Second Posting from Manila

I think we take many things for granted in Singapore.

I was in the Schools here in Philippines and here's the specs:

There are about 36000 primary schools here and in each school, you can average it at 5000 students and there are 40 teachers. They split the kids into 2 sessions and well, in Singapore, the teachers can follow say teach just one session. Here, the teachers teach BOTH sessions. There are about 4500 secondary schools. Well, it averages 3000 students but they have only 20 teachers and yes, they too teach both sessions. We have alot to thank for in Singapore. We talk lots about student teacher ratio etc. What amazes me is how they continue to groom talent here.

I visited a vocation college here and the academic director took out works of art in multimedia that got me stunned! I know Singapore is going heavy into animation too... but you know the pre-requisite in this college is the need to DRAW! Wonderful, rather than in Singapore where it can be a matter of grades: min 3 O levels, etc. And yet, things are tough here: the starting pay of a graduate is P12,000 (about S$400) and mind you, this is a guy with honours.

The more sober things aside, this is food and shopping paradise! Forget Hongkong! Every brand name is here and with so many malls, the brands are here too. Amazing! I went to a place called Greenhills yesterday and it was a flea market. What made it amazing with my first step into it was the fact that it was air-conditioned! Wonderful! Well, here, tee-shirts galore, bags, watches (the fakes), pearls, over-runs, handphones, shoes, shop till you drop syndrome! Guess I even found out that there's a cheaper place where these folks at greenhill buys from and I can't wait to get there! Bought Jen GAP over-runs and it was P90 (S$3) per tee-shirt. They only had white though. But yeah.. hee.. getting prepared as Sarah, my host here is saying I need to attend Mass before she'll bring me to this place. Supposedly where I will have to be on double triple alert!

Oh did I tell you that SKYPE, found at www.skype.com is a wonderful software? It allowed us to webconference and chat so well! Of course there's iChat... but it didn't work so good. wonder if it's the port thing. But my guru-ji is flying in tonight and he can sort it out! :)

Till the next change!