World DJ Festival

This weekend I went to the 4th World DJ festival with my buddy Matt.  We got to the festival at around 5:15pm and I got back home from the festival at .. oh, 5:00am. Needless to say, it was a long and crazy night.  

I didn't know any of the DJ's that were playing so I was really there for the experience and because I love outdoor music festivals.  

I only brought along my little camera since I didn't want my nice one to be stolen so the quality of the night photos is sub-par.  I wish I could capture how many people there were at the main stage.  Thousands and thousands.  There was 1 large stage, 1 medium stage, and 2 small stages.  I didn't even discover the second small stage until I was trying to find my way out of the venue and accidentally stumbled upon it instead.  We spent most of our time between the main stage and the Jagermeister medium stage.  I was appreciative of my sitting mat I bought at Home Plus a few weeks ago.  It came in handy for saving our spot on the grass and maintaining an easy gathering point for whenever we got separated from each other (and we did-- often.) 

Here is a photo of Matt and me.   

Advanced English Club

For the month of April, the English club did a unit on Nature and Natural Disasters.  My favorite projects that we did in April were the earthquakes and the plants classes. 

On earthquake day the kids learned about the Richter Scale and then I gave them a challenge: They had to build the highest building they could that could also withstand the biggest earthquake.  They loved working in teams to construct the buildings (with building blocks I borrowed from the 1st grade classroom) and seeing them topple over with a swift shake of their desks. 


For the plant lesson we focused on Earth Day and plants.  We used empty yogurt containers that I had been saving for months in expectation of this project.  They used colorful mosaic squares to cover the yogurt and then they put in potting soil and planted edible grass seeds.  Some students left theirs in the classroom so we could see it grow.  It's been just one week now and 3 of the 4 plants are seeing sprouts. It's exciting! 


This month the English Club is learning about music.  Today's class was just the intro day which is always a little bit on the boring side.  I let them listen to a bunch of different styles of music and then fill in the sentence: "When I listen to _______ I feel _______.  It makes me think of ________." 

Here are some of my favorite responses:

When I listen to surf rock I feel happy.  It makes me think of someone who is going [on a] picnic. 

When I listen to hard rock I feel dangerous.  It makes me think of gorilla and lion. 

When I listen to big band I feel excited.  It makes me think of Mary Poppins.  

When I listen to Hawaiian music I feel I want to go to swimming pool, or beach in Hawaii.  I feel it's summer in here because this song's feel is summer.  It makes me think of afternoon and I think I'm eating very expensive food in very good restaurant.  

When I listen to hard rock I feel crazy fantastic.  It makes me think of HeSun because she is a very crazy friend.  

Next week we are doing Pop music (which they are all very excited about) and a little bit of hip-hop (which I am very excited about).

The final week in May we will do a music video critique.

Children's Day!

Yesterday was a special day in Korea: Children's Day!  On Children's Day students & teachers get a day off and parents are supposed to do extra nice things for their kids.  Apparently this means letting your child eat as much ice cream as they desire because of the kids who had ice cream, 3 seemed to be the average number of cones eaten.   3 ice cream cones!  

I, however, did not eat ice cream.  Yesterday also happened to be Cinco de Mayo so I celebrated by eating a burrito from Dos Tacos and even treated myself to a margarita with my friends Jenn and Alex.  

After Dos Tacos we had some time to kill so we wandered down to the Kyobo bookstore.  The Kyobo bookstore isn't anything like What the Book.  It's like a massive Barnes & Noble.  I fell in love at first sight.  Alex and I practically squeed with delight.  (I bought the book A Thousand Splendid Suns.)  

Before we knew it it was 2:30 and we were going to be late to the game.  Naturally I started freaking out and anxiously rallied the two others so we could make our way to the stadium.  We got to the Seoul World Cup Stadium at about 3:15 (so we were 15 minutes late) but I admit that in the end it was ok.  We found some pretty decent seats and although it looks far away in the picture, it really wasn't that bad at all.  

 

Plus, we go to sit behind these awesome nuns.  

Action shot like whoa.  See the dirt kicked up? 

Red shirts like whoa.  

One thing to note about the game was that it was soooo loud.  People were screaming almost nonstop and the roar of the crowd was unbelievable.  Part of the reason it was so loud is because many people seemed to have these horns like the kids sitting next to us: 

Every time a goal was scored they'd shoot these fireworks into the air.  It was sweet and made the 4 goals that the Seoul team got even more exciting.  I couldn't capture the picture of the fireworks but I was able to snap a shot of the foggy haze that fireworks create afterward. 

It was a fabulous day and the perfect way to spend Children's Day.  The weather was warm and sunny and I was in good company.  What more can a girl ask for?  :D