The last few weeks...

The past few weeks have been filled with all kinds of activities that have kept me busy, and thus, not able to update as often as I would like!

At the beginning of October our school held an art festival where all the classes put on performances for their parents and peers.  Some classes played instruments, some danced ballet, and some sang songs with accompanying dance routines.  Even a few of the teachers got involved with the students, including myself.  The 4 Hope class Korean teacher dropped out of a performance of "Summer Nights" from Grease, so I stepped in to help out my friend.  After a few days of rehearsal, we had put together some dance moves to go with our song, and hoped that it would be good enough to impress the parents and students.  Well, it turned out to be pretty good, generating a round of applause and a standing ovation, even.  (Let's just hope we won't be asked for a repeat performance for next year's festival.)

Next was a trip outside of Gwangju with Pedro's Lonely Korea group to see a cool Buddha carved in the side of a mountain.  I did a little post on that previously, which you can check out here.  The weekend afterwards brought my first-ever paintball experience.  That was awesome and exhilarating and confusing, all at the same time.  A large group of my friends and I went to a wooded area to the northeast of the city and donned full body gear just to shoot each other.  It would definitely be a good way to get out any aggression towards someone if you had any!  The rest of that weekend was dedicated to a girls' weekend in, where we drank wine, painted our nails, talked about girly things, and watched a movie.  And it was made complete with an awesome Sunday breakfast of peanut butter banana pancakes with brown sugar butter and maple syrup.

Everyone came together again as a group a weekend later to celebrate our friends Alushia and Misub's birthdays with a big potluck barbecue at his shop.  After we stuffed ourselves with delicious food and Gail's pumpkin spice cake, we headed to the noraebang rooms we had rented to sing our hearts out.  Giving out sparklers to random Koreans in the street made the evening even more fun once we left the noraebang and canvassed our usual spots.

And then there was the BIG weekend, this past weekend.  Friday was Alushia's actual birthday, so we took her out for a nice Italian dinner and to hang out for a little while.  The evening was pretty tame, because we all knew that the next night would bring almost sure insanity.  (It was Halloween weekend, after all.)

We met up after the Gwangju International Day to put the finishing touches on our costumes and then headed downtown in groups to join all the other Halloween revelers.  Feed the Boats was playing a show at Speakeasy, so that was the place to be to catch good music and check out everyone else's costumes.  I saw a lot of very unique outfits, some of which I still can't be sure what they were supposed to be.  I myself dressed up as "Bad" Sandy from "Grease," which involved lots of leather, red lipstick, and teased, curly hair.  That night, I found myself in the company of a zombie hoard, Mr. Potato Head, RoboCop, Kim Jong Il, a Japanese cartoon character, Bananas in Pajamas, gay Hitler, pirates, assorted animals, and the Bermuda Triangle among others.  (See, I told you Halloween was going to be insanity.)  Koreans would walk by our large group of costumed folk outside Speaks listening to the music, and quickly walk past hoping to remain unseen.  Most of the time, however, they were chased down by the zombie hoard, scared silly, and photographed.

Now it's November, and more adventures and fun are unfolding before me.  It doesn't quite feel like fall here at the moment, with temperatures hovering around 70 degrees this week.  But I hope that the chill of fall will return, and then soon after, winter should be here.

In Korea, sometimes it's possible to get so busy with everything you almost forget to breathe.  But this is why I love my life.