Friends, comrades, family, anenomes. Lend me your tears. This night is a good night because I am happy. Not to say that I am not happy all the other nights, but just that being happy at night is a choice as it is all all other times. Vespers tonight was up in the music building. There was a good message and it was rather refreshing. I am really starting to get into the whole groove here. If that´s what you can call it after already beeing here about four months. I practiced cello for about five hours today. About an hour and a half with the orchestra and the other hours I was practicing with Marisa on the piano. We are going to be doing special music this coming Monday for week of prayer which starts tomorrow. We are going to be playing ¨Be Still my Soul¨. We´re starting in E flat major and transposing for the last little glitch into F. It´s coming along well, and it is really nice to play the cello with someone on the piano. Something I haven´t done in a long time.

Well hello there all you peoples. I haven´t blogged for the last few weeks as many of you know because I was busy having fun in the Philippines. Yes they did have internet, but it was so slow and unpredictable that it was rather impractible to try and blog every week. With that said, let us proceed to the issue at hand.

I actually don´t feel alot like writing right; mostly because I am really tired and I just want to go to bed. Nonetheless, I will attemp to regail you with my recent adventures, blunders, and yes even mishaps.

I guess it is obvious that I did finally get my ticket to the RPI. I was very glad to see it. Other than being rather long, the flight to Manila was rather insipid except for one fortunate experience. It happened in Manila. When I was going through the place where they check your visa and take a bunch of money from you the lady at the counter informed me that I had overstayed my welcome by two days She told me that I would have to extend my visa at another counter on the other side of the room. I asked her how much it would cost and she told me; 2000 pesos. Well, that was a lot of money but it wouldn´t have been half as bad if I had even had that much money on me. I fretted for half a second and then I thought, well, I´ll just plead mercy. We had been talking a little bit before this about what my parents were doing in the RPI and what I was doing, so I decided to appeal to her that I was basically a national since I had lived there half my life. Well, it worked. Yay.

As promised, here is the next issue of MIS. These last few weeks have been really hectic. Finishing up the quarter and all. I had three finals just today. Fortunately they were all easy. I´m not realy sure what I am going to do for break. I am going to start by going back up to Barcelona, and then from there I´m thinking like Finland or England and Scotland. I couldn´t find anyone to do anything with, so I´m kind of in a rut there. The thirteenth or fourteenth though I will be flying to the Philippines. I´m really looking forward to that.

We had a big party the other night for Christmas and the like. We did something called Secret Santa. About a week ago we drew names from a hat. And then the person that we got on the paper we had to by a gift fo them that couldn´t cost more than five euros. Some people got confused and thought they said no less than five euros, but anyway. My teacher José Aniorte got me apparently, because he gave me a box of these fancy chocolates. They are so good. There are only three left. They are called Lindo Lindt. Sixty percent cocao! Amazing. I got someone named Angela who is also from Southern. I bought her four bars of these chocolate bars of different variety, and these peanut thingies. We had to kiss everyone that we got something from or gave something to, but fortunately for me, Aniorte wasn´t there. Actually, now that I mention it. In case you guys didn´t know. They kiss people here for greeting. Anyway.

Hello and welcome to another fun episode of MIS. In this issue we will explore the profound depths of human intellect in all its glory. To begin with, lets talk about my experiences this last week or so. Well, I went on the tour to Andorra and Barcelona (BCN). It was pretty awesome. I absolutely loved Andorra. We stayed in the Hotel d´Urgell in the capital city, Andorra la Vella. Its a large town amidst these rugged mountain. Barely squeezed in there like I don´t know how. There are houses perched up on cliffs, like you wouldn´t want to be a sleep walker and live up there. There is something that looks a lot like the Trans American Pyramid, but it is smaller. Turns ou that it is part of a gigantic spa called Caldea. Yes we went to it. It was pretty expensive, but the school paid for it, so its all good. We went to the spa the first evening for three hours. Next day we left and went back down south to the illustrious city of Barcelona, capital of the controversial region of Cataluña. BCN is a cool city, but it is still a really big city. What I liked more was what we stopped at on the way there. The Monasteri de Montserrat (Cátalan). I have really started to like monasteries. In order to be secluded and to reduce the chance that things will grow up around them they were usually put in remote, rugged places, such as the top of a near vertical granite mountain range. At least that is where Montserrat is. There was fog blowing by, rather cold. I have pictures at www.myspace.com/palawan I think that there is also a picture of the little pyramid at Caldea.