Okay. Lily Festival!
Last year, all of the native teachers sang an English hymn during the offering portion of the morning church service. We did that again this year too. We sang Great Is Thy Faithfulness - and by we, I mean all of the native teachers. plus the four EB foreign exchange students with Hyunjoo playing the piano. But, there's more. Dionne and I also dusted off our we're-late-to-class-and-will-thus-sing-an-English-song performance piece: Baby by Justin Bieber.
First, I should preface by explaining how we got ourselves into this... About three weeks or so ago, Diane and Desiree were asked by their co-teacher to perform a song at Lily Festival. They began rehearsing, and soon, had a whole adorable routine worked out, complete with a choreographed dance number featuring some of their students. I got to wondering whether Dionne and I were expected to sing something too... So, one day, I asked Hyunjoo if we should be preparing something. She consulted the man in charge of the schedule, but got busy with other things because we never really heard a definitive answer. Fast forward to Wednesday after school when the following conversation occurred:
Hyunjoo: Noelle. What is the name of the song Desiree and Diane are singing on Friday?
Noelle: I'm not sure. I can find out and let you know.
H: Okay. And, what's the name of the song that you and Dionne are singing?
N: Say what? We haven't prepared anything! We didn't think we were singing...
H: Oh! You are on the schedule. (Produces Lily Festival schedule of events) See? EB Teachers!
Dionne and I looked at each other- and almost immediately decided: YES. We are singing!
Given the lack of time we had to put something together, we decided the safest option would be to sing Baby by Justin Bieber since we already knew all of the words and knew that the students would enjoy it. We literally spent maybe an hour over the next two days singing through the song, throwing together some rough dance moves and psyching ourselves up to perform in front of all three schools.
After lunch on Friday, we changed into our Bieberesque clothes, took some awesome pictures and went to work. (The video must be too large to post on Blogger because it won't work..., but it's posted here on Facebook...) It was sooo fun to be able to participate in such an important day at Kyunghwa!
After the festival was over, we ran into Principal Suh outside. She was sooo funny:
Principal: Noelle Teacher! I know Dionne Teacher good singer. I no know you good singer too! You good at pop song. And, you dance - so sexy!
Bahahahahahahah. Oh wow. I'm glad she approved :)
This year's festival was different than last year. Since it sporadically rained all day, the festival was held in the auditorium instead of the outdoor amphitheater. Also, there was much less dancing than I remember there being last year. Instead, each school's samul nori (traditional Korean drumming) group performed and two tae kwon do clubs performed too! Those were probably my favorite! They broke sooo many boards - so cool! Also, each school put on a skit of some sort. Since they were all in Korean, I had no idea what was going on, but that sure didn't keep them from being funny! Delightful. Then, a couple of dance teams performed, there was a Korean cheerleading demonstration and a singing contest to round out the day.
Also, around the school grounds, several students' artwork was on display. We have some seriously talented girls attending our school! It is so fun to be privy to the extra stuff about our students that isn't immediately apparent in the English classroom. I love seeing their personalities show through! So special!
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