First of all, the past few weeks in school have been pretty relaxed. The students finished their final exams at the beginning of the month so there's really not much to do in class except fun stuff. That is...when I have class. The 3rd graders (US-9th) were preparing for their Christmas Carol Contest for the past two weeks so their English classes were almost always cancelled. To put it in perspective... I teach 22 classes a week. Last week I taught six. It sounds like it would be nice to have all that free time, and it was at first, but I actually started to get bored. Plus, the third graders will only have one more week in middle school (randomly in February) before they go to high school in March. Most of my favorite students are third graders so it'll make me a little sad!
I'll talk about the Christmas Carol Contest in a bit, but before that was Santacon! Basically a bunch of us (mostly foreigners) dressed up like Santa and walked around downtown singing Christmas songs. Apparently they do this in Seoul and have almost 100 people. Ours was probably around 30 but it was still pretty cool.
Some pictures from before we headed out!
We stopped at this stage in the middle of downtown and sang some songs while people took pictures with us and stuff, it was pretty fun. After that, it was basically a Santa bar crawl! We went to three or four different bars and requested for them to play Christmas music. It was a really nice night so I actually ended up taking off my Santa suit and storing it in a locker and one of the clubs. I kind of thought I'd never see it again since I still don't know my way around very well, but I happened to walk by the place as I was looking for a taxi to go home, so I left with my entire Santa suit intact!
On the stage downtown.
Fast forward to day- Christmas eve! Korean schools are a bit different and we actually didn't have this day off. We have Christmas day off, and then we come back for Wed-Fri. Then their school year is over for two months. They come back for one random week in February, I think because the 3rd graders will graduate. And then in March, the new school year starts.
Well, even though we did have school today, it didn't really feel like work. Classes were shortened to 30 minutes and then there was a short classical music concert by the students followed by the Christmas Carol Contest. I wish I would have taken a video of some of the classical music-especially this kid who is an absolutely brilliant violinist, but they were a bit formal about it. They didn't even applaude after the performances, so I guess I wasn't sure if it would be appropriate. I did take a bunch of videos of the carol contest however, which was a blast!
Took some pictures with students before it started :P
"We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Santa Clause is Coming to Town"
This one is probably my favorite.
"All I Want For Christmas is You"
This one is probably my favorite.
"Last Christmas" and "Jingle Bell Rock"
Very close second favorite!
Very close second favorite!
Anyway, I started this post Christmas eve and now it's Christmas day! Today, almost 30 people are coming to my apartment. It should be crazy but a lot of fun. I'll post about that when it's over!
Merry Christmas!
Artist: Girls' Generation
Song: Santa Baby
Performance December 2011
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