Week 28- Y4(Sep 21st to Sep 27th)
Sun: Wedding day! I got up at the crack of frickin dawn to go to school to warm up my voice, then I rushed back home to have Summer flat-iron my hair and to get dressed for the wedding. I wore this gorgeous knee-length black beaded strapless dress I bought a year ago on sale, with the pearl necklace that was given to me as a thank you gift from the hagwon owner in Cheongju. When I got to the studio, the decorating team was putting on the final touches: the studio was fitted with an alter, chairs and a red-carpetted aisle! It looked pretty great. I didn't actually see much of the wedding itself ( I had to play the wedding marches), but the ceremony was in Korean and English, and it was really nice. After the ceremony, the wedding party moved over to the restaurant Kabinett (where Andy and I had our salsa performance last year) for a steak or salmon dinner. Now the ceremony was shorter than anyone expected, so people showed up at the restaurant about an hour earlier than they were supposed to. This caused some drama between the families-- apparently all Koreans care about at weddings is being fed. And honestly, most of the Koreans really did eat and then leave. (They also, in typical Korean fashion, talked through the ENTIRE ceremony. I know that's just the way they do things here, and that they're used to "factory weddings", but god, show some respect!) Anyway, Helen's parents only speak Korean, and Joey's parents who came in from Canada obviously don't speak Korean, so I think the language barrier was the only major problem. After dinner, we all went back to the studio, which had been re-set up as a reception hall. Here, most of the students at the studio joined us (only a few of us were invited to the ceremony), and lots of drinking, dancing and typical wedding stuff like speeches and bouquet tossing ensued! A little bit later on, my former student Su Bok arrived with her boyfriend who is a bass player, and we played a few sets of jazz music for the wedding guests. First of all, it was really great to play with Su Bok on a colleage level after having been her teacher. It really feels like coming full circle. Second of all, it was kind of cool to show my dance friends what I really do. They were all really impressed with our music. All in all, a great day, and a memorable wedding!
Mon (Sept 22): So yesterday, while I was having a blast at the wedding, Ben was trying to call me to set up a meeting . . . things had been kind of quiet for awhile with the politics stuff, but last week, there was a meeting for the professors that neither Kenji nor I could attend because we were in Iksan. Apparently it was really really tense, and now Ben needs to fill Kenji and I in on what's going with on. So at 6pm, first we had to have a meeting in Jae's office with about half of the fulltime professors about the student concert. I couldn't understand what was going on, but it was really tense, and ended with Jae and In Gun almost getting into an argument. Then Ben and Kenji and I went to dinner so that he could explain what's been going on. So here it is: about half of our fulltime professors have been having meetings since January about Jae, and their biggest accusation is that Jae has embezzled 100 000 DOLLARS from our school. Jae says this is impossible, as our school doesn't even have that much money. Also, he has all the receipts and documentation to prove that he's been clean with the money. The next accusation was that Jae has been accepting bribes from the hagwon owner in Cheongju (the one that I did the masterclasses for last semester) to allow those students into our program. While our audition processes haven't been as straight-up as they should be (for example, talentless girls getting in because someone on the panel thinks they're goodlooking), Jae insists that he has never accepted money from anyone, and besides everyone is guilty of that. The other accusation they had was that they weren't consulted on the hiring of Hye Jin, the other vocal professor. Now here's where it gets ridiculous: Hye Jin has just gone through a messy divorce, and her husband is good friends with Won Sool and Yeon Hak. That's why they're pissed off about it. It has nothing to do with Hye Jin's qualifications at all. Besides, I'm sure that they weren't consulted when I was hired or when Chang Hyun was hired or anyone else. The list of accusations just gets more and more ridiculous from there, too stupid to even bother listing. But what makes this about 10 times worse is that these guys had all of our part time teachers come to a meeting where they listed all their "accusations" and then made them sign a paper. Moreover, they had the student representatives come to this meeting as well. Now they've dragged our entire program into this conflict. I hate that the students know all the crap that's going on: it just makes us all look like a bunch of idiots. I really do not understand where all this vindictive anger is coming from. I've always thought Jae has treated us all well, and he's done a lot of favours for those guys. (For example, In Gun, the piano professor doesn't even have an undergrad degree, and Jae convinced the dean to hire him as part-time but to pay him as a fulltime professor. In Gun should be thankful that he even got a job). All of this just seems like a bunch of silly high school "mean girls" stuff. Anyway, there's no resolution in sight yet. I thought it would depend on the dean, but apparently he wants us to solve this within the department. Great, weeks more of tension to look forward to.
Tues: Today was day 1 of 3 days of early auditions for incoming students. This year, Hye Jin, Yoon Seob and I handled all the vocal auditions. Oy my god!!!!! Talk about agony. 9am-6pm of mostly terrible singers. After the auditions, I had to rush over to the salsa studio to teach a class with Chris while Joey and Helen are on their honeymoon. Afterwards, we sat around drinking straight Jack while Chris let me wallow in my work troubles!
Thurs: I so so so would rather be teaching my regular classes than do any more auditions ever again! We had to let 30 students out of 600 in for this round, and we had a hard time even finding 30 worthwhile students to let in! I only heard about 7 that I really thought were good enough. Man, I never want to do this again! After we finished the audition stuff, Hye Jin and I went for dinner. I learned a lot of stuff that I didn't know-- apparently Won Sool and Yeon Hak have been really horrible to Hye Jin from the get go, and she's been having a really uncomfortable and stressful time since starting this job. I also learned that her husband was emotionally abusive, and therefore it was absolutely necessary that she get out of the marriage, no matter what Korean etiquette dictates about divorce. And now she has to live with the stigma of being a single mother (her son is 5 years old) I can't believe that anyone would ever have the right to think that someone else's divorce is any of their business. How dare Won Sool and Yeon Hak drag their personal issues into our workplace? I really care for and respect Hye Jin, and I admire her strength.
Fri: So tonight I had a date that I didn't realize was supposed to be a date! Last weekend, I met this dj Judo who expressed an interest in maybe collaborating on some music with me. So we met at Ssen bar tonight for a few drinks, and all he did was talk and talk and talk about himself! And it wasn't even interesting stuff, it was rambling on about how drunk he got last weekend, and how his boss lets him come in late when he's hungover, and crap like that. I was kind of thinking, "so how old are you?" He didn't let me get a word in, and I was bored out of my mind. So this friend of his Dennis came in and started talking with us, and he was having a normal conversation with me (you know, the kind where both people actually get to speak?) I wasn't even flirting, and Judo got pissed off and left! Gah! A disastrous non-date! Oh well, since I didn't really like him anyway, no loss here!
Sat: Lots and lots of dancing tonight!!!! However, I'm experiencing quite a bit of pain in my lower back . . . hopefully it's just a little tension and it will go away soon.
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