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Monday, October 29, 2012

Grading Papers - Korean style!

I got to my desk this morning and was promptly told that my 3rd and 4th period classes were cancelled. Then, my 2nd period class never showed up! AWESOME! Just when I thought I was free and clear to have the whole day to play around, I was handed a GIANT pile of tests to grade!  7 classes worth to be exact, with between 30-40 questions each.  That's 245 questions to check if you do the math! This wouldn't be such a big deal, except for the fact that Korean's don't just check the wrong answers, they circle the right answers too!  (Grading tests this way literally takes about 10 times longer!) Oh, and it has to be done with a red crayon,  Nothing else will do!

After grading for a couple hours, I said to one of my co-workers, "In America, we only check the wrong answers.  Circling all the right answers like this is taking me forever!"  Her response was, "Oh, I never thought about that.  It does save time, doesn't it?"  How has that never crossed anyone's mind around here?!  Seriously!

Ah, Korea!
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Sunday, October 28, 2012

I'm an HTML writer!

Saturday morning, I woke up with an itch to update our photography blog. It was looking pieced together and needed a nice cohesive feel throughout - not to mention a bit more professionalism too! Luckily for me, blogging and crafting are two of my favorite hobbies, and I just so happened to need both of them for this job! What I didn't know was that writing HTML would become such a huge part of this project, or that it could be so fun (and frustrating at times!) to work with all of it's intricacies.  HTML is the mother of all puzzles.  At 9:00am, I opened my laptop and go to work!  By 11:00pm, it was complete! I'm a little proud of what I've come up with and wanted to share a couple screenshots of it here with you guys!

Introducing the new and improved.... 
AARON NICHOLAS PHOTOGRAPHY blog!  

THE HOME PAGE
I made the new logo/title in Adobe Illustrator and the running photo slideshow with photoshop, photobucket,  illustrator, blogger, and a bit of HTML writing.  It was a labor of love to say the least! 
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THE ABOUT US PAGE
I made the "Our story" title in illustrator! (Photo credit to Briana Moore Photography)
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THE PORTFOLIO PAGE
I made everything on this page in Adobe Illustrator and have each photo linked to 
that couple's entire photo shoot.  Pretty nifty, huh?!
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THE SOCIAL PAGE
We've learned that personability is key with having a photography business, so I made this "social" page with links to my and Aaron's personal facebook pages (They're private, but still), Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest, and my blog.  I think it's really important for our future clients to be given the chance to get to know us!  Each gray ribbon is linked to the website written on it. This whole page was made in Adobe Illustrator too!  It's my new favorite program! ** I think this page is my favorite! 
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   Here's a link to the actual site, in case this lil' preview just wasn't enough!  LOL

*** I fell so in love with Adobe Illustrator and blogging tricks that I 
made this signature for my own blog!  Fun, huh?!
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Saturday, October 27, 2012

Rushbrook Halloween!

After work on Friday night, Aaron and I jumped on the subway and headed 50 minutes over to Centum City for a lil' Halloween Movie Party at Meg and Dave's!  Meg is a lover of themes and she DID NOT miss a beat when it came to decorating for tonight's get together!  Look how cute all of her decorations / food are!

BTW: The veggie guy's head is a delicious vegan hummus dip that was amazing!  YUM!   

What's this you ask??

Oh, you know... Just some Deadman's Fingers! :)


Meg had made a "HAPPY HALLOWEEN" banner out of tiny oranges (standing in as mini pumpkins!)

Where pumpkin patches are no where to be found, you make allowances! :)

 

Meg teaches at a Korean pre-school academy and had her students paint these bottles!   
I love how she put those kids to work!

These signs sat in front of the juice concoctions that Meg created!  Her and Dave are huge juicers!    

Meg and Dave have a gorgeous apartment, about 5 times the size of mine and Aaron's.  It felt like we were back in America, as we all huddled around the kitchen island, eating finger foods, and chatting.  Usually when we go to friend's places in Korea, everyone is sitting on the floor, propped up against a wall, and huddled in a small circle around the room! 


Sweet baby Marion!

Dave had gone to a costume shop to get some stuff for his own halloween costume later in the weekend and grabbed a couple things to share with the rest of us - mustaches, crazy masks and funky glasses... but my favorite is Aaron's Cool Aid man hat!  

Meg and Dave, thanks for hosting such a fun night with delicious food and adorable decorations!  
Felt like home a little! :)

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Revenge Party!

Back when I was in High School, my best friend Ryan Breska would have 90210 parties at his place every Wednesday night!  I was always late, because I was at church youth group, but I tried to never miss a 90210 night!  There was just something about coming together with 10-15 of our closest friends, all huddled around the TV with popcorn and a quality show to watch that made Wednesday nights something to look forward to every week!

So, when my good friend Ashley told me about how she LOVES Revenge, which I'm also completely hooked on, it was a no-brainer, as far as I was concerned, that we should needed to get together every Monday night to watch the new episodes together!  ... and thus our Monday night Revenge parties were born!

Last Monday night was our 3rd Monday in a row, watching the new season together!  We switch off apartments each Monday night and this Monday was at my place, so Aaron and I decided to cook a vegetarian dinner and invite Chris and Stella over for a little triple date / Revenge viewing party! 
So glad we did too!   

Aaron and I made corn tortillas from scratch, stuffed bell peppers, Mexican rice, homemade salsa and lentil tacos!  mmmmm  

It was a big hit! 

No Revenge night is complete without pajamas Ajuma (old Korean lady) pants! 

Aaron is such a workhorse in the kitchen! He stood here, warming each corn tortilla before our friends filled it!  Love his helpfulness!

 When we told Stella that we were making corn tortillas from scratch the night before, she requested, as a joke, for a heart shaped tortilla!  My response to her was, "When you ask for it, we deliver!"  Nice to know my cookie cutters come in handy sometimes! 

During dinner, we had told Chris and Stella about our ghetto street and how our area of the island is known to be a bit shady!  So, it was no surprise when we were watching Revenge that we were interrupted by the screams of an old drunk man on the front steps of the Love Motel across the street!    


 This guy wasn't just drunk... he was WASTED!  The boys were enthralled with this him and how he was staggering out of the motel, falling into the planters, screaming at the top of his lungs, and then passing out with his head between his legs!   

Aaron and I usually get a kick out of messing with drunk people on our street!  It usually involves Maverick's laser pointer, which we shine down in front of them as their walking and laugh as they become obsessed with the bright red dot and try to figure out where it's coming from as they topple over their equally wasted friends!  Tonight though, us girls took it to another level!  We got the potato gun out and loaded it with tiny potato pellets and shot them over at the man!  Don't worry, they're tiny, they don't hurt, and our aim was horrible!  Not sure we ever even made contact! ... and our drunk target never even flinched!  lol  ** There may or may not have been a few cherry tomatoes that leaped out the window as well. :)  

Revenge night #3 group shot!  
From left to right: Chris, Stella, cool guy #1, Ashley, cool guy #2, me and Maverick!  

As Ashley was walking out the door at 11:45pm, she made my heart happy by saying, "I look forward to Monday nights every week now!  I'm so glad we're doing this"  I couldn't agree more Ash!  
Thanks for a great night you 5!

Monday, October 22, 2012

R.I.P. Scoot #2

Scoot #2's warranty expired last week and we were told that his electric box needed to be replaced, and the cost would be on our shoulders.  This was the 10th time in 6 months that we had brought him in for repairs and we knew he wasn't very reliable, so we asked the shop if they would buy him from us.  After about 10 minutes, they agreed, and we were offered more $$$ than we thought we would get, shook hands and left Scoot there.... never to be rode again. 

It's a sad night around the Osteen home without Scoot. We'll miss riding you to Home Plus for Sunday groceries, to Lotte for dinner, to school in the mornings, and on trips around town.  We'll miss you, period.   

RIP Scoot #2