Kids in costumes and my amazing fashion sense

It's Day 132 and we had our first snow here in Hwacheon yesterday!

So yeah, it's cold.

At least I'm not North of the Wall… (bu dum shhh)

I have been much more home-body-y these last couple weeks. I haven't gone anywhere. I haven't even gone into the nearby bigger town (city?) Chuncheon. I'm just staying in my lovely Hwacheon home. :)

A few things have happened, so I do have some stories for you~ but first I think I'll just ramble. That's what you're here for right? No? *cough* Um, well… endure! Like I endure the cold!

Like let's talk about how delicious bread is. I love bread.

 BREAD

 BREEEEAAAAAAAD

빵

사랑해~

빵 빵 빵 빵 パン 包子 

Don't get me started on pastries

Don't do it.

DON'T

 하지마세요! STAHP IT I CAN'T NO DON'T

Ahem. 

Back to non-bread things.

First I would like to brag about my supreme layering skillz.

normal people

me 

LAYERS ARE IMPORTANT

It is quite toe-numbing, ear-aching cold here, so one simply must dress warmly to survive. I have to be careful about the proper layering, more so than has ever been required of me before… thanks to the over-heating of buildings at Harvard and the never-really-that-cold "cold" weather of Oregon.

I was never really that crazy about fashion, but I must say, as of late, I am a spiffy-looking teacher!

Admire this lovely shirt and sweater combo~ so blue and warm~

And now for an in depth look at my five layer masterpiece. All grayscale. Very warm.

Mmmm. Yes. Patterns. Grayscale. Yes. 

All together:

One shirt, two sweaters, a blazer, a jacket, and scarf (if you count the scarf… six layers!)

I will now model these layers in bathroom-selca style, because I have no integrity and feel like it.

Stay tuned for my next photo-shoot, appearing on the cover of the Vogue December issue 

I have made layering into an art. I am an artist! A master! A clothing ma-star! A layering mon-star!

I really appreciate the teacher fashion. Because I have a job and stuff, I feel like I need to look nice, but since I'm chasing children all day, and squatting to communicate eye-level, stiff and fancy clothes are almost impossible. I wear collared shirts and sweaters all the time. And my ultimate rule is if the blazer is on, I'm a teacher! Poof! (another rule I follow is sweatshirts = not teacher, but Amelea and some of the other teachers at school are much more relaxed) Teachers at my school sometimes dress very nicely and sometimes seriously just wear hiking gear. Teaching is great! Yay!

Speaking of how awesome my job is, last week I spent two days just sitting and cheering on my adorable 7-10 year-old students as they sang, danced, and acted on stage. We had a two day school festival last Thursday and Friday. The hallways were full of student artwork and each class prepared a performance piece to be shown one of the days.

I unfortunately forgot my camera the first day, when my 3rd-graders performed, but you bet I brought it the last day!

I now present my amazing and adorable 4th graders and their various talents:

Aren't those costumes AH-MAZE-ING! They're so cute!

I could hear this class practicing with their recorders everyday all the way from their classroom to the English room. Over and over and over they played this song. I stopped recording a bit to early here though, they continued playing and the end was my favorite part. I was pleasantly surprised with the harmonizing they did at the end part~

This has so much power and energy! They are so in sync with each other too!

These girls were so diligent. They taught themselves that first dance. It's a very famous song/dance in Korea (particularly among elementary school girls) by a popular K-POP boy band, EXO (again particularly with the previously mentioned demographic). Here's the original so you can compare the dances ㅎㅎㅎ

The girls would show me their dance during the lunch break, and they've even started learning some other K-POP dances beyond what they needed to do for the school festival. One girl in particular has just got all the moves and shows them how it's done. I love seeing motivated young folk. Ah~ youth…

And the boys. Oh boy~ they make me laugh.

The 6th graders and 2nd graders also performed on Friday, so here are some highlights for you~

Lights! Lights! Lights!

Babies! Babies! Babies! (but actually, these 2nd graders are so cute! And the 1st graders actually performed some of the best, most rehearsed dances too… I wish I had my camera when they performed!)

A lot of classes did a mini play or drama. This one was a narrated story about life, and while the whole thing was hilarious, the constant male-male relationships like this grandma and grandpa really were the best.

This was particularly awesome because ENGLISH! And they wrote the entire skit (a good 5 minutes or longer skit). So proud of these kiddos, even if they aren't really my students (they're Amelea's…)

Finally there were performances from some of my school's clubs like a magic club (which was awesome but they only performed the first day) and the gymnastics club. Thankfully the gymnastics club performed both days as the epic closer.

Five of my fourth graders are in this club, including the amazing girl who does the last move, an awesome round off layout! She's known for being really good at gymnastics, because basically my first week at school, teachers kept pointing her out and saying how she is an outstanding gymnast. I'm just as proud of my other four students (who I had no idea did gymnastics!)
And the little babies are cute too~

And now that you've watched a billion videos, I shall end my post with an amazing gif. Yes, it is Japanese, but I think it ties well with the message I want to send you all:

DON'T MESS WITH DANCERS


Gooood byeeee~

-Gab Gab Gab