I wanted to take a minute and introduce you to my new home. I am in Manila Philippines and let's just say, it's quite different then home. I spent a week with New Tribes Mission and now I m at Faith Academy. New Staff Orientation is over we had a blast. Here are most of the newbies. Love these folks.
I will be teaching PE 1 and PE 2 which I am now translating into team sports and individual/lifetime activities respectively. I will also teach one class of weights. The PE classes will be 9th and 10th grade girls only and I believe weights will be mixed grade and gender. I have been asked to step in and help with curriculum development, so I am starting the process of digging through all the material that they have for PE in hopes of keeping the good and throwing out the bad. I am so excited about this task and also overwhelmed at how much I need to get done. The weights class is a little bit less up my alley but I will learn as I go and ask lots of questions. As it turns out, I am the only full time PE staff member and so I will also be the department coordinator. This year proves to be a busy one but I would never have dreamed of the doors and opportunities God has opened already. I am too young and inexperienced to be given these rolls in a big school in the states, but they are super excited to have me here. I've had parents and students alike approach me on campus and say how excited they are to have a PE major teaching those classes. How can you beat having excited students? Here is my office space, which I am so thankful for. I will be spending many hours here.
My two roommates and I also have this really cool house that we love. It has been a work in progress to get everything up and running such as gas, wifi, and the washing machine, but we are thrilled with the house itself. It's beautiful and spacious. It is in a quiet neighborhood about a mile or two from school. We have many neighbors that are Filipino and many that are Faith Academy teachers. The one thing I do not care for is dogs that run around in the neighborhood. Dogs are genuinely mean here and are not treated well. They are often kept as pets only for protection purposes. The people often throw rocks at them to keep them away. While, I do not desire to hurt the dogs, I am grateful that if you bend down and act like you are picking up a rock, they run away and leave you alone. That has proved very helpful. The roosters also run on Filipino time and crow at 5am. While that is good when school starts, it is rather early for me now. School starts at 7:10 every morning, so we will have an early day. The sun is up and shining at 5:30 am, so that helps.
The city is not very pretty at all, but the countryside is gorgeous. I wouldn't trade the view from my office for anything. I can't wait to update more, but I'm off to prep and write curriculum. Paalam! (Goodbye!)