Lady NOTga.

This is the third clue/teaser. mmmhhmmm.

In other news, "everyone" had a problem with us dancing to Lady Gaga (by every I mean a few of the students who dropped the class because of it) so she changed the song (Skrillex is still included), and shes bummed about it, and so am I. We aren't going to design our costumes, which suuuucks, I was so stoked about that.

Anyway. Happy Curiousness.

-Michelle

One Day I Got Bored...

....and now I have plans to captivate the world and you, Amy, by way of BEING AWESOME.

Ok, so here's the deal. One day I was listening to K-pop and working, and then I was like, "I have the best idea ever."

And so, Amy, I'm going to make something for you that will be finished within the next two weeks (depending on the weather) and will be totally awesome. Until then I will be releasing little teasers/clues, ( the first of which is below)

Well, here's the second teaser/clue (below) You better be psyched about this totally random out of the blue awesome thing that I'm doing for YOU to tell you how cool YOU are.

The only other information that I'm going to let slip about this shindig is that: it will be in two parts. The rest will become clear in due time.

-Michelle

Dear Michelle (wherein I write a post that for once is shorter than yours)

I wrote that title to keep myself in check, because I am fully capable of writing a post that is long enough to also wipe something up, like my sweat after I go to the gym this afternoon (can you believe it?)

I get that school is just one of those things. I go through cycles of thinking that school is the easiest thing ever and I hardly even have to try to breeze through it with all As to feeling like I'm being swept mercilessly against the cold forbidding rocks of academia by tidal waves of dead-eyed cynicism. That analogy kind of got away from me. Without school, however, I will become a pretty useless excuse for a person. Well, with school it's entirely possible that I will still be useless, but my chances at succeeding in life are at least a little bit better.

I really like dancing but the truth is that I have little coordination, so sometimes I look at a dance and I'm like, I can do that, and then when I actually try it it turns out I can't even move my hands at the same time as my feet. It's pretty humbling. But I can accept that dance isn't something I have natural talent at. But the way you were describing dance and what it means to you reminded me of how I feel about language, sort of in a lot of ways. I mean, I'm really linguistically oriented, and anything that relates to linguistics really fascinates me. And the thing is, I have an alright aptitude for things like that. Like, I can actually have a completely autonomous desire to learn things about language and linguistics. I don't think I've ever had that kind of motivation with anything else. Like with writing, I did all the research and work and exercises and the worldbuilding without anyone else telling me what to do or how to do it, and it was actually fun. The same goes with Korean. I frigging love deciding to undertake something on my own and then it turning out that I'm perfectly capable of doing it well. Which reminds me that my next question for the Korean girl in my choir is what the difference is between 이용하다, 활용하다, and 사용하다, because everywhere I look, they all mean "to use". I need to know this because that's a really important verb and I don't want to say the wrong one at the wrong time. I'm so paranoid about that kind of thing. It pretty much goes without saying that I'm going to end up offending a lot of people when I speak to them in Korean just because I've never had to think this much about customs and propriety before.

It's pretty awesome that you got that part in Beauty and the Beast. Initially I wrote that as "Beasty and the Beast", and I'm suddenly realizing that that could be a pretty good story. Anyway, I know what you mean about feeling like being put into mezzo soprano is somehow an insult to your singing skills. I feel like I could be a pretty awesome alto, but I, too, am a mezzo soprano and we seem to get overlooked a lot. It's okay though, because if there's one thing I'm good at it's staying in the background. And that's important in a choir. Anyway, about sounding operatic, a lot of it comes down to really good breath control, which is something I've never been good at but I'm sure with practice you can totally kill it. Plus you were always better at swimming so your breath control is probably better than mine to begin with.

I could be your piano teacher. I don't know how good of a teacher I'd be, but we seem to see piano playing in sort of the same way (play what you want, when you want), so I guess that could be pretty good. But I'd have to turn into a bit of a slave driver because, not to be mean or anything, your musical motivation is usually at a pretty low ebb.

I should like go do school or something. I just had to pause this whole post-writing thing for a little while because I was listening to "Breath" by Beast and basically every time I listen to that song I have to stop everything and wait for the moment when YoSeob does this incredibly strong sustained note that has exactly the perfect amount of vibrato at the end of it and I think it brings a tear of admiration to my eye every time I hear it.

Anyway that's my story. I really failed at the whole writing a short post thing, didn't I?

-Amy

Dear Amy

Where Everything Is That I'm Doing Right Now (and then a cry for help)

I thought you would like an update, especially since you pretty much already know everything about me *smiley face*

SCHOOL: Well, you know, school is just one of those things, kind of like cleaning the dog or your room. You don't want to do it at all, and there is nothing enjoyable about doing it, but its the result that you want/need, and so that's why you just have to grit your teeth and do it. The only problem is, cleaning your room and cleaning the dog are things that take four hours, tops, and school takes....well. like twelve years. But I'm doing Algebra 2, and the farther I get the more I find myself thinking, "Every American is smart enough to do this?", lets just say, I've gained a lot of respect for our country.

DANCE: dancing is kind of like sleeping, or eating. Its not just that you want to sleep, you also want the result, which is, not being tired. Its not just that you want to eat, because eating is great, you want to be satisfied, because being satisfied, is also great. I think about dancing a lot, and I dance a lot, but what I do even more than dancing, is think about how depressed I am about how I'm not a very good dancer. It happens so much and its such a roller coaster between depression and victory, that I've decided that its just one of those things that you have to ignore and wait for it to pass. And what do I do while I'm waiting? Dance. Because the more I dance, the bigger the chance of me getting past being depressed about it, and the bigger the chance of me winning.

I realized that when I watch someone really talented dancing, I don't usually thing, "wow they're really talented I could never do that" (which is what I should probably be thinking), instead I think either, "they must have practiced that forever," or "I could do that." not in like a "pfft, I'm so talented I can do anything," way, but in a "If I try hard enough and spend enough time on it, I can figure it out." So its like I'm realizing that I think that its not all talent that makes someone a great dancer, but time and practice. And dance is one of the first things that I've ever wanted to spend time and practice on to get better at.

KOREAN: I don't know that many words, but I just learned 1-10, and by doing so I learned 1-100. So that's cool. The little square of Korean on my wall is now dedicated not just the alphabet but also,

- body parts (the only of which I know by heart are, eyes, shoulder, hand, fingers, lips, and arms)

- numbers (eel, ee, sam, sa, oh, yuk, chil, pal, goo, ship YEAYUH. One day to learn those. Imma winner. The way I managed that was I cut out little pictures of k-pop bands and I put their number over how many were in the band, so 1- jeremy, 2 - TVXQ, 3 - JYJ, 4 - 2NE1, 5 - Shinee, 6 - 2PM, 7 - Block B, 8 - Super Junior, 9 - Girls Generation, 10 - Super Junior. Everything is easier to learn when you get to stare at beautiful people.)

- clothing, ( I just put this up and the only one I know by heart is jacket. Which, in Korean, is jacket.)

- colors (A couple are pretty much the same, pink (ping-ku) white, (hu-white-uh), and orange (or-ang-ee)

- and simple words like hello, thank you, mother, father, sister, brother, excuse me, and such.

I will, soon, put up days of the week and emotions. Probably nouns, at some point, too.

In other news, I got the part as the Wardrobe in the play. The awesomeness/overwhelmingness of it hasn't hit me yet. I mean, I'm practically one of the main characters. I'm like in the top-ten biggest characters (not literally though. I'm the second literal biggest character, next to the beast, eh hehehe). Though, I must say, this is quite a great undertaking, I'm a mezzo soprano (second soprano) which is the nice way of saying, "you can't really sing the alto part or the soprano part." Just kidding...kind of. But anyway, shes an opera singer, so I really gotta work on the vocals and such. Also the lines, gotta work on those too.

And, like I said at the beginning of this post, I said something about a cry for help, and what I meant by that was,

You are an incredible pianist, and you, and you alone have the power to break my chains of enslavement, and set me freeee!

What I'm saying, all metaphors aside, is, mom said that if you teach me piano when you come home, I don't have to continue taking lessons from Mrs. Stern.

Now, I don't know if you realize what an opportunity this is (with my playing-by-ear skills and your play-by-the-music-like-a-BOSS skills combined, we can change the world!). I mean I don't think you know what its like taking lessons from Mrs. Stern.

I will share with you some golden quotes to enlighten you a little.

"Its not so much about having perfect notes..its about having perfect notes and rhythm, every time."

"You can play the Entertainer at the recital!" - her
"Oh, so I can play songs that I've learned before this year?" - me, thinking I could play my Beatles songs too. (keep in mind, I learned the Entertainer like three years ago)
"No." - her.

"*contradiction of some kind that I can't remember*" - her
"*asks what she means, since she contradicted herself*" - me
"*asks what I mean.*" - her
"*I explain the contradiction that she has just told me.*" - me.
"Ok....I've given you too much information." - her.

Just think, with out powers combined, we can learn both Wedding Dress AND Very Good Words! (already pretty much figured VGW out. I'll sing it to you with real tears next time I see you.)

Anyway. Think about it. Think, think about it.

-Michelle

I have much more important things to be doing this afternoon. And yet I still blog.

What's up, homeslice.

Today while I was furiously trying to ignore what has quickly become the class which I detest with a most direly smoldering, restless fire (Geology), I started a list of super important words that I want to learn in Korean as soon as possible. The trick is covering the bases of extremely basic conversations you might have to have on a daily basis while still keeping the list of words managably short (for now). The reason I'm doing this is that a lot of the time my study of Korean is done on a whim-by-whim basis, and I would probably be much better served if I have a wider goal in mind. Here is what I have so far, grouped loosely by situation. I already know a lot of these and you probably do too but I figured why not list them anyway? They're important.

Nouns/adjectives:

• hair, face, hands, eyes, clothing items, laundry
• house, apartment, building, market, room names
• school, test, class, college, verb, noun, adjective, book, subject names
• chair, couch, table, bed, blanket, pillow
• time, hour, minute, months, weeks, days
• car, bus, subway, map, city, countryside, directions, near/far, fast/slow
• weather, colors, seasons, hot/cold, some food items

 Verbs:

• run, walk, stand, bow, play, work
• eat, drink, sleep, see, say, hear, feel, breathe, listen, wake (up)
• wash/clean, dress/wear, buy, sell, rent, make/create, send, plan, study, build
• read, write, dance, sing, rap, date,
• want, grow, need, live/die, come, dislike, think (about), know

It's a start, I guess? Knowing about a third of these makes me feel better about myself but then again, it's only a third. More work.

I am at the library. I was going to use my superior (read: rudimentary) knowledge of the Dewey Decimal System to find this book for Adolescent Lit. on my own, but it has proven to be very difficult. I may have to give up and ask for help.

Later - turns out the book isn't actually here, so all my searching was in vain. Will I have to go buy it at the bookstore? I hate it when that happens. I can't even count the books I have had to buy this semester. Three literature classes in one term wasn't the best idea I've ever had.

-Amy

You Are What You Eat

That makes me 50% Mexican, 40% Asian (what are Ramen noodles?) and 10% Italian.

I can't think of many things that have happened since I talked to you, but there are a few WEE things that have gone on around here in the boonies.

1. Acting.
I went to my first acting class last night, and Charissa told us about all the stuff we can and can't do, and also there are 30 people in the class YES. The more the better, seriously. We're doing Beauty and the Beast, but she told me I can't be Lumiere, because he's got this thing with the feather duster. So all my hopes were dashed and I thought maybe I would try out for Belle, just because I can't be the awesome candlestick, and then she said that Belle would have an on-stage-kiss (maybe fake, maybe real, but you're either going to kiss the guys thumb or kiss the guys mouth, so the difference...is the same) and then I was like, whoa. WHOA. No. I mean, I even have a problem watching people do on stage kisses.
So I think I'll try out for Mrs. Potts, the guy that follows Gaston around, and the wardrobe. We'll see how it goes next Tuesday. But she gave us the script and its 100 pages.....one. hundred. pages. Uno. times 100. Ten. Times ten.
Thats how many pages I have to memorize. Its the broadway version so its just like the movie but LONGER. and there are like  five more songs, and YESYESYES if I can't love her is included in the score. Man, the guys who play the beast and Gaston had better be pretty freaking awesome. Ya know.

2. Also, I got my drivers license. Its pretty cool. The lady was nice, ya know, and I passed with 70%, which is pretty incredible. I'm thinking that maybe she did that on purpose because all of the things I did wrong were all non-moving problems, or the kind of problems that were just me being too cautious.

Anyway, I guess I'm going to see you friday (oh my gosh. This entire house. They're all HORRIBLE at being 'mysterious'.

-Peace out bro.

Peanut Butter and Love Poems

I just want you to know that I ate an entire jar of peanut butter in a month. This isn't your normal peanut butter eating, either. I mean, I didn't eat it on anything, I just scooped it right out of the jar, and after a while I realized that I could see the bottom. It just happened. But I went to Wal-Mart today, and I bought another, bigger, more crunchy one. I don't know if peanut butter is brain food, but I know it has a lot of protein in, and it makes me feel happy, so I think I will continue eating it at my present pace, because it is better to eat peanut butter while I do homework than to eat candy while I do my homework (I have not bought any candy for weeks, you should be proud).

I was going to get my oil changed, too, but the only place I know where you can get it done here is at Jiffy Lube, and when I googled how much it cost to get oil changed there, all that came up were a bunch of horror stories from people who had been totally scammed there. So I don't want to go. I will probably just stop in Harrisonville the next time I come home and have it done there. I feel bad that I'm putting off this whole oil change thing but it's not like I'll be driving at all between now and then so I guess I won't be racking up more miles.

The cool thing about that CD that you left in my car is that the bass of songs comes through a lot better if they're on a CD rather than a tape adapter. When I was driving back from Mor Mor's on Sunday I listened to Turn It Up a few times with the bass up high so I could feel it. It was pretty cool. The only other CD I have in my car is a mix one that Elise made, and there is an old-school Black Eyed Peas song on it that gives me the same artificial feeling of being a badass.

There is this line in How Gee that goes "I wear my sunglasses at night/still 20/20". Cracks me up so much.

Sometimes when I do my laundry, the washing machine just flips out and when I go to put the clothes in the dryer, they're soaking wet. It's really annoying because dryer cycles are an hour, and this load is going to take at least two cycles to get dry. On any other night I'd be in bed by the time it's done. First world problems.

There's only one remaining day of teaching for Literature of Adolescents. I am ecstatic. I can't wait to be done. If there's one thing this class has done for me, it's shown me how unready I am to be a teacher. Thankfully I have a couple more years before I have to step out on my own with this. It's pretty scary to think about, but then again most of what makes being a grown up makes me sick to think about. There's nothing quite like independence to make a body feel vulnerable. I'm determined to own it though, just you wait.

The window in our room has been wide open for weeks. It got pretty cold outside a few times, but it never matters - regardless of the weather outside, it is always a steady 75-82 degrees in this room. There is nothing to do that will make it any cooler. Part of the reason is because the heater is right below the window, so it blows up a hot air barrier that prevents anything cold from coming in. The heater never turns off. The last three nights my roommate went and slept in her friend's room downstairs just because it was too hot to sleep. It doesn't bother me when I fall asleep, but there's nothing quite like waking up sweaty to make a body feel cranky in the morning.

I am probably going to watch that movie you recommended while I wait for my laundry to finish. I can never resist beautiful people being talented on screen. You know how I am.

-Amy

P.S. I forgot it was Valentine's Day, because I was too busy thinking about other things. But there was chocolate fondue in the cafeteria today, so that was cool. Thankfully no one's been particularly mushy in my vicinity, but I was at Wal-Mart earlier and there were a lot of uncomfortable-looking men buying roses. It warmed my heart a little.

P.P.S. I also bought you a birthday present today. It is pretty exciting.

P.P.S. My eccentric World Masterpieces teacher also celebrated today by breaking off from Dante's Inferno, which we're reading, to read several famous subtly suggestive love poems of yore. We all lol'd, but it was also pretty awkward, because Shakespeare sure was into innuendo. Dang.

It is pretty late.

It is pretty late. However, I slept in this morning, and I can sleep in tomorrow, so I am probably okay.

So you may have forgotten (you haven't, because I think I have probably told you a few times by now), but I am in choir. And I am not the hugest fan of it. I mean, I adore singing and getting better at singing, but everything else is not the greatest. But this weekend, my choir had two days of singing at a a conductor's symposium - basically grad conductors and student teaching conductors from all around the Midwest came to conduct our choir, and then receive pointers from other, more experienced conductors. Anyway, basically what this meant is that there wasn't really any actual scrutiny on us for a change, but scrutiny towards the conductor instead. But we still had to sing for two hours straight last night (past my bedtime) and two hours straight this afternoon. It was actually pretty tiring and I think I was dehydrated after today. Also I learned that conducting is basically upper-body dancing - they even use the same lingo (choreography, flow, step, flexibility, etc.).

Anyway what I meant to say with all that was that I made friends with the lady who stands next to me in 2nd sopranos (she sells for Mary Kay and offered me a free facial because my eyes "speak" to her - how could I refuse??), and also I got to talk to the Korean girl in the choir too and she offered me help with Korean if I ever needed it. She also said that she knows a lot of American people who are her friends who are teaching English in Korea, so that made me pretty happy. I already have a few questions lined up to ask her next choir class. The most pressing one is, since age and seniority is so important, how does one find out how old the people they meet are (if it's not clear)? Do you ask right away what year they were born, or do you just speak respectfully until they let you know? That's the most important question to me right now because it's not something I can just google. I can google almost everything but not that. I really feel like it would be rude to refer to someone as agasshi or tangshin or something like that if you've just met them. Is it ever possible to be too formal? I guess you could just use their name with sshi added whenever you're speaking to them instead of any pronouns. But that is bad for me because I'm horrible at remembering people's names, even in English. Maybe this will help me.

I filled out some scholarship applications today. I don't know if I'm an exceptional enough student to get any, but my fingers are crossed. Plus the little cover letter I wrote for each one was pretty good. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's turning a pretty phrase (it's been confirmed that that is, indeed, the only thing I'm good at). As far as writing went, I actually did a lot. On one of my breaks I started working on one of my old stories again. I had to do a lot of research for it, but I finally got up the courage to write about a guy with PTSD... they say "write what you know", but the truth is that I've already done that, and I've run out of things I know, because it turns out I know very little, and even less that's interesting. So we'll see how this goes.

So I'm halfway through the teaching that we're doing in my Literature for Adolescents class. In a way, it's both better and worse than I expected. Turns out I have an exactly spot-on pre-assessment of my own teaching abilities... I gave a 20-minute lecture on Tuesday and it turned out exactly how I predicted: boring, nerve-racking, and I made too many hand gestures. What I do when I'm at a loss for words is I move my hands a lot in a really meaningless way. As I'm doing it, I'm fully aware of it, but there is literally nothing I can do to stop it. In the end, I spent hours and hours preparing for that lecture and it ended up falling a bit flat just how I thought it would. Even though we weren't very rehearsed, all my group fellows did really well because they're all quite charismatic. It was a little disheartening. Jamie says I should go into theater, and I think I'm tempted (right now the determining question is, do I want to be stressed out and hungry, or not stressed out and really hungry?). Anyway, we've done two days of teaching and we have two more, and I'm crossing my fingers. I have a pretty big part to play on Tuesday, and I hope I can be interesting about it. But how do you rehearse interestingness? All I know how to do is rote memorization, and that is boring as a rock (if a rock also gestured lamely). It's not very good for my other classes, either. Even though I got 39/40 on my first History exam, I haven't been able to do all the reading for my other literature classes (Dante's Inferno in three days for one, and Huck Finn in three days for the other) and it makes me feel stupid when I go to class and I don't have anything interesting to contribute to the class discussion. I've done a lot of the reading for next week though, so that will probably be better. Having a weekend where I wasn't home has been good, because home is really bad for my homework getting-done skills.

I don't know if you have watched much Hello Baby lately, but I wanted to tell you about how I watched what's available from the 5th season (it's airing, so there are only 4 episodes). At first I didn't like it because MBLAQ aren't even half as cute as SHINee, plus they have to take care of three kids who are YooGeun's age (about 4). But after watching it for a little longer, it really took a turn for the serious... the group really had no idea to deal with three kids, two of whom had really strong personalities, and almost right away they were kind of forced into making decisions about real, actual discipline and routines and being really mindful of what they said around the kids. I think because the group itself is older (maknae is 19, leader is 25), they were able to make more serious decisions about what to do about kids that were energetic or hurtful or really disrespectful. I actually don't think you would like it at all, because it was filled with really uncomfortable or horrible moments where either the kids or the dads or both would make a bad decision on camera and no one would know what to do. Eventually they went to see a child psychologist and she helped them out a lot and it was really cool to watch them come to these realizations about parenting that had never crossed their minds before, and then earnestly try to do better with the kids. Anyway, in that way it really reminds me of Supernanny, which my roommate watched marathon-style all day today (it's either marathon style or nothing), and which I adore. Supernanny is seriously one of my role models.

Anyway I'm totes going to bed now. I always think I'm going to make these posts brief but it never works. Sorry.
안녕,
Amy

Seventeen to One, Complete Victory.

Shinwoo, beasty as always,
fights crime on his off days.
He's probably wrestled a monster,
and now he wears its downy soft fur,
as a fashionable and stylish shirt,
when he fights he's swift and curt,
though the damage done is extensive,
he gets the point across, and the victims live.

Seventeen to one, complete victory,
Kang Shinwoo, as cool as could be.

Kang Shinwoo is a totally gentleman,
he stayed with the girl, when other boys ran.
The guys are all incredibly jealous,
They get angry and make a fuss,
They leave their girls and go sell drugs,
But its Shinwoos job to fight the thugs,
He gets on his bike and chases them down,
They're under a bridge, out side of town.
Using only his helmet and back belt kung fu,
They dream of doing what Shinwoo can do,

but its Seventeen to one, complete victory,
Because Shinwoo is as cool as could be.

They're all knocked out, in a pile on the ground,
Shinwoo tightens his tie and leaves without a sound,
There are seventeen girls, without a date,
cause their boyfriends are thugs, which they hate.
But Shinwoo is there, and they're all in awe,
Hes the most handsomest man they ever saw,

Seventeen to one, complete victory,
Kang Shinwoo, as cool as could be.

-Michelle Sullivan

poo.

Amy, your news about my surprise birthday party saddens me greatly. If you are too busy right now to do it, we can do it later. and by later I mean in three weeks or so. Whatever part of the planning is hard for you, I can do. Like who to invite and when to do it.

BUT IT WOULD BE REALLY COOL IF YOU WERE STILL INVOLVED IN THE MAJORITY OF THE PLANNING. : D

Amy, if I had a little sister that wanted me to do something great like plan her sixteenth birthday party, I would be honored!

No, but if you really are too busy I guess you don't have to do it....


Quote of the day,

"I can't sleep in Shinwoo's room. He's a man." - mi nam
"What?"
"Oh.....you are too...." mi nam
"So are you!"

"I think I'll make a quick post before really getting into my homework" *writes post that, if printed, could probably be used as a doorstop*

A few items:

Firstly, I can't believe you're watching You're Beautiful right after, and I mean right after finishing PT. Sometimes you are hopeless, like me. I guess the post-show blues go to you pretty seriously if you just jumped right into the next one. Anyway, it's a pretty adorbs show, so you have that at least. Also, ShinWoo is officially cool, forever.

Second, my playlist I made is now awesome, so listen to it when you can, because there is some really good stuff on there that you may or may not have heard yet. I am listening to it now, and I am on Breakdown by Taeyang, one of the happiest-sounding songs ever.

Third, tomorrow is the first day that we're teaching my Adolescent Literature class, and I have experienced several stages of nervousness this afternoon alone. I'm not necessarily afraid of speaking in front of people, so right now my biggest fear is disappointing my group fellows by making a presentation that falls below their expectations. I know I'm the maknae by at least two years, but I'm still feeling a lot of pressure just because they're really good and I'm, well, not. I'm rewriting my lesson plan right now, because I have had a lot of caffeine and sugar, so I am ready for anything (excluding sleep, and really, who needs it?). I figure if I spend two minutes talking about DESE standards, and three minutes talking about each of the five lesson plan questions, I will easily have a fifteen-minute presentation, which should be a fairly okay. And I think I might have enough material to do that, so I guess all I need to do now is figure out how to make it interesting (a daunting task). My roommate has advised me to feign sickness and just stay home, and I am sorely tempted. If only my suck-up tendencies would allow such a thing.

Fourth, you know about that party thing you keep talking about? Yeah, the truth is that every time I think about it I feel that sense of encroaching doom. Not because it's your birthday, but because I think my head is about to explode. I think it's an actual mental disorder, the fear of an exploding head.

Actually, I wasn't expecting this, but I just googled it and it turns out exploding head syndrome is a real thing. My existence has been legitimized.

Long story short, it would be awesome to have a party for you, especially since it's your sweet 16 and stuff, but a surprise party may not be possible. The truth is that right now any party you throw or we throw together would literally be a hundred percent better than anything I could come up with on my own in the middle of my student teaching. It looks like you have a lot of good ideas so, by rights, it should be you figuring out what the party's going to be all about. It would be awesome if I could help though, so I can feel useful as a person once again (college kills personality). Like, I am pretty good at doing things like decorating if someone (you) tells me it looks good. I also crave affirmation.

I had a fifth item, but I forget what it is, and I promised myself that I would only have two items related to Korea.

Oh, I remember now. Today I sped read 90 pages of Dante's Inferno and 70 pages of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The truth is that such a thing is not possible on this mortal plane, which is why I am a superstar. Or a superhero, depending on how you look at it. Having experienced reading 160 pages in about an hour and a half, I have decided that speedreading should be considered a supernatural power. I know you agree with me (I know no such thing, but if you don't agree with me I will probably come over there and show you my tears of ink to convince you otherwise).

I'm going to go finish my lesson plan now. You can remember me while you're having oodles of fun watching Shinwoo being awesome and Jaekyung being a meanieface but still pretty cool, and Jeremy being the most adorable boy ever. Can you tell I'm jealous? I really regret watching any Hello Baby this afternoon, because even though Shinee as really uncertain fathers is one of the most cutest things I've ever seen, I have so many less interesting and more pressing things to be doing.

Peace,
-Amy

Oh, Being Sixteen

Wow, there, 16. Its right around the corner. Like, LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AWAY. wow. WOW. I don't know what I'm going to do on my birthday, but it definitely won't be school or anything depressing like that. I'll probably spend the whole day reading the letters to myself that I'm supposed to open when I turn sixteen. I hope one of them has money in it.

Amy, that language thing IS really confusing, but I'll figure it out. Ya know, cause I'm cool like that.

Also, Taeyang. GAH.

Back to my Birthday. My party. Now, I don't know if you've already got this thing planned, but if you don't, gosh, two weeks is a short time. Just saying. In case you didn't know. because I don't know how many party's you've planned, in your life.

Oh no dad is singing along to Big Bang.

Yeah, I watched some more of Personal Taste. Oh my gosh its so incredibly funny. It makes me lawl and squirm a lot.

Oh yaaay you're coming home this weekend! We're gonna be super busy, but when we aren't we're going to watch Personal Taste and eat cookie dough and ramen noodles with chopsticks (YES, I do mean cookie dough with chopsticks. Get on my level) and talk about Taeyang and how he looks like Channing Tatum. Also I'll probably show you what I have of the Neverland dance. I don't have it memorized but I have MOST of it down (the "most" in caps means that there is a great deal of it that I don't know very well, but I can pretty much do the whole thing ok, and I've got the chorus down.)

Anyway, my birthday party: Don't do party favors. I know mom will want to. But here's the deal, I used to go along with that, but now its like, what the heck? "Here, let me give you a present for having a really fun time." thats lame and no one does that. The present is my presence.

And no, I don't want a pinata. But maybe a pinatas worth of candy. And yes, rollerskating is included in the 'no skating' rule. We aren't like five. Though I really enjoy skating to my song of choice. But another time, another time.

Stay Classy,
Michelle