Sorry everyone,I'm really trying to get all these pics downloaded so you can see them. I really want you to see the difference that you can make in a childs life but my computer is kinda on the frits right now. I'll try again tomorrow. In the meantime you can check out ruelfoundation.com and see some kids who are currently waiting for surgeries.

HOME

I'm home now. Got here last night. Suffering from some serious jet lag but other than that things are going well. Almost all of the gifts I bought got confiscated at customs. I might get them back in a couple of weeks after the inspector looks at them but I have to drive down to the airport and pick them up myself. They won't mail them to me. Grrrr!
I've got a million things to do now before school starts. I'm heading to Saskatoon on Sunday to try and find a place to live and to see some friends from Bible College. As I get back into the boring routine that is my life there is nothing really to blog about, and once school starts I probably won't have time. So checking out this site will probably be a waste of your time.

IN SEOUL

So far so good. I'm in Seoul right now. Just got here about an hour ago. 9 hours down only 18 hours of travelling to go (not counting layovers). I'm glad to be here, this leg of the trip should go a lot smoother. It was quite the adventure getting here. The ferry from Calapan to the main Philippine island was pretty rough. People were falling just trying to get into the boat. It calmed down after about 30 minutes. Then I had to take a bus to the capital city, Manila. That wouldn't have been so bad if the guy sitting next to me wasn't cuddling up to me in his sleep. Plus there were vendors hasseling us the whole time. Annemarie and I almost missed the bus stop. One of the staff members told us the name of the stop before we left, it actually had two names but we could only remember one. It wasn't the one the driver used. He stopped but since we didn't recognize the name of the place we didn't get off. I had a feeling we should have though so I went up and asked where the stop was. He started yelling and stopped on the highway to let us off. It was only about 10 metres away from a taxi so it wasn't too bad.
We got to the hotel alright, but I locked the keys to my suitcase inside my suitcase so I had to pick the lock with a hair pin. Annemarie is leaving tomorrow so she is staying the night. I got a taxi to the airport last night. It started off all wrong. He was going the wrong way down a one way street, so that was scary. Then he got a ticket for it and he was arguing with the cop while I was sitting there waiting to go to the airport. On top of that he was trying to set me up with his son. AWKWARD!
Anyway, I got to the airport alright and I'm now stuck here in Korea until tomorrow. I'm not in the same hotel as last time, which is disappointing because I was really looking forward to a heated toilet seat, after spending much of the last seven weeks squatting. Oh well, such is life.
I'm pretty tired so I'm going to head to bed. Goodnight!
Oh, by the way, you all should check out googleearth.com. It's a satelite thing and you can see your house online.

Today is my last day here in Calapan. Tomorrow I will be heading to Manila, where I will catch my plane. I'll be flying to Seoul where, I will be stuck for 37 hours. The airline booked me a hotel so I'll be able to sleep, but it will be boring there all by myself. I'll arrive in Edmonton on wednesday and home on thursday.
Since it is our last day here, we decided to get manicures and a foot spa since it only cost $5 for the two of them. The girl doing mine kept laughing because I am so pale. They all started calling me "CoffeeMate" (a cofee whitener). They also couldn't believe how many bug bite we had all over our feet and legs. It was a little awkward because everyone in the salon kept staring at us, but I survived! The funnest thing ever was when they started playing videoke on the TV and we all started singing along.
Anyway I gotta get home and start packing before church.
Can't wait to get home!

FINAL WEEK

We are in the final week of school here. Today was our last day of class, tomorrow will be our last day of outreach. Then friday we are going out for a graduation breakfast and supper.

The doctors who have been teaching us had to leave on the weekend so we had a fairwell dinner and kareoke night on Friday. They were both such wonderful fun people. It was hard to say goodbye to them but I feel so blessed to have met them. This is a picture of the students with the two docs.

Here is Annemarie and I singing "Wild Thing" together and Jez, one of the docs singing Michael Jacksons smooth criminal. It was hilarious.


We have a couple of other docs come in. We did dermatology for two days, and we had a surgeon come in to show us how to do stitching. Here is the practice banana that we did.

Matt let us practice on hime. He had couple of moles that we removed and stitched up. Here is me stitching...

Here is me after stitching...

I didn't actually faint but I was feeling a bit lightheaded. Apparently I looked pale, even my lips turned white. But in my defense we hadn't eaten for 6 hours, and it was super hot in the room. I didn't feel that bad but everyone insisted I lie down. It was pretty embarassing since I am the only one who plans on being a professional doctor. On top of that I had said just before we started that I was really excited about doing stitches because I am considering going into surgery. The doctor consoled me saying that most people in med school faint when they see their first surgery.

These pictures are from the sunday school that we do in Silonay on Sundays. The kids are so cute.

Apparently not all of the photos are loading. Sorry!