Day 2 in Manila

     Wow, I cannot believe it's only been two days -- it feels like it's been a week!  Let me begin by saying that I had quite the start to my day. We needed to meet at the hotel lobby at 7:30 and I woke up at 7:11... nineteen minutes before I had to meet everyone in the lobby.  I proceeded to check my clocks about 5 times before I realized it wasn't a dream and frantically turned on the shower and then almost slipped and fell in the bathroom trying to get ready as fast as I could!  Luckily, I wasn't the only one, Norberto slept in late too ---we were both on Filipino time ;)  Just an FYI, Norberto is the teacher who is hosting us for the ten days when we visit his school in Tacloban.  He is also assisting Alex (I know, he and I have the same name), who is the point person for us while we are here in the Philippines and organized all of the events and activities we are doing in Manila.

The day began with a visit to St. Paul College, Pasig where we toured and learned about an all girls private catholic high school.  Since I had not ever been in a private, catholic school before I did not know what to expect but learned a lot.

1.  The students were extremely respectful and well behaved
2.  The school was enormous (about 4,000 students)
3.  Average class size is 40, but in advanced gifted classes there is a maximum of 15 students
4.  They have a very talented and amazing choir that sang for us
5.  The school places a strong emphasis on holistic education and therefore offers many clubs for it's students and all students are required to participate in a club.
6.  They do not have a special education program, but they do offer remedial classes for students.

We had the honor of speaking with students on the Student Coordinating Team which is made up of 12 students who are elected by the school to serve in specific roles each school year.  That was probably the best part of my day!  The girls were so polite and spoke very well about their positions and responsibilities in the school.  It was very clear that school is important and valued to the students at this high school!  The school also provided us with a snack of Pacit and rice cakes (delicious)!

After that we had a super quick lunch buffet at a mall, probably the biggest buffet I've ever been to and then we were off to the United States Embassy.  We met the Ambassador there and he shared some history on the Embassy along with information on relations with the Philippines.  One thing he said when asked about the relationship between Filipinos and Americans was, "Filipinos hate how much we they love us" so the relationship is a positive one.  I also learned that the Embassy there was one of the four largest in the world, which is a fact I did not know!  We proceeded to hear from other officials such as the one in charge of supporting education in the Philippines and learned a lot more.  Following that, we had another snack, Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee, then we toured the Embassy learning more about it's history and then left.  Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any digital devices into the Embassy, so I cannot share any photos, it was neat to see though, that was my first to to an embassy.  After a break at the hotel we headed to yet another international buffet dinner and I ended my night with some Halo Halo (one of my favorites)!