What’s on my iPod: Triple Double – Girl Talk
THANK YOU THANK YOU MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT HAVE SENT LETTERS AND CARE PACKAGES. DAD, BRITTANY, ADRIANA, DIANA, CHADSKI…I LOVE YOU GUYS. Within the next week I will be mailing six letters back Stateside so hopefully you’ll have something to write me back about…!
Taking a step back it’s impressive how I’m developing adeptness for rolling with the traumatic upheavals in my life. At the end of August I was pausing, before stepping onto a plane that would take me to the other side of the world, and contemplating the words of the volunteer next to me ‘Well, here it is. No turning back’. I don’t think such am obvious cliché’s ever blown across me with such force, I felt like a sky diver except instead of stepping off of a plane I was stepping onto one. Four months ago I was lying in on my bed at my first Filipino host family trying to get a moment to absorb everything around me feeling overwhelmed. A month ago I was done with my training, swearing in with the ambassador, and moving to a new island/province/city/family. Yet I’ve hit the ground, perhaps not running, but at least walking in stride. My first month at site was a mystifying mixture of mind numbing boredom and bum busting busyness.
I immensely enjoy my work. My school is a beautiful place to work. The agricultural program here has many environmental initiatives so the school has many trees and gardens that make an amazing environment to work in aesthetically. I teach first year English, four sections a day over a span of five sections of classes. My co-teacher and I have developed an extremely successful relationship. I am, after less than a month, completely comfortable lesson planning and teaching with her. I only observed classes for one day despite planning to observe for two weeks when I arrived at my school. I axed the observation period for two perfectly acceptable reasons. 1) I was bored out of my mind sitting in class doing nothing except watching a normal class and texting under the desk. 2) I felt comfortable diving in with my counterpart and beginning co-teaching. We just finished our unit on poetry and we mixed together like heat and humidity. We taught traditional Filipino poems like Rice Planting Song and we taught some of my favorites like Shel Silverstein and Limericks. So far one of the greatest compliments and high notes I’ve had in the Philippines was my counterpart texting me after a lesson that I designed saying “thank you for sharing your activity today with our class. I really appreciate such an enriching activity”.
I enjoy walking around my campus almost as much as I enjoy my students
I candidly confess that my days are not doled out exclusively to my new site. I’ve actually travelled on every weekend since swearing in, although this weekend I am staying in Bacolod. I have become competent on travelling via boat, bus, van, trike, and jeepney. I consider myself competent after destroying a trike driver in a barter. I know it’s a standard Peace Corps language measuring stick but still it feels gooooood. He wanted 50 pesos for a ride from the pier to the central market. I bargained him down to 15 pesos, the price I wanted, to the glee of the other trike drivers around there that were laughing at him. Not only am I confident in travelling on public transportation between islands and cities in a 3rd world country, but I enjoy doing it.
Your run of the mill Filipino jeepney
I spent my Thanksgiving at the High School of another PCV that generously volunteered to host twenty plus PCVs. American cuisine was consumed, stories were swapped, stallions were sucked down, and we were back at home amongst Americans. As far as Thanksgiving vacations go it was the macaroni to my cheese…because there was macaroni and cheese there for dinner.
Unrelated to my blog, but this is such a good picture. Bowling in Iloilo City
Okay, if you’re not into the volunteer parts of this then skip this section…it’s pretty boring lists of projects I’m going/hoping to do down the road; not very entertaining material to the casual reader, but important to me. I have a couple of projects on the horizon. I plan on travelling to a large teacher training on Panay and I will be the head facilitator for an English pronunciation session. My linguistics background makes me especially easy with this topic and I’m excited about teaching it. I will be doing a charity walk (at 5am mind you), a community outreach with the English club, and a tree planting project next week. I’m also beginning to try and organize the Philippines to participate in a PCV-organized International Writing Olympics. This is still in the early, early conception stage as it hasn’t been done in the Philippines before but I’m hopeful I can organize it!
Okay so I know that my blog’s become narrative and boring. I’ve been busy. I will make a big effort this month to get more posts up that are more entertaining and interactive. I didn’t want this blog to be a typed chronicle in bland diction that’s only marginally interesting despite subject matter. More/Better/Entertaining blogs to come, I promise!
hey andrew, this is very good. i laughed when you defined your competence by being able to not be affected by the 3rd world hustle. that was very good and i completely agree with your definition of competence in that context.
ReplyDeletei love your description of acquiring competencies in a third world country! i think of all the things i learned abroad, that was one of the most useful even back in the states. i no long have qualms about any sort of transportation in any sort of language - bring it! and way to go on the bartering skills! that's a must have over there!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, life skills. Don't get hustled. I remember the days of worryin about nagivating RTS and Later Gator...not anymore.
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