And it all starts with Karen Murry

I have been contemplating on what to write here for a few days now. Really, this whole summer has basically been a complete bust. They keep telling us that "oh you have to be here in a few days" or "oh you don't get any time off this summer." Then we find out that we had ridiculous amounts of time. I really wanted to go home. We haven't been home in over a year now. And I went to the school several times to get a definite schedule so that we may plan our vacation. They just tell me that we are not going to have a vacation. Basically, our duty will end June 10 and we will start back June 14.
So, I pushed aside all thoughts in my head about going home. I prepared for the worst. Then I find out that our duty actually finished mid may because they messed up the scheduling yet again, and so I wasted perfectly good time to go home. But that is not the worst of it. They told us at the end of our duty that enrollment would be May 26. Joaquin and I were planning on going to Kalibo for a little vacation, but postponed it because of the enrollment date. When May 26 came around...no enrollment for 4th year. That is not until Jun 5. Basically, Joaquin and I have been sitting at home doing nothing ever since then. Then they also tell us that we need ANOTHER medical physical before duty. I knew I had one more time to look forward to pooping in an old film container...That I will have to take care of tomorrow. There is one thing that you can count on in the Philippines: The Philippines's unpredictability is so predictable.
On the other hand, there have been some interesting things that would pop up in our path and disturb our internet time. Just last weekend, a monk named Kelsang Tonglam came from Asia to do some Dharma talks at Bliss Cafe. So we attended a class on meditation on Saturday for a full day event. It was quite relaxing and productive. I have meditated myself a few times before, but this has been the most invigorating. I had somewhat of an out of body experience. Joaquin said that he realized it was the first time that he has ever meditated before.
We also discovered how much we love the good ole U S of A. We have been freaking out for a while about getting our passports renewed. It's a pretty difficult process considering we are out of the country and the school wouldn't even let us go home. I was told that we had to go to the US Embassy and that's all the way in Manila. Then Joaquin made a phone call. Within minutes, our passport "package" was sent to our door by Fed Ex and all we have to do is add the picture and fill out the info. If you had to renew a Philippine passport, that takes months to process and take care of.
Let me see...now with all this extra time that I seem to have on my hands, I decided to use it quite constructively. After I figured out how to make money online without doing anything at all, I started to work on my family tree. I became interested in this task last year, when we visited my Uncle Tim in New York. I realized that I actually do not know ANYTHING about my family. On both sides even. But it is best if I do research one side at a time. My mother's side will probably be a bit harder considering most of them are in the philippines, and would just require me to ask a lot of questions.
I began by downloading the program at www.myheritage.com. It works extremely well, but unfortunately with the amount of family that we have, it will cost about $35 a year to run it. So I decided to move the site over to Geocircles where I think it's even more private and completely free.
Well, there were new things that I have discovered that I will not get into yet again for the 80 millionth time after emailing them to every family member. But lets just say I have made quite an accomplishment. I was able to trace our family through my great grandmother all the way to the 1400s. Maybe even further, but I got a little tired. I am really trying to fill in these nagging gaps in our time lines and its extremely difficult. I am trying to get people to physically go to court houses to get information. Basically proof that people even existed.
When I do finally come home, a long overdue family reunion will be in order. I am hoping that this whole genealogy thing will bring us way closer together. I know that recently, I have been chatting with family members that I have not spoken to in years. I even found a new one in TX and we try to chat more often.

Ok, I just had to do this, but if anyone reading this is interested in making money online, a seriously doing absolutely nothing except leave your computer and internet on, click this link:

Make money ;)

I think I will add pics and stuff next time...not that we have any