We made to the Philippines safely on Tuesday. It was a long journey with two young children in tow, and outside of a few minor glitches, everything went well. Today is Thursday, June 24th, and we’re trying to get adjusted to the new time. We’ll be here for two months as I’m a science teacher and I’m spending my summer here in the Philippines. It’s been two years since we’ve been here and we’ve been looking forward to coming back to visit. Also, our son was born last summer so this will be the family’s first time to see the baby.
I’ve been working on my video editing skills the last year or so and I’m using iMovie and Final Cut Express to put together some small clips of life here. On this blog, I’d like to post what I’m going to call a slice of Digos. Digos is a medium size town about an hour south of Davao on the island of Mindanao. These small videos will give you a glimpse of what it’s like to live in the Philippines.
My first video is a small video clip of us on the airline. We took China Airlines from JFK in New York City to Taipei Taiwan. From Taipei, we flew down to Manila, in the Philippines. Our flight out of Manila was canceled and we took the next flight which was delayed by two hours. We made it to Davao around 7 PM on Tuesday. We then took a van down to Digos, which is about one hour south of Davao.
Here’s a short video clip of us on China Airlines. Our son slept in the bassinet most of the way, which really helped.
This week I intend to post small video clips of life here in the southern Philippines. Feel free to leave a comment I’ll answer as best as I can
We are in Somerville, New Jersey and across the street is the fireman museum. Today they were demonstrating the old pumper used in the 1800′s. It took many dedicated hours to restore the pumper to it’s original condition and today they were showing how it worked. Here is some video of the pumper working. Next weekend is the town’s 175th birthday for the fire department and there will be a big parade.
We’re getting ready for our trip to the Philippines on Sunday. Our plane is leaving Sunday night via China Airlines. It’s our first time using China Airlines and leaving from JFK in New York. My last day of school was Monday and I’m looking forward to our trip to see the family.
My classes finished the Mars Habitats last week. Everything turned out super. Here is a small video of the final day. Click here to visit my school web site and see a more detailed video.
Here is the rocket launcher that I use for my science class. We build rockets from 2 liter bottles of soda. You can see this rocket launcher in action on the school web site here. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments.
I spent the morning digging out my car and shoveling the front sidewalk. I had a lot of help from my friend Ed. He came over with his snow blower and did most of the driveway. Thanks Ed. That saved my back and muscles. With the snow today, I would guess the total to be near 18-20 inches. Spring starts in three weeks – can’t wait.
We didn’t get much snow this year but we’re getting a big snow storm today. We have about 8-10 inches of snow so far and it’s supposed to snow tonight and into tomorrow. If you watch the video, you will see outside here in northeast Pennsylvania about 5:30 pm. I’m using two different cameras.
The beginning of the video is filmed with my Cannon PowerShot SD1100 IS and at the end of the video I have a little video using my new Kodak Zi8. As you can see, the Kodak has less grain in the low light.
I put this together in iMovie in just a few minutes. I’m teaching myself Final Cut and I hope to use F C in the future. The learning curve is pretty steep but Final Cut is awesome.
This week in science class we made an eyeball from paper mache using water, newspaper, and glue. Currently, we are learning about the eye and vision. I have my students know the different parts of the eye and a general overview of how vision works. The vocabulary for this topic is the retina, rods, cones, lens, sclera, pupil, and Iris.
It’s a fun project that all students can do. First, we begin by blowing up a balloon to about the size of 10 or 15 cm in diameter. Then, rip thin strips of newspaper maybe one or 2 cm wide and 10 or 15 cm long. Dip the newspaper strips into the solution and wrap them around the balloon. The paper mache is made of water and glue. I have found in the past using this simple mixture makes great paper mache. It’s also easier to clean than using cornstarch or other powders.
By the second day, the students should have two or three coats of paper mache around their balloon. It’s best to have five or six coats of paper mache as this will give the eyeball strength. After the paper mache dries we paint the whole eyeball white, this represents the sclera. Next, they paint the iris color blue, green, brown, or turquoise in the classroom and the pupil is painted black. When this is done I test the students orally and by pointing out the different parts of the eye. I also asked them what are the part of the retina and what is their function. The two parts of the retina are the rods and cones. The rods detect lightness and darkness and the cones detect the color. Also, I ask why do we have a blind spot? The answer is that this is where the optic nerve is located.
This is a nice project for seventh grade science as it takes about three or four days to complete. The whole time they are making the eye, I am circulating around asking about the different parts and discussing how the eye works. The students enjoyed making it and they can take it home when they are done. Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
After lunch in Penaplata, we headed south looking for a place to stay. I wanted to go down south as far as possible on the east coast, but, as I said the last time, the road curves inland towards the center of the island. So I decided to head south on the west coast to discover more of the island. The ride along the west coast was a little boring as there were very few towns to pass by. The road is not paved all the way down south. In some places, it is a just a dirt road and can be very bumpy. I saw mostly small houses and fields and some people walking along the road.
When we arrived in Kaputian, it was getting late and we didn’t have dinner yet. We first looked for a place to stay and the locals said that there was a town park that had overnight rentals. So we headed there and found that the the town park had small overnight rentals and one of the rentals was a tree house. As you can see from the video, the tree house is right on the beach and cost 300 pesos. My butt was getting sore from riding on the motor all day and I was looking forward to some quiet time, snorkeling and a good night’s sleep.
During the night, however, I was awakened from the green curtains blowing across the room from the wind. I was in a deep sleep and did not want to wake up. Next came the rain, lightning and a huge bang of thunder and I was wide awake. I took out my mini pen light to look around as it was pitch black. It was a heck of a storm and the tree house was swaying back and forth and the rain was pouring down. I was concerned the tree house might blow over. The normally quiet sea outside my door had turned into a raging sea and I thought the water might flood the beach. The waves were 1-2 feet and I could hear them crashing. The beach and entire area was completely dark except when the lightning struck and I could see the blowing rain and waves through the eerie blue light. I think the storm passed directly over our tree house. Within an hour, the storm had passed and I eventually fell back to sleep.
I got up early in the morning as I could hear what sounded like thousands of birds in the trees. I took my camera and walked down to the water to take a little video and walk along the beach.
As we continued our trip around Samal Island, I was eager to visit the bat caves on the northern part of the island. I read an article about the lady who is taking care of and protecting these animals and it seemed an interesting place for me to visit. The bat caves are north of the ferry terminal. After we got some lunch in Babak, we headed north for the caves. I was riding on the back of my Honda motor with by brother-in-law Alray. It took about a half hour to get there.
I’m still learning how to use iMovie but I think I’ve got the basics down. I also now have all the video on my mini DV cam on an external hard drive. This is a bid advantage because I can scan quickly for the parts of the video I’m interested in. Many parts of the video I am talking to my wife so she can see what it looks like. She was not too keen on riding on the motor and decided to stay home and watch our daughter.
Last summer, the summer of 2008, I took my wife and daughter back to Mindanao, Philippines to visit our family. It was my three year old daughter’s first trip back since she was born there in 2005, and my wife’s first trip back since she came here to the U.S. We planned to spend time with the family and to get out and see more of Davao and what are options are as far as retiring there in the future.
We visited Davao and Mindanao Bob showed us around town. We also took a day trip to Samal and fell in love with
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