WILD

Y'all, last night was WILD.

Remember how I was struggling with some problems about Christmas caroling for the festival my school held? Well...the festival has come and gone and things got wild afterwards.

After all my tough times, I want to tell y'all about something fun. And what happened last night, embodies fun in its entirety. But bear with me, I'm hungover as I'm typing this.

I also only had 2 hours of sleep.

I'm apologizing now for any typos, grammatical errors, and English tomfoolery I'm about to unleash in this post.

First, I'm happy to announce my kids nailed it last night. Wish me luck as I start teaching them some Lion King songs in honor of Lion King being in South Korea. The school is taking a field trip in December to see the show. Gotta get these kids ready.

Anyways, the show ends, parents are going home, teachers are passing out school fliers and helping parents gather their children together. I'm trying to figure out what time my car pool was heading home. It's 9-ish in the evening and I thought I heard we were staying until 10pm.

So, as I'm trying to work out what time we're leaving, which ended up more of a 'we gotta nunchi this', one of the teachers asks, "Who wants to go drinking?"

The speed that many teachers were willing to put cleaning up to tomorrow and have some downtime was eye opening. I hadn't realized just how exhausted they all were. My coworkers hide their struggles very well. And when that invite came my way, I was quick to say 'yes'.

Now, I also thought it would just be for an hour.

Oh no. I didn't start making my way home until 4am. But that's jumping ahead in the story.

Where was I...oh right! So we go to a bar named Cheers. No one there knew my name. But I had 500cc of beer in my hand within seconds of the head teacher sitting down. For those of you who don't know what 500cc is, its equivalent to 500ml. It was a good amount of beer. I had roughly 4 of those as the night passed.

There was also a bottle of soju thrown in there, because why not?

Alright, so I got the alcohol covered, here's what floored me. My co-workers were so relaxed and comfortable, that the intimidation of the language barrier lowered. I was able to speak to many of my coworkers last night and gotten to know them better. It was such a wholesome feeling that I got from them.

And then...one of the teachers told me, outside of work hours, I could call her 언니. Basically, our relationship leveled the fuck up. We also considered ourselves platonic soulmates because we understood each other so well. And I mean, really well. Practically thinking the same thoughts when we're conversing.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, the bromance between the guy teachers was very real, which sparked a conversation about LGBTQIA+. And those of us in the conversation agreed, love is love is love.

The night was literally a beautiful night.

But...the second one of us actually fell asleep at the table mid-conversation, that should've been my clue that things were about to get wild.

Everything that follows feels like it happened so quickly, but I know it happened over a 3 hour time-frame.

Five of us looked for a 노래방 (karaoke), and realized we're in a small rural town and that things don't stay open that late.

I called a taxi for one of the teachers, she was drunk after one of her three 500cc mugs.

Philosophical conversations in English and Korean. Both being quite slurred, but having the best of intentions as we try to figure out how to best work with an obstinate student.

Lost and found cell phones. Never mine...I was still aware enough to know where my phone was...

Oh my god! Let's talk about the bathroom situation. There was one bathroom with a regular stall and a urinal that was more or less covered up by one of those bathroom divider things. It was a gender neutral bathroom. And you never knew if someone was in there using it or not...Of the three times I went to the bathroom, I know for a fact, one time...there was a guy using the urinal. I don't know if he ever realized that I was in there as the same time as him...

By 1am, one of the most docile teachers announces to the group, 'We're not going home. We go to next place. More beer' in her best English. Normally she's so shy and hesitant to speak English, but brah...she took charge and it was in English.

I definitely need to reach out more to the teachers at this school. Extend my hand further, because the wholesome feeling from last night was something I want them all to enjoy more often.

Wait...does this mean we need to go drinking more?

Well we're in luck! Despite coming up with a group name (we're called AM...not sure why...but it made sense last night, I guess?), we also have plans to meet up on Monday in the evening.

Anyways, we're all getting ready to go, being the last group at the bar by the way. Cheering and laughing and speaking a mix of Korean and English. I think some of the teachers were slightly startled at the amount of Korean I could speak. Which isn't much, but enough that I can get my thought across at times...

ANYWAYS! 6 from the original 11, went right ahead to the next drinking spot. And yes...that included me. And not to worry, we took a taxi! Oh! Before I forget...our next drinking spot was going to be a 노래방. (Yes...we tried finding 노래방 again. No regrets.) But realized, again, that there wasn't one open, we went to a...I actually don't know the name of the place.

It's a place you can eat hot Korean food and keep drinking for a cheap price. Which is what happened for the next three hours.

By 4am, I was finally falling asleep and the night was called. Time to go home.

Now, I was going to call a taxi, but host mom was all, 'No! We'll walk! Together! Let's go!' It's below the freezing point, we're both drunk, and she wants to walk home?

Well, we got home around 4:30.

Now, had it been a normal Thursday turned Friday situation, I would've just gone to bed.

I didn't.

I packed my bag since after work today, my traveling for the weekend began. One night in Daegu and the following in Seoul. I got to sleep around 5am. Did I say something different earlier in the post? Bah, that's wrong. I went to bed around 5am, just to wake up at 7:45am for work.

And what I thought would be a regular morning was not the case.

Apparently, host mom had the bus driver's keys and phone. I had wondered last night where she'd gotten the bag that she suddenly acquired, but...I was busy trying to stay warm at the time.

And we needed to go get the car from the bar.

And breakfast.

One second, I was about to make myself a bagel and the next I was climbing into host dad's truck to be driven to the bar to get the car, but host mom and I went to GS25 (a convenience store) and looked for breakfast before heading into work.

And when we get to work, thirty minutes later than usual, but still on time...I realized...one of the cars back at the bar has been one of the teacher's cars. She hadn't gotten it yet.

Was she...was she not coming in?

Sis rolled in at the start of first period...

And now I have a raging headache and have to go teach one of my rowdiest classes in about twenty minutes.

#SaveOurToya