that's right. painting. it's all we've been doing. habitat finished building 1,000 houses which will be presented to the community at the end of march. the housing project in baseco turns over in april and habitat will build another 1,000 houses but until then, we have to complete the 1,000 houses and get them ready for presentation by painting. there are 800 houses left to paint. i can't say that any of us are excited to be doing this. we understand that it's necessary but what we really want to do is build houses. painting sucks.

but hey, the kids are cute:


and today we got to go to an orphanage and cuddle babies:

YES!!! I finally submitted my Peace Corps application!!! And only four months after I should have turned it in. thank you mike, for constantly encouraging me to finish it and editing my crappy essays. thank you nick, for writing my (I'm sure) impressive reference. couldn't have done it without you guys.

p.s. the Philippines is good. more on that later.

for misaki

i've been hanging out with my students a bunch. i'll be leaving this school soon and am sad to go. mostly i hang out with a special ed girl named misaki. it sounds so bad to say that. she's just a slow learner really. and i truly do think she's special. she can read my mind. and we have fun having the dumbest conversations. she gets a huge kick out of peek-a-boo. we do it in japanese ("inai, inai, ba!"), english and tagalog ("eat. . . bulaga!"). today we played with lego-type blocks after lunch. although honestly i think she's more of an adult than i am. she worries about me when i don't bring lunch and offers me her food. i think she's happy to have found a friend in me.

i'm going to miss this girl a lot. misaki riding piggy-back:

aaaaack

it's here!! goddamnit. i noticed it a couple days ago when i sniffled and my nose made this pathetic honking/scraping noise that comes once a year. and i want to take out my eyeballs. they're too big for my head; i have an image of the whites of my eyes overflowing around my contacts. and i just got over a cold too. my nose isn't going to stop dripping til august. sigh. god i hate allergies. and i hate global warming. i've never gotten allergies this early before.

A quote from Yakuza Japanese."For those in need of a prosthetic finger, the best manufacturers are rumored to be in London, but they charge dearly for their services. Discount shoppers go to Hong Kong."

From Jennifer's report on banana slugs: "due to the extreme length of the penis of the banana slug, it may become tangled into a knot inside the female slug and herself. The female slug then severs the tissue with her mouth to save the male slug."