Breaking the habit

This weekend, I didn't do much. I mostly stayed in on Saturday and Sunday and bummed around watching TV and reading books. Therefore, if you know me (and I assume you do, or else why are you reading my blog? Begone, stranger!), you know I was probably twisting my hair a lot. On Monday as I was styling my hair, I was horrified to feel that  my hair actually feels shorter and thinner than normal. Could I actually have twisted enough hair to alter my hairstyle? Additionally, I feel like my  hair is growing very slowly. I've decided I don't want thin hair, so as of yesterday I am trying my darndest to not twist my hair any more. It's been about 30 hours! Only about three months to go before I see any results (I think). Regardless, I'm sure all of you are thrilled to hear this news. We'll see how well it goes.

I did my sports lesson with my first group of third graders today. They looked pretty interested I thought, and their teacher told me the boys especially were very interested, which is good because there are a lot of boys in my school. I taught them a lot of baseball expressions, and I used Big Bang in several examples. If you look at the Big Bang Big News entry, you'll see a photo of the members. G-Dragon has made the awful decision to get a weave put in... on one side of his head. It's like a foot of hair, but awkwardly stringy and long on one side and nonexistent on the other. His hair literally sickens me, and he's supposed to be the fashionista of Big Bang. I used this opportunity to showcase my disgust. For example:

"G-Dragon really dropped the ball on his new hairstyle, but the other members of Big Bang still look great."
"G-Dragon struck out on this new hairstyle. It's disgusting!"

I talked to some of my third grade girls (not in that class) about Big Bang's new music, and they too were horrified by GD's misguided 'do. To summarize:

Me: Have you seen "Fantastic Baby?"
Girls: Yes! "Fantastic Baby" is so good!
Me: I know. I love TOP.
Girls: Yes, TOP is handsome! Ohhhh... Teacha.... Kwon Jiyong (G-Dragon's real name) hair... AAAHHIIIIGOOO! *sounds of disgust*
Me: I know! It's disgusting.
Girls: Yesssss!
Munjeong: Kwon Jiyong face is good! Hair is bad. But face is very good.

Korean girls (middle school in particular, in my opinion) go nuts for GD, who in my opinion looks exactly like a woman. A pretty woman, no less. A pretty, 110 lb woman with lots of makeup and currently, unfortunate hair. I just don't get it.

On the first day of school after introductions/rules etc, I had the kids play Family Feud as an icebreaker for their groups to get to know each other. If you're not familiar with it, Family Feud is an American TV game show in which prior to the game, 100 people are surveyed with random questions and then the answers are compiled in order of most popular. Contestants have to guess the popular answers. We just played in teams of six. Each team got a white board and dry erase marker and could write one answer. If their answer was revealed to be up there, they got the points for it (points were the number of people who said that answer). Basically, I lied and told them 100 Korean middle school students were surveyed for these answers. I had two favorite questions.

Q: Why do you go to school?
A1: To learn/study
A2: To meet friends
A3: To play sports
A4: To meet a boyfriend or girlfriend
A5: To spend time with wonderful teachers
A6: To eat delicious school lunches

Hilariously enough, a LOT of groups wrote "eat" or "eating" and thought it was hysterical that was a "real" answer. When "spend time with wonderful teachers" came up, I got called out by one class... "Nooooo Teacha you liar!"

Q: Who is the best native English teacher ever?
A1: Theresa
A2: Theresa
A3: Theresa
A4: Theresa
A5: Theresa
A6: Theresa

When the question came up, they knew it was a trick because immediately all I could hear was, "Theresa spelling!" Answers ranged from Theresa, Teresa, Thersa, Tersa, and of course "Theresa" in Korean, Teacher, you, and my favorite, "I love you <3!" The kids were pretty amused to find out I was all the answers and not just the #1.

Recent anecdotes:

Jeonghwan: Teacha, the weather is awesome today!
Me: No, YOU are awesome today for using the word awesome! High five!
(Seriously. This happened.)

*While preparing to play music for my students who clean the classroom
Me: Minseok, do you like Big Bang?
Minseok: No no no.
Me: Why?
Minseok: Big Bang is man!
Me: So?
Minseok: I am man.
Me: So...
Minseok: Man love man, no!

Me: Did you know Taeyang and G-Dragon have real tattoos? [Tattoos are not sexy in Korea... they're very "wild" and shocking to the average Korean.]
Coteacher (surprised): Really? How do you know?
Me: I read a Kpop article online and they had pictures. Taeyang has a huge cross on his side rib cage and GD has a rib cage tattoo in front and one on the side.
Coteacher (shocked): You saw their naked bodies?!!!