Happy November to everyone!

So I’m an avid…. borderline obsessive label reader. It can be any label really…. shampoo bottles, nutrition facts, my green tea bag, the back of my nail polish remover bottle… well you get the idea. My favorites are cereal boxes and cliff bar wrappers. I love it when they give you the history of the product on the bag and it’s one of those basement/garage to super product stories but it still maintains the basement-humble origins. It doesn’t matter how many time I’ve read it…. each time I pick up an item and spin it around in my hand looking for boxed out sections filled with tantalizing information, it’s like I’m reading it for the first time.

BUT….. I do have to complain about one of the ingredients on my peanut butter jars…… WHAT on this blessed green earth is rapeseed?????!!!!! The ingredients in my peanut butter read the usual…. peanuts, hydrogenated oil, ya dah ya dah… and then rapeseed oil!!! Is this implying something about the processing??? Like extra-virgin-olive oil is the most pure and unprocessed??? If that is the case then that’s just a menacing process that almost takes away my appetite for peanut butter. Anyway that was just the internal dialogue during my cup of tea this morning.

So my order of 300+ books arrived at the school last week. I popped in one Saturday to drop off something and I saw the HUGE stack of 14 boxes at the front desk. I was SOOO excited to have more material and resources, I wanted to rip them all open right away but I was going out of town for a few days and I didn’t have the time to open and organize them right away. So I left a note to 4 different teachers at the school asking them to wait for me to get back to open them…… of course they didn’t wait and opened them while I was gone and I found the books in huge piles in the library when I got back. *Sigh… it’s ok… they only just robbed me of the Christmas morning feeling of opening 14 giant boxes of highly anticipated books but it’s OK! It’s ok because we had a box opening re-enactment. Oh yes! They brought out the boxes and we shoved some books back into the boxes and slapped on happy smiles for the camera. The Philippines is all about professional documentation in pictures… pictures… pictures… so they wanted to capitalize on this moment…. Even if it was artificial and contrived.

So I was able to enjoy frolicking in a swimming pool last weekend because it was one of the teacher’s birthday and he treated some of us to a day at a “resort”. I think we are all programmed to relate resort to post card pictures of Fiji , fluffy pillows, and room service but resort means something different here. I guess you can equate it to your neighborhood pool – swimming area, BBQ area, and shower area. That was a treat because the smell of sunblock and chlorine is one of the best smell combination ever! Coming back from the resort, I had a stowaway in my bag. A salamander managed t crawl into my bag while I was there. It scared me to bits the next morning while I was getting ready for school and switching out my bags. It was my roommate for a few days and I named it Jezebel. I know it’s a girl because it wouldn’t move when I was holding camera 4 inches away taking a picture, but she would bolt when I was hovering 1 foot away with something to catch her with.

Next entry will be made from good old…. USA… home for Christmas!!! Hope to see you all then~

Housekeeping…. Whew! Maybe it’s because I just finished doing laundry and cleaning my apartment but I will start this update with what housekeeping is like for me.

I push everything off and just do everything in a one day frenzy. This includes grocery shopping, cleaning, and doing all my laundry in buckets and with a bar of Tide soap (yup they are in bars here) in the back “porch” of my apartment. I do have to say that as ominous as it sound, I really do enjoy washing my clothes. It like any mundane /routine thing you get use to, like showering or driving to work; I find it therapeutic. But, I still get as wet as the clothes I’m washing when I’m doing my laundry. Hanging up everything to dry is another endeavor. Ideally it’s nice a sunny outside with a slight breeze. If the sun so gracefully chooses to shine on me then all my clothes will quickly dry with a lingering pleasant detergent smell, but because it is typhoon season these kinds of days are few and hard to come by. Clouds, drizzle, or stormy weather has me shuttling my clothes in and out of the house with dampness lingering where a pleasant detergent smell should be.

Bleach and duct tape have become my household go-tos for anything that goes wrong. I inherited some duct tape from another volunteer and it has saved my life a few times. For example…. I’m brushing my teeth and noticed a biting sensation at my feet. I looked down and I noticed an ant colony streaming out a hole in the wall by my bathroom. When filling the hole with Elmer’s glue failed… haha yes go ahead and laugh….. I suddenly remembered the valuable resource I had stowed away. Ant colony entrance… sealed! When there are bugs I’d rather not feel squished underneath my hand… let’s just trap the bug with duct tape and dispose of it that way. Broken chair… duct tape! Clothing malfunction… duct tape! Oh and the bleach. Weird smell coming from the corner of my living room… let’s throw some bleach on it. Mysterious and fuzzy substance in the refrigerator…… throw some bleach on it. Just sloshed through rainy and probably bio hazardous city water….. throw some bleach on the shoes. Like I said….household go tos.

School….. good news there. Students are actually checking out and reading the books!! Very stoked about that! So now student interest is tested and confirmed we just need to work on getting some more material and finalizing the checkout procedures.

September and October has yielded very few full weeks of school. I’ve had my teaching pushed back, canceled, and disrupted for an assortment of colorful reasons. It’s the principal’s bday so we are having a surprise assembly in light of the happy day… an all day assembly! Our school is hosting a division competition so we need the students to clean and tidy the school instead of having classes. It’s science month so the science department is having an assembly where I judge the “best scientist look alike” competition. The student dressed as Einstein won. The President of the Philippines has declared a last minute holiday and there is no school (I don’t have a TV so I didn’t hear the notice and went to school – no one was there). Emergency teachers meeting… no teaching just sitting and listening about future events at the school that will disrupt more teaching. Town fiesta is happening and our students need to have all day dance and theater practice. Our school is being evaluated for some Department of Education best school competition so no classes for two days to have the students prepare last minute tweaks to the school. The next day I finally get to teach and we are doing an activity, but then my class gets “hushed” because we are being too noisy and the evaluators maybe displeased. Haha… good times!

Most of volunteers that came in 2007 are now starting the post PC chapter of their lives. We, arrived in 2008, are right in the middle of ours, which means a new group has just arrived. I spent a few days doing a few talks at one of the training sites and got struck over the head with “wow! It really has been a year!” It really puts things into perspective. Two years is and isn’t a long time, but when it comes to creating/stimulating/initiating institutional change….how much is really possible? Where do my skills and the needs of my community align to do something meaningful together? The most important thing is to see the big picture alignment and macro purpose of everything… is this a universal purpose that is tugging at everyone? All the questions that I started with are still lingering and even after a year I still don’t have the answers, but aren’t we all a work in progress?

And also as you know, the Philippines has been devastated but the recent typhoons. Filipinos are resilient and are working hard to restore their homes but more aid is still needed. If you would like to contribute you may do so at http://www.redcross.org.ph/Site/PNRC/wtd.aspx

HI everyone!!!

My profuse apologies for not updating in forever, I will try my best to update you on all of my happenings in a quick and witty manner so that your wait will not have be in vain.

Well school started the first week of June. I always love the back to school feeling and especially the school supplies….new notebooks (5 star, 3 subject college ruled was always my preference), 3 ring binders with colorful dividers so you can blissfully color coordinate your life, a new planner (so crucial… I’ve discovered that moleskin weekly planners makes the turmoil that is my mind at less turbid), and of course the search for the perfect pen that ends up disappointing you and you end up going back to your good old tried and true. But this year was a little different in the school supply area but still exciting and timidly organized.

By birthday was also conveniently the 3^rd day of school. Here, as Filipino tradition goes… you are to treat everyone on your birthday… food, drinks, and merriment for everyone to have. At my school the birthday person usually buys the snack for all the teachers… I however did not follow this path and opted to cook Korean food for some teachers in my apartment instead. It served both as a housewarming and bday celebration.

That was also my first time to scale and gut fish entirely on my own…. And let’s just say I didn’t do it with as much finesse as I would have hoped for. But it’s not like I haven’t tried before… every summer I do go fishing with my dad but I usually do such a bad job at cleaning fish I get the responsibility usurped from me. Oh and usually we have one of those scaling gadgets that collects the scales as you scrap them off the fish… but this time … walang thing-a-ma-jing (none) so I was finding fish scales that got flung around my kitchen for a few days. Thankfully the food still turned out ok…. And the teachers have never eaten Korean food before so they had no basis for comparison.

I am continuing to teach 2^nd year English this year, and I’m disrupting their norm and trying some new things. Last year I just stepped into what they had already in place and didn’t deviate too much, but now that I understand the system, the needs of the teachers, and the needs of the students it will not be a grand experiment to see what methodology and curriculum with be the most sustainable at my school. I am also started to receive books from various organizations and generously hearted individuals so I’m working on integrated them in the library and getting the teachers familiarized with them so they can use them in their instruction. I think I will have to be a part time library lady for a while until the system gets more fluid. There is no literacy culture really established in most parts of the Philippines. Cuddling up with Mom and Dad to read their bedtime story is not the status quo. Public Libraries are few and hard to find. Do you all remember Book Its? And DEAR (drop everything and read) time in school? Those are all products of an extremely progressive and well funded literacy culture that Americans are privileged to enjoy. So we will see how well the students and teachers at my school work their library at the end of it all.

Most of July was spent away from site doing this and that. A few of us worked together to do teacher trainings at two different universities. The training was a one day shindig with topics covering mythologies for reading, grammar, critical thinking, vocabulary, and multiple intelligence. I got to work will some stellar ladies and the trainings went well!

After the trainings I was in Manila for quite a stretch helping get things ready for the new batch of volunteers that just arrived last week. Because I was in manila for so long I got to enjoy some perks of being in a hooked up city like clothes that were machine washed and dried (oh how I have missed thee), kimchee, sushi, and Harry Potter!!!!

Oh but even better than Harry Potter is my new found hobby…. Friends… I have discovered mountain biking and may I just say that it is so satisfying to suffer peddling up a rocky and moderately high hill (but rest assured it feels unconquerable once you’re in the middle of it) and then fly down the other side, boldly flying over rocks and getting muddy splashes from puddles. A group of nature enthused teachers have taken me under their wing and have decided to mentor me in my mountain biking attempts. Hahaha… and I’m very thankful for them because the last bike I owed was at the proud and all important age of 10! So I have no know how of what gears to use for what and that snaking up a hill makes it a little easier than just a straight shot up. We’ve been able to go a few trips and I can’t wait for the next one. I’ll have to post pictures of that when my computer decides to read my memory card. It was decided to be against me for a bit and I don’t know when it will turn over.

Once again I apologize for the unforeseen hiatus and promise to adhere to monthly updates from now on

Hi everyone!
So massive summer update~
Graduation was at the end of march and it was happy times. I believe I put up pictures of that.
Oh and I moved out into an apartment …. Woot woot!
I’m super excited about it. It’s a two level two bedroom place. A volunteer that is already here is passing it down to me, and our service overlap for a bit so we are roommates for the meantime. A weird coincidence is that we live an hour away from each other back home and our mothers work at the same hospital. Weird huh?!
After graduation I jumped on a bus and headed to the mountain province of the philippines – Sagata. From my limited travel experience in the philippines, I can definitely say that this is my favorite place thus far. It feels like you are in another world and feels so soulful and sacred. It felt a little like home too because its cold enough there to have similar trees like PINE. I soaked up breathing in the piney goodness. So got to go caving there too and I had NO idea that it was going to be legitimate spelunking. My only real frame of reference s Luray Caverns which is just a jolly little trot down a side walk. Sagata is NOT Luray Caverns. After a 40 min walk down to the cave we have to squeeze ourselves into a rock crevice to enter the cave and the rest of the 4 hour adventure consisted of scaling some walls, using our guide like a stepping stool and/or rope ladder, and wading in stunningly brilliant water. Awesome! We also trekked down to the area where they have their hanging coffins, which are coffins placed on the side of a mountain face. The dead are revered and still considered and intricate part of the community; they provide protection, wisdom and guidance. [pictures via facebook]
At mid to end of April was spent for PC trainings. We had a language camp to refresh our idle American speaking tongues and we could retest in a language proficiency test if we wanted to. I scored one bracket under where I was after training… so I have to practice more. We also have a few days to go to seminars in all three sectors [education, coastal resource management, and child and youth]. Just to give you an idea on the topics there was waste management, reading, organic gardening, identifying child abuse, and special education. The last training we had was program design and management. Here we basically learned how to start and sustain a project for our sites.
The beginning of May was spent doing a leadership emersion camp with 3 other volunteers. SOOO much fun!! In a nut shell we trained a handful of teenagers in leadership and supported them in leading a camp for under privileged youth. I think we had about 100 people at the camp include all the facilitators and us. Being around kids outside of the formal school setting was so awesomely refreshing! Their definitely is a different role you play as a teacher vs. an older sister.
Now that it’s the end of May I am currently at an English Camp for 150 teachers from the Mindanao area. We are restricted from going to Mindanao because of political unrest, but we were able to bring teachers to another area for training. The camp is focusing on increasing the teachers’ English proficiency and developing their methodology and instruction. Right now I’m right in the middle of our 10 day camp and it’s going really well so far! but I will have to post on all the happenings later because class is starting in 10 mins~
I love you all so much!!

Hello again!

March has definitely been eventful!

My counterpart and I have been talking about having an English Symposium at school for a few months and March was when it finally materialized. My counterpart just wanted to bring in a few speakers to talk about the various aspects of English. So I just requested the valiant help of other volunteers and we made a trio of speakers for the event. The topics were first language acquisition, strategies in acquiring English as a second language, and reading comprehension.

This was my first crash course in event planning in the Philippines. I knew in theory and I heard from other people how vastly different planning here is versus planning back home… but whoa! You just don’t fully know until you know. But to make a long and painful story short… the event happened and the hire ups were happy so I guess we can claim it as successful… eks!!

Last week an environment volunteer, Beth, was here helping me with an environment weekend I had in the works with my host mom. My host mom is the head teacher of science at my school and is very I heart earth…. Haha so I more than happily jumped on her bandwagon and planned a few events with her.

We had 2 things going on last week. The first one was a seminar for the community. My host mom has been working on an herbal garden in the community so she gave a short talk about the medical uses of herbs. Beth talked about waste management – the 3 R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle) and composting. I shared some ideas about alternative uses of plastic -fusing plastic together to create fabric, crocheting plastic, making wallets or bags from waste. It was a good turn out and there was a lot of interest created from our sharing so we were all thrilled with that!

oh and we had a very “little house on the prairie moment” getting ready the seminar. so crochet needles are no where to be found at my site… so in order to share some sample bags with the community we had to find some way to acquire crocheting needles… so beth suggests we just make them. Therefore I’m yanking off branches from host mom’s tree and hacking away at them with my never been used pocket knife. Amazingly enough… they turned out pretty nice and they got the job done! Oh the skill set you acquire on the job!

The next day we had an event for the students. Fun Run 2009!!! So I thought we were going to walk like a 3k or 5k max…… well it definitely felt like 7 miles… dah! So long….. but at least the view was gorgeous [see facebook for update of pics] after our death march. We planted trees and had environment games for the students… and after it all we had the walk back to look forward to~

So I’ve lived in my town for 4 months now but this was my first time trekking this far into the community. It was so surreal! I was walking through rice fields and watching the planting happening. It was awesome… it’s definitely a route I want to repeat many times over… but maybe next time on my bike!

And get psyched for my next entry…. Some of the challenges I face in the classroom and how YOU can help!

Woo hooo!!!

I hope everyone had a splendid valentine’s day! Or as it is called here… happy hearts day! So my valentines day was splendid indeed! My host mom requested me to baby sit and look after the house because she had a few errands to do for the day so I obliged. Thus my day was spent tidying the house, tending to the host bro and sis, and cooking a pinoy lunch and dinner. I can now gut and clean squid as well as make pretty fantastic tasting lumpia (Philippine equivalent to egg rolls). Hehe I am evolving into homemaker!

Oh and Friday the 13th was our junior senior prom. I wasn’t sure what to expect… I’m honest a little fearful when we have events like this because students and teachers get into a frenzy of preparation and school is all a blur of hype and loud noises. But it was an experience! I internet is a little slow right now so I can’t put up pictures today but I’ll try to post them on facebook by the end of the week!

so it was about 800+ junior and seniors, all the teachers, and some family and parents of the students. They started with a formal ceremony… a walk in, a candle ceremony, and exchanging of ribbon/flower lays, a passing on of the “key of responsibility” from the seniors to the juniors, a slow and emotional singing of auld lang synes, a short message from the principal and guest speaker, and then the moment all the students were waiting for…. The dancing!!!

Oh and the first dance was with student and parent. One 3rd year boy asked me if I could accompany him in this dance because his mother and father weren’t there. So of course I said yes and we had a merry dance together!!

I used up 80% of my memory card recording the cotillion dance. I believe this dance was popular in French courts in the 1700s. 20 couples were selected to learn and perform this special dance for the prom and it was pretty endearing. And then after the 20 couples walked off they had a cotillion encore but instead of the ladies… the baklas (gay/feminine boys) had their moment to shine…. Yes I recorded this too.

After all of the formalities the students got their groove on like at any prom. The students went into a shrill every time the lights got turned off and the disco ball was in full throttle but the staff had to turn the lights back on in high frequency because of some inappropriate touching that was going on, on the dance floor.

So the dance floor was too small to have everyone one there at once so the different sections had to dance in shifts… one song for this section, than another song for this section etc. And of course there was a disco ball and fog lights to ensure fun was being had. The dancing was done very old school… and they made sure to abide by their “social graces” boys on one side… girls on the other. The boys had to come and request a dance from the sitting lady if they wanted to dance with them. I’ve never actually seen this in person. In movies yes… but in front of my eyes not ever… it was really cute.

I totally have a new favorite hobby~

so in case I haven’t mentioned it before… philippinos are serious about their eating….. 5x a day – breakfast, merrienda (snack), lunch, merrienda (snack), and dinner

well at exactly 9:30 every morning all students come swarming in to a 6×15 ft area which is our canteen [snack stand] and buy up shrimp crackers, chocolate flavored crackers, garlic flavored crackers, pretty tasty and realistically pizza flavored chips, not so tasty and unrealistically flavored cheese flavored chips, sticky sweet rice concoctions, sugar coated bananas on wood skewers, pansit (noddle stir fry), coconut juice, and glass bottled soda [for some reason all liquids taste so much better to me if I drink it out of plastic bag with a straw – yup that’s how they do it here, you just pour it in a plastic bag and stick a straw in and SLURP!]

so after my second class in the morning I joyfully bound over to the canteen and resume my position selling snacks to the masses of hungry students…. You know it really is amazing how TINNNYYY these students are but they eat so unhealthy and a TON of rice! It’s really incredible … I swear everyone is under 90 lbs!! oh yea… but when I’m not gapping at their amazingly biology defying physical stature I’m hurriedly selling them huge amounts of unhealthy food and I love it! I really don’t know why I enjoy it so much… the teachers and staff all think I’m weird but I can’t help it… it’s where I find my joy. Haha! I like the clinking sound of dropping change in the money box and saying “ano gusto mo? (what do you want?) and filling an outreaching awaiting hand with food. If this Peace Corps gig fails me then I’ll just be the canteen lady and just sell snacks to hungry skinny students.

But I suck at giving change when students give me big bills…. I have to stare at the change box for an embarrassing amount of time and use my fingers… It’s really sad. The kids have now realized they have to help me and tell me their change amount midway through my chaotic mental math. And their always super honest… even when I give them too much change… haha it doesn’t happen too often but it does happen… they give it back~

Another thing I’m really culturally adapting to is using my eyebrows for expressional emphasis! I’ve never really understood the full potential of the eyebrows until the Philippines. I really didn’t consider it an important part of the face… they are a pain to groom (wax, pluck, thread etc), I guess our foreheads would look huge without them… oh and I guess they do keep the sweat out of our eyes but again… nothing really special. Then I come here and a new world is open to me. So here are the types of eyebrows that I’ve picked up.

1. the quick double eyebrow raise – a friendly “HI!” as you are passing someone

2. the quick double eyebrow with 2 raises – a REALLY friendly “HI!” I guess It’s like a “Hey! Hi!”

3. the quick single eyebrow raise – “SUP!” this is a cooler version of the double eyebrow raise

4. the double eyebrow raise with a head nod – “Hi!” but from far away – that’s why you need the head nod… eyebrows can’t be seen from a distance

5. slower double or single eyebrow raise – “Heeeyyyyy…. How yoooou doin’?” yea this is one could be a little shady

6. eyebrow raise followed by a quick chin up motion of the head [not really a head not… just a chin flick] – this one is usually done my males…. I haven’t seen any ladies do it yet… so based on that observation I’m guess this one is like a chest bumping “What’s up?!”

7. the eyebrow hold – “I see you not paying attention… don’t make me actually say something to you in front of the class!” [you know amazingly this actually works… if the misbehaving student doesn’t notice then the students next to him/her will and poke them to make them notice you giving them “the look”]

I’m working on being able to raise my left eyebrow… haha I can only do my right one in a single eyebrow raise. It’s still a work in progress……

ok so I’ve been out of the country for a little over 5 months… I’m totally allowed to start whining about food I miss!!!

I really want grilled cheese and tomato soup! wheaty thick whole grain bread, with grainy bits that you can really sink your teeth into….. bread that you just look at and your heart feels healthier!!! a generous slice of chedder cheese that is melty to perfection! not melty enough to be liquid but just enough to be stringy when you pull your sandwich apart and dip it in tomato soup. but not the canned tomato soup but the Campbell’s select soups in the box! It has all the herby goodness of flavor… and of course it needs a nice dollop of saracha sauce

ice cold lowfat organic soy milk with a multigrain blueberry muffin with little crumbly bits at the top. I want the perfect muffin. light golden brown with perfectly spilling over edges (the edges you want on your muffin – not spilling out of your jeans) that tear off perfectly and pop right into your mouth! moist…but not too moist – it’s the perfect texture of cakeness and breadiness. and the blueberries are perfectly sweet and barely tart! The imaginary aroma of blueberry baked goodness is intoxicating right now I can’t stand it!!!

and a veggie whole wheat wrap with generous smear of sun dried tomato humus from festival!!! with my particular extra toppings – extra bean sprouts and banana peppers, a dash of salt and pepper, and red wine vinegar drizzle!!! dahhhh!!!! I’m salivating! ohHHHHhhhHhhh and pita chips on the side or baked lays! something really crunchy with a hardy bite. It needs to be thick so I can dip it in more humus…. only the humus on the side needs to be garlic flavored since I already have sun dried tomato in my wrap. If it’s too same same …. my tongue would go numb to the flavor and that cannot be.

Sigh…. I think these are the things I’m consistently craving…. There have been many others that are fleeting cravings but these are the ones that are sticking…. OH and the $1 tacos from the taco truck! OH and pumpkin flavored things… i totally missed all of those special holiday flavored everything coffee, bagels, ice cream, cookies… hhaha ok i’m stopping now this could go on forever!

so guess what……….. I’m cold! and I don’t mean I caught a bug and I’m sick cold… but I’m actually brrr….chilly chilly  cold…. I know right… didn’t expect this! right now i’m wearing 2 layers…one being a fuzzy turtle neck sweater.

yesterday after school i had to go buy another blanket because my sheet and travel blanket isn’t cutting it! and after a cold bucket shower i can see steam coming off of my arms in the CR (comfort room ie bathroom).

so something happened when it hit January in my town and the temperature just dropped…. compared to VA weather… it would be like crisp chilly fall weather… so like in the 50s i think…. perfect sweatshirt weather. One of the unexpected blessings of living near the cooler mountainous areas of the Philippines. but people here are bundling up like crazy… hats, jackets, scarves, and sweaters full throttle. Oh and teachers like to place their frigid hands and finger on my warm inviting cheeks. Yup, apparently my face screams out “place cold hands here”. But despite the uninvited touching I’m embracing the coldness! I’m going to soak it in for all it’s worth because this apparently evaporates in February and it’s relenting unforgiving heat again.

oh and speaking of hands…. high 5ing here is all the rage…. especially if you crack a funny…. you must reap your high 5 from all around. but it’s not an obvious hand in the air high 5. it’s like a arm close to your body… body lean in high 5. so at first i thought they were coming in for a laugh tap and i was bracing myself for the impact… and then i realized they were harmlessly high 5ing. so now i just have to get their sense of humor down and i can start initiating my own parade of high 5ing.

So I didn’t realize that REI work in my social favor here. I was carrying my water bottle during a break in school and one of the male hardcore nature enthusiast teachers gave my the head nod for my REI nalgene bottle…. and then we strike up a convo about outdoorsy stuff (which as we all know i’m sooooooo knowledgeable about )… and i get introduced to other male hardcore nature enthusiasts who like to go moutain biking. so long story short… hopefully by next month i will be a moutain biking junkie! PC gives us a bike allowance for transportation purposes so moutain bike cost covered! thanks REI!

so anytime you meet someone new it’s usually the same questions layout…. serious you can expect this almost rote convo with any new person you met. I went to fed ex yesterday to mail somethings home and I think that was the 174th time I’ve had this convo.

hello…… hello

are you chinese/korean?……….. blah blah i explain myself

oh you know tagalog………. konti lang (a little bit)

how old are you……….

do you have a boyfriend…………… no

why not…………. oh i don’t know

why don’t you know…………..  ???? ^_^ (a raised eyebrow expression on my face…seriously??!)

do you have many suitors?………… not really

would you ever date a Philippo……… maybe

what is your ideal man?  …………. uhh handsome….but not better looking than me (yea this one gets a good laugh)

how do you find the philippines….. beautiful of course

where do you live? ………….. just over there (pointing to anywhere my finger flops)

do you want to try exotic foods? ……….. maybe

what are you doing here?……… volunteer teacher

why are you here?(yea this is popular one) ………… because there are wonderful people here

how long is your stay?…….. 2 years

what will you do after?…….. not sure yet

you will stay and get married to a philippino…… haha maybe

[this is when i end the convo]……… ok bye take care

    at least i can always know what to expect!!! maybe I’ll start making up fake husbands and boyfriends soon!

picture update on facebook!

Here are some funny and random phrases that have come up in conversation here….. enjoy:

“I will be the one”    [used alllll the time... instead of I'll do it]

“I will consume this”

“It cannot be”

She/he his/her  [confused and mixed up because there is one personal pronoun that refers to both]

“I will urinate now”  [haha yea... no shame... you just say it like it is]

“were you in stairway to heaven?”

“cheaters will go to hell”   [this was said before a test was given out... and the funny thing is the students responded with... "yes ma'am]

“I want to go to NJ to see black people in their neighborhoods”  [!!!!! i think i coughed on my coconut juice when another teacher said this to me!!!]

“I want to go to America to see Eminem”   [yea this was the same teacher as before.... needless to say i coughed alot in this convo]

“Have you met Steven Sagal?”

“is it true you were in stairway to heaven?”   [uhhh... NO]

and my favorite… at the end of each class i say goodbye and get this in return  “good bye madam and thank you for teaching us today good bye”  [whhoooaaaa! right! seriously everyday... i doesn't cease to amaze me! ]

so what’s been going on the past few weeks….

Well after the pageant we had a Christmas variety show to prepare for. It was a mix of poems, plays, recitations, etc and ended with the teachers singing videokee! of course

After that was the class Christmas parties were it was a merry day of food, games, and singing. The big party foods here are spaghetti and fired chicken I think kids could eat that all day everyday and never go weary of it.

It’s amazing how many things go on at the school at one time. A days before the show were busy preparing decorations, props, practicing etc… but in the midst of our practicing there is also ballroom dance practice going on in front of the snack stand, the cheer dance team shaking their thang to boom boom shake shake on the vball court, construction going on next to the school, and not to mention class. Needless to say watching the cheer dance team is far more interesting than any classroom lesson so it’s difficult to get through lessons.

The dancing practice was for the big provincial competition we had the follow days. All the teachers got blue and yellow hats and jackets and together, with the students, we paraded through town to the main stadium to get the games going. After two days of competitions our school placed first over all… go Solano!!!

Then came the family wedding. My host dad’s nephew was getting married so 16 people fit into a 10 passenger van and off we went. The joke of the weekend was that their surname was Chung (philp-chinese) and my surname was Chung so naturally we’re related. So I was referred to as their neice for the whole weekend. So after the wedding-ness I have new extended family, a garter on my leg (yes… i was the lucky gal), a bouquet, and a kiss from a gay pinoy dude (it was a part of the process of getting the garter on my leg….don’t ask).

Post wedding… me and the host mom met up with the other teachers on a teacher field trip. Good shopping was accomplished there!

Christmas Eve was spend with the host mom’s side of the family where they have neighborhood games for the children! That was a good time… sack races, dancing, and contests… whats not to love!

That evening I got woken up at midnight because it’s tradition that you eat to bring in Christmas… not a bad tradition… I’m thinking that one might transfer over to the states

Christmas Day was spent withthe host dad’s side of the family. Again an amazing number of people piled into a 10 passager and we arrived to a farm. They had a huge spread of food which included alot of meat…fish, goat, pork, more pork and…… dog.  I was tricked into thinking that the piece of meat I had on my plate was goat… but later I found out… it was dog! sigh** no comment on the taste…

I was trying to remember how many dogs there were on the farm on my first visit compared to now… but it was useless… the damage was done…

For dinner the family moved to our house where we had food and more games…

Christmas on the islands… thats how it’s done  

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!

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I would like to begin this post with a crying plea … a plea addressing the blaring replay of the same 5 American songs over and over again… my biggest grievance is against apple bottom jeans…

For the love of all things good, right, and just…. NO… no I don’t want to hit the floor and get low, low, low! I already have baggy sweat pants and Reeboks don’t even fit my narrow feet! So if everyone would just stop smacking around and be still I’d very much appreciate it!

OH…and Rhianna … if you would like to create another song about another weather accessory PLEASE feel free to strong arm your producers and get another song out in the market~ I don’t know if it’s because the umbrella is a means of surviving against the elements here or what….but how about a nalgene or a kayak something that wouldn’t sound as tiring being repeated over and over again…

Maraming salamat po!

So in other news…..

This is week 4!!

So this is pretty much my daily routine…. At least weekdays… weekends are still pretty inconsistent

I’m at school from 7:00- 5:00 ish… give or take 30 mins. I have breakfast and dinner at home and lunch I eat at school with the other teachers …

Oh which brings me to my next brainstorm… I want to make a tshirt that says I <3 rice! On the back it will say..

breakfast: rice and fried egg

snack: sticky sweet rice cake

lunch: rice and fried pork

snack: hot rice porriage

dinner: rice and fried fish

haha but other than eating at school i do teach.

i have 2 second year english classes and 2 first year english classes. my first year classes are outside in the gym because of space issues and the other 2 are classrooms. (i owe you all pictures… will come mamaya (later))

when i’m not teaching i’ve been doing comprehension assessments which I’ve taken on as my school project so I use my free time to get that going… or just kick it with the teachers or students.

There is always something going on at school so it’s always got a buzz vibe happening.

For example recently life revolved around a student talent show/pageant show that i got thrown into judging! yea I KNOW~ i felt like i was committing an injustice against my sex! But seriously… these people don’t mess around with their pageants… it’s a serious business. My hands and fingers were sweat shopped into making questionablely slutty clothes out of recyclable materials for my 14 year old students!! Ppink toned make up and being “sexy” seems to be the winning combination for these things. but i do have to comend myself for keeping a serious expression for most of the pageant … after all i was in the front! …  i wish we could all just get together and do book club or something~

and next week there is a Christmas variety show put on by the english department… and the following day is the student christmas party.. haha

basically the country takes a gigantic pause when Christmas comes around… as far as school goes i’ll be expecting business as usual when jaunuary comes around

other than that… strides are being made in the following areas:

- my handwriting is rapidly improving… it’s been grosesly out of practice for all of college

- i’m READING which i’m loving~

- i’ve finally won draw 3 solitare….believe me it was a trying effort!

- i’ve developed an appreciation for cheeze whiz… but tang is still in the works… i haven’t gotten myself to like that yet.

- i <3 the coconut! coconut juice is the most satisfying thing ever!

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