The Talent Show (Seoul Weekend pt. 1)

Wow, this past weekend has been a total blur... From Thursday night until now, I've been singing, dancing, traveling, touring, eating, hardly sleeping, and just having an all-around fantastic time.

The first part of the best weekend ever began on Thursday evening with the annual ETA Talent Show. This is a tradition for the end of Orientation, but in the past few weeks it's seemed like a major burden for the committee of ETAs who were putting it together, as well as for everyone who signed up to do an act. But it came together wonderfully, and I'm really impressed by the organizing committee and their chosen theme: The Kimchi Games, a parody of The Hunger Games that was spot-on and hilarious in so many ways!

I was in two acts: a lindy hop dance with Amy and a song with Katelyn and Caden. As I mentioned before, having rehearsals for these performances on top of preparing for the final exam and so many other things was tough. But it was totally worth it!

Amy and me, throwing a cute cuddle dip into our routine. Photo taken by Jaeyeon.

Amy and I had been practicing an hour a night for five nights, and our efforts really paid off. Not only did we show off the East Coast style, we worked really hard to put some aerials into our routine, including the awesome Princess Dip and the Angel, which took us so long to perfect (and even then, it wasn't perfect, but we pulled it off!). I think the crowd liked it. :)

Left: the Angel. It's harder than it looks! Right: the Princess Dip, which is tons of fun! Photos taken by Jaeyeon.

The other act I was in was a musical performance. Katelyn and I put together a mash-up of Kina Grannis' "Valentine" and Ingrid Michaelson's "The Way I Am"; these were two songs that had been stuck in our heads for weeks now. It's been our habit to chill in the ETA lounge and jam on the guitar, so we decided that it'd be fun to turn our chill time into a performance. Caden, one of our RAs, also plays the guitar (and has a secret ambition to become a K-pop star), jumped on board to help us out. It was great!

Left to right: me, Katelyn, and Caden. Photo taken by Andrea.

I wanted to mention here that neither of my co-stars, Amy or Katelyn, had ever performed swing or sung on stage before! Yet they both did a fantastic job, and I'm really proud of them and happy that I got to share the stage with them.

All the other performances were stellar, too: there was comedy, poi, salsa, para-para, hip-hop, lots of musical performances, and even a drag performance that stole the show. There was also a slideshow created by our RAs that made everyone cry, and then a crazy dance medley put on by our awesome Orientation Coordinating Team that ended with lots of dancing on stage. And perhaps the funniest and most daring part of the show were the Superlatives created by the Talent Show team that poked fun at almost everyone. My Superlative was, "Most Likely to Put Incriminating Photos of You on Facebook"... and it's true! The whole show was almost three hours long... but even though I was tired by the end of it, I wasn't about to sleep, because we had to get up at 3am the next day to leave for Seoul!

Our OCTs: Anthony, Ashlee, Jim, Bruce, Emilee, Leslie, and JR, dancing in Goesan style!