VISA photo experience... Round 2!

I accidently lost my envelope of extra passport and visa sized photos that I took last winter for my medical check.  I've looked EVERYWHERE, and can't find them! ...This is unfortunate, because in order to get my Vietnam Visa tomorrow when I arrive, I'll need 2 of them.  Bummer! 

So, today, after summer camp, I made my way over to Nampodong and stopped in at the VISA picture shop to order new pictures!  They snapped 2 pics of me, loaded them onto a computer, and asked me to choose which one... Then they magically photoshop my face into a far younger, less wrinkly, smaller chinned, brighter eyed, and much creamier skinned version of myself!  Fabulous!  You just don't get this kind of service at your local Walgreens or COSTCO photo center!

This time I took a video for you to watch the transformation!

When he was asking me which picture I liked better, I meant to say "The right one" but accidently told him to "Turn right."  I've obviously been taking a lot of taxi's lately!  I can't always be walking in this nasty heat!  You'll also hear me say "Kumupsumnida" which means thankyou!  He was getting rid of all the little spots on my face!  He definitely deserved a thank you for being able to do that!

The girl before me had some serious photoshop work done to her face!  The guy made her eyes bigger, nose smaller, jaw bone more pronounced, face skinnier, hair thinned, and even cut her mouth completely out of the picture and re-pasted it on at a slant, so it looked like she was smerking.  CRAZY!

I'm home now, and have MORE THAN ENOUGH passport size and visa size photos to go around! 

Over 60 to be exact!  (It's the smallest package available!)

Summer camp at the grocery store!

So, I'm not sure why, but for some reason, I happen to always have the best luck when it comes to English camp students! This weeks students are NO exception! Most of my friends are stuck with classes of 30 rowdy 1st and 2nd graders... but not me! I have 7 kids, and they are some of the most advanced English speaking kiddos at my school, as well as the most respectful, positive, and sweet 4th, 5th, and 6th graders I've ever come in contact with!  So, I decided, since I have such a small group this week, that we would do a fun activity outside of the classroom... at the local grocery store! 

One of the greatest things about working in Korea is that you really don't need permission to do anything, so being creative, spur of the moment, is no problem around here!  I did, however, tell my Vice Principal this morning that I would be taking the kids to the grocery store for an activity, and her response was a simple, "Okay, have fun!" (in Korean of course!)  No parent permission slips required around this place!  NONE.

Each team (groups of 2 or 3) were given this list of items to find in HomePlus.  Once they found them, they had to write the price.

I went to HomePlus yesterday and took pictures of each item that I wanted them to find and made it into a powerpoint, so we could talk about each item they had to find, and what it was called.  They loved this part!  They had never heard of saying, "A box of.... A bag of.... A can of.... A bottle of... A bunch of..." etc.  Then, after we talked about each item and they got a visual of it, we headed over to the grocery store!

When we got there, I sat them all down on a bench and reviewed the rules of the game:

No running in the store!

No screaming in the store!

No fighting in the store!

Be nice to people!

Stay together!

After 1 hour, STOP and meet me by the front door!

By this point, they were practically jumping up and down in anticipation!  I love their enthusiasm!

I handed each team a paper with the list of items, and off they went! 

(BTW: This is my grocery store!)

This is the 6th grade team: Louis, Jessica and Jenny

My 4th graders: Cherry and Seoul Hee (The WINNERS!)

And yes, that is an ENTIRE aisle of Ramen Noodles!

and my other sweet 4th graders: Lala and Eun Ju

I told them that if they followed all the rules, I would take them upstairs and buy them each a donut before we went back to school!  I knew they would be perfect... so, maybe it was just an excuse for me to eat a donut without feeling bad!  So, after the game, we all piled around the donut shop tables and feasted on a box of donuts!

I wanted to get one big group picture of them before heading back to school... They all ran over to the tents outside of the store and posed.  I asked "Why do you want to take a picture next to the tents?" Their response, "We are camping trip!"  Cute!  We ar obviously still working on grammar!

And mom, you'll be proud of this! With no prompting from the school, only years and years of drilling, I left a note telling everyone where I had gone... you know, just in case!  ...And since I'm a language teacher, I had the kids translate it into Korean before we left and talked about how it's important to tell people where you're going!  I am definitely a product of my fabulous mother!

I never in a million years thought that I would be a good elementary teacher!  I was terrified of kids before coming to Korea, and now, I can't get enough of them!  It's days like today that I love being a teacher!