Yet another day in the 'Pines

Can you believe it?  I bet none of y'all were expecting a successive post so soon!  Well I'm sitting in lovely air-con MacDo, as my dad deemed the "Waldorf Astoria" of the Philippines the other day.  Rightfully so.  Oh, how the wafting smell of unhealthy, processed food fills the air with an aromatic fragrance.  Eau du Ronald. 

Free wifi is a godsend; I sometimes can't hold onto my excitement.  I'm planning on picking up either a table or chairs on my way home.  Fancy schmancy.  Although it's going to clear out my bank account and I'll be waiting with breathless anticipation for my next paycheck at the end of the month.  Oh well.  I can't hold out on my excitement--- I've almost finished my painting!  I have one day left!  Go me!  Tuesday is the Philippines' Independence Day, so we don't have school.  Amusing that it's the second week of school and we're already taking time off.  Sounds about right.

Anyhow that's why I'm excited to buy furniture- so it actually looks like someone lives there.  PLUS I'm having a US Independence Day/ one year in-country anniversary party in the beginning of July!  A few other volunteers are going to join in the festivities, we're renting a videoke machine again (obviously), and we're going to cook AMERICAN FOOD LANG (only)!  I wonder if we can even find regular hot dogs here, as opposed to the heinous "red hot dogs" that people love here.  Google it.  If you think American hot dogs are gross, prepare your stomachs.  We'll have to see what else we can find but it's going to be a lot of fun no matter what!

We started school this past Monday, and things are starting up right away!  My counterpart and I are going full-force on our grant proposals for our still-mysterious project.  I'll reveal it soon :)  Friday we also began our preliminary reading assessments for our first year students, to determine which students will participate in our remedial reading program.  We finished one of the classes; it took 3+ hours in our library, which meant 3+ hours of reading the Hunger Games, which a certain BFF sent me from the States... VERY entertaining so far.  Anyhow, this coming week, I'm hoping to finish testing the other students so we can grade them all and compile a list of who needs the program the most.  We're planning on holding the sessions for an hour every Friday.  (Don't get me started on how I feel about this... once a week, 4-4:30pm or 4:30-5pm on Fridays... how effective is this going to be?  At least it's a start, I suppose). 

Anywho, that's what mostly went on this week.  I'm about to meet up with my co-planners today on an HIV/AIDS project we're developing.  I'm super excited to put everything we learned at our workshop last month into action.

I need to think of more interesting things to tell you guys; send requests, please!  I feel like I'm getting monotonous here...

Peace out, girl (and boy) scouts!