead of explaining that my sister's American friend's Korean boyfriend's friend (who is an EXO fan, no less) got us tickets, I reduced it to “My sister has Korean friends” which got the “Ahhhh” response that satisfied us all. We couldn't get tickets together (I could go on and on about how stupid Gmarket is...) but we all got standing tickets. Even until this week I wasn't suuuuuuuuuuuper excited. But on Friday I kept giggling to myself on the way home from school so I think I looked like a crazy person. By Friday night I was drunk on the idea of going to see this group perform.

IT WAS INCREDIBLE.

I must confess, it was really frustrating for a lot of reasons. For one, we got there super early because Korea. We did not have to get there as early as we thought. In other concerts, if you had tickets in the range of say 600-800 in the standing section, you just went to that area and lined up first-come-first-serve. So we got there early. Lo and behold, this is the one time they take ticket number into account. We had tickets in the 670 area and 780 area, so one of us (Tina or I) would have had to go in 100 people before the other and in the mad rush for standing spots, it would have been nearly impossible to find each other as I STILL do not have a working phone.So we traded tickets with another set of girls WHO WERE HAVING THE SAME PROBLEM BECAUSE LITERALLY NO ONE KNEW THAT THIS WAS THE SYSTEM UNTIL WE LINED UP. We gave them the better tickets because we are nice and also did not want to go through the hassle of trying to discuss who should get them because I'm pretty sure they were Taiwanese or something and we literally had no common language to speak.

Also, we were in the standing section and people are dumb. The stage was split up and they would walk to different parts, and wherever they were people would try and run and push to get closer to them. Some people brought giant cameras and were trying to get pictures of them (which they were removing people for) and one girl shoved me out of the way near the end and I flipped out because after 3 hours of being sandwiched and stampeded on just so they could get marginally closer to Oppa was annoying. I don't think they understood my frantic and swearing English but they apologized like crazy to me and Tina. It was really crowded in the standing section and I am sore and a little battered.

BUT WE MANAGED TO GET AN AWESOME SPOT AND IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT.

That's the main stage. We were ridiculously close to it.

I cannot overstate how close we were. The main stage was maybe 20 or so feet from us, but the way the stage was extended was awesome because we were maybe 7-8 feet from the middle section that they had to walk on to get to the other part of the stage. We could see their faces sweating. We were close enough for me to see that Ryeowook (one of the smallest human beings I have ever seen) could probably fit in my pocket. Seriously, his legs looked like both of them combined would not equal my thigh. We also had a very good view of their... ahem.... assets... when they were downstage to the left of where we were standing.

Look at how cute and little he is!

We were sitting down inside before the concert started and this over 40 something woman and her friend LITERALLY SHOVED TINA OUT OF THE WAY to get a better spot AND THEN THIS ONE PROCEEDED TO ACTUALLY SIT ON MY LEG. WHY.

Side note, I may have talked about the lightsticks before. Each Kpop group has a color and a name for their fanbase. Super Junior's fanbase is called E.L.F. (Ever Lasting Friends) because I have no idea why and it makes no sense but whatever, and their color is a beautiful sapphire blue. I like getting the lightstick because it is usually on the cheaper end of concert souvenirs, is cool, can double as a flashlight in my apartment, and MAYBE OPPA (either older brother or a term of endearment that girls use for older male friends/idols/boyfriends) WILL SEE MY LIGHTSTICK. It also looks fucking awesome.

Here I am waiting for our spots with my lightstick because I NEED ONE SO OPPA WILL SEE ME.

Isn't it stunning?

Incidentally, one of my favorite songs they performed is called Oppa, Oppa. It's only two of the members of the whole group, but it's awesome. Here it is from a different Super Show:

Tina and I learned the refrain dance. it's awesome. The dances are always the same, so it's pretty easy to remember and figure out the formations and where everyone is on stage.


There were also 2 members from Super Junior M (the offshoot that has Chinese members and sings in Mandarin) there and they performed my favorite SuJu M song Swing:

Swing!! This is the Korean version.

This is the Chinese version. It's impressive though I am partial to Korean (not sure why)

Here's another one of my favorite songs from the show:

It's called Shirt. And it is awesome. SuJu has aged well and I am a little embarrassed by how excited this song makes me. Like it's called Shirt. Calm down, me.

I'm going to sound like a crazy fangirl at this point because at one point during the show they were all standing on the middle section that we were closest to and they were waving at everyone, and the lights in the audience were up so I'M 100% POSITIVE THEY COULD SEE ME AND TINA. Seriously, when you're in a group of Koreans and you're both blonde (my coworkers insist that I am blonde and Tina is just blonder), you can get some attention.

BANG! There go my ovaries.

Kyuhyun, my personal favorite member, was walking along the stage waving at everyone and he looked at our area, waved, looked away, and did a serious double take before waving back in our direction. I'm preeeeeeeeetty sure he saw the two curly haired blonde girls (people near us had banners too so it's possible he was looking at/near those but I've been in Korea long enough to know the twin double-take when I see one) and was hopefully like "whoa foreigners cool" since that's the normal reaction to us here.

All in all, it was incredible. They're such good dancers, singers, and performers that the show was enjoyable beyond words. My feet hurt so bad after, but I didn't really notice throughout the whole thing. Plus, we got waves. And I am now trying to make an entire set of Super Junior Zumba routines because I miss Zumba and SuJu has some awesome songs just begging for routines.

We stopped to take some pics after the show

Suju Fighting!!! 

I have another long week of teaching ahead of me, but it's going to be awesome. My coteacher is taking me to set up my phone, bank, and internet tomorrow, so I get to not sit at my desk lesson planning (which is fun but also I am always stressed about lesson planning...) for a day! yay!!

I'll leave you with one last song, Bonamana:

Stay well, everyone! Fighting!

Passing the One Month Mark!

First, here's another song I'm obsessed with:

This is Taemin's single "Danger." You might (but if you're my typical American reader you might not) recognize Taemin from the group SHINee, who I also love. This is from his solo debut. I always listen to this song after or in conjunction with last blog's obsession, Mamacita by Super Junior:

A lot of my weeks have been spent watching some (read: this) music video or other, since Super Junior can win awards and stuff based on youtube views and album sales and other things that I don't understand but I just like the video so I watch it a lot. Please watch Mamacita if you get a chance!

Anyway, I'm sure that your visiting my blog is contingent upon my kpop recommendations,but I digress.

HAPPY JUST OVER ONE MONTH IN KOREA TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

In just that short (long?) amount of time, my Korean has gone from "non-existent" to "barely existent" (I can read the alphabet), I can use chopsticks reasonably well, and the anxiety level I get from having to go anywhere/do anything/order food by myself has gone from "cripplingly terrifying" to "mildly panic-attack inducing!" Although I do now have my arsenal of Korean foods that I can read, so I just look for those on menus, so I suppose it's down a peg to "really really really really uncomfortable please stop staring at me oh god these people do not want me in their country send help I'm going to McDonald's but even there they might think I'm an idiot since the only way I know how to order is by pointing or saying a number." So things are looking up, really.

In funny news, my bedframe broke when Tina was over last weekend for the holiday:

To update: My school felt so bad that they sent the school maintenance guy over to fix it. I am currently typing this post from my mattress, which is situated firmly on my fixed frame. My coteacher was astounded that I had slept on the mattress on the floor for like a day. Everyone's concern was touching, although I blame Tina entirely. Even though I wanted her to come over, and had her sit on the side of the bed that broke, and in general it was not her fault. Whatever.

Anyways, Korea. Some days I want to curl up in a ball and never leave my apartment because it's really hard to do things here. And some days I want to get on a plane and go home to a country where I speak the (not official) language. Some residual inadequacies I felt during grad school have not been lessened by coming here.

But most days? I love it here. I love my apartment (even with its quirks: my shower has TOO MUCH water pressure), I love my area (I live in Mokdong, which I am beginning to learn is on the higher end of awesome as far as Seoul is concerned), I love my school (seriously, it's the best), I love my coteachers (I finally figured out their names on the messenger app we have on the computer, despite my icon depicting me as a man), I love being so close to Tina (the same timezone is already a relief), and sometimes I honestly love all the attention I get for being a foreigner. It's nice to be told you're beautiful whenever you wear your hair different, or be told how impressive you are when you finally grab a noodle with chopsticks (seriously, they are the hardest thing ever to grab...) or when you utter a phrase in Korean and everyone is astounded. I like hearing that students who used to sleep in English class are now trying, or students who never tried on tests are getting 90%. It's awesome.

You know what else is awesome? 5 DAY WEEKENDS.

We had a holiday called Chuseok, which a lot of people refer to as "Korean Thanksgiving" but that's mildly inaccurate since the holiday predates the Thanksgiving tradition. I don't know much about it since I'm not Korean and haven't been here for too long, but I do know is it results in this:

LOOK AT HOW MANY SEATS ARE OPEN. ALL OF THEM.

Empty subways station.

I don't know if I've ever stressed how crowded Korea is. A freaking ton of people live in Seoul, but are in fact not from Seoul. Go figure. This holiday is pretty important for families, so a looooooooooooooot of people leave Seoul AND IT IS AWESOME. No fighting for seats on the subway. No one shoving you out of the way to get to the door 3 stops in advance. No giant wall of Koreans coming up the stairs as you try to make your way down. It is a ghost town and it is great.

We took advantage of a deal to go to Everland (on Monday, one of the actual holiday days where people would be doing family stuff), which is an amusement park similar to Disney. There are different themed areas (American Adventure, Europe, that sort of thing). We went on quite a few rides and didn't have to wait long for the famous T-Express, which "is the first ride of this type in Asia, and the first to utilize 3 trains. It is the world's fourth steepest wooden roller coaster. It is also the wordl's ninth fastest, fourth tallest, and sixth longest wooden roller coaster."

I took exactly 1 picture at Everland.

This photo, courtesy of Wikipedia, is the T Express.

It was awesome! It was a pretty hot day, but we got to wander and act like kids again. And question our sanity as we faced the steep drop a second time (I believe it went something like WHY DID WE DECIDE TO DO THIS AGAIN/THIS IS WHY I HAVEN'T RIDDEN A ROLLERCOASTER IN YEARS).

The day after Everland (for those of you keeping score at home, Tuesday), Tina took me to see my real living quarters, aka Gyeongbukgung Palace aka a reeeeeeeeeeeeeally famous palace here in Seoul. Strangely (not really) I thought that I should take more pictures here than at the amusement park, so here are some of them with vague explanations since I don't remember what Tina told me:

I am a big fan of the ancient (not as old as you think since it was rebuilt after being destroyed, but still) and modern together

Admiral Yi Sun Shin. Dude was a BADASS. For now, WIkipedia highlights: "Perhaps his most remarkable military achievement occurred at the Battle of Myeongnyang. Outnumbered 133 warships to 13, and forced into a last stand with only his minimal fleet standing between the Japanese Army and Seoul, he still managed to destroy 33 of 133 Japanese warships in one of the most astonishing battles in military history" and "With the Japanese army on the verge of being completely expelled from the Korean Peninsula, he was mortally wounded by a single bullet. His famous dying words were, 'The battle is at its height...beat my war drums...do not announce my death.'"

King Sejong, who oversaw the creation of Hangul so they wouldn't need to keep using Chinese characters.

Look this is Hangul, the Korean language. Yeah, looks kind of hard to learn, RIGHT? But it has waaaaay less to learn that Chinese or Japanese.

We got there at the changing of the guard.

Only the king can walk in the middle of the steps.

The throne room!

My lovely guide. Seriously, her knowledge of Korean history is impressive.

Explaining the floor heating system.

This is one of my favorite pictures I have ever taken.

This was used to host parties with foreigners.

Authentic Joseon Dynasty CCTV

Look! I can fit through a Joseon Dynasty-sized door!

Authentic Joseon Dynasty emergency equipment.

It's a big deal that this roof is blue because it's suuuuuuuuper expensive.

Seoul streetcar

I was a lion too! They had lion costumes that weren't as elaborate as the one I saw in Jeonju.

Look at all the worlds colliding in this one photo. Beautiful. 

For more pictures of my trip, see here:https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153256070729968.1073741835.697649967&type=1&l=f1af4a87b4

On Wednesday I ventured out to Gangnam (yes, like Psy's song) for some brick oven pizza with some awesome orientation people. It was glorious. 

I don't think you understand how monumental this is.

After a frantic but short and awesome 2 day week, it was the weekend again! I had a reunion with my people from orientation (SHOUTOUT TO GROUP 2 FOR BEING THE BEST ORIENTATION GROUP EVER!!!) and I got to experience navigating the subway home while slightly inebriated and I still managed to catch the last train to my area! Success! 

So overall, I still have a lot of highs and lows here. Still no real internet in my apartment. No cell phone. I am not a registered alien yet. I still am pretty frantic about lesson planning. Some days I notice people staring and sometimes I don't. But I am very happy, especially with so much accomplished and so much to look forward to.

NEXT WEEKEND WE ARE GOING TO THE SUPER JUNIOR SUPER SHOW AND I AM BEYOND EXCITED.

For fun: we were doing some kind of chant for my 6th grade class, and my coteacher made up moves for some of the words. What was one of the words? Sorry. What was the move? Why, the famous Sorry, Sorry dance from Super Junior, and I got to impress my kids by knowing the dance. The album/song came out like 5 years ago, but it's still pretty famous. 

Mostly I'm Sorry, Sorry not Sorry,Sorry for always posting about Super Junior. I'm stoked for the concert.

I am not stoked for a full week of teaching, but I finally get to meet my 3rd graders! I also will hopefully be able to get into the swing of things more.

I keep seeing everyone posting about it being Autumn weather back home. Meanwhile I'm over here like oh look another week of all 80 degree weather. -_____- I cannot wait for it to cool off so that wearing pants is not a death sentence. Alas.

Until next time, friends!

Well, I don't hate his leather pants...

First of all, I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS SONG:

If you do one thing today, let it be watch this music video and listen to this song. It's awesome.

It's just a really fun song and I love the video. It's catchy as hell and always stuck in my head. Whenever they use English in these songs and it's wrong (shut your tongue????) I just think, “Oh. You tried so hard.” Then I enjoy the song anyway.

So I have been pretty busy with orientation and getting to my school for the first week, and I have pretty spotty internet connections, so it has been difficult to do a lot of things. You don't realize how much you use the internet until you don't have 24-hour access to it.

Anyway, orientation was great. I met a ton of great people and learned a lot of valuable information. It was a fairly typical orientation, if a bit longer than normal ones. I felt like I was in college again!

After orientation, we took a bus back up to Seoul to find out where we were place. My coteacher had a sign and flowers for me, and there was great surprise at my lack of bags. As we drove to the school, I was asked a million questions (do I like Korean food? What's my favorite? Do I like Kpop? Which group? Who is my favorite? Do I cook? How old am ? Etc...) for most of the ride. I spent a lot of the day at the school, and the 6^th grade teachers took me out for shabu (I think???) which is where they put a pot of broth on the table and you cook your food in it and it is awesome. Fancy Korean food tends to have a lot of cooking by yourself I guess?? I did not take any pictures of my food as I usually do since I did not want to look crazy on the first lunch with coworkers. The teachers were very concerned about me, asking if I was okay with communal food (I am), if we did this in America (we don't), if I needed a fork (I didn't), and if I liked the food (I did). One of the teachers told me I was good with chopsticks but I hold them like a first grader. I'll take it!

We hung out for a while then went back to the school while a service cleaned my apartment for me. My office is in my 5^th/6^th grade classroom, so it's pretty private. Just me and my coteacher. Sometimes we go to the Subject Teacher's room (for lunch and if there is camp or something in our room) and I sit with some of the other teachers. Most of the teachers here are pretty young and/or have enough English knowledge to ask me basic questions, so I feel pretty included as far as these place go. Still, sometimes they are all talking and laughing and I sadly sit there and smile because I know something is funny but I can't understand anything. That's probably the hardest part for me; I love being around people but I am not actually communicating very much. I feel very isolated and lonely, and I don't want to bother my coteacher by asking her what everyone is saying every 5 seconds. Alas, I will get used to it. I talk to myself a lot since I have no one near my level of English to speak to.

I hate to be that guy who keeps bragging about my apartment, but it's awesome. Tina's friend Lauren and her boyfriend helped me move (he's Korean and has a car.... gonna keep him around....) my stuff from Tina's apartment to mine, and everyone agrees that we are all pretty lucky when it comes to placements. There were some horror stories out there, but my school seems to really want me to be happy, so I feel like I'm being interrogated sometimes with all of the inquiries into my health, happiness, and well-being. My apartment is awesome. It is a 15 minute walk to my school. There are tons of little places around my building that are worth exploring. I love it.

Pictures of my apartment:

Basically my apartment is spacious, awesome, and in a great area. I'm absurdly lucky to have this situation in Seoul.

Though many of my EPIK peers are deskwarming for a bit before teaching, I got to dive right in... sort of. My 3^rd/4^th grade coteacher won't be back until December (I think?) and the new teacher who is going to be my coteacher until then didn't arrive til Friday, so I haven't met my younger kids. I will also be observing her class initially (again, I think??), especially because next weekend is a long holiday weekend. I did an intro lesson with my 5^th/6^th graders where we played a game: I asked questions about me and they had to guess the answer. It involved talking, running, and learning about me without me just spouting a ton of English at them. I showed off a bit of my Korean skills, and I made the students promise me that I would work hard to learn Korean if they worked hard to learn English. Most of them applauded me and seemed enthusiastic about English, but we'll see how long that lasts. My coteacher was concerned about their level of English, but they seemed to understand a lot of what I said. I only needed translations on a few areas, and more for 5^th than 6^th. I am excited to work with my students more.

I had a dinner with all the teachers at my school on Friday. We had to say goodbye to the old Vice Principal, and welcome the new Vice Principal, the new teacher (who will be my coteacher for a while), and welcome me. I impressed everyone with my 3 Korean phrases (thanks, EPIK orientation!) and also with my ability to drink soju/take shots. It's pretty traditional to have a lot of soju at these things, and once I was polite and drank the whole shot that one of the important people gave me, suddenly everyone wanted to see how the non-Korean drank soju. Apparently I am a true Korean. Yay! I was not happy about this later when the soju caught up to me, but I had a fun night. There are a lot of younger teachers at school (by young I mean under 30 I think...) and we played a game called “Ask Francesca what age she thinks everyone is.” I cannot tell the ages at all here (I like to say I play the game “14 or 40?”), so I told everyone I thought they were 26. They all found this amusing and I think I charmed them with my lowballing of ages (unless I knew what age they were because of prior information given to me by my insider friend) and because I stayed out with them the whole time they were out. I am the youngest person at my school (which did not surprise me) and also since I am a foreigner everything I do to try and embrace their culture is well met.

I'm having a hard time adjusting to the lack of independence, and to not knowing what's going on. My new coteacher lives near me (yay!!) and loves the area (YAY!!!), and she told me she thought I was very brave to come to Korea and to come out to the dinner even though I understand about 5% of what's going on. That made me feel a bit better, but those moments are often offset with frustrating ones. I figured out my way to Emart and bought more things for my apartment, but I can't explain to the security guard of my building that I cannot get my elevator key to work (I live on the 16^th floor...) and that a package addressed to my apartment is not something that I specifically ordered since I have only been here since Tuesday while he keeps saying things in Korean that I don't understand. My school schedule is weird and I still have to get my Alien Registration Card before I can deal with getting a phone or internet or anything I am used to having.

Thankfully I got to spend the rest of the weekend with Tina and among other English speakers. Tina and I met up with Lauren and went to see Dracula the Musical. I love Dracula. I love vampire stories. I love the music, set, characters, and costumes (Dracula wears leather pants for most of it ^___^) of this show. It is not a great musical. The plotline is essentially that Dracula gave up on living until he saw/met Mina, then he makes it his mission to make her his, but then he decides that he can't condemn her to his lifestyle and kind of gives up again. It is not a great nor compelling plot.

Also, unlike CATS, this musical WAS ALL IN KOREAN. I know a lot of the songs and I know the storyline, but sometimes when it's just one person singing a ballad onstage and I can't understand anything it's hard to pay attention. That being said, I FUCKING LOVE THIS SHOW. It's really incredible. The stage has several rotating parts, handsome men play Dracula and wear leather pants, the costumes are lovely (did I mention leather pants?), the score and songs are awesome, and all of the actors were reeeeeeeeeeally really good (especially when they work the leather pants) in the show.

Do yourself a favor and listen to this guy (pictured above and in the video below):

This is who we saw: Park Eun-Suk and oh my lord can this guy sing (and be in leather pants). He's technically the understudy, but he's awesome. Seriously, I could listen to this guy read my grocery list and be happy. I had this song on repeat all day. I love listening to Koreans sing, and this is an incredible performance. This is my favorite song in the show (English version here). While I am more of a fan of menacing, stalker, terrorizing Dracula's one-sided obsession with Mina, I love this love song where Dracula realizes the impact of loving her. It's the second to last song, and even though their “love story” makes no sense (Mina goes from marrying Jonathan Harker and being upset with Dracula for essentially murdering her best friend to being in love with him and his Dracula outfit and inviting him into her bedroom...?), this song is awesome and I totally ship them.

One of the big draws of this show was the main guy to play Dracula, Kim Junsu from the Kpop group JYJ. I like our guy's voice better, but this dude is awesome too (read: LEATHER PANTS). This is kind of long, but it's an awesome scene:

First, "Mina's Seduction"

"It's Over"

This scene features the moving set for a chase! It was fantastic to watch from the balcony. I think thy do a good job of showing how powerful Dracula is (use the force, Vlad) and the second video shows a cool view of the staging. The first video is just one of my favorite songs from the show (Mina sings "Please Don't Make Me Love You") and it's just cool staging.

Here's a cool scene early on in the show where Dracula decides he's going to be a fucking badass again instead of a decrepit old vampire-man and feeds off of Jonathan Harker (who has just been attacked by Dracula's brides), and has a great instance of quick change and leather pants. It's kind of hard to see the action, but the entire set is moving on 4 different circles while Jonathan tries to escape the castle. It is much more successful and makes more sense to me than the Dracula-being-chased-in-a-house scene.

There is a lot of sexual hugging in this show (some of the scenes were really controversial in the American version and some of it surprised me with the sexuality in the Korean version) and a lot of good shots of leather pants and sparkly costumes.

Seriously, everyone was incredible. I would recommend Dracula (with it's overly romantic and implausible, which is hard for a mythic fantasy story, plotline) to anyone. Especially if you are a sucker for wonderful music, awesome sets, beautiful voices, incredible costumes, and leather pants.

After the show we got some Indian food and I met Lauren's boyfriend, which was nice since I was enlisting him to move a hundred pounds of luggage. Afterwards, Tina and I met up with some of the most awesome people at orientation, and then skyped my parents while I stayed over at Tina's.

Sunday was a frustrating day of moving and completely fucking up my Itunes, but all of my things (except for the few things I forgot) are in my wonderful apartment. I'm just trying to take things day by day, but as I've almost been here for a month I feel like I am getting adjusted in some ways and am super not in others. Oh well. One day at a time.

Monday was full of me not doing much besides lesson planning and getting some immigration stuff done (thank god for my coteacher. She is an angel for taking me through the whole process even though she lives like over an hour away, has never done it before, and we were there until the office closed) for now, and hoping my internet connects for more than 5 seconds at a time. 

Thankfully, my new coteacher is about as lost as I am, since no one really knows what she's supposed to do either. I feel really useless sometimes at school, but we are all trying our best. We are all kind of in the same boat and are all working together to get things done. Fighting!! 

Hopefully I will have real internet and know more about my day to day proceedings soon enough!! See ya later, and may there always be handsome men singing while looking incredible in leather pants.