Hi all!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIGI JENSEN!!! :)
This weekend is very relaxing and enjoyable. Rather last minute, I decided to visit Jinju with the girls from Daegu. We went to visit another friend on our program who is teaching there for the Jinju light festival. It was really pretty! there are lanterns on the riverbank and floating on the river. There are small lanterns, but also huge floats! It was really neat to see. Apparently all the floats are made of paper and painted. Some of them are very elaborate and range from traditional Korean things to more modern other things- such as the Statue of Liberty. We crossed one of the makeshift bridges and got to see some of the larger animated lanterns- hence the fire-breathing peacocks!
We actually ran into two other people from our program, which was unexpected and cool. After walking around we managed to find a "live-cafe" and had dinner. The place was pretty ridiculous, think karoeke, but it was dinner.
Saturday afternoon I met up with a teacher from school and a student for the speech contest. This teacher and I had listened to a few students give speeches two weeks ago and then we chose the best one. Then I helped this girl prep a little this past week and the contest was yesterday. She was very good and I had no doubt that she would win something. The contest took forever because there were middle school contestants and high school contestants. The panel were 3 native/4 native speakers of English and two Koreans. I think all of them were from Daegu University and were professors of English- I'm not sure if they were really professors or just teachers of English at the university. But all the judges were pretty harsh on the students. Way too negative. Some of the feedback was good, but generally they were a pretty intimidating bunch. The whole speech contest seemed pretty political to me. It was sponsored by a specific district of Daegu and for the beginning introductions two American soldiers were there to welcome everyone. Even the Korean teacher I was with from my high school said, "English is such an industry here, I hate it." Which I thought was pretty interesting. Anyways, you're probably wondering how our student did- 2nd place! Her speech was about how she likes to watch soap operas and movies- it was pretty funny. I meant to record it, but forgot! I think the teacher I was with recorded it, hopefully I can get it from her!
Nothing much to do today, except I slept in and will go to church in a little bit. Maybe a Bible study tonight- I'm not sure.
Here's one more video clip from the mask festival two weeks ago- it is the lion dance! I also updated pictures "Around Korea" and "Daegu"
-me :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Wow, I love the pics of all the lanterns! I like the panda :) It's really turning into fall here...finally! I'm going to send you some candy corn--do you like the kind with chocolate or just regular? And do you like the little pumpkins? Can't believe you've been there for like 4 months already! Have fun at the reunion thing this weekend!
I'm a terrible friend. I got really behind on your posts, and only just caught up tonight. And you are always up to date with my posts! Shame on me!
Anyway, I love the 'front hair' and was very interested in your observations about Korean culture. Also, I really enjoyed the videos of you teaching; it looks like your students love you! And the Dr. Seuss lesson sounded so cool!
And I think the podcast idea is great! I hope they let you do it, cause I would love to hear the final product, and I think it would be something your students could be really proud of. I wanna learn English from you! Oh, wait...
Anyway, I'll try to keep up from now on, and I miss you, and hope you're having a wonderful time.
Post a Comment