12:00 PM It is been some more kind of busy today.
I just got back from Noraebang Room 2, where the boys of 2-5 were singing their hearts out.Joker-Yoonsung has a lovely voice, and Yeongjoon took the initiative to ask me to sing one after I'd listened to them for a couple songs.
Yeongjoon picked a song where he got to do a smooth R&B rap while Yoonsung took the heartfelt chorus. I was sitting by Yeongjoon on one of the desks and I told him he sounded really cool. He said, "I know." He picked the song for that very reason. He programmed in SNSD's "Gee" and I sang that in Korean--not very well, but decently because it's right difficult to speed-read hangul letters off of a karaoke machine. I just sat on the desk calmly while I sang, but Yoonsung did the cutesy dance that goes with the song, which looks hilarious when a gangly teenager tries it.
I was supposed to have a booth today, but the chocolate that was on my desk went missing. 3rd-Grade Mingyu tried to tell me where it was, but it wasn't on my desk this morning and it wasn't in the room assigned for my activity, so. I went to Mr. B, who is co-coordinating this whole thing and he said not to worry about it since it was close to lunchtime.
HH found me in the hallway to ask me whether it was more appropriate, in the case of sending pictures by phone, to say "I'll text you a picture" or "I'll send you a picture". He seems well-adjusted and happy today. Good thing, too--that boy had me worried.
I sat in on a 1-hour quiz this morning because KBR-Teacher said I was needed to read the English questions, but they didn't end up getting as far as the English questions, so I wasn't used for anything. But I got to cheer on Insung and Changyo and Seonwoo, and I met a new boy called Dawi, and I got a cookie from Hobeom and a Bart Simpson doll from Yeongjoon, so I call it all even.
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12:45 PM Score! Went outside to get video footage and got shots of several favorite students. Little Byeongjo cam up to ask me about whether the words "the one" were pronounced "thuh one" or "thee one" because he heard a Korean singer say it that way and had a suspicion it was incorrect. Byeongjo's a smart one.
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5:10 PM Wow.
Just wow. We migrated to the Cultural Arts Center for the 2nd half of our school festival, which was pretty much a talent show. It was stunning and fun and long. And I sang! But more on that later.
One of the teachers drove me to the Center, and I filed indoors with everyone else, excited for what was to come and wondering where to sit. By happenstance, I was walking in with Junho and his crew and as soon as a teacher pointed me where to sit, Junho scooted in next to me, announcing to all the adults who would listen that I was his girlfriend. I took it in stride I thought, but then he just watched me watching the other kids and kept saying "beautiful," and I got embarrassed all over again. I should be over this by now.
Junho got up to go somewhere and Dongjin slid into his vacated seat with a, "Hi wife." Very smooth. BY sat behind me and scared me again, just for the fun of it. Then Junho and Dongjin and everyone had to go sit with their actual class, and BY said, "Well, if he's leaving, I'm sitting by you!"
He was great company. We talked about age gaps in our families, how he's 16 years younger than his oldest brother and I'm 21 years older than my youngest sibling. We talked about magic tricks, because the first act in the talent show was one of the educational supervisors doing an awesome and very polished magic act.
My friend O-Teacher performed with her special students, all of them using ukeleles to play a popular Korean childrens' song. They were darling, and I wish I got video of it. I was too far away to record, and getting close to the stage wasn't an option.
Byeonghyun played piano! I finally got to hear him. It was beautiful and he did an amazing job. I got to see him backstage and tell him how proud I was.
It was actually during Byeonghyun's piano performance that I got a text from O-Teacher...telling me to come backstage so they could get me lined up for my performance. Wut.
What?
WHAT?!??
2 weeks ago, I had worked on this cute K-pop medley, practiced my lyrics and gotten something in the works for the school festival, but when I was assigned a child to play guitar for me, it became clear that it wasn't going to turn out well. I'm sure Sanghwi's a great guitar player, but the guitar he was playing was out of tune, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't sing with his playing. I told Sanghwi thanks for the valiant effort, but we'd have to just not do it.
So I hadn't prepared. I thought I wasn't doing it, because I wrongly assumed that Sanghwi would tell Mr. B that we weren't a go for that. Incorrect as usual, Queen Friday. So I got backstage and was generally lost. I watched a few more acts before learning that I was slated to go sixteenth, so I had an hour or so to just chill in one of the makeup rooms.
Some 3rd-grade boys were in the makeup room opposite me, decked out for a "Prettiest Girl" contest, complete with wigs and inch-think eyeliner. Dongyeong came over to my room to chat with me and act cool and dudely, never mind the fact that he was wearing a skirt and floral headband. I was supposed to see past it.
Between bouts of talking with the boys, I fretted and worried and drank a full bottle of water because my mouth was so dry. I've almost never had stage fright before--I was a theater major my first year of college and I thrive on attention and pressure. So attention and pressure and a spotlight is like a s'more of three great things put together. But when I factored in the fact that I was unprepared, plus the massive audience, plus singing in a second language in which my audience was fluent...the anxiety started to get to me.
But then I thought about the boys themselves, not as a seething mass of humanity, but as individuals who might be happy to see me. I thought about singing something to make Saturday-Jeongmin smile, or Jaehyung or Seongmo or Shion or Hyo. I could go out there and put them at ease and do something fun. I stopped hyperventilating and started smiling.
I had the foresight to print out the romanized lyrics of my song, "Joah," before I left school. Just in case something happened--I was sure I wasn't going to have to perform, but some little ping in the back of my head said to have lyrics ready.
Backstage, I figured I'd have to sing acapella. BUT the Cultural Arts Center has an amazing sound system and some quality song files, and they had my song as a karaoke track. I stood on the sidelines and listened to a kid sing Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" (translated into Korean), and they told me I was next.
The MC, a guy who worked for the Culture Center and who had been doing a great job keeping the crowd pumped up, said to the students in Korean, "Do you know...Leigh Seonsaengnim?" Cheers and clapping. "I said, do you know Leigh Seonsaengnim?" Louder cheers and clapping! The boys begin to understand that I will be performing.
I walked out and joined the MC, and the spotlight was so bright, I couldn't discern faces. It didn't matter--I knew who was there, and even knew where some of them were sitting. I said, "Annyeong haseyo yeoreobun!" (hello everyone!), then I said, "Guys!" and give my foot a tiny little stomp, like I do when I need attention in class. The boys roared with laughter and several quadrants of the theater yelled back, "Guys!" It was great.
The MC asked me in English, "how old are you?" and I said, "In America, 27, in Korea sumeul yeodeol saliyeyo." He said a few things to the boys that I didn't understand, and then left me onstage. I was certain that I'd sing it acapella, but the opening bars of Joah began to play!
I was so shocked, I talked through the instrumental intro: "Oh, okay there's actual music! I'll do my best. This is for you guys. Pray for me." I sang the first verse and the chorus, and I didn't mess up the Korean lyrics, and my voice sounded okay and the audience was really into the song. I hadn't practiced the 2nd verse and it would have made the song too long anyway, so when I finished the chorus, I said "keutnasseoyo" or "completed" and did an X-sign with my arms before trotting offstage with a smile.
The applause was massive. I thanked God for helping me keep things together, then I walked out of the dressing rooms and into the outer hallway that led back to the main theater. Different boys were loitering outside the theater in the vestibule, and I got enthusiastic compliments and thumbs' up from students I didn't know.
I ducked my head into the theater, not sure if I should go back and sit by BY or not. Kids crowded around the door and told me how great my voice was, then Yeongchang led me to his seat, in the back of the theater. I sat by Jaehyung while Yeaongchang and Daesung hovered behind me, shooing away other kids who came by to say sweet things to me.
I watched only two more performances, one by Sejoon, one of my 1st-graders who has serious pipes. He was singing a sort of Korean rock ballad, and he sounded amazing--I've got to tell him how cool he was.
The festival ended quickly, and before I could talk to any of my other favorites, the teacher who had driven me to the Center said it was time to leave.
I had a beautiful day, and all things were wonderful. Thank you, Lord.
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