This past few days has been a whirlwind to be sure! This entire week has been all about getting the students ready for their big speech contest day (that day would be today) and finishing up monthly lesson preparation.

The speech contest today will take up the majority of the class time, which I'm not entirely bummed out about considering that it means I don't have to counter "Teacher, GAME!" shouts with "No game today, but don't worry, this lesson is fun!"

Speaking of FUN TIMES

Last night I spent about 4 hours at CAFFE BENE (no, your eyes do not deceive you, 'Cafe' is spelled with 2 f's), just enjoying the Christmas atmosphere and chatting with new found friends: T, Stue, and Nat. Lovely co-teacher Sunny also came along for the ride, though the poor thing was so tired from all of her test prep.

BIG test day here in Korea. School children of all ages are taking end of the term exams, a lot of high-school and University admittance exams are going on today as well. Little Miss Sunshine is taking her exam to reenter graduate school for her PhD. Good luck Teacher!

I'm on a Christmas Music kick. Well, it's that time of year so can you really blame me? Unfortunately stations like Pandora don't work here in Korea. Lucky for me though LIVE365 radio still plays music and I found an INCREDIBLE Christmas music station that plays ambient versions of the classics (alot of celtic sounds as well).

Anyway.

A little while ago a favorite blogger of mine (find him here) put up a song that had piqued, only slightly, my interest a while back. The translated lyrics got me watching and listening a little closer and found that I actually liked this song. While I'm not usually a fan of a lot of gyrating and thrusting dance movies in music videos, I follow the idea that the group, MISS A, is putting out there.

If you view the standard, it's considering 'raunchy' and 'slutty' for a woman to dress or dance like the following in most classes of thought. However, if you compare it to how men in the same genre represent themselves in THEIR videos, the double standard starts to become a little MORE glaringly obvious.

This video, to me, is an obvious outlash towards the way the judgement of men in society really affects women. As a woman I know that when another woman says something rude or foolish about me, I get irritated but it doesn't destroy any part of my self confidence. So why is it that when a man says something criticizing or judgmental about a girl it's often crushing or at least scathing? I think that women in general and society as a whole (and I AM talking about American society here, not just Korean society) still value the opinions of men more.

I know quite a few people who would watch this video and believe that the women are objectifying themselves. I would like to think that really they're making a very strong statement about how much criticism women get from society in comparison to men in regards to being 'sexy'.

I like this song mostly because the girls aren't following a pattern that I often see with "Girl Power!" songs. They aren't saying "I don't need a man. I don't need a man. Men are awful... blah blah blah." I get kind of irritated with 'one extreme or the other' representation of what women are looking for.

On one hand you have girl groups of usually only sing about relationships, guys, and how sad or happy they are about relationship situation.

Then you have the girls who sing about how they don't need men, they're strong on their own, they don't need a guy in their life to make them whole. Well, okay, that was fun the first 100 times it was done, but the over utilization of that song idea is getting old. I mean, what are they trying to say anyway? That to be a 'strong' woman you have to denounce any concepts of romantic love entirely? No thank you.

I believe that Bad Girl Good Girl really embodies a more mellow idea. These are the types of girls that aren't denying themselves love or relationships but they are DEFINITELY looking for it on their own terms. They embrace their individuality and their confidence but thankfully avoid falling into the category of women who are spitting images of the men that they love to bash on. These women are the types that testify to the world that they don't NEED men in their lives for anything but sex.

In this song in particular, these women are portraying themselves as strong individuals who still, like most human beings, seek emotional companionship and partnership with someone but won't change themselves to find it. Instead, they raise the standard for what they are looking for and to hades with the guys and gals who look at them and judge.

I believe they also manage to challenge the common ideas of femininity here as well by inserting into the concept the idea that strength and confidence are qualities that a woman can still posses, even loudly, without compromising their femininity.

Anyway, without further ado, here is MISS A with BAD GIRL GOOD GIRL.

Until next post,

~A.