Some Lists and Statistics

Hello World! [note: if you ever took a computer science class you'd be laughing right now]
I just wanted to reflect (and gloat)on some of the lists and statistics I have been keeping: projects I am working on, books I have read, exotic foods tasted and the amount of text messages I have sent and received (it's really worth sharing).
The first list I would like to share are the projects I am currently working on. As an education volunteer, I am responsible for teaching in the classroom as a primary project, but I am also responsible for secondary projects. I am currently working with a non-profit in California, Youth Community Service, and a member of their team to pair penpals and organize a book drive. I have a dear friend named Emily, who joined me on my Namibia trip, who is now working with YCS and 15 students of middle school age. It was actually her idea to pair 15 of her students with 15 of ours in a penpal relationship. After organizing some of our students, we plan on sending the first volley of letters this coming Friday. Her students are also planning a books and resource drive, which is awesome. Our school is in desperate need of fiction; our library is stocked with archaic encyclopedias, old medical manuals, outdated computer maintenance books and government issued textbooks. Last November marked English Month, the theme of which was "Reading First: Sustaining the Love of Reading." Well, most of the students avoid the library like the plague and it's obvious why. With donations of fiction books, the students will, probably for the first time in their lives, have access to materials suitable for pleasure reading.
As a previous post explained, I am working on a sustainable computer maintenance project that will protect the PC's in our donated computer lab indefinitely. Without being too repetitive, I have found a free application, published by Microsoft, called SteadyState. This application allows the system administrator (my co-teacher) to reinstall Windows and set it up with the applications he finds necessary and then "freeze" the computer. The computer is now ready to withstand any abuse the students subject to it: viruses, unwanted applications, changed settings. No matter what the students do, when the computer restarts, all changes are erased and the computer acts like it did the moment the administrator froze it. The life of the computers are now only limited to the physical life of the computers. Finding replacement parts will be another story entirely...
Speaking of computers, I am co-teaching a web design class with my ICT co-teacher, Sir Erwin. We are using Kopozer, an open source, free and always available programs the basis for our lesson. Open source have really made sustainable computer a dream-come-true. Open source means that the application is free and always available for download. So having free access to Kompozer for all the students to learn on is better than learning on Dreamweaver, per se, which runs about $200 a pop. This class will last throughout the rest of the school year.
That's about it for projects at this point.
The books I have read! I have done almost nothing but read in my free time. Here is a list of books I have read: Fear and Loathing in as Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson, Side Effects by Woody Allen, The World is Flat and Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman, Freakanomics by Levitt and Dubner, The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain, A Long Time Gone: Memoire of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, The World According to Garp by John Irving, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman, Sarah Palin: How a Hockey Mom Turned the Political Establishment Upside Down (I have no explanations for this one) by Kaylene Johnson and Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama, a good portion of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and the first 50 pages of An Idiot's Guide to Judaism by Rabbi Benjamin Blech. Altogether, since August, I have read 3,600 pages.
For exotic foods, here is a complete list of all of the foods I have eaten here that I think are exotic and bizarre: Balute (14 dayold half-fertalized duck eggs), squid in it's own ink, danggit (filleted fried fish heads), fish eye balls, durian (the fruit that is banned from many churches because of it's stench), chicken neck and feet in soy and tomato sauce, fried chicken skull, BBQ chick gizzard and intestines, fried leaf, fish head soup, spicy pork intestines, pig brain, lapsung (cow blood soup with floating bits of fat, grissle and God knows what else), diniguan (the same as lapsung but with pig blood) and kinilaw (raw fish soaked in vinegar). The funny thing is that my dad sent me peanut butter from the states and everyone was concerned for my health for that (because of the salmonella outbreak) and not for anything mentioned above!
As for texting, the Philippines is the SMS, texting capitol of the world. Since August, I have sent 5,306 messages and recieved 6,714 messages. Word.
So there is my "lists and statistics" update for y'all. Hopefully I will soon have a special on my house, with pictures!
Peace.