cool, email me at zmandel on the google mail system. I think your disposition would be more important than your grades. Squeak is not hard to learn, after all its meant to be used by kids, and, in any case, we can follow a scripted class. I'm not interviewing for candidates, I will accept any help offered. Regarding which one looks better for a Phd... I think volunteer work always looks good on any resume, and even better on real-life karma. Not everything has to be research and theory, we can contribute to the world in other ways too. People in this orpahage are very very poor, I never saw that level of poverty in the 11 years I lived in the USA. Some days the kids dont even have food to eat, since they rely on volunteer work and donations :( If you think you are not qualified, I'm not sure what to think of the orthodontist that currently teaches the kids computer skills.

Ok, a little off-topic but it would also look great on your resume. Come to Peru and help me teach programming to orphan kids in Peru. Im building a course in squeak (smalltalk, like LOGO on drugs :) to teach programming to the kids. The orphanage has over 630 kids and is all volunteer-run, with some volunteers living inside, mostly europeans. Watch some videos of the orphanage, its a youtube playlist and the last 2 videos are in english. I also have a software business with many years of experience working as a C++ programmer in top US software companies, and might be able to teach you a trick or two.