Day 258: Just Call Me Mr. Potter

So today marked the beginning of a massive full two-day Halloween Party at POLY. We have different kids that come on Thursdays and Fridays (in the afternoon), hence the need for two days of festivities. It was a fun but hectic and exhausting two days, to say the least!

All week long was spent preparing for The Big Days. That meant decorating the entire school from top to bottom, with the focus being the library which is where all the celebrations would be taking place. Pumpkins had to be carved, scary decorations put up, and all the Halloween artwork that the kids have been making have been hung in every classroom.

Now Halloween is not a holiday that's typically celebrated anywhere in Asia (as far as I know) but is rather a Western cultural import (thanks to globalization, MTV, and us English Teachers!) Most of my students have lived abroad at some point (mostly in the States) so they're all familiar with Halloween. All the larger English schools in Korea go all out for this holiday, and mine was certainly no exception.

Me and all my coworkers had fantastic costumes that the kids totally loved. I dressed up as Harry Potter and my kids *ate it up*! They totally went wild when they saw me! Harry Potter is HUGE in Korea and almost all of my students have seen the movies a hundred times and many of the older ones have even read the books. I knew that this costume was gonna be a hit, and judging by all the screams of joy I got (especially from my Parrots) it turned out to be a great idea. All the kids looked so cute in all of their costumes and it really got everyone in the spirit. I haven't been into Halloween this much since I was at the trick-or-treating age!

The fesitivities all went fairly smoothly with the kids playing the games that us teachers had built for them. There was bobbing for pencils, pumpkin bowling with tombstones for pins, fishing for candy, ghost races, pumpkin bean bag toss, pin the stem on the pumpkin, face painting, and even a haunted house! Way cool! As much fun as it was, having like *eight* hours straight of Halloween Party is enough to tire anyone out, even a vibrant and energetic boy wizard like myself! Phew!