gyeongju symphony, seoul trip, pumpkin carving!

So in the 2 weeks since I wrote, I've played in a concert with the Gyeongju Symphony, spent a week in Seoul, and made an awesome jack-o-lantern to display in class. That's the summary. For those who want some more details, read on...

So not much exciting happened during the week after my birthday except that it started to cool down, I started to get lazier and lazier, and I had some kinda fiasco with the dumb booklet I'm supposed to be making of all my lesson plans....but I'll get into that later. Now for fun things. The Gyeongju Symphony is an orchestra that plays only once a year in this city, which is too bad because a year from now, I won't be here! But anyway, I made some friends with younger musicians in the orchestra, and I plan to call one of them when I go to Daegu for my violin lesson next Saturday. We rehearsed for about 4 hours, the longest rehearsal I've had since All-State and such in high school. I was exhausted. It was fun, though. The program was: Grieg Piano Concerto, first movement, with a soloist from Seoul who was quite excellent; Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, which I looooove; and then a pair of vocal soloists. There was a mezzo who sang a Korean song called "Byeol," or "Star" and then the Habanera from Carmen, which was a real audience pleaser. She even had a rose in her teeth and did a little dance. Then a tenor sang a Korean song whose name was not as easy for me to remember....and Nessun Dorma from Turandot. Overall, the performance was pretty good, but because the orchestra only rehearses the one time, it lacks a certain cohesion as a group. All the players are very good individually, but the best players in the world need more rehearsal time together than just a few hours immediately before the concert. Anyway, after the concert, my host family and co-teachers came up to me and showered me with flowers, which was odd because I ended up having more than any of the soloists...Also, Debi came all the way from Pohang and Matt came as well, which was great because after the concert we went out and found this little francophile cafe, the owner of which spent 10 years in France! I spoke to him in French for a bit, it was fun to use it again.

The next day I left for Seoul. Bus rides from Seoul to Gyeongju and back are NOT FUN. Blah. But anyway, while there, I talked with my family some, but not a lot since they were working all week. I basically hung out in touristy places like COEX, a gigantic underground mall (with an aquarium!) and Lotte World, one of Seoul's 3 amusement parks, which is mostly indoors. That was pretty fun, and I went on my first roller coaster in YEARS, I've been terrified of them since the dragon coaster at Rye Playland in 6th grade...On Tuesday I met some of Colby's friends from Yonsei University, and they were pretty cool. We ate at a cool Ramyun place and then went to noraebang in the middle of the afternoon! They also told me I look like Mariah Carey....which I found confusing....Anyway, after that we climbed a mountain behind the University, and later discovered that it was in fact where the famous Korean serial killer, Yoo Young-cheol, buried some of the bodies of his victims. Creepy. On Friday, we were planning on going to Chuncheon to visit the island that I didn't get to go to last time, and see some of the English (KEY) club members. I was really exhausted though, as I have been for a while, and instead decided to go home. I had a nice relaxing weekend in Gyeongju, with my host family away on Saturday and Sunday. Then yesterday I went back to school.

So that was my vacation. You'd think I would come back relaxed and refreshed and with great ideas and great amounts of energy to implement in the classroom, but I just feel more drained. I might be getting sick, too. I'm glad that the first grade is away this week...Lucky them, they're going to China on a class trip! It'll be easier to slip back into the school routine with half of my classes gone. This week I'm doing a Halloween lesson. Perfect timing, because I just received a package from home BRIMMING WITH CANDY! Yay family and friends who love me. I have enormous amounts of candy corn for my students, after I teach them the Trick or Treat chant, of course. Yesterday when I came back from school, there were ajummas outside my apartment building selling...guess what...pumpkins! So I went back soon after and bought one, and proceeded to seriously impress my host family by carving a jack-o-lantern with very limited equipment: a sharpie, a kitchen knife and 2 spoons. Unfortunately, I haven't found a candle that will fit in it yet, since all the ones in my family's apartment are tall candles. Hopefully I'll find some this week, so at least some of the classes will be able to enjoy a lit jack-o-lantern.

Anyway, that's about all for now. It took me about 2 hours to write this. Whatever happened to efficiency?