Wally In K-Life

As some of you may know I recently started a new job at an elementary school in Seoul. I started last week (officially two fridays ago, but my first class was last Monday) and figured it’d be appropriate to update you on how it is. I know it’s not k-pop related, but whatever.

This school is a private elementary school and is attended by the children of some very wealthy parents. It is fairly well known in Seoul, and its students are impressive to say the least. Each grade has only two homeroom, which means each year they only admit a maximum of 64 students grade 1 students. I teach grades 1-3, a total of approximately 190 students. My classes are split into leveled classes with a maximum of 12 students per class. Each homeroom class is divided into three levels. The highest level can usually understand well over 90% of everything I say. The lowest level understands about 60-75 percent of what I say (I guess). At my middle school in Incheon, my students’ average level was slightly lower than the average level of my elementary school students. Most students also attend an English academy after school and many are learning Chinese or Japanese as well.

Students at my school also learn at least one instrument (piano, flute, clarinet are options) and three traditional Korean instruments, and learn all the other basic elementary school subjects.

Students wear uniforms, which are mostly navy, white and blue. All teachers dress very nicely. I haven’t seen a teacher in jeans at the school yet.

At the new school I have a textbook just for my class and I am expected to give homework every day. I also am expected to administer speaking exams/prepare written exams/grade reading notes, and do a variety of basic administrative tasks. I don’t mind, because it gives me something do.

The pros of my job are much higher pay than my old public school gig (we’re talking approx. 50% more), much smaller classes (I had a class of 38 students in middle school), A textbook (my middle school told me on my first day, do NOT use the textbook), more vacation times (almost twice as much) and excellent co-workers. Also, the food is quite good.

The cons of my job are more administrative work and a lack of access to my desk after 2pm as a teacher takes over my classroom for after school classes Monday Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I am currently typing this on another teacher’s computer. I have four more minutes to kill before I can return to my own classroom.

So yeah, that’s what’s up these days. I hope to take pictures of my classroom soon, once I get everything organized more completely. I’m hoping to get into some class activities, so I can post up good work on my plentiful bulletin boards.

Byeeeeeee~

Yesterday was Children’s Day. I wanted to post these pictures earlier, but I couldn’t get the photos off my stupid phone until like 1p.m. E-mail and dropbox apps were both not working right… ㅠㅠㅠ

P.S. I am really bored at work today because it’s exam day and I don’t have classes AND today is my boyfriend’s annual 예비군 day which means he has to go for like post discharge army service for one day and we can’t talk or text for the whole day. I’m losing my mind in boredom as a result of these two things.

Yesterday these are the things I did:

Buy new TOMS at 10x10 in 대학로 in Seoul:

Go to the Hello Kitty Cafe:

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This is the first of hopefully many future stories about meeting Big Bang.

So as a review, I, along with like 1000 other fans, was selected to attend this Big Bang Special Edition Mini Album commemorative handshake event. So I went to Ilsan this afternoon, through the absurd rain (it was freaking pouring and my Toms got soaking wet in the rain and my toes are still a little bit numb). I left my house at 3:00 and managed to not arrive until 4:50 or so, which was just about exactly the right time to waltz in, get in the line and get my tickets without hardly waiting at all. I was in the second section, number 186. This didn’t really mean anything, as that number doesn’t correspond to the order of handshaking or even to the seat number which I ended up in.

I met another foreigner (maybe a gyopo, it’s hard to say…) who is studying Korean for the semester in Seoul and he was one of like three total dudes there. So that means we each had our personal trademark (I was the only blonde! Also, I was probably the only person above 180cm).

Anyways, I received that headband with the cut out of them, with fake signatures on the back. And then I waited. And waited. And waited.

They started a little late because of the rain. And then we all got moved up a few rows to fill in the empty seats.

They had been playing the special edition album in the background all the wait time, but then suddenly the music got really loud and out walked Taeyang, and then Daesung, and then TOP, GD and finally Seungri. Seungri walked out arms spread wide greeting the crowd in his usual playful, boisterous manner.

Then Taeyang started by amping up the crowd with some yelling and some say yeah! yeah! Say yeah! yeahs and such. Then all the boys introduced themselves and that was good.

Taeyang was wearing a black leather jacket, really simple style, and NO SUNGLASSES. I guess he’s feeling better from when he wouldn’t take them off in Busan/Daegu. TOP wore a hot pink dress shirt and a gray graphic design jacket. He had glasses on, but he took them off shortly thereafter. Daesung had this sexy studded leather jacket all blingtastic and stuff. GDragon was wearing a bright red button-down, sleeves rolled up, and a blue hat. He wore sunglasses the entire time. Seungri was wearing a black jacket over a graphic t-shirt.

After they introduced themselves, they each signed a t-shirt (each person had one t-shirt, they each signed only their own t-shirt), which would be given away later in the night. Four of them handed the t-shirt to the organizers/staff, but Seung-ri decided to throw the t-shirt around his shoulders and wear it like a cape.

Then, just suddenly, it started. The handshaking stuff. Basically there was a ton of security monitoring everyone and every time someone got a hug, everyone screamed and security moved in to keep the line going. The moved everyone through really fast. Like seriously really really really fast. I realized that all the things I had planned  cvto say would be impossible, even in English in that short a time period, So I had to quickly try to figure out what to say again (not that it would matter once I got up there, which you will see).

Then the girl next to me, who was japanese, started crying hysterically. That’s how excited she was. That literally 30 minutes before it was even her turn she was bawling in excitement.

After shaking hands with maybe 200 people, they took a short break. GD looked really tired. He kept leaning on the table on his hands, and bending over a lot, like he was too weak to stand the whole time. The other four seemed to be healthy and in good spirits. During the break, Taeyang (in the middle of the five) started dancing to the music which got turned up. Then TOP ran over and pushed Taeyang away and he started dancing in his crazy style. Then Seungri got dancing, and it was just one big dance party of Big Bang amazingness.

Then it was back to handshakes. Some memorable handshakes: some girl had Seungri spin her around like they were dancing that was cute, lots of people got hugs from various members. It seems like GD was rejecting a lot of hugs, and daesung wasn’t going a lot either. Other memorable handshakes: BABIES. There were maybe 5 adults who brought children, and those babies got lots of loving. The cutest was a toddler girl, maybe 4 years old, in this beautiful dress she meets GD and gets lots of attention from him, her mom puts her down and she turns around and looks at the audience, kind of like hahahaha, did you see that, GD likes me more than you. Then there was this elementary school boy, maybe grade 4 or 5 when he got up there, Seungri pulled him in towards his chest and gave him a hug. He even gave the kid a couple back pats (which is uncommon most hugs were like not even back touches) and then gave him a love tap on the butt. LOL. Totally not in a bad way, just like a wow look at this cute little kid kind of way.

There was another break. G-Dragon had to leave to go to the bathroom. Taeyang started chanting and singing and dancing, and Seungri broke it down too. Then as the handshaking started again Taeyang keep singing chanting (which would have made me angry if that was when I had to shake his hand because I wouldn’t have his full attention. 

At some point around this time, the Japanese girl next to me literally started sobbing. She was so happy and excited and nervous and thrilled to meet Big Bang she literally started crying hysterically. I knew exactly how she felt.

Then it was FINALLY our turn to go. We walked up to the stage and were handed a disinfectant wipe, had to give our little tickets, and then walked up on stage. Handlers were monitoring the flow of people closely and as I got close, I lost everything that had been in my brain to say. I just though, oh my god, they are the most handsome people on this earth. I am about to touch them. How can I…….?

And then I was right in front of Seungri who stuck his hand right out and said Hiiiiiiiiiiii. In English. And I said Hi! And he said, are you doing okay? (I think I looked like I was about to die… mostly of excitement) And I was just like yes, yes, I’m great. And GD watched and laughed a lot. lol. Then to G-Dragon I just bowed and said hello and thank you. I was kind of in awe of his skin. It was so… so… glowing. It was perfect skin. How does GD get skin like that? It’s PERFECT. Then Taeyang.

Oh. My. God. Taeyang.

He was so fine. SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO fine.

And he said to me, Where are you from? And I said America. And he said, cool, thanks for coming. And I said, YESTERDAY WAS MY BIRTHDAY. CAN I HAVE A HUG PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE? And he said of course, and he hugged me, and while he was hugging me he said Happy Birthday. TWICE.

And then I was overwrought with joy and couldn’t think straight when I shook Daesung and TOP’s hands. I just stared at them. I just looked at daesung’s gorgeous smile (he was looking SMOKING that night… I should have gotten a hug from him too) and then TOPs eyes. And it was game over. TOPs eyes were so effing SEXY. OH. MY. GOD.

I would give myself a B+ on the scale of how I acted. I was good for Seungri and Taeyang, and Taeyang was most important, but I was a complete fool with TOP and Dae. After I passed them I was like omg, I want to go back and tell Dae that he was amazing on Thursday and TOP that he is really really tall (like seriously, really tall).

Oh, as an aside, Taeyang is hella short. I  had to bend over hard core to get a hug. I’m about 6’1” (186 cm) and if I had to guess, Taeyang is about 5’6” (168 cm) or so, maybe 5’5”. People who say 5’3” are totally wrong. My best friend is 5’3” and he’s definitely taller than her. 

Other things to note (I can’t place these in the timeline):

• Taeyang and TOP were like bubbling over with energy. They were super active, and it was awesome
• G-Dragon said he would’t take his sunglasses off, even though people were asking. He said he is really tired and his eyes don’t look good.
• G-Dragon did take his glasses off and put on a pair of glasses with a nose attached to them. Like the disguise glasses. That was funny.
• Seungri danced everytime 어쩌라고 came on.
• Daesung was a bit quieter/less active than the others. He didn’t necessarily look tired, he just didn’t get so involved (until the end)
• There was so much G-Ri love going on, omg. Seriously, it was ridiculous. They were next to each other and G-Dragon kept putting his arm around Ri and hugging him and stuff.

At the end, after everyone went through, this head VIP lady came up on stage, and all the members gave her big hugs. First G-Dragon, then Taeyang gave her a back hug. Then Seungri hugged her and put his leg around her. Top gave her a big huge right in the middle of the stage and Daesung laid out on a table and sexily motioned her to come to him, and he kissed her hand and then hugged her. All while TOP was behind him pretending to film some dirty video. LOLZ

Then they all thanked the fans and talked about going to Japan and various stuff. They said they will work hard in Japan and hurry back. And then TOP talked and walked off stage. Then Daesung talked and went off stage and then G.D. talked and sat down in a chair off to the side (he really looked tired at this point) then Seungri talked, yelled out Seungska and everyone yelled back. Then seungri left. Just Taeyang now, and Taeyang talked more than the others because he also spoke in Japanese and ENGLISH! But while he was talking TOP, Daesung and Seungri were acting a fool behing him. TOP ran past behind Taeyang and then Daesung followed after like a girlfriend chasing her frightened off boyfriend after a proposal. Then TOP gave Seungri a piggy back ride run across the back of the stage. And it was just awesome. Then Taeyang finally got to speaking English. He said, “I don’t speak English very well so sorry, but I want to thank all the international fans. There are a lot here today. We had fans from America (I SCREAMED LIKE CRAZY, I think there were only two of us from America, lol), Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore (and maybe he said some others, but I don’t remember). So thank you guys so much, Love you and God Bless!

Then everyone danced like crazy. And that was awesome. Seungri shook his butt in slow motion. GD from his chair bounced his hand up and down. TOP got BUSY. Taeyang was gliding all over the place. Dae didn’t really dance. Just a head bob.

And then it was over. And some guy came out and said it was time to give out t-shirts. I didn’t win one. Some girl like 6 rows ahead of me won and she didn’t even seem that excited. Bitch.

But, let’s just say it was the best night of my Big Bang loving life thus far.

One step closer to being besties with Taeyang. And that’s all that matters.