To be honest, I wasn't very excited about the rock festival. Kris and Gab have been excited about it since before the early bird tickets even became available. Me, I decided at the last second to come with them. I figured, the three of us anywhere would make anything fun. Not that I don't like rock music, I just didn't know any of the bands in the lineup so why spend $300 in one weekend for something I don't care too much about? About a month before the concert, Sam, my biking buddy, called me to tell me there were two more races I could compete in before I left Korea. Yep, the first one would be the weekend of the rock festival. I was devastated. The second one is the last weekend before I leave Korea. Since it would be a two day event, I didn't even consider joining because I want to spend my last two days in Korea with my friends. While I was sad for a while I wouldn't get to do anymore races before I left, I eventually got over it. Sorta. I'm biking to Damyang with Sam in about 40 minutes. It's 70km round trip I think. I don't remember. So it's not like I'm not biking anymore, I'm just not competing. Anyway, the point of all that rambling was that I went to the festival and had a super fun rockin' awesome time! Thanks to Kris, I was prepared for a few songs of one of the bands, Third Eye Blind, so I knew a bunch of their stuff. In the end, it was worth every penny. Even the three hours of sleep I got Sunday night after getting back to Gwangju at 4am and having to leave by 7:15am to teach the next morning. That was a rough morning, let me tell you!
Our bazillion wrist bands to get into the camping section, swimming pool, the festival, and a 19 above one. 
Our camping site. On the ski hills of Jisan Valley ski resort where the festival was held. When we first arrived and were setting up our tent, a guy came over to interview Kris and me. He said he'd help us set up our tent if we'd give an interview, so we did. Not like the tent was hard to set up. 
It was insanely hot and we spent a lot of time in the insanely expensive pool, but still went to some of the day concerts which were mostly Korean bands that aren't too well known. 
This was one we went too. This chick was like the ideal Korean girl. She was so "cute" in her performance I almost wanted to tell her that she should get a life. Not like she would understand me. I was laughing though. They weren't very good at all. We left. 
And here was my favourite band. Third Eye Blind. They put on a really good performance. It was a lot of fun. Later that night, the biggest name of the show played, Muse. They put on an AMAZING show. I was seriously impressed. We couldn't stay for most of it because we had to catch the bus back to Gwangju in time to teach the next morning, but what we did see, I was impressed. I am not surprised they are so popular here in Korea. I can't gloat about it too much though because one of my students, Sangjun, is obsessed with Muse and when he found out I was going to see them, got really jealous. I feel a little bad because he wants to go so badly and it wouldn't make a difference in my life if I hadn't seen them and yet, I'm the one who saw them. I am positive that he'll see them one day though. He's the type of kid who'll go to great distances to succeed in life so I can see him managing to get tickets one day.
If you want to see videos taken of a couple songs, check out facebook.
Summer School:
So last week I started teaching summer school. Mostly I just helped out with Mrs. Jung's classes for the week. Got the day off Wednesday when she called in the morning. The conversation went something like this. "Tara, it's raining out today. You will have to walk to school in the rain. How about you take today off. I will tell the vice principal you are a little sick. But tomorrow I am not at school so you are teaching all my classes. Ok! bye Tara!" So that's how I ended up teaching the whole next day. Oh well.
This week I have my own classes which is basically whatever students decide to show up. We play Apples to Apples, some random WORD game, and Dutch Blitz. How is Dutch Blitz an English game? Well, I told the students that for every Korean word they spoke during the game, I'd deduct points. It worked really well. And was quite hilarious. One boy even answered his phone in English and spoke the whole conversation to his friend in English. I am not sure if his friend understood, but nonetheless, they took me seriously and only spoke in English.
Last week I was walking from one building to another when one of my students and a student teacher walk out of the school. The teacher has the student by the scruff of the neck. The student goes "Hi, Tara!" with a rather sheepish look on his face for having been caught getting in trouble. This made the student teacher laugh, but keep dragging the kid along.
Later the same day, I went for lunch with some of the other teachers and students and left my stuff in the office. My VP thought I had gone home and locked the door. I came back and nearly had a heart attack since EVERYTHING of mine was in there. After a few phone calls from my friends Hyun Jin who is teaching at the school for a few weeks, we figured out the key was above the window. Go figure. That's where they keep the keys to half the rooms in the school. Why any different for the teachers office? Needless to say, we missed our bus and had to wait 35 minutes for the next one.
Speaking of my VP. He likes to think I need to eat more snacks. All the summer school students get a snack after second period and they give them to me too. It's usually some kind of bean paste bun, pound cake, or biscuit. This comes with milk. Then, after classes, I go back to the teachers room to find another on my desk. Then before I leave, my VP brings three more over to take home. Usually I try to sneakily put them back when he's not looking, but for some reason, he notices when there's no snack on my desk and brings them all over. Today, I got no less than two extra buns and four milks. My fridge is now full of these bun things and milk containers. I don't like this kind of milk so I usually just bake with it, but I can't keep up with my VP!
Hot. Hot. Hot.
Did I mention Korea is deathly hot in summer time? Well, thanks to Gab and Kris when they came to my aparte one time and complained it was hot in there (I thought it was fine), they made me clean my fan and put it out. Thus, I realized how much nicer it was with the fan on. So I used it, all the time. Then, a couple of my students came to visit me last week and they were so hot that I turned on the A/C. Thus, I then realized how wonderful the A/C is. Now it's on all the time. I blame my energy wasting on my friends.
I have to pack. I keep thinking about it. I'll go to my bedroom with the intent of cleaning and organizing for packing. Take one look around, groan, and leave. I've done this for a week and half now. I only have two weeks or so left to pack. It's so much more difficult when you know you have to pack EVERYTHING. When you leave home, you can leave stuff behind. Here, I have to do something with it. It's such an effort.
My TV remote battery died a month ago. Good thing I hardly ever watch TV. I'll leave it for the new guy to buy new batteries.
New Korean Words:
I learned a new phrase in Korean. "You're crazy!" ("Neon mi jyeott eo") except the literal translation in Korean means "crazy" and not in the sense that we use it. So when I texted it to my friends... you can imagine the response I got!
Yesterday Heejae taught me another one. It's basically equivalent to babo the term we use for stupid/foolish (foolish and fool have a much stronger connotation in Korean than it does in English. Thus when I student calls another student a fool, it's seriously business), but it's stronger to say and has more meaning. "meong cheong a". I also texted that to some friends. They weren't impressed. I blame Heejae for all of the bad Korean phrases I have learned. Joel told me I should stop learning Korean after I sent that text message^^
A couple students came to visit me last week. It was so cute. They got lost trying to find my house so I had to go rescue them. The security guard of another housing complex saw me and through my limited Korean we managed to find the girls and get them to my place. I bought them ice cream for their efforts which made my corner store owner friends really happy to finally be able to ask my students about me since we couldn't really communicate much before.
Biking up a mountain. Not just any mountain. A practice marathon course:
Tuesday we went to a noraebong with Sam and some of his friends. It was some good times singing that karaoke. I'm going to miss that most in Canada. North Americans are too scared of making a fool of themselves so it's no fun doing karaoke in Canada.
That night though was when Sam and I decided to bike to Damyang and bike up Hanjaegol, one of the hardest bike and marathon practice courses in this area. I almost died when Sam pointed to a mountain and said, "Remember that mountain. We're biking up it". The first bit was difficult until Sam gave me some techniques to get up. It was slow going, for me at least. Sam was enjoying sprinting ahead of me, stopping, taking pictures and then sprinting past me again. I made it up however. At the top we met some other bikers who bike with one of the most famous cyclists in Korea. They were shocked I didn't know the guys name. Um, yeah. I can't know EVERY famous Korean dude. I've only had a year to learn Korea's entire history! Needless to say, we decided (or, Sam decided) to bike with them back to Gwangju. The way up felt like it took 6 hours (really, 30-40 minutes with a break at a water spring in the middle) and the way down took literally 30 seconds. We flew down. I'd say we were pushing 80km an hour at one point. It was awesome! Then, at the bottom, these professionals decide to race. HA! Tara just biked the hardest mountain ever and now they want to race?! I didn't want to let Sam down though so I pushed myself beyond my limits. I should've told Sam earlier that I couldn't push myself further, but I didn't and after a little while I was about ready to cry in pain and exhaustion. Sam usually asks me every once in a while if I'm doing ok and I've never had to answer that I'm not ok. This time though, I nearly choked out a "no" which sounded like I was dying. As soon as I said that though, my lungs couldn't catch up with everything and I couldn't breathe anymore. It was seriously a scary moment for a bit. We stopped and I just couldn't take big enough breaths to keep up with my fast breathing. I don't panic easily though. If I had, I don't know what would've happened. I think I scared Sam though. We stopped a while and just walked with our bikes. After a bit we went home at a normal pace. Sam felt so bad, but I felt worse because I should've told him I couldn't push myself further. But, if you know me, I like to push myself physically further than I can go. I don't like quitting or giving up and I wanted to prove myself to Sam. All in all though, it was a great afternoon/evening and we're doing the same course next week hopefully. Just no sprint racing after we're finished the mountain~ Though Sam wants to have some of his club members come next time to race up the mountain so I guess I won't need the race after to kill me. The mountain will! Speaking of which, biking the mountain is the official entrance exam into Sam's club and I passed the test! Though I'm not sure I want to race his club members since they'll kick my butt.
The mountain looming in the distance.
Sam found out when he stole my camera that this was why I was lagging behind him at the beginning. It was rather embarrassing when he found out because there was a lot of pictures like this. Oops. 
If you miss a picture opportunity like this, it's just not cool. 
The city in the background and me trying to climb the mountain. Why am I doing this next week again? I have no idea. 
I managed to smile at times^^
At the halfway mark I immediately dumped my water bottle on my head and Sam dunked his in the water spring. It felt SO good. Looking at pictures though, it kinda looks like I was the only one sweating since I'm red. But that's my face for you. I can do any physical activity without getting really red. Along with my feet, it is one of the two things I would change about myself. 
Al....most... the...re....
There's the top! About here Sam says "hey Tara! look!" I looked up so fast I almost crashed into the side rail. Sam laughed. 
pondering what I just accomplished. Biking the mountain is the entrance exam into Sam's biking club. I passed the test! Not like I had to since they love me and let me bike with them whenever I want. I guess that's the advantage of being the only girl, and foreigner at that, who has ever expressed interest in their club.^^
Us and our new biking friend. The Jangseong sign is in the background. If you remember, I work in Jangseong county. Never thought I'd bike all the way out there one day. It was worth every moment of it though and I'm go glad I did it! Bring on next week! Now I have to finish baking for our Super Fun Rockin' Dance Party IV tonight. Our last party we will throw in Korea. It's a bittersweet thing. Should be a good time even though certain people *Sam* are ditching out on us this time!
I should also actually post this post this time. I keep adding to it and not actually posting it so it gets longer and longer. One more week of classes, a week of packing, last-time traveling around Korea, and hanging out with friends and I'll be homeward bound. I'll save the sentimental stuff for my last post though.
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