Shannon's (29th) Birthday Cake!!

Fashion Show

Tonight's fashion show was my favourite so far, very glad I took my camera along. One of the key motifs of the night seems to have been facial hair, as we see here: Although I do think he was supposed to be a wizard. Another common theme is the the trashcan chic look - basically, how much newspaper and sellotape can we stick to one person and still allow him to walk and breathe? These guys came through pretty well in the end - they had to resort to rock-paper-scissors to decide who would be the model, but this kid totally rose to the challenge as you'll see: Next we have I think another wizard. There was also a boy who was forced to dress as a fairy/angel somewhere; I was planning to take a pic of him at the end but I was judging so had to write down the scores instead. Probably the design idea that occurs most often: dressing boys in dresses. Yesterday we had one in a wedding dress. I think maybe this kid was enjoying it just a little too much though, y'know? We mark the entrants on fashion, use of materials, and critically, on their walk down the catwalk. Through a fiendishly orchestrated tie in tonight's scoring, we had to resort to a 'walk off' for the final two contestants. Check out the kid at the back totally mincing it up for the crowd - he had us all in hysterics!

Night Shift

I'm working on the late shift again this month; in fact, since me and Emma like nights so much, we've asked if we can be permentantly on this shift, and Kane and Eva (who prefer days) will have our early mornings. Whether or not we're allowed to do this kinda depends on if everyone else kicks up a stink, but we did ask first! Late shift means we don't have a class until 1:30pm at the earliest - today I had nothing until 3:30pm! - so I can and usually so waste the morning in bed! We have a few classes after lunch, then tea, an hour and a half break, then it's time for the evening activity. This week I'm on fashion show, the nature of which, if not self-evident, I'll explain in more detail later when I've taken a few pictures. I'll try to remember to take my camera tomorrow. Some of the kids make a real effort; others look like they've just crawled out of a dustbin lorry. Often it's an exercise in humiliation: just how ridiculous will these kids make their own teamates look? Answer: very. Wait for the pictures. Another bonus of night shift is not having to work weekends, so can actually go out on Saturday nights and not worry about work the next morning. On the early shift pattern, you're lucky if you get two consecutive days off in any given month. The only disadvantage of evening shift is that I have absolutely no incentive to drag myself away from the internet, so could very easily stay here surfing, oblivious to the time, until 2am or more. Hence wasting most mornings in bed...

Are you kidding me!?

I just looked at the site in Internet Explorer out of curiosity, and it looks atrocious, at least on my laptop! It's just random! What's going on!? Tell me that isn't how it usually looks!

Monthly Review: Month 2

We've been in Seoul two months now. That same length of time five times more and it'll be time to come home again. Still doesn't seem too bad. Perhaps in the icy grip of winter time will pass at a more noticeable pace. Sixteen point six recurring per cent of the way there in any case. The summer program is finally over, which means student numbers are back down to normal levels thank goodness. Last week I had three free periods, this week, some people have up to 20. My schedule is slightly different as I'm going to be on evening shifts for the foreseeable future, but it's still pretty good. I'm teaching nutrition. The school are throwing some kind of party/meal for us this weekend in honour of our oh-so-hard work over this last month. We do deserve it though. It isn't going to be that busy again until Christmas I'm relieved to say - although this does mean I will almost certainly be working Christmas day, which ain't so good. Developments of the month: the dress code is to be sharpened up so I guess I'm going shopping soon. Thongs and singlets (translation: sandals and vests) have already been banned, as have shorts, and as soon as the hot weather ends, t-shirts will be out too. If jeans are ever outlawed I'll be coming home as I hardly have anything else to wear! Katie is coming to visit in a week! She'll be staying with me for a couple of weeks (or until security find her and kick her out as the issue of visitors is hotly controversial) so I should finally get round to doing all the touristy things that we haven't bothered to do just yet. I'm very excited. I'll probably know in a week if Emma's going to be sticking it out here with me or not. Honestly, I don't mind either way. That may sound harsher than I intend, so I'll qualify. Obviously, it is great having her here, and I'd probably never have come here by myself; but on the other hand, hanging out with Emma all the time inevitably means spending less time bonding with the other teachers, so maybe it'd be good for me being on my own out here... By all accounts, homesickness is due to kick in another month, but I'm personally not seeing any signs so far! Four of us (me, Christa, Cade and his friend (even if she stays, Emma would prefer to do something cheaper herself)) are planning to go to Japan in October during our week off; hopefully having this to focus on will allay any homesickness that does start to kick in around this time, if it does at all. Me and Emma have started giving salsa lessons to some of the other teachers in the school's dance studio. First one was yesterday and I think everyone enjoyed it. We're planning on doing it every Sunday until the director finds out and bans us. Note that this is entirely selfish - we just want people to come to salsa bars with us so of course we have to get them up to standard first! Oh, and it's still roasting outside.