Steven: July 14

Only a little more than two weeks left here! It's hard to believe the summer has gone by so fast. T-bone and I just returned from an interesting visit to Cagayan de Oro. We managed to somehow get our visas extended after paying a hefty fee of about 60 US dollars. They certainly like to gouge the foreigners for they're worth over here, so be forewarned potential travelers. Although to be fair many places are like this too, it's merely the driving principle behind a healthy tourism industry. Otherwise we got some DVD movies in this subterranean Muslim-run shady boutique, waited with a swarm of people at the Cebu Pacific ticketing office, saw a movie at the local 'mall', and got a cheap 'Hobble-Hobble' ride back to Tom and Diane's that was the highlight of the trip (minus the hot ash flying into my eyes, apparently the entire population decides to burn random crap at around 5 in the afternoon).

On another front stuff at the school is going well, I've been spending time with Joseph and the Grade 1 math students. The class has essentially been split between those that have a clue as to what's going on, and those who still can't count. There are definitely a couple of bright kids in the class though who catch on to all the topics very fast, luckily they often help out and teach the others. I've given all the teachers the achievement tests from the public schools for math, and later I will give them the ones for Science, Filipino, and Makabayan (history, music, and art). T and I also picked up some new math and english books in CDO. They look very promising, well-laid out with sample tests for the teachers to use. They might be a little more expensive than previous books have been so we'll see what they decide.

T and I just got back from going to this tree house attraction here on Camiguin. Very cool sculptures and paintings covered every surface of the place, definitely worth seeing.
Oh I also got some bad food poisoning while in CDO. So one of the few nights I'm in a nice room with A/C I spend clutching the bathroom toilet, oh well. If you're ever in CDO be wary of the chorizo, that's all I'll say about that. Now I must be off, many things to be done
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