NSTP

You won't believe what happened to me yesterday. Halfway to Bagong Silang, for NSTP, our jeep started making a weird, sputtery noise - the kind that healthy jeeps are not supposed to make. We pulled over somewhere next to an open field, and our driver went down to investigate what the problem was. He popped open the hood of the jeep and, to our surprise (and delight, and horror), he pulled out a little cat, mewling and appearing relatively unharmed by its short trip under the hood. Instead of releasing the kitty into the field we had stopped at, we let it stay with us the rest of the trip. Hours later, after our insertion, we found the kitty sleeping peacefully underneath the seats. We left it in its state of cat-slumber. About twenty minutes into the trip, however, we decided we were too hungry. So we pulled the jeep over, popped open the hood, and using the hot machinery, made ourselves a nice kitty meal.

Just kidding. That never happened. I just needed an interesting first paragraph to make this post look good once it appeared on people's news feeds. I don't eat cats. I don't even eat chicken anymore. u_u

So what did happen yesterday, if not the consumption of a stray animal? Well I had to teach kids about oral hygiene in NSTP. On the jeepney ride to Bagong Silang (where the Health Sci NSTP always is), I was stressing about not having prepared a lesson plan the night before. And when I asked Rap to team up with me, he spat and said we should both team up with people who actually did have something prepared (because he had nothing, too). Of course I, being the responsible person that I am, did have something prepared: a couple of oral hygiene facts that I had looked up that morning, hurriedly scrawled on a lesson plan from two NSTP's ago. And a pack of lollipops for prizes.

When we reached Bagong Silang, my teaching group wound up in the wrong part of the village. We at last arrived at GK SM USA (Gawad Kalinga ShoeMart United States of America - I don't know why it's called that, either) five minutes late. Instantly, my group of kids materialized at my legs and scolded me for my tardiness (but in the cutest way possible). I just love how affectionate the Bagong Silang kids are. I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. They even asked me why I didn't show up last week, and I explained that I spent the long weekend at home, in Cagayan de Oro.

While I was doing this, our area monitor started shoving kids I didn't know into the group already gathered around me. They were Jandro's kids, and Jandro was absent that day. Gladly I accepted them, as he had taken care of my kids in my absence.

After introductions had been made, we kicked off our lesson with a recap of last week's. Making things up on the spot, Rap made everyone draw examples of Go, Grow, and Glow foods on some paper. They did fine, but some still weren't able to grasp the concept of these foods.

I think the problem mainly is that they don't understand what "go" "grow" or "glow" even mean. When I was teaching them about it, I had to use a lot of gestures, like making running motions when discussing Go foods. Another problem is that these words sound so darn similar to each other. In a noisy room, "Grow" could easily be mistaken as "Glow." Who invented this, anyway?! (Update: According to AC, there's a Filipino version of this. Lakas, Something, and Something. If any of you know about this, please fill in the blanks for me.)

Anyway, the lesson went fine. Fine for a pair of people with no real lesson planned. Next week is our last teaching session ever, so I'll be sure to make it awesome this time.

. . .
In other news, Dark Shore is now defunct. I don't know if I'm breaking some kind of rockstar code when I talk about my band on my blog, but whatever. THEY HAVE TURNED THEIR BACK ON ME.

Just kidding. They haven't. Not really.

The glory days.

. . .

OH MY GOSH. Some guy just walked up to my booth and started staring at my monitor. Without even trying to be discreet! WHAT DUH FRAK!!! SO WEIRD. I'm scared. I shall leave now.