of course my computer freezes as i write this...

Soooo, it's been a while, again, apologies!  I've been keeping pretty busy, running around and whatnot.  It was Halloween this past weekend, which was great!  I dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood.  There was a huge Halloween party here; one of the other foreigners has been here for a long time and has been putting it on every year for ten years.  It was awesome!  There were people from all over the province in attendance.  It was definitely a total gong show, and I didn't get home until almost 6 a.m.!

Last week we had an English festival that I, of course, got voluntold for.  At first I was told I would be doing the Golden Bell competition (like a spelling bee for the students, except with all sorts of trivia in English, and they have to answer in English... the last one left standing is the winner).  I was fine with that, just announcing questions... though I would have preferred to have been asked first!  (My vice principal, the one that voluntold me for the position, broke it to me by telling me that she told the people organizing everything that I was very cute and beautiful and nice, and that's why I should do it... no matter how much you butter me up, you STILL didn't ask me if I would first).  So, two weeks before the whole ordeal rolls around, my co-teacher informs me that I have to go to a meeting for the festival.  Lame.  Meetings here are awful, people yak in Korean the whole time, and I end up bored to death... I dread the teachers' meeting every single Monday.  Luckily, this meeting was comprised of only foreigners!  They went through the whole meeting, explaining how we would have to learn two sing-a-long songs and learn a dance to "Trying to get by in Yeosu."  I did not sign up for this...  There wasn't even any mention of the Golden Bell competition.  So, I got roped into not only doing the Golden Bell, but also making an ass of myself in front of students, parents, school board officials, and teachers.  Joy.  We had three one hour sessions to make up a dance to the song and learn it.  Now, I am a particularly uncoordinated individual, this was no easy feat for me.  Either way, we made it through the festival, made fools of ourselves... it was more fun than I thought it would be, anyways.  (Plus, I got to miss a day of class and mess around all day).

The Golden Bell portion of the day was intense.  My job was to ask the audience some trivia questions after the final three contestants were left standing.  Just as I am handed the microphone, this woman comes stampeding out of the corral where they were holding all of the eliminated students, and she is just SCREAMING. She's walking up to the stage yelling and flailing around, and one of the referees for the whole thing pulled her to the side to get her to calm down.  By then, some of the other parents had joined in, yelling along with her from inside of the kid corral. It was insane.  I guess the 25th question was called into question because the first time it was said, they said "South Korea" and the second time they said just "Korea."  So, this crazy mom waited until TEN QUESTIONS later to bring it up.   The question wouldn't have really even been affected by them saying "Korea" or South Korea." It was "How many provinces are in South Korea," but the answers were 6, 7, 8, or 9. I'm pretty sure if you include North Korean provinces, there's still more than 9! It was really ridiculous, especially considering that she waited until they had the final 3 before she said anything. Either way, due to her insanity, they decided to let the students who got eliminated on that question "back" into the contest. In reality, they sat them all down and eliminated them all until they got back to the original final 3 contestants. Of course, psycho soccer mom and the other screaming parents quickly disappeared after their children were eliminated.  Hilariously enough, one of my students that was in the contest claimed she had been eliminated on that question, and went and sat to continue the game. Turns out that all of the hats they were wearing had numbers on them, and with each question they recorded which student number was eliminated... she was LYING about being eliminated on that question! My co-ts were super embarrassed and left with the kids right after.  It was all pretty ridiculous.

Other than that, not much has happened... a lot of hanging out with everyone, running around, and keeping busy.  It's starting to get chilly here... I wore TWO hoodies instead of just one today, haha.  Doesn't change the fact that it is November 3 and there are STILL mosquitoes here.  Ick.

Aaanyways, I should get back to work, unfortunately!  Toodles!