About cyberclasses

I have done a few cyberclasses for DGEV. We do these so that kids who come to the English Village for a week can have follow-up lessons to help them remember the English they learned (or not). It's not difficult to do, as long as you don't mind being posed and manipulated and asked to say sort of stupid stuff. I am encouraged to use exaggerated gestures and manic facial expressions, but I typically ignore those suggestions. I don't mind any of it too much, and I like the extra pay.
I've done three Grocery Store cyberclasses. What it involves, in my case, is writing the script and shooting the footage in the Grocery Store. I also have to write a quiz and do extra voice recordings, that are set to animation. Then I have to check the finished product for errors in the subtitles.
So the other day, I met with the crew to film the Advanced class. We shot the intro by the front of the store. The crew and DGEV staffer who is running this program weren't satisfied with the way the front counter looked, so they added a bunch of stuff....
.... but that wasn't enough so they added more stuff and plastered the counter with old Safeway ads we had in a pile:
The bright light and camera! That's how the MAGIC HAPPENS.
I wear a borrowed Starbucks apron. We just don't zoom in on it.
We were filming in the aisles of the store, so they had to move the shelves around a lot to fit the cameras in.
It made the grocery store look weird, but I guess the final shot looked good.
Of course, when we moved the shelves, we discovered lots of nast. The shelves probably haven't been moved since they were installed.
I like the crab leg in the foreground:
Ah, so that's where my students' pencils disappear to. And look, chocolate!
YUM!
I can't find the video they sent me of the Intermediate cyberclass, which was finished months ago. But when I track down the link, I'll post it. It's pretty painful to watch, but mildly entertaining.

I learn something new every few days

I don't know how to properly introduce this fact, so I'm gonna come out and say it: you can use a sausage as an iPhone or iPod Touch stylus. This is really great news!
Ivan introduced me to this fact, which he also demonstrates here. It's in Spanish, but do you really need a translation?

Rose meets Billibowling

I like to play games while I'm out with friends. Euchre, poker, pool, darts, bowling, or those touch-screen games in the corner, I love nothing more than a little activity while I'm drinking. Enter BilliBow. It's a bar in downtown Daegu, mostly frequented by non-Koreans, that has a pool table, darts, and a magnificent game called BilliBowling.
It's set up like a miniature bowling alley, with gutters, pins, and bowling scoreboard:
But instead of bowling balls, you're using a cue ball and a pool stick to knock over the pins. Ami demonstrates here:
I line up my shot:
Teeny-Weenie little bowling pin!
It's a super-fun game. Combines two sports I'm awful at but love.
Later we played darts, and something must've been in our drinks, because we were racking up bullseyes. I even got one!
Sherri:
Dave:
This was a night that a bunch of teachers went out together with the "village guides" - non-Korean university students that work at the English Village, basically shepherding the kids from class to class. It was fun!