ELLY: By the time I wake up the next morning, Manager-nim ha already come by and taken Doyeon and Yoojung to their video shoot with WJMK. The rest of the us — mere mortals not so fortunate to be selected for a side project with our unnies — eat our breakfast and head off to dance practice. At the first break, Suyeon flops down on the floor, proclaiming "Dance practice with two members missing is the worst! It's giving me a headache." She’s not wrong: While dancing our own parts, we also have to mentally keep track of where Yoojung and Doyeon would have been if they had been here. By lunch time, Suyeon definitely has a headache, and she’s not the only one. "I'm so glad I don't have school this afternoon,” I say as I flop down next to her. “I'm going to take a nap and hopefully I'll feel human again by dinnertime." Just then, Suyeon's phone rings. She looks at the screen before answering — "Oh, great, it's Manager-nim. What does she want?" Suddenly Suyeon talking on the phone becomes the most interesting thing to all of us. The half the conversation we can hear is enough to pique our interest, but not enough to really communicate anything. "Hello! . . . How's the video shoot going? . . . We just finished dance practice. Elly and I were about to go back to the apartment while the others go to school. . . . Really? . . . Tonight? . . . Oh, right, I'd forgotten about that. . . . Yeah, sure I'll tell them. We'll be ready. Thank you, Manager-nim!" "We'll be ready for what?" I ask as soon as she hangs up the phone. "At 6 o'clock a van will be coming to pick us up. We're going to be on Tipsy Live tonight!" Everyone breaks out into cheers. Tipsy Live is one of the most fun shows to film, and we’ve all been hoping we’d be invited to go on it. As we’re cheering, though, Suyeon has to talk louder to be heard. "But not all of us,” she says, loudly and urgently. “Rina and Lucy have to stay in the apartment; they're not old enough to be on the show." Rina and Lucy both whirl on Suyeon and are obviously about to start a major fest about it. Suyeon holds up her hands to fend them off , saying "Hey, I didn't make the rules! Take it up with the government." I take Rina aside and calm her down, largely by promising to get some soju so she and I can do our own private Tipsy Live on our next day off. I have no idea what Suyeon promises Lucy, but somehow she gets her calmed down as well. Once this is accomplished, we all split up to go where we need to be for the afternoon. Rina and Lucy are still grumbling, but no worse than they usually do when heading off to school. SEI: As the producer is leading me, Suyeon, Elly, and Lua into the studio where Tipsy Live is filmed, I look at us and I’m kind of amused by the different approaches we’ve each taken to follow the instructions of "Dress as if for a night on the town": Suyeon is wearing a classic little black dress — and totally rocking it. Elly is wearing a red plaid skirt with a white blouse. I’m wearing a navy blue pinafore dress with a light blue blouse underneath. And Lua . . . well, Lua is marching to her own drummer here, as usual. She’s wearing her Team Korea hockey jersey, a pair of jeans, and white trainers. Once we reach the room where we’ll be filming, the producer gives us a moment to look around. It’s a small room, most of it filled up by a long table, which features enough food for at least twice as many girls, plus over a dozen bottles of soju. On one side of the table there is a long bench for us to sit on, while on the other there’s a video screen for karaoke. All in all, it’s everything we’ll need to get totally trashed and make fools of ourselves for the fans' amusement. Good times! "Once filming begins," the producer says, "you won't see us unless you need something and hit the buzzer at the end of the table. The cameras are all hidden; we'll be monitoring the action from the next room. I usually find that within 10 minutes or two shots most people have forgotten about the cameras and are just e