Talking under water

I haven't been feeling well this week. This morning as I was doing read aloud one of my students raised his hand and said, "It sounds like you're talking under water."

I've noticed that everyone gets really frustrated when kids don't understand a lesson. They get frustrated for not getting it. And I get really frustrated because I've tried to teach them the same thing so many ways that I'm all out of ideas. It makes me feel like a bad teacher. I tend to feel like a bad teacher when I'm sick. Maybe it's because I'm extra spacey? Or maybe I have less patience? Who can really say?

On a more positive note, it's my wonderful mother's birthday today for her, yesterday for me. Happy Birthday!

Noisy Neighbor

The above is a photo of our noisy neighbor. Daily he comes over and yells at us to let him in our windows. When we tell him that he's not invited in he just flies over to another window and tries again, like we don't know it's him at a different window.

We should be getting our new laptops sometime this week. And that's really exciting. For the past month we have been sharing Jordon's and while it's been ok, I can tell he wants his independence back. One good thing that's come of us sharing a computer is we've watched a lot of shows together. We're almost all caught up on 30 Rock, and Flight of the Conchords. And yesterday we started Burn Notice. Oh free time. As you know we've got plenty of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dJRQBN8lN0

Jordon is working on mummifying chickens with his students as they student ancient cultures. It's pretty gross, but the kids are enjoying it. Maybe he'll write more about that later?

Jab chae is the yum.

Not much new to report. We're still thoroughly enjoying our life here. Teaching is going quite well. And, the parents seem to be appreciative. We've gotten a chocolate pound cake, 2 boxes of chocolates, and jab chae (delicious korean noodles) this week alone. Either they really like us or they think we're too skinny. After school today I was given a hand painted fan. The mother let us know that her cousin painted it and is a pretty big deal. It's beautiful.

We have a couple adventures in the works, and will be sure to keep you updated:

Melissa will be attending the EARCOS Teachers' Conference to be held at Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia March 25-28, 2009.

And then on April 4th both of us will be traveling to Beijing with the Manderin Club for Spring Break. We'll be there for a week or so.

We're extremely excited about those trips. And we're also excited for our trip back to America. It'll be good to be home.

Christmas in the Philippines..

Wow, it's been a really long time since we've posted, sorry about that. The Quattlebaums are alive and well in the Philippines, and a lot has happened in the last month.

We got the credit card situation taken care of, and we've been fully reimbursed for the fraudulent charges. Good news.

The week after that post, we had out school production. Here are a few quick snapshots to show you how epic this was. I was working the spotlight, and Melissa was working to keep a gaggle of first grade 'angels' from turning into little hellions. It was pretty fun, but we were all happy for it to be over. I'd been working to help with the show since... early October I believe..


Melissa and the ladies hanging out back stage. Doesn't she look lovely?


Me doing my thing on the follow spot.


Melissa's class. This must be the 2nd performance. During the first night, the little guy who is waving couldn't find his mom, so the entire time during the finale of the show he was bawling his eyes out. To his credit he didn't miss a beat on his choreography. He's quite the character, and requests to be addressed as "Mr. Man CJ".

This is a little wider shot. How we managed to fit the entire lower school on this little tiny stage was a miracle.

What's a play without some ribbon dancers? There was only one fist fight. One of my students got into it with a 4th grader because one of them sang the wrong words during rehearsal.

After that we had another week of classes, and then it was vacation time! Justin and Anya came and met us at school, which was fun. They got to see our classrooms and meet some of the other teachers. We took off and went to the beach for a few days, where we stayed in Nipa huts (think woven plant fiber walls, bamboo slatted floors, thatch roof) and had a small army of cooks taking care of our every need. We got to meet Anya's family, which was terrific. We had a great time with them. During our stay with them we drove a couple of hours to San Fernando and went to the 100th annual lantern festival. All of the neighborhoods in the area get together and each creates a 'lantern' that puts on a neat sound and light show. My favorite was *does his best robot voice* San Juan!

Here are a couple of snapshots of the lanterns. They were huge. There were so many people there. (whoops, forgot the camera cord at home, will add these photos in a bit)

The next morning the four of us, me, melissa justin and anya walked up the beach a ways and found this wonderful area where the surf was really pounding us. It was beautiful. I took my wedding ring off and set it in our beach bag on top of a towel so that it wouldn't come off while I swam.. it's pretty loose on my finger and I didn't want to risk it. Most of you can see where this is going. While taking the towel out, the ring was flipped into the air, and was lost. We looked for 30 minutes, crawling through the sand, but the wind was blowing so hard that we figured it was covered and lost for good.
When we got back to the property, Anya told her family what happened, and they insisted that they should go look with a fresh pair of eyes. They found out that a fisherman walking by had found the ring, and taken it. We put the word out that the ring was a 'remembrance' ring (the stones are from a ring my grandfather gave my grandmother the day my dad was born), and the driver went door to door looking for the fisherman. Soon he found him, and brought him to the cabins. We gave him a small reward and got my wedding ring back. What a miracle!
The most memorable thing about the trip is the fact that I now have a new sister-in law to be. My brother popped the question after seeking her fathers blessing, and she said yes. We've very happy for the two of you and love you very much.

Eventually our time at the beach ended, and we had to say goodbye. We'd planned on catching a bus to Manila to join them for Christmas, but it just didn't work out (the bus company didn't take reservations on Christmas and Christmas eve, so we would have had to go in to the bus station at 2am to try and catch a bus into Manila)... we ended up staying home and spending the holiday with just the two of us. It was lovely.

Vacation went by in a breeze. There's some other stuff that happened.. memorable things like driving in Olongapo for the first time, and trying to have Melissa's laptop repaired..and now we're back to the 'real world'. Paying bills and taking care of business. It's good to be back from such a nice break. We're rested and rejuvenated and no longer feel like this...

and this....

We love you all, miss you fiercely and hope to hear from you soon. -The Quattlebaums

Robbed...again

So, today Jordon discovered that we were robbed again. This time nobody broke into our house. They stole our credit card information from somewhere and made purchases totalling around $1,000 from our account...in Sweden.

I'm really surprised the credit card company didn't catch this one. And am glad that Jordon checks our online banking at least once a week. Apparently on Friday they made 2 charges around $200, and then on Tuesday they made the rest.

It's going to be quite the headache to take care of. It helps to have the mentality that none of this is ours...we're just stewards. But even doing that I can't help but be annoyed.

Happy Birthday Jordon!

Jordon had a wonderful 26th birthday. He relaxed and did whatever he wanted all day long.

Some Highlights Include:

Gaming
Breakfast for Lunch
Reading in the Bathtub
Japanese Dinner
Homemade Apple Pie

Thanksgiving in the Philippines

We have so much to give thanks for. We are truly blessed.

As many of you know, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Hands down. So, needless to say, I was very apprehensive and homesick just thinking about celebrating the holiday away from my wonderful family, especially with everything that has happened.

Fortunately, we have really been accepted into the community here with open arms. While this didn't completely make up for the lack of family, it ended up being a pretty great day...and one to remember forever.


After eating dinner there and conversing with the families we decided to go over to the 'singles' Thanksgiving to hang out. Well, we got there and they hadn't even begun eating yet. We felt a little bad for barely RSVPing and then showing up but they were so inviting and kind. The food was cooked by the school's chef and it was phenomenal (not as good as Aunt Barbara's, but still tasty.) Then we chatted and went around the table saying what we were thankful for. I was so impressed by how honest and vulnerable everyone was. They didn't just give the basic answers. They truly dug deep inside and gave moving, heartfelt responses.

It was amazing. It felt like a Felicity Thanksgiving :)