Maxed out!

Today I accomplished something I have never accomplished in all of my 9 or so weeks in Manila over the years: 4 interviews in a day! And all of them on tape! I was out of the house about 13 hours at a stretch trying to chase people down, but I found all of them eventually. Now all of my 9 tapes have interviews on them, and one tape has 2 interviews--sweet! :) :) Naturally, I spent at least 2 hours in taxis and 2 hours waiting for people to show up at scheduled appointments in addition to the actual meeting time. I was actually a little sad about the thought of leaving Manila until the 75-minute taxi ride home in horrific traffic brought me back to my senses (!).

There are so many stories to tell from this week in Manila, but for now I am thinking about pandas! I leave Manila tomorrow for Chengdu, China, via Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Deborah has promised that we will go see the pandas on Sunday--I can't wait! Then I'll give talks to her classes on Monday and Tuesday (having somehow prepared the presentations before then!). It promises to be another exhausting, but memorable week. Who knew being an academic could be this stimulating? ;)

I'll try to post some Manila pictures soon! Hope you're having a great weekend.