New English Library

Hey guys, just wanted to say i Just finished a two day lesson from the "exploring Plays" book i got from you and it went really well. The kids were enthusiastic about it; it was definitely something new. Moreover, just walking around the school kids would stop me and ask me what the books were and would borrow them and look at them with friends. Two girls who want to be actresses in one of my second year classes saw the books and got excited when I said we would be working on the play next week. So, you know, thanks.

Packages from Home

Hey parents,

Both packages did arrive. I'm sorry I didn't let you know sooner, but the internet has been a bit spotty here. The Teopes were really excited by and thankful for their presents and are excited to meet you; they ask about you all the time.

There's a lot of things going on at the school, so I was a little disappointed by the teacher's understated reaction to the books. I know that once they get a chance to look at them though, they'll be as excited as I am. They're really great and perfect for the English curriculum here, which is divided into Narrative, Poetry, Drama, and Essay units. What's more, the language is way more understandable for the students than the flowery prose of Filipinos writers that the students (and I) usually have to muddle through. Could you give me Carol's email address so I can thank her?

Thanks also for the teas, they're perfect. The bike stuff is going to be really useful, especially the lock and that tool.

It's really nice to get packages like this here, so I can't say thanks enough. What else is new with you? I haven't heard much news from the homefront lately aside from a few instant message conversations (though those are great, I feel like sometimes they leave out the marginal stuff). Mom! congratulations on your promotion! Obviously you've deserved it for a long time, but still, that's wonderful.

The end of the school year is fast approaching here, which means that classes are getting less and less productive. We weren't starting from a model of efficiency either. Lots of time is being spent preparing for the town fiesta next week, which should be fun. each municipal agency has to prepare a dance presentation, and we're doing a number to this song complete with traditional Mexican outfits (what?). I also have to work on a dance number for some other event. Anyone who sees musicals and complains that people never spontaneously break out into dance in real life has never been to the Philippines.

Anyways, classtime now, gotta run. More soon and love you.

William

New Library

January 21, 2011

William,

It was great talking to you last night, I have slept on your ideas about the library in Narra and as you might guess I have a few suggestions. Oh, who’s kidding who as usual I have a lot of suggestions.

The first one is - think big but act small. By that I mean, your overall concept or mission should be expansive and not limiting. The ‘act small’ part is to start with modest goals and concentrate on the detail of the particular task at hand. The philosophy is if you do a good job on all the little things the big things will take care of themselves (at least, to the point of opening opportunities for the big things).

I suggest you start with a brainstorming session, with whomever and whenever time and circumstances permit. Write every idea or thought down, regardless of practicality or how you think it might relate to your overall vision. Do not concentrate on organizing these ideas – not yet anyways. Make this a running project. Use your old phone as a portable Dictaphone so that you can note ideas you have on the spur of the moment.

As a separate activity set up categories of issues with which you will need to deal with to be successful. For instance, book acquisition, transportation, fund raising, partnerships, accounting, public relation and communication, budget, manpower, space, advisers, cultural issues – the list goes on.

Once you have gone through this exercise it is now time to begin to construct a business plan. Business plans have a standard form – you can find many examples on the internet. Try and tie everything together and set-up a time-frame (make it realistic, not optimistic) – everything happens slower than you expect or want it to happen.

The next step and this step precedes solicitation of books or funds, but not advice on how to proceed or the researching of problems encountered and successes of similar projects, is the design of a communication structure (you are going to be working in a global environment); set up a simple blog – start writing short pieces on the project like:

“Today I spoke with Mike Sula and he offered to run a book drive through Chinatown Coffee…”

Set up a Flickr (or similar site) for photos – very important – take photos of teachers, students, classrooms, school and city. Set up a twitter site and a YouTube site, not to mention a group on Facebook.

Keep in mind the general information theory – all computers and advertising is based on this theory. That is, information is conveyed most effectively through repetition.

I’ll leave it at that for now. I will follow through on the ‘Friend of the Library” and talking to Scott about military transportation, and my transportation vendors.

I look forward to talking to you soon.

Love,

Dad

Teaching, Boredom, and Libraries

January 20, 2011

GChat

8:15 PM William: hey dad
8:16 PM Bill: Hi William, how are you?
William: good, you?
8:17 PM Bill: Pretty good, how the weather still raining?
William: its actually very nice today
8:18 PM Bill: Great, what shape is the school in?
William: its amazing
8:19 PM how absorbent the ground is
8:20 PM Bill: Good drainage, drying out quickly?
But much damage at the school?
8:21 PM William: no damage really
actually the drainage here is horrible
that's one of the problems
but apparently what caused the flood was mining
8:23 PM Bill: How's Ernie?
No kidding, how is that?
Strip mining?
William: yeah
so at the mountain
the ground absorbs no water
and just creates runoff
that carries a ton of sediment
8:24 PM Bill: Is there a problem with mud slides?
Did it do much property damage?
William: no mudslides luckily
at least not in town
8:25 PM we\re far enough away from the mountain
Bill: Good to hear
William: things are pretty much back to normal here
how are things at home?
Bill: So you are teaching today?
William: there are periodical tests today
so no
8:26 PM but Monday we start teaching essays
which is dumb
because we should teach grammar
and the assigned essays are not on the internet
or in any books we have
so now I’m looking for substitute essays
8:27 PM Bill: What are they on?
8:28 PM William: the Philippines
by postwar Filipino authors
I’m sorry
8:29 PM but Filipinos make for almost sickeningly ornate writers
anyways, even if i could find them
the students wouldn't be able to understand them
the Filipinos that do know English often use impressive words so that the Filipinos who sort of know English cant understand what they're talking about
8:31 PM Bill: How about wiki?
William: yeah, I’m trying What’ new at home ?
8:33 PM Bill: We are suppose to get a little snow tonight - I'm still riding everyday.
8:34 PM Mom and I saw a couple of movies 'The King's Speech' and 'True grit.'
8:37 PM Work is very busy - I'll have to hire another employee
8:38 PM Otherwise things are the same.
8:41 PM So how's Ernie?
William: oh, he's well
he and spark (the other dog) are always getting into trouble
they're still very small
8:44 PM Bill: Ha-ha, remember when Mike was young and chewing the table legs?
8:46 PM Mom (Marilyn) here sweetie. Whaddya mean by trouble? Chasing chickens?:)
William: they're scared of the chickens
just being under every ones feet all the time
8:47 PM Marilyn: It’s been in the 40s last few days but going back to the deep freeze tomorrow
8:48 PM William: yikes cold winter so far?
8:49 PM Marilyn: I was talking to an older man today walking his black lab named Patrick. Looked so much like Mike. Very cold winter but very little snow unlike Jeannie up north
8:51 PM They have had tons
William: so i hear
8:52 PM well we deserve a reprieve after last winter
Marilyn: No kidding, no complaints from me
8:53 PM How is the teaching? Anything we can get?
8:55 PM William: not really
today and yesterday is testing
so classes on Monday
I’m at the school though
looking for appropriate essays to teach
the next unit is essays
which is ill-conceived to begin with, if you ask me
but then the essays that they assign aren't on the internet
so I’m looking for other ones
8:56 PM Marilyn: I am still going to basketball games. They beat army last nite alto barely William: oh wow!
good for them
Marilyn: Are there certain criteria? Subject matter?
8:57 PM I expect they should be short to begin with?
8:58 PM William: yes, preferably by Filipino authors
but the Filipino authors write in English with way too many big words
Marilyn: Hmmmm
William: the students wouldn’t be able to understand, paradoxically
9:00 PM Marilyn: Maybe after this semester you can talk to them about curriculum? Any fkexibility?
William: there is some and they're been relatively open to suggestions from me
Marilyn: Flexibility
9:01 PM William: my co teacher agrees that teaching grammar is more appropriate
Marilyn: That's great
9:03 PM R u doing this in the library? R we interrupting?
9:06 PM We can talk to u later if that's better
9:10 PM William: no sorry I was talking to a teacher about a trip he wants to go on
9:11 PM Bill: Np, anything else new?
9:13 PM William: nothing at all
9:14 PM Bill: Bored?
9:19 PM William: often but not too bad I just read a lot
9:20 PM Bill: Try writing
9:21 PM Make a game of it write in a0 different style everyday
William: i have been writing a bit
9:22 PM Bill: Good, it's tiring but you can get absorbed in it
9:24 PM William: yeah I like it when i have the energy but usually its at the end of the day and I’m tired I want to do more on the weekends
9:25 PM Bill: Teaching is very draining; you are always on
9:31 PM William: yeah no kidding
and i hate shifting all the time between teachers
the most draining is trying to plan for so many different things they kind of jerk me around
the peace corps can be the worst with that kind of thing
9:32 PM they encourage you to bring problems to them
but flexibility is the answer to everything
and i understand that
Bill: It will get easier
William: but then don’t pretend that you're availing yourself to help us with our problems because that’s not help
9:34 PM Bill: You are pretty much on your own, frustrating but it with pay off
William: right i just don’t like they're attitude
9:35 PM its a tough love with a touchy-feely face
that just comes off as passive-aggressive, ugh
Bill: I understand but try and find something to distract you
William: yeah, just venting
9:36 PM Bill: Hippies on steroids
William: yeah, they're the worst
9:38 PM Bill: But maybe you have to adjust your goals and expectations of what can be accomplished in a given period of time.
9:44 PM William: this doesn’t have much to do with my expectations I think they're sort of low its just some of the things they do are really bad and aren't hard to change
9:46 PM Bill: I understand that it can get to you
William: i mean of course
9:47 PM but whatever
I’m not even sure what I’m complaining about anymore
Bill: I guess I'm not helping much, sorry
William: no, its ok
9:48 PM you just need to vent sometime and not have your problems be explained or given solutions I remember one time during a trip to Manila I was sharing a room with my friend Shashank and this other guy Steve
9:49 PM Bill: You're right
William: and Shashank and i were kind of fed up with the Philippines and complaining about different cultural things and Steve was just disagreeing with everything we were saying and wasn't giving an inch it became a pretty intense discussion not because he didn’t agree with us
9:50 PM but because he disagreed with us when we were just trying to vent
9:51 PM Bill: Ok, I understand, no more feeble attempts at solutions just listening
William: right but I’m making things sound much worse than they are!
9:52 PM in more positive news
I’m starting to think about building the school's library and ways to get donated books from the u.s. and would appreciate any ideas. I’m already thinking of appealing to the Asia Foundation
Bill: I know
William: Einstein
American University
Boy Scouts of America
9:53 PM I'd appreciate any ideas you have
Bill: Maybe we ca do something with The Fiends of the library
William: oh! great idea
9:54 PM Bill: The books are probably the easy part of the problem - the shipping cost is the tough part
9:55 PM William: right, thats going to be very expensive
9:56 PM Bill: Maybe through the AP military system, I'll talk to Scott
William: oh wow thanks
Bill: Maybe Einstein would be interested in being a sister school
9:57 PM William: right, I would need to raise money for shipping in addition to books what courier did you use to ship my box?
9:58 PM Bill: You could set up exchanges and maybe one of their projects could be to raise funds for sending the books.
9:59 PM I used the post office; but there are alternatives. Also an eagle project might be about to help
William: oh great idea
10:00 PM Bill: Start small and go from there
10:01 PM I can talk to the shippers we do a lot of business with and see if they can help
10:02 PM Also ORBIS has a deal with FedEx maybe I can call in a favor
10:03 PM Think about the types of books
10:04 PM William: right
thanks so much
i think maybe
fiction and reference
well non-fiction too
10:05 PM mostly fiction
they have internet
Bill: But what about reading level
William: so have access to all sorts of reference material
right
I ideally want to make this library available to all but think young adult
and also high school level literature
10:06 PM Bill: What about audio books on cassette?
William: not really they wont listen I don’t think they have trouble making it all the way through a Justin Bieber song
Bill: Listening to stories in English could be a big help in teaching
10:07 PM Ok
!0:08 PM I'll make some calls
10:09 PM William: wow dad
i really appreciate it
10:10 PM Bill: Maybe one of the military guys0at CNAS could help to get the military to assist with transport
10:11 PM You might think about writing the people you know at CNAS and see what they think William: that’s a good idea
10:13 PM Bill: They all have high level connections and given the pr thrust of military relations and the high Muslim pop. of Palawan.
William: that’s a good point I'll see if i can track them down
10:14 PM Bill: And they know you, that's a big deal, they know what they do will not be a waste
Start with you old boss see if you can get her to talk it up
10:15 PM Write a blog about your idea for Tom Ricks
10:16 PM If he put it in as part of an apple that in itself could raise enough funds to get things going. Appeal not apple
10:17 PM Write to Nicholas Kristof at the WPost he's specializes in development issues10:18 PM William: oh good idea he's just the sort of bleeding heart i need
10:19 PM Bill: There are a few around
10:20 PM William: I just got Mike Sala to set up a book drive at Chinatown this is so easy! but the shipping will be very hard
10:21 PM Bill: Persistence will be the key
William: right
10:22 PM i have to go eat
very excited now though
love you
thank you
10:24 PM Bill: Love you too, I'm talking to AU see if they are interested in helping

Floods in Narra & Other Matters

January 17, 2011

5:38 AM Dad: Hey William

William: hey!

5:39 AM Dad: Have time to chat?

William: sleep well?

sure

literally

nothing has happened since we last talked

Dad: Yes, sorry I crashed out on you

William: not at all

5:42 AM Dad: I'm trying to convert my life to the morning; in the evening I generally too tired to do much more veg out in front of idiot TV. In the morning I feel like doing something.

5:43 AM William: hey

I have to go eat

be back in like 10/15

Dad: Let's talk photography; but with one caveat - I'm ..... OK

6:18 AM Dad: Finished?

7:42 AM William: hey sorry

I walked out of my room

and there were a dozen marines on our porch hanging out

Dad: No Problem

William: and they coerced Dad to come drink with them

they have automatic rifles

Dad: Ha-ha

William: so I was inclined to say yes

I'm still not really sure why they're there

6:43 AM Dad: Good idea

William: they are here for flood relief?

I think?

what’s up about photography?

though I should go back out in a minute

6:44 AM Dad: Looting probably; ask if you can take their photos and get names and units they'll love it

William: that’s probably true

Dad: Go we ca talk later

William: this morning was an extreme case

everyone looked really sad

but usually Filipinos love pictures

alright

love you

thanks

Dad: I hear you

6:45 AM Love you too

6:55 AM William: and just like that

they're gone

into the night

7:02 AM William: dad?

7:03 AM Dad: I'm here

They may have been there checking on you.

7:04 AM William: I don’t think so

I think one of them is related to the Teopes

7:05 AM Dad: Oh, that makes sense.

7:06 AM So what happens with the school, I imagine you'll be doing clean up for a while.

7:07 AM Any sign of water receding?

William: I don’t know

I haven’t been since this morning

where I am there’s not flooding

my town goes

7:08 AM National Highway

Narra Ave.

Rizal Ave.

are the main roads parallel to the national highway?

and up until Rizal there was flooding this morning

Dad: Back to business; names and approximate ages; so we can get appropriate small gifts.

7:09 AM William: oh

Herman Teope

55

Hermanita (no joke) Teope 50

Dad: That's good

William: Reynante, 13

Carmela 10

7:10 AM Dad: Great, thanks; would they like something with something typical?

7:11 AM William: whatever

they'll love it

7:12 AM Herman wears that national cathedral hat a lot

7:13 AM Dad: Ok, so no problem with something that is obviously American. Do you need any rain gear?

William: not really

since they're appalled that you would go anywhere when it’s raining anyways

7:14 AM and I have a rain jacket

Dad: Because I have ponchos I could send

William: that's alright

Dad: Ha-ha, American ways are different

William: though I did think of you when the marines all threw on ponchos to leave

7:15 AM true

7:16 AM Dad: Ha-ha, I do have gear coming out my ears!

7:17 AM So tell about language, do you use Tagalog at home?

William: yes

all the time

they don’t do much English

but not much at school

7:18 AM though my co-teachers are easing into more Tagalog

I’m slowly getting better

but need to put in more effort

7:20 AM Dad: Great, you have Rosetta Stone that may help.

William: yeah

I need to start using that again

I keep intending to....

Dad: Also kind in mind language learning is not an even learning curve - you can go for months with no seeming progress and then all of a sudden make great leaps forward.

William: right

same with Spanish

7:21 AM Dad: It is hard to get started, I'm having same problem getting back into French and Spanish.

7:22 AM William: yeah

I would have more incentive

but my Tagalog is serviceable at home

and not needed at school

but since I’m staying with the family

to deepen our relationship I need to get better

7:23 AM Dad: And broaden social contacts!

William: yes

of course

7:24 AM Dad: You will, it takes, you can only work at it and be patient

7:30 AM Dad: I am glad you are staying with the Teopes for the time being; it will be good for language, the Ernie, and you will eat better. And despite lack of privacy you will be less lonely.

7:31 AM William: definitely

less lonely

it makes a lot of sense

I was so ready for my own place less than a month ago

but now I’m in no hurry

I spoke to martin in Nicaragua

he’s in the same boat

7:32 AM Dad: How does he like Nicaragua?

William: I think he likes it

the beginning of teaching for him has been spotty

7:33 AM Dad: Do many people speak Spanish in Narra?

William: no one speaks Spanish in all of the Philippines

contrary to reports that a few people speak it

no one does

Dad: Does he like his posting in Nicaragua?

7:34 AM William: I think so

I haven’t heard much about the place though

I think he was hoping for south America

but is happy

7:35 AM Dad: Yea, I've heard that after a hundred years of American involvement't in the Philippines only the very old speak Spanish.

Are you still glad you are in the Philippines?

7:36 AM William: yeah

I mean

at first

I didn’t love this country

and some times I feel the culture is kind of shallow

7:37 AM but I like it more and more

Palawon is less of a, excuse Dad, but clusterfuck

the people are a bit more with it

Dad: Good to hear.

7:38 AM William: and Filipinos are SO nice

and it is beautiful

so I could’ve done worse

I do often think about the fact that I had a choice between this and eastern Europe

and how different they are

7:39 AM Dad: I understand, Manila is a typical developing world city; dirty and everyone hustling.

William: yeah

it’s crazy

even Zambales was kind of nuts

Olongapo I hated at first

but it grew on Dad a lot

7:41 AM Dad: Ok, explain the places, I thought you were in Subic for training; what was Olongape?

William: Subic is complicated

it’s sort of like los Angeles i.e. la city, county, metro area, etc

there's subic bay

then there's Subic Freeport

7:42 AM which is the old us naval base, now a giant mall sort of

most people think of this when you say Subic

that is attached to Olongapo

a large city

on the other side of the bay is subic town

where I was

much smaller

and we weren't even in the center of the town

but about 2 km away

7:44 AM Dad: And that was Zambales, right? Thanks that clears it up.

William: right

the province is Zambales

Olongapo straddles Zambales and Bataan

as in the Bataan death march

7:45 AM Dad: Ok, some of this I knew but could put it together.

Thanks

Tell me about the food.

7:46 AM William: food is good here

lots of really fresh fish

here

tons of rice of course

occasional meat

Dad: I know a lot of veg. But what kind and how are they prepared?

7:47 AM Much seafood?

William: everything grilled

or fried

lots of seafood

and it’s so good

what’s new at home though?

7:48 AM Dad: Sorry I missed the earlier fish reference.

Well let's see, Rob and Vickie had to put Haley down.

7:49 AM They are both taking it very hard.

William: I’m talking to rob now

7:50 AM Dad: Rob is putting in new bathrooms for the Ivory’s.

Good on Facebook?

7:51 AM Nora is in Galway and has started a Blog.

7:52 AM Andrew is busy with work and girlfriend.