An Interesting End to the Week

Wednesday morning of this past week was like any other day at work, but during the afternoon I began to lose my voice! I wasn’t feeling sick though, and my throat didn’t really hurt. Hoping that it was just temporary, I made sure to get lots of rest that night. The following morning when I woke up it was gone! All I had left was a raspy shell, the kind of sound you make when you just wake up and really need to clear your throat. Great news for a teacher, right?! When my boss found out she was obviously concerned, but I think I was more worried than her – or else she just didn’t show it but on the inside was thinking, how in the hell is he going to teach?

Makes it hard to control a class of kids!

Things went surprisingly well that day. I was scheduled to do special St Patrick’s Day activities in two of my kinder classes. We made necklaces and colored, which didn’t require much talking. I was afraid that my 5 year old class (only 3 and 4 year olds in Western age) would just run wild. They were actually pretty calm and managed to stay in their seats for most of the class period. The afternoon was a bit easier, since the kids know more English and have a better understanding of what they are meant to be doing during each class. After my classes were done a Korean co teacher took me to the pharmacy. My boss had suggested that I see a doctor, but I decided to try over the counter medicine first.

Korean pharmacies may be able to set you straight without a prescription

That night I stayed in and got a lot of rest again. The following morning I could sense a slight improvement, but my voice was still mostly gone. On Wednesday and Thursday my biggest fear had been that losing my voice was only the first stage of a more serious illness. I figured that was unlikely since by Friday I was still feeling okay and my voice seemed to be on the upswing. Classes again went surprisingly well. I couldn’t teach as much material as I wanted to, but as long as the kids were relatively well behaved then I didn’t need to strain my voice.

Instead of Korean class on Friday evening, our group was scheduled to have an opening ceremony of sorts. The language center where I have been taking classes just moved to a new office, one that will be more permanent (I think that all along the old one was meant to be a temporary location). We had our first class at the new office on Tuesday; unfortunately it takes me an extra 20-30 minutes to get there.

During the class the teacher told us that we would be performing a song on Friday – in Korean – in front of an audience! Thanks for the short notice on that one, not that we would need much time to practice or anything. They didn’t even have a song in mind. One of the students suggested Nobody by the Wonder Girls. They are a super famous Korean pop group, but I actually didn’t know the song. We practiced during the second half of class, throwing in some dance moves too (as if the lyrics weren’t hard enough already). Luckily the chorus is in English, so that made it a bit more manageable.  Here's a clip of the original song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZBn1e9pr2Q

The Wonder Girls

We were scheduled to practice more on Thursday night, but since I lost my voice I wouldn’t have been much help. I decided to stay home and rest up, unsure if I would be able to make it on Friday. Since my voice was still on the mend by Friday afternoon, I was planning on skipping the ceremony and resting up for St Paddy’s Day (Saturday). My teacher called me and said she really wanted me to be there and that I wouldn’t have to sing. So I reluctantly agreed and headed to the new office after work. I got there late and didn’t get to see our class perform. Several other groups sang songs, followed by snacks and language games. Near the end we all held hands and sang a song together; it was a bit strange, but kind of fun too.

By the time the ceremony ended it was nearly 11 pm. I went out for a couple drinks with people from my language class, but went home pretty early. I was feeling okay but wanted to get another good night sleep, both for my voice and because I would be going out for St Patrick’s Day.

St Patrick's Day for the adults

On Saturday I met up with Matt and a couple other friends at around 1 pm and we headed to a part of the city where an Irish group was putting on a St Paddy’s Day party. They had several musical groups lined up, from a U2 cover band to traditional folk music. Over a thousand people turned up to drink and celebrate. There were a lot of foreigners, but some Koreans too.

The outdoor party is Seoul

In the evening we headed to an Irish bar in Itaewon to continue the party. Some of the music groups that had played during the day also performed at the bar. At 2 am a rugby game was on TV (six nations, Ireland v England), so we stuck around and watched. Surprisingly the OSU basketball game was actually on after that! I got to see the first half, but then they turned off the TVs and the few of us who were still around got the message and made our way towards the exit.

Of course I slept away a lot of Sunday, so aside from finishing this post I haven’t done much of anything today. Oh well, I’ll take that in exchange for a day (and night) long St Paddy’s Day party in Seoul on Saturday!