That time I thought it was an OK idea to sing in front of 80+ parents and teachers

If you weren't already aware by my refusal to every sing karaoke, singing isn't my favorite thing to do. I don't particularly hate my singing voice...I just think others don't need or want to hear it. I don't like the idea of singing in front of large groups of people and, most likely, never will. So when my co-teachers told me that I had been volunteered to sing in front of parents and teachers at a school gathering, I was less than thrilled with the idea.

But first, lets clarify what a parent-teacher gathering means in Korea (since I had zero idea what to expect when I heard about it). Around 60+ parents came to school to spend their afternoon (3 hrs) playing games with teachers.They were able to chat with the teachers who work with their kids, bond with one another, eat food, and win prizes. It's was just a fun time for all.

When we first arrived at the gym I was extremely happy to see a table with beer, Soju, fried chicken and other yummy goodies. After chowing down, the MC had tables compete against each others with dance contests (I may have stood on a chair and danced for a bit...we lost) and some other games. The tables were divided by class years. So if you had a child in the 5th grade, you sat with the other 5th grade parents. The English Center had a table to ourselves.

The MC had us line up by table and complete different activities: massage each other, sit on each others laps in a line, pass something above our heads as fast as possible up and down the line, and more. Everyone was involved in these games and it was really fun.

Next the MC asked for people to play different party games. The first involved having 5 people tied together by their ankles who had to go back and forth across the gym. After watching a few different teams compete, a co-teacher and I decided to give it a go. We won and got a prize.

My lovely co-teachers with our table of food and drinks

Participating in a game with teachers and parents. We won!

From then on I mainly watched as parents and teachers competed against one another for prizes. It was funny at times because the MC made the losers dance (some parents really broke it down) and the games were just strange to watch. There was a game were 6 people held onto ropes that were connected to a flat circular disk in the center. They had to bounce a ball on the disk as many times as possible. There was a jump rope competition (double dutch) with parents trying to get as many people as possible jumping at one time. They played a game were one team had one yellow balloon tied to an ankle and the other team had a white balloon. The goal was to pop the other teams balloons. My co-teachers convinced me to try and within 1 minute I was out.

They had a raffle going throughout the festivities and I ended up winning one of the bigger gifts: 3 tissue boxes! So I won tissues (I have a cold again..perfect!), toothpaste (can never have enough) and cans of tuna (dream gift right here). I'm happy with all my prizes and how could I not be- they're free!

Now the singing. The awful, awful singing. Every table sang a song. One person sang and the others danced in the background. All the parents sang really old Korean songs that everyone was dancing and clapping along with. I was silently freaking out because I don't have 'a song.' Everyone seems to have that Karaoke song that they like to do- I don't really have that. I like singing N'sync and Backstreet boys but I didn't think that was appropriate for Korea. Bruno Mars is fairly popular here so we decided to sing one of his songs and went up to the stage. I convinced Chia, another Native co-teacher to sing with me and THANK GOD I did. I had the mic taken out of my hands by the MC about a 1/4th of the way into the song (I think I was out of tune and off key) and then our song was stopped early because we were....great. It was awful but it's done now and we're never going to talk about it again OK?

So I had a lot of fun, other than singing, and faced my fears. It was a really good day.

I won prizes for participating in games and in the raffle!

Peace!