Success of the week: I made it to and from (by taxi) one of the big computer warehouse centers in Jakarta where I bought a new power cord. Granted, a student told me today that I should have bargained with the seller for it, but I just get inordinately proud of myself for every little victory towards being an independent person in Jakarta. My next challenge is learning more Bahasa Indonesian.

I did learn one magic word this week. My problem was that I could get on the little public transportation red vans (ongkos--I can pronounce it, but I'm not sure how it's spelled) because all you have to do is stand on the side of the road and wait for one to come by, but I couldn't get off because I didn't know how to tell the driver to stop where I wanted to be let off. This meant that I would either get off with someone else close to where I was going and walk the rest of the way, or wait until traffic slowed enough for me to jump out at an intersection. A few days ago, I figured out that you can say "ini," which means "here." I'm still amazed at how well it works.

A couple of you have asked about leaving comments. I think that all you have to do is click at the bottom of the post where it says (right now) "0 comments." A new window should pop up where you can comment to your heart's delight.