축 to the 제!

Ok, so the title of this post is 축 to the 제, or Chook to the Jay. The word for festival in Korean is Chook-jay, 축제, and a couple weeks ago, KNU had their school festival for which they hung up a bunch of signs. One of these signs said that on it....it's like saying "Fest to the val" which I personally thought was hilarious and slightly gangster. So, on Wednesday, my school had their festival, and I couldn't help but think "Chook to the jay." This was the first school festival I had experienced here. Last year, swine flu was a big issue in Korea around this time, so lots of things got cancelled at that time. My school's festival was one of them. So, I was pretty excited this year to experience it. It started off with an "OX Quiz" which is basically a massive true/false test. And when I say massive, I mean all 1300 students at my school were flooding to one side or another, trying to guess the right answer to the quiz. Funny funny. Then they split up into a bunch of games including water balloon toss, limbo, darts, basketball, soccer shoot and karaoke. I of course gravitated toward the karaoke machine. So many students were gathered around there waiting for someone to get up the nerve to sing. A couple students would trickle up little by little, but there was by no means a flood. One of my students said to me "Tori, you should sing." I think he thought at first that I'd be like "No, no, never!" So when I simply said "Ok, I'll sing," he was like "What? Really??" A little while later, I sang the song "Listen" by Beyonce, and the students f-r-e-a-k-e-d out. Out of nowhere, I was like a rockstar, having students crowding around me, students asking to take their picture with me, etc. It was quite the experience! Then later that day, we had festival performances in which the students competed with each other. Performances ranged from dance groups to boys dressed up like girls, from singing to drama. The performances were great! However, there were some of them that were a little too risqué for my taste! One of the boys in one of the dancing groups was lifting up his shirt and such to show off his stomach, and one of the girls in a dance group was dressed in leggings, short shorts, a letterman jacket and a tube top. These kids are in middle school!!! And their dance moves were less than innocent for the most part as well! Anyway, other than that, the festival was incredibly enjoyable. Oh, and the Special Ed. class did a drama/play of the book "You Are Special" by Max Lucado, my absolute favorite children's book. Needless to say, I was in tears watching these kids act out this book, and watching all of their classmates cheer for them.
All around, it was a great day at the school festival. And right now, I'm going to get back to lesson planning while trying hard not to fall asleep!