World Map!

The Blue Rectangle...

Creative Hands...

We did it!

The final step is outlining and painting the country names. The plan is do finish this step this coming Tuesday.  Yay! 

Creative Hands!

March 25^th – 31^st:

Let’s begin with the random things- the weather. I was told that this time of year is the hot, hot time of year… but, I have been feeling quite chilly all week. I wear socks at night. I want to frequently have a cup of tea or coffee cupped between my hands. I sleep with my fan on at night for the single reason that there might be a wandering mosquito ready to attack me if I don’t. I wish it warms up soon because I had a lot of plans for this summer break that involved going swimming and other adventures outdoors. Also, I got my first hair cut! When I walked into the barber shop in Boac I felt like I was in the movie Miss. Congeniality. You know the scene where she is getting her makeover and everyone surrounds and examines her? The only difference is everyone working at the salon thought my hair, eyes, and skin was amazing. They pulled my blonde locks in every direction; it looked like I was hooked up to the static machine at the museum! I told the hair dresses that I just wanted a trim. She just brushed my hair to my back and cut it in a straight line. Not the most fashionable hair cut I have ever gotten but the experience made it okay! I have never loved having curly hair so much.

Moving on, there was a lot of conversation about forms and checking this and that the final week of classes. I was feeling rather bored so I decided to make myself useful and plan a project with some of the 4^th year students. A little while back I had brought up the idea to my principal to paint a world map on one of the walls on our campus. Painting the world map is a project that many Peace Corps volunteers do. So, in my spontaneous ways I took the chance that my plan might get rejected because everyone was rather busy but I guess that was a risk I was willing to take. After my first short conversation with one of the students in IV Emerald, I became very optimistic about the entire plan- the willingness to help was everywhere. I pitched my idea to them using the concept that this would be their mark left behind at their high school, they absolutely loved it!

Materials? Well, luckily there was some extra paint left over at the school that we could use. My school had large brushes that we were able to use and one of the artists chosen to help with the project had some smaller brushes for the teeny countries and detailed work. I had a collection of pencils for the initial drawing and outlining. They only thing that may have come in handy was a large eraser. I will be going to the market this weekend to buy one so we can finish erasing our gridlines now that we are finished. The students who would draw and paint were chosen by the students, I had nothing to do with that. I got a piece of advice from Shea, a volunteer who has been here in Marinduque for over two years now to only have 5 students at a time working on the map. I am happy I listened to her advice because it was even difficult monitoring the hands of 5 or 6 eager students. We had the wall space, paint, brushes, hands, and positive thoughts about decent weather…we were set to go!

Once we got started, everything seemed to progress at a steady pace. We had a goal for each day that we set out to work on the project and had no problem reaching the goals. It did down pour a few days which makes it impossible to try and mix paint for the masterpiece or do any painting but we did not have a set date to be finish by which made the rainy days easy to manage. The big blue rectangle turned into a colorful world map in a matter of days! During the project it was neat for me because many, many students came up to us while we were working asking where different places in the world are. Some read the name of the country in a book or a magazine, others heard it on TV, but the curiosity is what gets me excited! Geography was always difficult for me, and it is difficult for a lot of my students too so I hope this new map helps them see the big picture of this world we live in! I am really happy I was spontaneous that Monday morning and worked with one of the 4^th year students to organize a team to complete the world map. Watching them work together and laugh together was a great experience for me. Hopefully this can become an annual thing at my school where 4^th year students are given the opportunity to leave their mark in a creative way.

“I can change the world with my own two hands” 

March 5^th- 18^th:

In a nutshell, the Peace Corps training that I was at all of last week was a great opportunity for me to talk to my counterpart and put all of my ideas into words. It is actually more difficult than I thought it would be to verbalize the visions I have in my head. It was good though because it made me think about all the things I did not think about. Part of the training was to actually go through a step by step process about how to implement a project at site successfully. Gemma and I put our heads together and I think we came up with a great plan. We had to present our plan to some guest evaluators at the conference and they were opitimistic about the success we will soon have, fingers crossed! The project we presented has many components that I am sure I will talk about at a later time aka when I actually do it but for those of you who may wondering now we plan to:

• .      Construct a basketball court on school campus- this has been a dream of the students/teachers at my school for a few years now and we think we have a way to make that dream come true!
• .      Implement a year round athletics program (different sport for each quarter). Right now, all of the athletes only practice during intramurals which are September- October.
• .      Hold Annual events on the new court to help generate funds for maintenance and new equipment for the court and sports teams. Example: Annual Teachers vs. Students tournament
• .      Build tables with games on the top- scrabble, chess, etc. These will be next to the court and part of the “Let’s be Active Arena.”
• .      The name of my school is Mogpog National Comprehensive, the comprehensive is there because there should be a choice for every student, whether they want to study the basic education system or a vocational curriculum. Right now, the vocational curriculum is not an option. With the construction, building, coaching, etc. the plan has a component to offer interested students to pair with alumni experts in engineering.       

That is just a gist of what we worked on over the course of the training. There are still details that need to be worked out. Gemma and I have already started talking to the key stakeholders that we need to get on board the project with us and everyone is very enthusiastic! By the end of the training my brain needed a break.

 It was nice to run every morning during training, running helps me sift through my ideas. I always ran when I had to write an essay in college- guess this technic still works for me. The other good thing about the training was the food. One night there was lasagna and I ate three pieces. Three pieces! There was also a dessert option at dinner everyday and a sweet treat for afternoon snack. I stopped trying to talk myself out of eating too much food and just let myself enjoy it. Lasagna, cereal, brownies, and a plethora of food choices do not come into my life frequently, only at Peace Corps training events actually. Needless to say it was a productive, filling, active week!

Coming home was an adventure as always. The bus-boat-jeep trio always leaves me with a sore ass and no energy. I traveled home on a Sunday and did not get in until 9pm which made my Monday work day a little more Mondayish. Surprisingly, I made it through the day. I came home and got a little angry about the amount of laundry I had to wash. Having two weeks of dirty clothes is a tad more stressful when you don’t have a washing machine. I also had no food in my house so I walked on down to the market to pick up the neccessitites to get me through the week. Luckily, there was mangoes which bring my taste buds instant satisfaction. I never go to the market on Monday so it was interesting to see the market vendors reactions. They were like, “Ah, wow, she is here now, the American, wooo, what is she doing?” It was cute. Normally this does not happen anymore because I have the same routine that I do every Sunday. The people are used to me. I did still get to visit all of my friends there in the market which was nice because I missed saying my hellos while I was away.

This weekend I plan to catch up on sleep, run, go to the beach and have a swim, help my students practice for the final show of Romeo and Juliet, and read through some new teaching materials. Next week is the last week of classes before Summer vacation! My students already have the summertime sqirms so I am just going to plan some fun end of the school year activities for next week. I am so happy that my students are second and third year so they will all (hopefully) be returning next year. 

Beach day tomorrow!

Hanging out on the beach in Mindoro after the teacher training!

Long walk on the beach that ended with a swing!

1st teacher training! We had so much fun. 

GinaJoe... I walked into the classroom in Mindoro and this caught my eye straight away, I'm still smiling about it.


To End, Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! And, Happy birthday to the love of my life.

The Simple Things In Life

February 27^th- March 4^th:

Let’s talk about food! Last week Friday, one of the students brought squid to school for the teachers to eat for lunch. I found this out early in the morning. Now, normally I would have been thinking all day about whether I would actually eat the squid or not but I did not think about it at all. Lunch time came around and I just got my rice, put the squid on my plate and started eating like it was any other standard meal. I just cut the squid up into smaller pieces and ate it. It was a little difficult to cut with a spoon but manageable. I did cut the eye out though. I had four on my plate and when I was finished I actually wanted more. I figured I would not be greedy because the teachers all seemed to be enjoying them too! One of the teachers who I eat lunch with everyday cut into her squid and the ink squirted out on her shirt in the shape of the Philippines! It was comical, had everyone laughing. This experience reminded me about when I was in Australia. A popular dish there is baby octopus. When I would go out to dinner with my Australian friends they would always order baby octopus. At that point in my life, I got the squirms just thinking about putting a little octopus in my mouth, I never ate one! Now, the thought, not eating the squid, never crossed my mind. Guess I am not so persnickety anymore!

When I was in Boac a few weeks ago with my Gemma we went to my favorite bakery. Normally I just buy this really tasty and incredible banana, raisin, and cinnamon bread. I think I really like it because of the cinnamon flavor. She had me try a hot dog wrapped in waffle. Kind of like a corn dog but I try to stay away from the hot dogs here because they are bright pink. Not that the hot dogs I loved to eat as a kid were natural and healthy in any way, but a bright pink hot dog really just does not look healthy. The waffle on the outside was really good. They sold different kinds of waffle products; they each had a different filling: cheese, fruit, plain, hot dog. Next time I might go for the plain. I miss waffles.

At my favorite little imported foods store I found penne noodles. I had everything I needed to make the perfect pasta dish for me. I did just that the other night for dinner. Penne noodles, with a creamy, spicy pasta sauce, a lot of basil (thanks to my mother), tomatoes, and parmesan cheese on top! Oh yeah. Sometimes the store will run out of items and I am not exactly sure when the shipments come but I hope that penne noodles continue to be in the shipments!

In the world of fruit, mangoes are back on the shelves in the market and I am just well, happy! To be honest I did not know that mangoes had a season but apparently they do and that time is now so I plan to eat way too many mangoes. When I went to a training this past week with some 268 volunteers (they have been in country for over two years now) they also shared this happiness. They informed me of a place in the Philippines where they hold Mango festival- all you can eat mangoes! This happens at the end of April, beginning of May. I do not know if I can fit it in my schedule this year due to the fact that now more than ever before I find myself saying there is not enough time in a day.

Enough talk about food because it is making me hungry. Right now I am sitting at Island Cove Resort in Cavite, Philippines. One of the best things about island cove is taking a hot shower. It is kind of cool when things that used to be mundane can now completely alter my mood in such a good way. I am definitely learning about the power of the little things in life and how sometimes you just have to maximize the awesomeness of something simple because, why not? The past two days we have been having various sessions to help us improve our effectiveness as volunteers and share our story about the first five months at site. Right now though I want to take the time to reflect (reflection is for my own benefit) and write to you about my experience in Bulalacao Mindoro at a teacher methodology training…

I mentioned in my previous blog that I would be going to Mindoro to help facilitate this training to teachers at a Peace Corps volunteer’s site. When I was writing that I was unaware of how big of an impact the four day period would have on me. I was hoping for and looking forward to the experience, gaining new knowledge, spending time with fellow volunteers and I got all of that but I there was also a spark inside of me that was lit, a spark of inspiration to just throw my heart and soul into my ideas. 

Catherine and I co-planned and co-taught sessions on higher order thinking skills and multiple intelligences. Shea and Leine did the same for classroom management and power. We also used interactive strategies in our lessons plans to help showcase the ideas of using interactive strategies in the classroom to help manage, engage, and inspire students. I saw on a book cover today the quote,“I don’t teach, I inspire.” The teachers that we were teaching have been to seminars before but never a seminar quite like the one that we had planned for them. It is common that the teachers attend seminars where they just sit, listen, write, learn, and get a certificate. Our session has a component of action, fun, and active participation! How did the teachers feel about this? They absolutely loved it! Because I have never taught adults before on this level I was a little nervous about my competency to share my knowledge and passions with a group of people who have far more experience than me in the area of focus. However, seeing their smiling faces, watching their eyes light up to the new ideas that seemed like magically powers, and working with a group of people who are so energetic helped me to flush out the nerves.

At the end of the two day training we had the participants write a reflection letter. They had to choose one thing that they learned, explain it and share how they were going to use it in their classroom. We had prepared them for this activity in the reflection/processing stage of the lessons. I got butterflies when someone read their letter aloud. They said, “I can’t wait to go to school on Monday so that I can try what I learned with my students!” The positive energy in the room was so high. We also talked about how the participants can share their new knowledge with other teachers and how important it is to continue to spread the idea that teaching can change into inspiring with a few minor adjustments!

I still have a lot of reflection to do.

Ready, Set, Dance!

February 20^th- 26^th:

My third year students could not concentrate in class the two days before, maybe even more but it was noticeable the final two waiting days, their junior/senior prom. I quickly realized that their JS prom was a lot different than the one I experienced as a high school student. A lot of preparation time was spent practicing for the “Rigodon de Honor.” The students selected their dance partner and the learned the steps to the dance. It reminded me a lot of the ballroom dances we studied in high school gym class. The only place for them to practice was on the rocky open field that is at the center of our school yard. This seems like a fine place to practice but not when the climate is getting warmer by the day and the participants do not like exposing their skin to the sun for over 5 seconds. For me, a free natural tan before the big dance sounds perfect. For them, the darker the skin the uglier they are, their words not mine. But, the dance is important so they put on their long sleeves, hats, carried their umbrellas and fans and danced the day away, determined to get every step just right. The dance would be at the school so the Friday before the big event they decorated the stage with red and pink fabric and hearts. The mayor let the school borrow a set of outdoor hanging lights and a disco light to hang up over the court where the dancing would take place.

On the day of the dance, the girls all dolled up and the boys dressed to impressed, they were ready for a night to remember. After the introductions, the first big event of the night was when the fourth year students passed on a large sparkly gold key that represents the responsibilities of being fourth year students. (The fourth year students are always doing projects around the school campus to help improve the facility; building benches, they just installed a new sink, planting trees, they are currently slowly piecing together a basketball hoop & court, taking broken desks and making new ones, and more.) Then, one of the fourth year students gave an inspirational speech in which he created a story using the fourth year students and the jobs that he could see them living. Unfortunately, during this it started to down pour. The students ran for their classrooms, the dance floor quickly flooded, the excitement took a giant leap towards sadness. The students near me were joking about doing the sun dance. While we were doing the sun dance I was wishing that magical powers were real and I could stop the heavy rain and put the magic back into the atmosphere. The amazing thing is that after all of the short lived frowns went off their faces, it was like everyone simultaneously decided that they just had to make the best of what they had. Their classrooms became the dance floors and the music rang loud throughout the campus.

Later that night, the rain stopped. The second year students who were there helping deliver food and drink and run the event hurriedly wiped the water from the chairs and the 3^rd and 4^th year students rushed out of their classrooms. One main event that they do is a candlelight ceremony. One by one the fourth year president lit the candle of each fourth student as they slowly formed a two hearts. The outside heart was fourth year, the inside heart was third year. Tapos, the fourth year students lit the candle of the third year student in front of them, symbolizing friendship and passing on the fourth year status. The hugged and shared memories before the dancing continued. On the dance floor, the girls were on one side and the boys on the other. Once a song started the boys walked over to the girls and asked one of them to dance. It reminded me of my junior high dances. The awkward, “I am not sure where to put my hands” and the “we have to dance next to my friends so I can talk to my best friend.” The world of puppy love at its finest. Even though there were no real dates, no expensive dinners, no elaborate decorations at a fancy venue, and more, it was still a night to remember for my high school students filled with lots of dancing, smiling, picture taking, and the feeling of being beautiful and alive!

My classes this week had some memorable moments. First, in my second year we are still practicing writing paragraphs, getting prepared to write the big essay coming up. To make describing objects fun, we did a “Survival Island” project where my students worked in groups to device a survival bag of objects. Each member of the group had to bring two objects and describe the object and why they brought it. Ok, the funny part is this- the first thing that I heard every group say was, “We need a sac of rice!” Filipinos really love rice. All in all, they all came up with really good lists, I was impressed. At the end we chose a winner and I gave them some “What if this happened scenarios” and they were ready with their answers in the blink of an eye. It was a lot of fun. We also did writing pyramids this week to describe objects. They had to write ten sentences, but each sentence you add a word. So, sentence one you use two words, sentence two- three words, sentence three- four words… and so on. It got them to think creatively about their descriptions and chose of words. There was a competition to find the pyramid with the most adjectives used! Reading about flying mermaids, robots, talking clocks and more definitely produced some good reading material! In my third year class we read an excerpt from Macbeth, “The world is a Stage.” This was actually an easier piece for them to understand so we had a lot of fun with the activities. Each student created a timeline on stage. As they remembered past experiences and imagined their future I had them think about the different “acts” of their life and the different audiences of each act. The conversations were out of the ordinary and it helped me learn a lot about my students regarding where they see themselves in the future.

This weekend I am busy preparing myself to leave site for almost two weeks. On Wednesday, February 29^th I will travel to Mindoro. Mindoro is an island next to Marinduque. There is a volunteer there who is holding a teacher training at her school. She invited some volunteers to come help her facilitate the lessons. This is great experience for me because Catherine and I have already begun talking about doing a teacher training here in Marinduque. I will stay there until March 4^th and then Catherine and I will travel to Cavite for IST (In Service Training). I am excited to see the volunteers who I have not seen for quite some time now! Should be an awesome reunion and also an opportunity to learn, discuss, discover, and plan for the next months of service. I will be in Cavite until March 10^th and then I will travel back to site! That’s all for now folks!

Handful of Love

February 13^th- 19^th:

                                                                                                                                            

First topic, Valentine’s Day! My day was filled with plenty of pink and red hearts and it was just perfect. Valentine’s Day was a great reason to take a break from lessons and do some arts and crafts. Due to the fact that I was a nanny for um… five or six years before I left for Peace Corps, my excitement about doing crafts was probably a little over the top. I miss having kids around every day to plan crafts for. A light bulb just went off in my head that I could possible start an arts and crafts club with all my neighbor kids- Sunday Funday with Ms. Gina? Je je je. Anyways, Catherine and I browsed the internet the weekend prior to V-day to look for paper crafts, or any craft that we would be able to make with our students using the materials that are available. I also had to keep in mind that I would be doing this craft with about 200 students, no my usual craft buddies who were at most only five. In a nutshell, we had to keep things simple and affordable! We found a project titled, “Handful of Love.” It was very simple, just a couple important directions and some added creativity and personal touch and the outcome would be suitable for any Valentine. The students loved it! See pictures below.

Another new experience I had this week was washing my bed sheets. I thought jeans were hard but in comparison to a bed sheet, jeans are easy! I have been putting off washing my dirty sheet for a few weeks and somehow one afternoon after school I found motivation to actually wash it. In all honesty I was considering asking someone to wash it for me because I was not anticipating a good experience washing it myself. I carried the sheet outside, put it in the bucket and from then on there was no turning back, it was already wet. It took me about 20 minutes to scrub each section of the sheet, carefully maneuvering the sheet in the bucket so I would not lose track of what parts I had washed and what parts I had not washed.  The tub was filled with bubbles. I needed a break so I let it soak for 15 minutes while I gave my muscles a break before rinsing. I actually ate a piece of chocolate to reward myself. The whole self rewarding thing really works for me. I am much more likely to wash a load of clothes if I tell myself I can eat a piece of chocolate afterwards. Did I just admit that? While rinsing, the sheet was so heavy I could barely lift it high enough so that it was under the faucet but not in the soapy water. It did not help that before I left my mother bought me a heavy duty, high thread count, amazing sheet from bed bath and beyond. After “rinsing” or trying to rinse some might call it, I think there might still have been some soap in the fibers but I decided I could live with it and hung it out to dry. Definitely a good arm work-out.

Friday night I went to Boac after school. Two fourth year students were competing in a Marinduque wide pageant for search for Mr. and Ms. Social Science. Catherine and her friend from home Ashley were also coming to the show because there was a student from Catherine’s school competing too; actually… her student won the competition! Ashley is a film maker who is currently collecting a variety of pieces to lay out the life of a Peace Corps volunteer from beginning to end. She is planning to visit Catherine about every six months. I think I mentioned this earlier too. She told me she has already created a trailer for the film. She is using the trailer to promote the film and collect funds to help her continue and finish her project. She is going to send me the link to the trailer so when I receive that I will pass it on to you all. It is actually really hard to “act normal” when there is large camera equipment extremely close to your face. I kept thinking about the ending credits on Little Rascals when they show a series of shots saying, “Darla, don’t look at the camera!” I always wanted to look at the camera! Before the show started we all ate dinner together and that is when Ashley shot some film about the conversations Catherine and I were having. The show started at 6pm, but in Filipino time it was more around 7. The stage set up was beautiful, complete with spotlights, tri-level platforms, lanterns decorated with butterflies, and multi-colored lighting. The show was intense and the contestants were all very brilliant and talented! Every outfit: sports, casual wear, gown, talent, and uniform, had to be made from recycled materials. This really brought to life the complexities and creativity of designing outfits using rice sacks, plastic bags, pages of a magazine, newspaper, umbrellas, and so on. Catherine and I had a laughing attack during the talent portion of the contest. One of the contestants did an interpretive dance and at the end of the dance number they (there were background dancers too) came to center stage. First, they opened a box and many butterflies went flying through the audience. Then, the two at the ends released (more like threw or chucked) two large birds into the audience. However, these birds did not exactly fly, perhaps they were in shock, they just went up solely because of the toss and then came rapidly crashing to the ground. We could not control our laughter. The birds survived though, I think.

The grand finale to my week and weekend was the Junior/Senior Prom at my school. I will write about this in next weeks post because I did not have time to write everything before I came to the internet today.

One of my classes! Everyone was very excited to have a "handful of love" that they could give to their Valentine.

Close up of the activity. Each student added a little burst of creativity to make it more personal and fun!

Meet Romeo and Juliet! They are busy practicing for the final production coming in March. I was impressed with the balcony scene, they are going to blow me away with the entire play there is no doubt about it. The props crew did an amazing job!

My new classroom display! I may not have a laminating machine, store bought letters, bullentin board and tacks but I do have 100 little hands to help me! They all thought the boarders were really large stickers, it was cute. But I guess when you take classroom boarders and stick about 100 pieces of tape on the back it does become a rather large "sticker." I am adding new star students this coming week!

Congrats Little Sister! "From Bugeyes to Amazing Mom to Wife"

February 6^th- 12^th:
Many of my thoughts this week have been bringing me to Wisconsin. I have been thinking about my little sister who is getting married on Sunday! I wish that I was by her side, involved in the bonding that happens before such a life changing event. But, since I am here, many, many miles away, I am restricted to merely thinking about how stunning she is going to be, how happy I am for her, how great of a (whatever you want to call it) love is, and a bazillion other happy and positive thoughts that are sure to make my sister smile like she has never smiled before! The reception will happen the following week, luckily for me one of my co-teachers just got Wi-Fi at her house. She is allowing me to come to her house and use the Wi-Fi so I can see all the happenings at the reception! Joseph is going to “bring” me to the reception so I can see all of the people, action, food, flowers, and beyond at the splendid occasion.

Many important people in my life are getting married this year: my sister, my cousinski, and my best friend. It is a heart dart; there is no doubt about that. BUT, I am not going to take the greatness out of love by being upset over not being able to attend. I have convinced myself to suck it up, be happy that Skype is in existence, and smile because just because I will not be there physically I know that these lovely people know that I am there mentally. Oh, the beauty of destiny.

Not a lot has happened this work week. Due to the fact that I was in Tagaytay last week I got behind in my laundry service aka my own two hands. I do not have an excess amount of hangers so I can’t really do a “large” load. Hopefully this weekend will allot me some time to wash, wash, and wash.

My third year students are busy making props and memorizing lines because they will put on the play “Romeo and Juliet.” In class on Monday, we are going to do a short version practice, just the well known balcony scene. The major presentation will be right before school ends, middle of March I believe. I am planning to record it because it is undoubtedly going to be astounding. My second year students are busy practicing writing good descriptions. This week we wrote postcards to my friend the alien in outer space. Everyone was really excited to draw objects and write good descriptions. I really enjoy watching my students complete assignments that they are excited about because A) everyone actually participates (even the students who commonly sit in the back and doodle or day dream) and B) I get one-on-one time with my students to help them correct the grammar and spelling in their paragraphs, my students really benefit from the one-on-one time too!

In the world of food, Catherine and I were in town two weekends ago. We always go to the tiny duty free store because they have a very limited but good selection of American food. Catherine found parmesan cheese! I have definitely enjoyed my pasta dinner creations a little more this week because of the tasty flavor of parmesan cheese.

Last weekend I was at a birthday party in Boac. One of my friends there sat me down and asked me if I would like to be a sagada (I do not know if this is the right spelling, it’s on my list of things to figure out) in the flower festival that happens here on the island in May. There is going to be a parade through Boac. Remember my pictures from the butterfly festival parade? I am thinking that this flower festival parade might be similar. Anyways, as a sagada I am going to rent a gown and I will have to wear some type of flower arrangement on my head. I have not dug deep enough into the details of the parade but I do know the sagadas are different queens, for example, “Queen of Peace.” Mysteries of the future are grand, who knew I would ever be a dancing flower queen?