Vacation

Tomorrow I set off for my adventure to Laos and Cambodia.  I'll see cool stuff, learn about new things, eat strange food, see elephants and temples, and attempt to not get seriously sick or injured. 

Which means tonight in true Dana fashion, I am packing tonight. I hate packing. Its probably one of my top ten things I hate, somewhere below anything that involves running and above cleaning out the compost bucket. I thought about having my maid (or yaya as they are called here in the philippines) do it for me. But then i determined that I would probably end up with the weirdest assortment of items ever. So during my school day I put together a list of things to bring, it reads as follows:

• PASSPORT (plus weird card)
• underwear x 8 (I just realized that should actually be 9)
• Whatever you do, REMEMBER TO REMOVE KNIFE FROM BAG (its a bigger concern that one would think)
• sunscreen --- every kind you own
• floppy hat   (axed because it takes up too much space)
• 8 shirts
• dress
• 2 shorts
• light air dry pants that swish
• socks
•  real shoes
• MONEY $$$
• camera x 2
• batteries
• Stuff incase foreign bugs try and kill me
• Converters --- bring every kind because Loas is apparently f***ed and doesn't know how to unify a country's electrical system. 

Ooops!

So last night I load two videos for my art classes, one was from my grade 7 class, the other was for my grade 12. One was on the history of painting, the other on creating the human form. So I had my grade 7s in the morning, I got them started on the project went to set up up the video.

 Those of you who know me, knows that technology and me have a dysfunctional relationship. Things don't always work as they should, i become frustrated, it works less. So there I was struggling  with the technology for a while, trying to get the machine to turn on, jiggling cords on the projector, pressing the on/off button like a crazy person and final it starts. Next came the speakers which were also temperamental. It doesn't help that all my equipment has been ordered from all over the world and they are all plugged in via a random series of outlet converters and voltage adaptors. Then after my flustered attempts to get the audio to work everything seems to be working and I hit play on my laptop.

I wandered back to my desk, check to make sure students were working, there was silence and they seemed to be interested. When I finally sit down I realize that the video that is playing is the one meant for the grade 12 students. Which meant that currently my immature grade 7s were now staring at images of the Venus of Willendorf and it's talking about the exaggerated breast, and then Cezanne's 'The Bathers' and several other nudes along side clothed figures.

Ooops... Hopefully no parents complain!

What's going on in Subic Bay?

So I live in Subic Bay, which used to be the largest military base outside of the USA up until the mid 90's. Around that time the military left, the base was returned to the Philippines and the USA simply used it as a port. Which meant every week or two a ship would come in, refuel, get supplies, and let the boys off to party for a couple of days. Subic around here is still referred to as "the base" its a gated community with Starbucks and other western amenities.

Yet things are starting to change here. China made a giant floating base-like thing 100 miles off the coast of the philippines in an attempt to gain further control over the South China see and what would seem like life in general.  Obviously the Philippines is pissed, but so are the Americans. So as you can see from the image below the area may be reach a little beyond the local scope of China.

So what does this mean for me? Well now there's are constant American military presence here, there are boats, and submarines and planes and helicopters. And on all of them are military men, which you might be thinking that as a single girl that might be awesome. Wrong. Under no circumstance do you want to be interacting with a group of navy men who have been stuck on a submarine for weeks. It's just not good company. Not to mention that everywhere I go now they try and charge me triple the regular price. There's a giant influx of vendors who are trying to sell you souvenirs every corner you turn. And people are just general more rude to you because they think that your going to be one of the drunken marines. There are also rumors that they US is trying to get the base back, and that they now are in the process of taking over the airfield.

So it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Trip Planning

Those of you who know me well know, and maybe even if you don't know now that well, you're aware that I'm a planner.  I have 10 year plans, I always have, and yes occasionally I adjust them.  But that being said I always know what I'm doing.  I have financial goals, and educational and career goals, I know that in roughly 6 to 7 years I'm going to buy my first piece of property, I know when I want to take my AQ courses for the next 10 years, and all these other ridiculous things.  The kind of things that make some peoples' heads hurt, but for me it adds a sense of comfort to plan my life.  So it would naturally stand to reason that I would approach planning vacations with the same level of detail that I schedule the rest of my life. But I don't, I hate it, I hate it with a passion.

So in 10 days I leave to go on vacation to Loas and Cambodia with the Gym teacher here.  On the plus side we have booked our flight, on the downside we have booked nothing else.  We have have no clue where we want to go, what there is to do, where we need to go to do these things.

There are a couple issues:
#1
I have a list of things that I want to see and do before I die, most people have it. Its my travel bucket     list. Its filled with all these amazing art, architecture, natural wonders, and general cool stuff. Problem out of a very long list there is only 3 things located in Asia. So this is why it shocked a lot of family members when I announced that I was moving to the Philippines. So this really decreases my motivation to plan things. If someone where to tell me that we were going to Italy I would immediately hand them a extensive list of place I wanted to visit and see.  So when I said yes to going to Loas there was no list handed over of things I wanted to do.

#2
The other teacher and I choose each other to travel with because we're both fairly laid back and low stress type people. We both go with the flow. Which is great when your dealing with crazy third world stuff where nothing seems to go properly and there are weird bugs everywhere. The problem is that we never checked to see if either of us are planners, which mean that we have kinda been waiting for the other person to figure out what is going on.

#3
Lonely planet books have no where near enough pictures to make it accessible to art teacher and people with low planning motivation.

#4
Everything that I google search seems to be in the opposite direction that we need to be traveling in.

So essentially I'm just getting annoyed with this whole process. And I'm sure my brother would just tell me it doesn't matter and just go with it. But I feel like you at least need to know where the cool stuff to see is and what areas to avoid so you don't end up in a place full of unexploded land mines. So I have 10 days to figure out my 10 day long trip. Hopefully I don't kill someone in the process of having to try and figure this out.

Friday Night At The Beach

That's me! Nothing like watching the sunset while floating in the ocean.

It Finally Happened

Since coming here I've kinda become a superhero. I never got jet leg, I've slept through the earthquakes (they're small but apparently they exist), and I have never had food poisoning. Well that changed last night.

Last night after our lovely Friday evening on the beach, I got home and wasn't feeling well. I threw up for a large portion on the night, fell asleep on the bathroom floor, woke up to an earthquake, crawled over and sat under the doorframe, and then went back to my bed. I'm feeling a lot better this morning.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Creepy Crawly

So last night I was up late making food for our thanksgiving potluck, which was going to be held after school on Monday. So naturally while I chop up things for the stuffing I Skyped my brother, and as we're just starting to talk I see something on my counter move. So I naturally angle my computer so he can see the large black bug on my counter. As I get a closer look, I realize that this is not ordinary bug, it is in fact a scorpion. And as far as scorpions go, its small, and if you watch Kratts' Creatures as I kid religiously like I did then there's a large chance that you will remember that the smaller the scorpion the more likely the venom is to kill you.

So I momentarily panic as I try to figure out the best possible way to kill it without it killing me.
After some quick deliberations I decide on a large spray can of cleaner with a flat bottom. I approach with extreme caution, aim and squish. Unfortunately I wasn't fast enough with the squish, and it proceeded to half hide under my microwave, probably pissed off which I'm gonna guess is the last thing you want a scorpion to be. Meanwhile in my mind I'm wonder what will happen if i get stung and if the local hospital has scorpion anti-venom. Well eventually to my comfort it came out from under the microwave and it was squished to bits.

Today I was informed by my gardener that there is a 2 1/2 foot brown poisonous snake living in the bush beside my house a mere 4 feet from my front door. Welcome to the jungle!