Again.

I'm in the unusual position of telling people again that I'm still alive. Another earthquake hit Indonesia today, not too far southwest of Jakarta. This time, I was in a bus, with my eyes closed, listening to to the happy clamor of students on the way home from our leadership retreat, lurching and halting with the Friday afternoon traffic, and trying not to be too optimistic about when we might get home. Thanks to modern media, I found out about it pretty quickly, but no one on the bus felt it. We did see people who had evacuated their buildings along the way, but I didn't notice any significant damage. I'm sure I'll hear more tomorrow, though. We've had our fill of earthquakes here for a while. Who's next?

Not Too Shabby

From 4:00pm to 9:00pm, I went to the ATM, bought various food and household sundries at the local Quik-Mart (very much in walking distance from my apartment), paid my bills, bought minutes for my phone (again, local business in my neighborhood--I love it), watched TV, checked email, Facebook and my favorite blogs, exfoliated and moisturized my feet, took out the trash, finished grading finals, entered grades into my monster Excel spreadsheet, and packed for a retreat in Bandung.

It's a good feeling to get to the end of the day with more work done than I had hoped.

T-shirt Tweeting

Remember the guy who took the picture of my Kartini t-shirt in the Singapore airport? Turns out he's a minor Indonesian celebrity who tweets, and he posted the picture of me. This caused a minor twitter-fest among my students who discovered it, but I think I earned some major cool points with them.

Here's the picture, but please ignore the travel hair. I told you it was a cool t-shirt.

In the tunnel and looking forward to the light

With earthquakes in Padang (didn't feel it) and a fire in a north Jakarta neighborhood (going through my closet for for clothes to donate at church tomorrow), there are plenty of people suffering more than I am, but it's been a long week. Mostly, it's the mile-high pile of finals and other papers that need to be graded. My stack is still hovering about the 200 mark, so it's not really going to be a weekend. Grades need to be in by the end of next week, but I'm going on a retreat with the outgoing 11th grade kids in Bandung from Wednesday to Friday, so that cramps my grading time.

The stress must be getting to me because I've found myself close to tears twice this week over slightly frustrating situations that normally would just get a fleetingly furrowed forehead from me. On Thursday, it was the fact that I couldn't print from the library, and yesterday it was the birthday package for my sister that I had packaged/repackaged/re-repackaged and tried to send three times but was still going to be way more costly than I had thought. Don't worry: the document got printed, and the package was sent, though I think Erica might getting her presents from me around Thanksgiving.

I've also been on unsteady ground for what I'm doing for the next few months until the 10th grade students move up to 11th grade in January. Last year, I taught 8th grade, but this year it looks like I'll be teaching 10th grade, which is great because I get to know the kids before January and I'll have a lighter teaching schedule which allows me to reflect on the year of teaching I just finished and how I can improve for next year. As I grade the finals, I've been jotting down notes about what I can do to improve for next year. It's getting to be a long list, but it's also an exciting one. Anyone want an Indonesian pen pal?

All this (plus the October heat) means that going home for Christmas can't come too soon. I'll be in the United States from December 20 to January 6, and I'm already counting on cold weather, snow, and lots of catching up with family and friends. Can't. Wait.

Batik Day

Quick! It's not too late for you to find your favorite batik garment and wear it in celebration of UNESCO's declaration of batik as a unique part of Indonesian heritage. An interesting piece of subtext is that Indonesia has been annoyed by Malaysia's attempts to claim batik as its own to use it for tourism and advertising. Apparently, Malaysia is looking into the UNESCO issue.

Whomever it "belongs" to, President Yudhoyono called on Indonesians to wear batik today to celebrate. And since IPEKA participated, too, I wore my batik blouse from Jogjakarta today instead of my boring white uniform one.

I also slept under my double-sided batik quilt, which makes me happy every time I look at it and its glorious patchwork of colors and patterns.

If you're interested in learning more about batik, this is a great site to check out, complete with the step by step process.