if anyone's still reading......

so if anyone is still reading this, which why would you after the adventure is over. well, anyways -- so i'm definately home for good. in the next week or so i'm making the big move back down to orlando. i fought it for as long as i possibly could, but i got a job, an apartment and as of tomorrow morning a car. i'm going to finish up a few classes before starting grad school next fall, hopefully in denver. and i still have a big trip planned through s.e. asia with some friends who are still over in the philippines. when i moved home, i thought i would just get a "real job" and move on with life, but it turns out finding a real job is harder than i thought. just putting together a resume and coverletters for each specific job is a job in and of itself. whew. so i guess waiting tables and taking a few classes until april, which is when i leave to go meet my friends in the philippines, isn't going to be so bad after all. we'll see. so this trip i speak of, i'm planning on flying back to the philippines at the end of next april, and hanging out there for 6 weeks visiting the people and places that i missed. so then we fly to beijing, china for a 10 day hike of the great wall of china. from there we proceed south through china to vietnam, laos, cambodia and end up lying on the beach in beautiful thailand. i'm keeping my fingers crossed that this all works out according to schedule and that peace keeps holding out in that region, and that everyone over there still wants to travel. living in another country is exhausting. it's something i never would have thought about pre-peace corps, but translating ilonggo all day every and trying to speak to people and make them undedrstand about you and what you are doing in their country is the most exhausting thing i have ever done. teaching classes in ilonggo and just communicating with co-workers is enough to warrant a good 10-12 hour night sleep. going to bed at 8pm and waking up mga 7-8am is usually how most of us live over there. so there's a tentative plan for the next year. and that's about all i know for now. lindsey