Rabbit Class: "Doh, A Deer!"

In case you haven't had your weekly dose of "cute" yet, you will get your fill with Rabbit Class' (remember them?) contribution to the graduation festival. Julie Andrews would be proud.

The Jungle Book

Here it is! My class performing The Jungle Book at the graduation fesitval! Sorry the quality is not amazing -- I had to compress it BIG TIME in order for it to upload to blogger...

Glorious March!

I’ll take a brief hiatus from the Tokyo posts (there’s a couple more I want to put up of Mt. Fuji and Tokyo nightlife!) so that I can take a moment to express my extreme joy that March has finally come! Somehow, miraculously, I crawled my way through these past 2 months.

Last week, we had the biggest Feinschule event of the year, the graduation festival. It was a 2 ½ hour long event, complete with singing, dancing, skits, speeches, costume changes, and the like. My Hollywood Kids classes performed Three Little Pigs (level 1 class) and The Jungle Book (Level 3 class). While the entire festival may have seemed smooth-running and glamorous to the audience, the truth of the matter is that the entire day was COMPLETE CHAOS. The kids came 2 hours early and there were several “OHTUKAY!” moments (this Korean word literally means “what are we gonna do!?!?!?”) during the process of putting on this far-too-elaborate-for-kindergarten-kids festival. The biggest panic in the Hollywood Kids department was that 2 hours before the performance, we realized that instead of sending us 6 pig costumes for Three Little Pigs (you may be asking why 6 pig costumes are needed when there are only 3 little pigs, but so it goes when you have 15 kids in a 5-character play) the costume company sent us one, as well as forgetting Sheer Khan and Leela’s costume for the Jungle Book. So after frantic phone calls, some guy made a rushed costume delivery 20 minutes before the performance on a motor bike. However, since they didn’t have enough pig costumes, two of our pigs were rabbits. Which ended up working out fine since one girl refused to go on stage in a pig costume anyway. This combined with the fact that the performance was the first time they had ever stepped foot in their costumes made for some…interesting moments. If only my three little pigs could have remembered their lines instead of playing with their rabbit ears and snouts…

However, The Jungle Book was flawlessly performed by my level 3 class, all of which have now graduated from the kindergarten and moved on to elementary school (sniff, sniff). My favorite moment of The Jungle Book was the last line of the play, after Mowgli ventured into the man village with his new love, Leela, and Baloo proclaims, “Well, I guess he won’t be staying in the jungle after all!” To which Bageera replies, “I guess it’s just you and me, Baloo!” And together they say, “Let’s go have some fun!” End scene? I think not! Over the loud speakers comes Shakira’s She Wolf at which point Baloo and Bagheera, quite possibly the two most enthusiastically un-coordinated kids in the school, do a dance that goes down in the history of “most awesomely awkward moments ever.” They groove their way off the stage, then everyone comes in gettin’ down and dirty to Shakira, at which point Shakira fades and the final song of the play begins. It brought the house down! Well, it brought my house down. I was proud.

Another reason to celebrate is that as of about 40 minutes ago, I finished my accounting course! Was it fun? No. But can I now answer any questions you may have regarding income statements, owner’s equity, stock investments, and the amortization of bonds? Ye…No, not really that either. However, I am one step closer in beginning grad school at Columbia next fall – glass half full, people!

Tokyo: A Day in the City

Around Day 3 of our trip to Tokyo, we wandered through the city, hitting the National Museum of Tokyo, the Imperial Palace, and enjoying the amazing little streets of Tokyo in between.

At the Imperial Palace, where the Emperor and Empress live!

Amazing little alleyway full of old Japanese posters.

Everyone in Tokyo bikes!!! Definitely my kind of city.

At the National Museum of Tokyo. Ali and I got to decorate paper kimonos!

Wandering through the city...

Tokyo: Asakusa's Sensoji Temple

We stayed in an area in Tokyo called Asakusa and LOVED it. It was the old, traditional Tokyo, full of traditional architecture, shrines, shops, and restaurants. The most famous site in Asakusa is the Sensoji Buddhist Temple, Tokyo's oldest and most famous temple. It was only a few minutes away from our hostel, so we had many opportunities to check it out.

So many people around the temple.

Just a guy chillin' out at his temple food stand.

In the front of the temple was a big basin with steam coming off of the top.
Everyone was waving the steam into their face, so I did, too! When in Rome...

At night, the temple looked amazing!

Tokyo: Tsukiji Fish Market

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! This Saturday's big graduation festival is the last Saturday that I have to work for awhile, my accounting course will be finished in 2 weeks, and I got through the presentations I had to give at the seminar last Saturday. It was quite possibly one of the most uninterested crowds I've presented to -- it didn't help that right before my presentation, I had to have a meeting with all of the foreign teachers of the different Feinschule branches (that's what these seminars are for -- the other Feinschule schools) and they expressed their utter DISDAIN of these seminars and how much they hate being there. Trust me, I don't want to be there any more than they do, but I think one person wrote on their comment sheet that the whole experience was "insulting." Needless to say, it didn't exactly give me the positive encouragement I needed to make my presentation sparkle with enthusiasm. Regardless of the fact that all I could see written across every person's face in the crowd was "insulting," I got through my presentation as best I could.

Anyway, who wants to dwell on the stress of the present when they can linger on the joys of the past? I didn't know where to start with my posts on Tokyo, so first up is one of Tokyo's most famous sites: the Tsukiji Fish Market. Every morning starting at about 5:00 am, the tuna auction begins, and the morning is spent throwing around huge fish that are sold all over the world. I was told this is the world's largest fish market. Ali and I didn't quite get there at 5:00am--that was the plan, but due to missed alarm clocks and a serious communication glitch at the bike rental shop, we arrived around 8:00am, and spent the morning bustling through tanks of odd looking sea creatures and dodging the very aggressive scooter-type-things hauling fish from one place to another. And we couldn't leave the fish market without trying some sushi, so we stood in line outside of one of the little sushi joints and enjoyed $40 worth of some of the world's finest sushi by 11am. Definitely a part of Tokyo that can't be missed!

Tuna!

Cutting up the fish.

The hustel and bustle of the market. Don't get in their way!

Waiting in line for the sushi place.The little sushi shop we went to by the fish market.
The old Japanese guys making the sushi.

Our sushi chef!Breakfast is served.Happily full of sushi!

Once Upon a Time, I had a Life

Ah, life, WHY?!? That's what I’ve been asking myself the last 6 weeks. Since coming back to Korea after Christmas, life has taken a turn for the “OMG I’m Freaking Out!” thanks to a ridiculously busy work schedule and a blissful (ha!) online accounting course that I have to take as a prerequisite for grad school next fall. I was never a big fan of numbers, unless it pertains to the amount of vacation days I get per year, the amount of episodes of Friday Night Lights I manage to watch in a week, the amount of bread rolls I get for free when eating out…but I’m particularly not a fan of numbers when it means entering them into spreadsheets for hours at a time. This is really not the part of my arts management degree that I’m looking forward to. I’m more about the “arts” than the “management”… (and if you’re wondering if this leads me to question whether or not I’m doing the right masters program, the answer is “YES!” Please, oh please, don’t make me do more accounting, arts management degree!)

So I squeeze in my accounting course into mornings (I’ve turned into an “early riser,” readers!), evenings, and weekends, and try to survive the busiest two months of work in my life! Two huge presentations (one finished, one next week), both on Saturdays, a huge graduation festival with two drama performances to prepare for (again, on Saturday! Yes, Feinschule, take away my weekends! Who needs free time?), and trying to keep up with writing all the books and the music for 3 more levels of Hollywood Kids, since the WHOLE curriculum must be finished before I leave in June.

I feel pulled in so many directions! I literally have no down time, I’m racing around work every moment with a “to do” list longer than Barbara Streisand’s nose (a few more Barbara jokes like this and I'll be next in line for the latest member of Glee!) and every day, a new problem arises like...how will we the tiny little 5-year-old Big Bad Wolf in Three Little Pigs blow down the house when he can barely tie his own shoes? And on that note, we have no houses for him to blow down in the first place! Or...what costume will Mowgli where in the Jungle Book since his attire is literally a pair of red undies. Or...why doesn't my mac EVER work when I do a presentation and why doesn't anyone in Korea know anything about macs?!?

March, will you ever arrive?

However, I was given a little “oasis” in the craziness last week, when Ali and I spent 5 days in Tokyo for Lunar New Year! Tokyo = coolest city ever! We also celebrated our "3 years ago we met in Beijing" anniversary while there. More on this to come, but here’s a little sneak peak. Sarah Jane and Reuben let us borrow their SLR camera because we haven’t had time to get one and because they’re awesome. Enjoy the "teaser" pictures!