greetings from philly! today, i had my very first genuine philly cheese steak. only, of course, around here they just call it a cheese steak. that always throws me off. i forgot that here in philly, there would be no reason to call it a philadelphia cheese steak, cuz obviously i'm here. same thing happened to me in france, when i was searching the menu for french onion soup. hello, janet.... it's right there. they call it onion soup. =p

the days we've been here thus far have been cloudy and sprinkly. tomorrow is supposed to clear up more. so far i've been to northwest philly, north, west, through center city, and am currently in south philly. we've eaten korean food, vietnamese food, chinese (semi-fake lunch special), cheese steak. benji and i conducted our teacher training at SEAMAAC for the English teachers of recent immigrants, facilitating discussions on critical pedagogy and linking theory to practice. we went to a house get-together in our honor, pretty much. most of the folks were korean americans involved in the korean drum group Sori Mori (www.sorimori.org). then we went to visit benji's comrade who works at the philly department of education as a curriculum specialist. she filled us in on some tings about the school system out here, the communities, and the charter school that she is helping to open up (as well as all the political b.s. around it). AAU (asian americans united) is the organization that is basically opening up this school in the heart of chinatown. very awesome proposal. i only hope it gets approved despite all the political crap. we also visited the AAU office, met the full-time staff, and now we are here in south philly at the home of a well-respected writer, educator, and activist. we've met her whole family and it's been such a pleasant experience just seeing the daily life of such a person, as well as getting to know her personally. =) tomorrow we've got more folks to meet and places to hit up. lots of good work and good people out here in philly.