Music Critique

Today, I had a class on music critiquing. I taught the students some commonly-used phrases to critique music ("It's got a good beat", "It's catchy", "It's nothing special"). We then proceeded to watch 10 music videos of varying genres.

The songs I played were as follows:

1. Justin Bieber - Baby
2. Bach - Cello Suite #1 Prelude
3. Foo Fighters - Everlong
4. Miles David - Summertime
5. Benji Benassi - Satisfaction
6. Bob Marley - Stir It Up
7. My Chemical Romance - Helena
8. Kenny Chesney - She's Got It All
9. BB King - The Thrill is Gone
10. Usher - Yeah!

I instructed them to critique the music using the phrases we learned, but some opted to write their own individuals responses, to my delight:

Bach
-"sorry to Bach"
-"this music is trash"

Foo Fighters
-"he shake his leg too much"

Bob Marley
-"Musician's hairstyle were cool"
-"I like the beat and lyrics very funny"
'stir it up, little darling, stir it up'... I suppose it is a bit funny


My Chemical Romance
-"Bass guy makes me angry"
-"Don't you have any respect for the dead?!"
he noticed they were dancing at a funeral. nice comment

Usher
-"the girl is so sexy"
-"scary"
overall, the students liked this genre/song the best. hopefully this'll mean they are more familiar with hip hop and i won't have to see godawful Korean dancing at the clubs

Kenny Chesney
-"fuck"
there were surprisingly positive ratings for country music. americans-not-from-the-south probably don't have as high an opinion on country.

Justin Bieber
-"gross"

Bach
-"NOT AWESOME!!!!"

the one song that got the most shit dropped on it was BB King. the music wasn't well-liked and many students commented how he was making awkward faces (feelin the music ... just a tad too much).

BB King
-"he look stupid, sorry BB King"
-"singer appearance very dirty"
-"singer's voice is very embarassing"
-"let's fight"

Crossword Puzzles... you're doing it wrong.

I made a crossword puzzle for my students this week. Although they understand the concept clearly, they sometimes fail terribly when finding the answers to the clues (and when I say fail terribly, I mean that it's worse than Kirstie Alley trying to fit into a size 1 pair of jeans).

One class of students today were particularly lazy and did not feel like doing the puzzle. I looked at my one loud-mouthed student's paper in the back -- it was BLANK. I encouraged him to give it a try. I came back 5 minutes later and I saw that he filled out a couple of answers. I was actually surprised he got one in particular:

Clue 15 Down: The word "ad" is short for _____.

It was a 13-letter clue that I didn't expect the slacker to know. I looked at what he wrote and saw this:

"STEPHEN HAWKIN"

He was referring to the theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking. I burst out with laughter. The student who wrote it wasn't laughing at all though.

CROSSWORD PUZZLE FAIL.

Other worthy mentions:

Clue 7 Across: Edison made the first light bulb = Edison ____ the light bulb.

8 letters... "CUCUMBER"

Clue 2 Across: The Simpsons and Spongebob Squarepants are _____.

8 letters... "EHPSWOWO"

Clue 15.5 Down: What is the comparative form of "hot?"

6 letters... "HOTDOG"

Everything that glitters isn't gold...

I saw a picture of a famous Korean girl band without any makeup on.

How do I know they have no makeup on? They look "tired" and also, these girls don't have that universal Korean red hue on their cheeks (from blush) that even the lady collecting cans has.

First, let's take a look at a picture of the band, 2NE1, with makeup:

Quite attractive, but after a wash and that 5 kg of makeup comes off...

... please brace yourself...

... are you ready ??

*runs and hides*

It's not that they are unattractive (they are very cute), but it's just that they put on a shit-load of makeup. I mean A LOT. They put it on like a Russian does with sunscreen on his first vacation to Hawaii. I even hear they use paint-rollers to apply their makeup.

No matter how many times I see before/after makeup pictures, I never tire of seeing them. I think it's important too:

For women, it helps reassure them that the surreal beauty seen in magazines and music videos is actually not real; professional makeup artists and photoshopping does wonders. (I mean, c'mon, I haven't seen a single woman in Korea with a zit here!)

For men, it helps remind us that the gorgeous girl in the club is actually normal-looking underneath it all... as Outkast once said:

"Better come back down to Mars Girl, quit chasin' cars
What happens when the dough get so low

Bitch, you ain't that fine
No way.. no way.. no way "