Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Thank you for the many emails we received back after sending out our blog address.  We enjoy hearing from you.  The last two days have seen more attempts at networking and meeting people here as we begin to establish our routines.  As many of you know, one of Grace’s goals for this year was yoga and she had a successful first Hatha class yesterday morning at White Space, a yoga studio Fritz immediately described as “swank-tastic” during our tour as walked past the stone covered locker room drains, large square rain shower heads, freshly brewed rooibos, and studios lined with potted bamboo. 

Fritz has a chapter due next weekend and was finally able to get in a few hours of work yesterday at a coffee shop on Katipunan and then again today at the Visiting Research Associates’ (VRA) office in IPC.  A coordinator in the IPC office introduced us to the library at Ateneo and helped both of us obtain passes.  Fritz has a photo ID and Grace has a letter of affiliation that must be shown to enter the Ateneo campus, and then again to enter the library.  Security guards are prevalent all over the green campus.  Fritz swam for 45 minutes or so in the rain before we headed home for the day. 

This morning, as we were heading toward the IPC office so Fritz could get an early start to work, a choir in one of the classrooms seemed to be practicing.  As we paid closer attention, Fritz remembered it was the Filipino national anthem and we noticed that everyone on campus had paused.  It was quite a sight to see hundreds of students all over campus, frozen in place, holding their umbrellas under the strong rain.  As soon as the song finished everyone resumed and carried on as though nothing had happened.

We had lunch with the Department of Modern Languages.  One of Fritz’s Tagalog teachers is friends with two of the professors in the ML Dept. at Ateneo.  The fall semester only has one month left, but we will be here for the entire spring semester, which runs from early November through the end of March.  All of the professors were very friendly and generous and it looks like Grace may be able to audit a class or two through them.  After a long lap through campus in search of a piano for Fritz to practice, we finally found one that only the Glee Club student org. has access to.  Fritz and Gorby (president of Glee Club) exchanged phone numbers for future piano communication.

We both swam at Ateneo on our way home where we met a possible new recruit for the Ateneo swim team: one of the two swimmers to represent the Philippines at the Olympics  in London.  We have our first venture out to UP-Diliman campus at the northern end of Katipunan for a concert organized by Richie Quirino, one of Fritz’s main research concerts here.  We’re hoping to head over early and explore UP village before the concert begins in the evening.

Love,

Fritz and Grace