Oh yea, we have a blog...

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So it's been awhile since we've published anything. We're definitely getting into a routine here. It's feeling a lot more like home and normal day-to-day life, rather than a new experience in a foreign country. School is still amazing. I think in the last blog I mentioned that I was going to be teaching another IB class. The admin decided that it would be a better idea to make it a combined and co-taught class so the other teacher could still work on teaching IB, but get some feedback from me and then also watch me teach it as well. It's going pretty well right now because the two classes are the in the same spot (the curriculums are very similar, however my HL (higher level) class goes a little more in depth and covers more topics). The overlapping topic only goes for another couple weeks, so it will get a little more complicated after that. But I guess I'll deal with that then 😊 I'm getting a lot of experience teaching IB to different levels of students, which is great. I realize how much I love teaching really advanced math. Some of the material I didn't learn until my third math class at Concordia. But these students are awesome, so it's been a really great experience. Also, the student that I'm working on his extended essay with, has almost finished his proof 😊 And I emailed my professors from Concordia to see if they have heard of anyone researching this and writing a proof for it, and they haven't. They even emailed some of their doctoral professors, and they hadn't heard of anything similar. So once Tony gets his paper written, we're going to try and get it published. One of the math teachers here, her husband is the head of the math department at one of the universities here in Baguio, and she said that that college publishes its own math journal, so that might be a place to start. We'll see once he finishes writing the complete paper.

The rest of my classes are going incredibly well too. We just had mid-semester grades due, and all of my students (total of 36) have either an A or a B, and only 7 of them are B's. The rest are A's. I love my job 😊

Brandon's classes are going well too. He's been doing a lot of activities with the classes, which they love. And they learn a lot more when it's hands-on, opposed to just sitting and reading a story and doing questions on it. There are some pictures on facebook of one of his outdoor activities that he did with his ninth graders a while ago.

Alright, enough about school. Living in Baguio is going pretty well. We're used to going to SM about four times a week and only buying what we need for the next couple days. I still don't cook much, but there are so many good restaurants that we can get really good (pretty much like home-cooked... Not like a restaurant) meals for under $5 a person (including a drink and a tip). The portions are a lot smaller than in the US (so it's the amount a normal person should eat) and it's a lot less fattening. So we are eating pretty well and still living on very little $$. I get a weekly massage (I still can't convince Brandon to come with me) for about $8-$12 an hour, depending if I just go to the place at SM or the "fancy spa." We have our "maid" that comes twice a week to clean and do our laundry, which is so nice. Neither of us like cleaning (or are very good at it), so this has been amazing. So I'm definitely going to miss the price of labor (massages, cleaning, food service) when we move back to the US.

I have braved the market on a couple occasions. I can't believe how big it is. I'll try and take some pictures next time. It just goes on and on and on. With the same stuff over and over again. I can't believe these people make any money. They sell in season fruit for about 40 cents a pound (and that's the rip-off tourist price). And then the "expensive" stuff that's not in season, like avocados, I have paid like 80 cents a pound. However, it's not really worth going there unless you're going to buy a lot. It's further away than SM and way crazier. And I really stick out there. Even at SM, we're usually the only white people in sight and definitely the only blondes. And at the market, it's even worse.

It's still raining all the time. Usually, it's pretty nice in the morning (like 65-70 degrees) and then rains starting at like 3. However, the last couple weeks have been even worse. Raining all day, most days. We had a really bad typhoon this week (Nesat), so school was canceled on Tuesday. It should have been on Wednesday too. On Tuesday, it was signal three, so school was automatically canceled, but Wednesday it was signal one, so that means we still have school, unless the headmaster decides otherwise. Well, on Wednesday, the mayor of Baguio declared no school for anyone in Baguio (even the colleges) but since Brent is private, we didn't follow it. I'm really not sure why we weren't even signal two on Wednesday because it seemed just as bad as Tuesday. We didn't venture outside in this typhoon (except for school on Monday and Wednesday). I think this one was worse than the last one. The eye of it went right over Baguio. There were lots of branches down on campus, and even one big tree was uprooted. But other than that, no damage. Oh, and there's another typhoon coming this weekend (Nalgae). This one isn't supposed to go right over Baguio, so it shouldn't be quite as bad. I can't wait for the weather to get nice. It's supposed to be sometime between October and November, so it's getting close 😊

We have a week off at the end of October, so I'm working on planning our vacation. Our plan right now is go to the island of Palawan in the Philippines. It's supposed to be absolutely gorgeous and not very developed. It's supposed to be similar in landscape to Boracay, but not nearly as tourist-y.There's an incredible natural wonder in the central part of the island called the underground river, so I think we'll go to that and then head to the north end of the island and do some exploring around the smaller islands. One of the other couples went there last year, and they said to stay in El Nido on the north end of the island and then you can rent out boats (with drivers) for the day to take you to the different islands, for about $50 for the day. And then you can swim and snorkel in these secluded places around the islands. You can also rent kayaks and do some exploring on your own. I think this will be a good vacation for us because we get to do some activities, but I can still get time to read on the beach 😊 So we're looking forward to that and hoping that rainy (and typhoon) season is done by then.

On another note, Camo is adjusting very well (he's sitting on my lab as I write this). He's become our little hunter. Every once in a while we see him batting around and pouncing on something, and it's a cockroach which he eventually kills. Even if he just plays with it for a little while 😉 We've also seen him with a little gecko too. So I think it's a very good thing that we have him here because he's getting all the critters than somehow make it into our house. However, it is a real pain to carry litter and food home from SM. It's not like in the US where I just buy like 20lbs of it and then cart it out to the car and then not think about it for a month. First of all, the litter bags come in 5 liter bags (I didn't realize that non-liquid was measured in liters) and the food is like 1kg, so we constantly have to be buying it. But at least it is available at a few places at SM. For such a developing country, they sure do like their pets.

Oh, one more thing about school... Last weekend there was a student council dance in the dining hall, which was 80s themed. Brandon and I chaperoned and dressed up for the occasion. For such a small school (and such serious students), they put together a really good dance. We were quite impressed. I'll put some pictures up on here of it.

I can't really think of anything that's note-worthy. Like I said, this is pretty much our life now and not so much "traveling." I'll try to post more often with updates on what's happening.

Thanks for reading 😊

There's a few more pictures at the bottom of the page.. For some reason, it only publishes what can fit in the actual entry and then the others past the end of the entry.

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Comments

[Andrea Johnke]

I am so jealous of the price of massages!!!! If Justin and I come and visit, we are going to get one like everyday! I am so glad things are going well for you guys and you are enjoying your classes!

[Emily Clemenson]

When Andy and I were trying to figure out where to go with Guam, PI was one of our final four choices. I remember looking into Palawan and seeing pictures and stuff and thinking it looked INCREDIBLE. Sounds like the whole experience has been amazing so far!