The Boys Love to Dance

Ok, ignoring how long it's been since the last post and the failed attempt to start something new at Wordpress (maybe I'll move someday, but not yet.) Let's get started with a real post!!

Right now my school is in it's summer camp season, which means I have a one class for 4 hours but as a rare treat I can do whatever I want in class. Two of my passions being music and movies I decided to make my camp on those and focus on Western, and more specifically because I know it, American pop culture.

Today I decided to compare American pop music to Korean Pop music. For those who are unaware of it the boy and girl bands live on and strong in Korea. Something that I thought I left so far behind in my early teenage years when *NSYNC and Spice Girls were popular. However, the thing about KPop is that it gets under your skin, plus there is nothing like seeing your students break out into the full dance of a song by mentioning two lines or seeing an entire club of Koreans go into this dance when it comes on. Think I'm wrong? Tell me you aren't entertained by the thought of people breaking out into this.

So, how does one compare pop music to 4th, 5th, and 6th graders who barely understand English...show them *NSYNC videos of course! Let them know that Korea is not the only place that had boy bands and I wanted to see if any of them would try to do the dance. Well a few of them did, more specifically the boys did. I found this very interesting. While I'm trying not to get horrible high school flashbacks by listening to Bye Bye Bye the young boys are standing there, studying the movements of Justin Timberlake and the other boys whose names I can't remember and trying to pull them off. Meanwhile the girls just sat there and watched.

Maybe this is because I'm thinking of my brother who wouldn't try to dance if his life depended on it but in American culture at least, wouldn't it be the girls trying to dance and the boys refusing? Perhaps it was because it was a boy band and the girls didn't want to dance to a "boy's song," but they did not move! Eventually one of the boys gave up and decided to do one of his Tae-Kwon do forms, but made sure to do it to the beat of the song, which I really appreciated and wished I had my camera for.

But now I'm definitely scouring youtube to see if I can find anymore good girl or boy band music vids from back in the day to show my students. Who knows, perhaps I'll be able to get them to learn an English dance!

Where has my English gone?

Wow...so I just made a post about my new blog and there I am, checking it out when I notice things...
"bite the bucket"
"After I finished the movie I had was this idea..."

WTF?! Where has my English gone?!

I used to be able to write better than this! I know I wasn't the best writer before but seriously! The only thing I can think of is while I'm teaching these kids basic English my own English skills are fading. Spending my day hearing "Teacher finishi!" and other similliar phrases has clearly put my brain into this mode where I cannot help but to stay in all the time...so I now ask for your forgiveness as I continue to screw up my home language...and maybe I should find an editor before I post anything...

A Dumb Podcast Idea?

A few weeks (months now?) ago chaos happened on Twitter. Kumar over at The Kumar Expirience took up the challenge to watch Star Trek: The Original Series and many of us followed suit by saying we would watch something that we had been avoiding. I chose the Exorcist, because I'm not a fan of horror, thrillers yes, horrors no. But really I could have chosen from a huge list of films that people consider classics. Films that I honestly have very little desire to watch.

There are many reasons for that. One big one is that my Mom is a huge film buff and would often quote and reference films that I have never seen and when I was little my parents would watch a lot of the classics like Gone with the Wind or The Godfather when I was about 7 and I remember either being bored out of my mind and annoyed that they were taking up the TV for what felt like days and just not being interested in any of them. Then there is the fact that I've grown up in a culture where a lot of those classics, and even recent things are parodied rather quickly and more often than not the parodies make me not want to watch the film even more. And finally there is that when I was a teenager if it wasn't an anime I didn't really want to watch it and as a result I missed out on a lot of movies that kids growing up in the 90s would see. I've gone back and watched a few, but my list of films that shock people I haven't seen is still long and impressive.

So, this is my idea: I want you to challenge me to watch some of these movies that I've avoided. Tell me about some film that I probably missed (I'll try to work on a list to help people out) give me a reason why I should watch it and then I want to see if I can turn this into a podcast. The goal is to have many many guests as they challenge me to something and then we go back and review whatever it is I saw. And you know what? I'm not going to limit this to movies; tv, books, music, and since I've mostly stopped watching anime you can challenge me to that too (I've never seen Evangelion people, still plenty to challenge me to there), whatever you want to challenge me to, go ahead.

Now, this may turn into an epic fail idea. I have no idea how to record or edit a podcast, especially to record phone conversations that would be required for this. I don't have a mixer and am a little reluctant to get one knowing that I'm going to be travelling a lot...if there is a good travel one that'd be great? This was mostly an idea that I had for something to do during my free time that I feel like I'm wasting. I want to do something productive and this is the best idea I've had so far.

So let me know what you think. If you want to help out in anyway, be on or have any tips. I could definitely use it. Or if this is a bad idea...like I said I can see this ending in Epic Fail, but might give it a try...

or maybe a better idea would be to just make this into a blog since I know I will be traveling more, back to home and then to somewhere else after that?

April Fool's

Well, it's that time of year. If you are living in the Western world then I'm sure you know and are expiriencing in someway shape or form April Fool's Day. The day where all the pranks come out and people try to trick one another in the most specectaluar way that they can.

This often leads to property destruction or people getting injured...and really that's not all that funny. I hate seeing people get hurt, I've never found that amusing and too often people get caught up in the idea of pulling off the perfect prank that it no longer becomes funny. Or if it's the internet, it just means that I'm going to get Rick Roll'd a lot...we need to find a new joke internet...this one gets old quick today.

Now, I have no examples on bad April Fool's jokes...yet the day has just begun for the rest of the world, but I'm keeping my out for one ot report on...but I will tell you about the best April Fool's joke I've heard about.

I'm sure many have heard about it but if you haven't last year Think Geek, known for their wide variety of geeky apparel, especially interactive shirts claimed they had a shirt that would be the soundtrack to your life. It would play music and you could control it, so it would be like living in your very own movie with your very own soundtrack. Or you could annoy the shit out of people and by playing your music through your shirt with very little they could do about it. Either way, awesome.

And people bought it! So many people believed that it was a real shirt! Which truly makes a great April Fool's joke, that people truly believe in your joke and no one gets hurt. In fact, so many people believed that this shirt was real that Think Geek has gone ahead and made it! It's there in the store right now for you to buy for only $39.99...that's ridiculous for a shirt like this. I'm pretty sure I have a shirt or two that cost close to if not more than that...and they don't have special features...I just wear them to death. Go and check this out here.

I hope there is a prank that awesome this year. Cause that was seriously awesome. And I may need to get that shirt soon...

Just a Small Drink After School

So, talk about one of the most surreal moments of my life so far...the other foreign teachers and I leave school slightly early to go activate phones for those who didn't have one before or those whose broke mysteriously (mine won't even work as a clock anymore...and I can only call the last person who called me, unless I have your number in front of me...ungh). And on the way is a nice little Mom'nPop type convinience store that we usually pop into...only this time when we stopped it was quite different.

I suddenly felt a hand on my arm and I turn to look and see one of the older gentelmen that usually hangs out there handing me three hard-boiled eggs, one for me and my two fellow teachers...I first thought they were these pickled eggs here that I hate, but then I saw the pot and portable stove top over the register...well he was so nice and earnest we couldn't say no and now no way I wasn't buying anything even though I wasn't hungry...so we go to the register to pay and start eating our eggs when another man comes over and blops down a bottle of soju...

For those who don't know soju is Korean vodka that you can buy in any convinience store in Korea for about 1,000 won (that translates to less than a dollar...it's very popular here). It generally tastes very weak, especially once you mix it with anything and often will be the destruction of your night.

Fortionatly, this time they were kind enough to ask us if we wanted soju...well they asked me, they assumed my co-teachers would drink because they were male...and being the only female in the store I couldn't let a couple of Korean or Yorkshire men out drink me (although they probably could...) So we had a drink...no mix even though I hate my soju straight...and suddenly I'm being handed another egg...and another cup of soju...this time I was smart enough to bring my juice out and mix it myself. They didn't even really ask...only for politness sake, because after one of us said no thanks to the egg the owner started peeling it for him.

We were finally able to leave after the second one, but still, we were right by the school. We see students in there all the time and I avoid buying alcohol there so they don't think we are drinking right after school and this time school hadn't even fully let out yet!!! This has offically marked one of the top ten surreal moments in Korea, let alone my life!

Man I love this country.

Crab Ball

Thanks for my talking down guys...I need to stop reading multiple articles in a row about this while I at work, my imagination tends to run away from me...

ANYWAY!!!

Time for another silly game to waste countless hours on and that I had forgotten about until I starting cleaning out my bookmarks last night.

Crab Ball.



A very fun game that I used to waste hours on over at Spikey Thing. It's the easiest and the hardest game in the world. What you do is play volleyball against another crab using only your arrow keys. Easiest thing in the world to figure out. If the computer, or as I like to think, the evil crab in this epic battle, misses the ball you get a point and after 5 points you get the chance of earning an extra ball. However, if you miss the ball not only do you loose one of your lives, but you loose a point as well! This makes getting a high score really difficult and why I call it the easiest and the hardest game in the world.

My personal best score is around 20, but others on the list have stuff in the 230's....I can't imagine how much time they must spend playing this game.

But it's great fun and probably the best of the things I've tried out over at Spikey Thing and if you need a mindless game to clear your head, this is definitely one of the tops of my list!

I Need a Talking Down

So in enjoying my internet working at school again this week, I decide to write a new blog post about the silliness of Crab Volleyball when what does one of my friends tell me about?

This article and this article describing how North Korea no longer wants food aide from the U.S. and that they are detaining one, maybe two reporters for reasons that are unclear in that article... This seems to be in preperation for the big satellite launch that you can read more about here.

I've always been a bit skeptical about anything happening with North Korea, I mean after so long you would've thought something would've happened by now. But more and more it is looking like buttons are getting pushed too far. South Korea, Japan, and US are not going to like North Korea sending up their missiles and there is a very good chance at least one of those nations will do whatever it takes to stop those missiles. And like in the last BBC article I linked said if they do, the North Korean government has stated it will start a war over this...something I didn't fully believe until now.

The act of closing off their borders once more to even businesses, refusing aide from the US (I don't know about other sources of aide...but still) and now holding reporters...this makes me think that they are serious about their threats and are prepping for a war to start...talk about my worse fear at this moment!

Maybe because I'm living here and I tend to run to panic mode fairly quickly is the reason why I'm so scared at this moment, but I am...this just feel so much more serious on my end and I am scared. Please someone tell me I have nothing to worry about...