I never thought that I would meet anyone here in the Philippines that shared the same interests as I. Little did I know that the father of one of my son's college classmates is a former military service member like myself. He's Filipino, but his English is as good as mine. His wife and children speak good English as well.

Joel is going to college for a second career and will return to the US when he gets his degree in nursing. There's a huge demand for nurses of all kinds in the US and they get paid very well.

They live down the road from us, not far at all. It's amazing how close they live to us and yet we just recently talked to them for the first time (yesterday in fact). Jonathan went to his classmate's 17th birthday party. I was a little confused, so I had to ask a few questions. Normally, people graduate from high school in the US at around 18 years of age. His daughter graduated at the age of 16. So, how did she graduate at 16 in the US.? She didn't. She was a sophomore in high school (10th grade) in the US. When she arrived in the Philippines, they made her a senior in high school (4th year instead of 2nd). There are only ten grades here as opposed to twelve in the US. So… that explained how she was going to college at 16 years old after leaving the US.