School Talent Show!!!

One of the groups of "cool guys" playing and singing together. Adorable.

One of the girls doing a traditional Korean dance.

Thursday was the last day of exams for the first and second graders at school, meaning that all the students have now finished their exams yet they still have about a month left of school. I don't understand the Korean education system, but whatever. I'm hoping it goes okay until then. I've been a little stressed this week trying to plan out lesson for the upcoming weeks for the kids. I can do whatever I want, which is both nice and a little daunting. I also have been planning my camps for the winter, and I think I have it mostly planned out. Niall and I are doing a scavenger hunt with the kids together as well as a cooking class together where we are making pancakes. The other three days, I'm doing a two day harry potter camp and then a Sherlock/murder mystery camp the last day. I think I've got some good ideas, and the Harry Potte r camp is almost set. I've been doing blogging classes with some of my higher level students, and I'm almost ready to get some of the answers to your questions posted. I'll post the kids' answers and then maybe you can comment back. On Thursday, some of my students I guess wanted to practice their English by doing presentations for

cool magic trick from one of my kids

me. I didn't know they were planning something, but one of my co-teachers told me at lunch. I got a lecture about street food from a group of boys and one about Dokdo island from a group of girls. Dokdo island is an island on the southern coast of Korea. Japan and Korea both claim it as their own, and the Koreans are really adamant about it, even teenagers like my students. It was nice to see that my kids wanted to practice their English. I need to figure out ways to do things like this to get the kids talking more. That's one of my goals for the new semester.

the guy in the middle is Psy :)

On Friday, I think as a treat after exams, the school rented out the auditorium at the culture center, and the kids did a talent show! It was awesome! Not only did we get a half day because we left after it, but I also got to see some of the cool things my kids can do. Although all the kids were great, some of the girls were doing dances that I consider to be pretty inappropriate for school. I shouldn't know that some of my middle schoolers can move like that. Pretty ironic considering the teachers had done a sexual harassment training lecture earlier in the week. Anyway, there were some really cool acts. Most involved some sort of music--singing, dancing, playing an instrument--but one group of kids did MAGIC! It was really impressive! I'm editing a video, which I'll post soon of as many act as I could tape, but the quality of the video is bad at times. My good camera died half way through, and I had to switch to my phone. Woops! Even some of the teachers sang a song and the principal played his saxophone! He's apparently really good sax
player, and the teachers are always talking about it. My favorite performance was a PSY compilation featuring one of the larger middle school students as Psy! It was hilarious, and the kids did a
really good job of it. If they choreographed their own dances, I'm
really impressed. Anyway, it was a fantastic talent show, and I'm really proud of my students for performing! Also, I feel I need to say something about Korean audiences. We've observed people at parade and various performances inside and outside as of now, and all of them I've noticed similar things. Korean audience members are the best anyone could ask for! If you're a musician, come here to perform! They love it all. They dance, they clap, they scream! It's amazing. At the parade people were waving and clapping at all the people going by, and at the talent show, all the kids in the audience were cheering on ALL the acts (especially the sexy dancing girls and the cool singing and guitar playing dudes sitting down). I was seriously astounded by the way they seemed to support each other.

This week was the first week in probably over a month that we went to taekwondo training three times! It was nice to get back in the swing of things. The holidays kind of took priority for a bit, but hopefully, we're back in it. I definitely need to be training because of all the snacks I keep eating, and we both need to do it if we're going to make black belt by the end of the year.

Our Korean class Friday night was good, as usual. Next week is our last class, believe it or not! Where has time gone!?

It was a good week, and now we're having a relaxing weekend at home. Today, we watched movies all day. Tomorrow we might go out to Duryu Park with Maria and Matthew, but we aren't sure yet. We are watching our friend's dog this weekend also. She's a little dog named Maia, and she's really adorable and low maintenance. Her mom, Simone, is taking a weekend jaunt to Seoul, and I've been missing my furry companion, Trixie, back home, so it's nice to have a dog around again, even if it's just for a weekend.