the perils of

Screw your fancy shmancy Boracay trips! For my summer vacation I went to Initao. That's right. Initao . Never heard of it? I'm not surprised. You're just not cool enough for this beach. Yes, this beach. See that shabby-looking tower over there? It holds up the other end of a zip line cord. You actually get to zipline right into the sea. (Tip: Don't wear slippers.) Speaking of slippers... Gigantic slippers randomly turn up on the shore. Now for some more pictures: Does your cozy Boracay resort sell SOUVINERs? Didn't think so. Okay. Enough about Initao. I bet you're drooling already, like my nephew Zac: And speaking of babies, here's my brother Jiggy: Now look at my awesome Various Branches. Now for some more Jiggy. And Caitlin. And a bunch of other stuff: (^ We didn't actually go on a Secret Adventure. We just stopped here for lunch. But I hear this is a nice place to zip line [I

I get asked a lot of interesting questions by friends and family. Just kidding. I don't. Today though I got a pretty interesting one from a friend, and I thought I'd share my two cents on the matter. If you were to have your picture taken with Peter Dinklage, would you bend down for the picture or would you pretend like his height didn't matter? - Rap, 21  First of all, for those who don't know, this is Peter Dinklage. He's an actor who has appeared in a bunch of movies that I don't particularly care for, like Elf . . . No, he didn't actually play an elf. . . . Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian . . . where he played a short, blond Gimli  . . . and Underdog.  This movie sucks. Even though it has dogs in it. He is, however, best known for his role as Tyrion Lannister on HBO's Game of Thrones. Yeah. He's pretty cool. And HBO is definitely not replacing him with Professor Flitwick from Harry Potter

All places have a story to tell. The challenge for you, the frazzled college student still brooding over last week's exams, is to just shut up  for a little while and listen to that story. Batangas was a conversation that I almost never had. I had found out on the morning of the trip that a revised thesis proposal was due in five days, so a few hours before we were scheduled to leave, I was 90% convinced that I wasn't gonna go. But I still wrestled with the question out loud, and I made such a big fuss over it that Rap deftly reversed my decision by telling me, "See this is why you need this vacation." And so I went. And I am really glad I did. It was my first overnight block outing, and also my first time in Batangas. It's a really beautiful place. What follows is not a narration of the events of the trip. Usually the best parts of any outing (the people you spend time with, the friendships that you strengthen, the priceless conversations that you share, t