The New Kid: Part 2

So... today's been going a lot better than the last two days. I've pretty much made friends in both of my classes so far, which is nice... and in both of those classes, everyone knows that I can't understand/speak tagalog very fluently.

So the truth is out.

In my first class HBO (or Human Behavior in Organizations), the teacher seems really really cool. She's an alumna herself of the university. And she just seems really chill.. which is cool. Before class started, I found two girls who were kinda sitting by themselves, so I asked them "Excuse me, is this the Human Behavior in Organizations class?" You know.. to kinda open it up for discussion... and they replied that it was. Then I explained to them my whole situation... and they asked...

"So you don't have any friends yet!?"

I nodded my head in the negative.

"Sit by us!!!"

So... that's kinda cool.

My second class of the day was my Philippine History class... you remember, the one filled with all the young kids who are loud and obnoxious? yeah that one.

I sat alone again in the back. A couple minutes later this girl comes in and sits two chairs away from me. I see she has the same temporary ID that identifies new students... so I ask her "Are you new here too?" We talked for a little and it turns out she's from Manila (capital of the Philippines), she took a semester off, and is now studying here in Davao because it's peaceful.

The teacher came in 15 minutes late. And she's pretty cool too. She's really funny. She gave us a seating chart which kinda forced me into spilling the truth to everyone there...

I told her, "Maam, I'm from the States and don't understand or speak Tagalog very well. Conti lang (only a little)"... so from there it kinda went downhill or uphill or however you choose to look at it. She asked me if I had friends, I said no.

That's when the class went into an uproar. Shouts of "I'll be your friend!", "We're your friends!", "We have an american friend!", and the like arose from the class...

One particular girl (who actually seemed to be the class clown) kept making passes at me out loud, but not in a serious way really... more like she was trying to get laughs from the class.

The teacher told the students that if they have free time to show me around and stuff... the girl shouted out "I'M ALWAYS AVAILABLE!" Everyone laughed.

...so yeah... i'm kinda the talk of the town... or class i guess. After class, people came to me asking me questions about America... most of the questions were about the girls of America... haha... it was something like...

"Are the girls there everything we imagined them to be!? Everything we see on TV?!"

I had to laugh... I told em "Hey. There are beautiful people everywhere." Good answer right?

I have a two hour accounting class at 5:50pm... which i'm not looking forward to. It might be cool though. who knows.

Btw... a lot of the guys here have a very.. um... dirty mindset. And it seems that the girls tolerate it... I dont know. It's just kinda different from what i was used to at DCS.

So I got this book... it's one of the best books I've read.. or am reading. It's called Not Even a Hint : Guarding Your Heart Against Lust by Joshua Harris (You know... that guy who wrote the kissing dating goodbye book). The first part of the book is a great study on what lust really is, our incredible incapability of overcoming sin on our own, and God's grace and what exactly that is. The second part includes practicals on fighting lust (or any sin for that matter). The third part has more practicals on keeping strong and standing firm against sin. Good stuff.



I recommend it. It's really eye-opening too. Convicting... you know? Sometimes something comes along, beit a good book, a good sermon, maybe a couple words - something comes along every once in a while that completely convicts you and changes your heart... this book is that for me right now.

Anyway... I don't like reading really long blogs, so I won't put you through anymore. This blog is long enough. So good night and stuff.

I'll leave you with this quote from C.J. Mahaney which is used in the book:

"Legalism is seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and acceptance by God through my obedience to God"

Cy