Question: Work and Theaters

Picture Unrelated: In my right hand is a tiny spoon.

 

I got my first set of questions thanks to Travis. Here goes.

What's the average day like for you? You seem to be doing a lot of varied things. Do you work on your own time or is there a rigid schedule?

There was a time, in training and the first two months at site, that my days could be prepared for. Training was a whirlwind of “go here, do this, that, and another”, throughout current PCVs would tell me things would slow down when I got to site. I did get to site and it kept up, for awhile.

I had meetings with politicians, bankers, agency heads, and even my new office mates. I was ferried to varied events: Children's Congress, Agency meetings, awards ceremonies, and one youth competition in Pampanga. I had to find my way around my new home city, finding where I could buy black beans, peanuts, and locating a laundromat. In the middle of that was the flood that pushed a mountain of responsibilities on my department's shoulders, consequently shoving important non-flood related projects off into the future.

Thankfully things have slowed down a bit. People mostly know who I am, I know my way around town, it's a down period for events, and most projects have been caught back up to speed. I've actually had little to do for the last couple weeks thanks to all of the above. This period will pass soon though as I can look forward to a few big events: A dozen Christmas parties I “HAVE TO ATTEND”, proposal of my volunteerism project with the PYAP youth, preparation for life-skills training for street educators, inquiring about setting up a library (I was asked this moments ago), moving out, leadership summit in Nueva Viskaya, Christmas vacation in Sagada, New Years Eve in Manila.

That's just December.

In a day, I can go from doing a lot, to almost nothing. I come in at 8am and leave at 5pm. After getting to work I sit in my patio-furniture-plastic chair at my desk, turn my laptop on, and begin my day.

I do research for projects, like my life-skills training for street educators. I found a perfect life-skills training that was written up by other PCVs and will probably use it for my group.

I make proposals for all sorts of things, mainly trainings, but recently my biggest proposal is for a PYAP volunteerism group. PYAP is already a collection of youth in Cabanatuan but it's still in the midst of being rebuilt, it's been defunct for years in Cabanatuan. The idea is to have interested youths volunteer their time (and mine) to hold council and discuss community issues they'd like to see improved/changed. They would gather, discuss, find an item that concerns them (ex. trash on the street), discuss solutions (preferably of the sustainable variety), plan, execute, assess the results, celebrate, and begin a new project. That's the hope, the dream is to have it wind up a self-sustaining organization under PYAP where I'm not needed.

I advise my coworkers on a number of topics. I've been pulled aside to help with choosing colors for a t-shirt logo, making a catch phrase, proofreading English documents, crunching numbers too, and mostly talking about why I don't eat rice/do eat black beans.

I act as a resource really. I'm the ideas guy who has some skills, connections, resources, and a whole bunch of time on my hands. I have access to a pool of Peace corps information that has almost all the answers/guides to the issues I might have at site.

I also have downtime where I sit at my laptop looking at Facebook, reading Gawker websites, and writing emails or blog posts. These hours have been more abundant recently.

So it goes:

Arrive at work

Sit at laptop

Lunch

Sit at laptop

(maybe go into field?)

Go home

That's the most basic of days. There is room for me to out of the office all day in the field, or in a meeting. There just aren't many average days.

Also I remember you mentioned the theater a while back. Did you ever go to one?

We have cinemas here, two as far I know. I haven't been to a movie yet here but from what I've heard, it's a different experience. The reports I've heard are that some Filipino movie goers don't mind showing up for a movie half way through and sitting through the first half of the second screening to catch the first half they missed.

When I happened past a crowd in front of the theater in one of the local malls, I was surprised at the size of the mob. Thankfully I didn't need to get past everyone because it was wall to wall people in the lobby in a way that seemed to indicate the doors to the theater would be opening soon.

I've been offered a few opportunities to visit a theater but the selection of movies have yet to pique my interest. Of the three screens at the Pacific Mall nearby, two are often reserved for Tagalog movie (I don't know if they play with subtitles, I would assume not) and the last is English. Having only one screen available for English makes for tough competition for what get the spot. Breaking Dawn has that spot currently.