International Mail

In which I ignore my summer sabbatical from blogging to talk about the weather

2010-09-05T18:07:00.002+07:00

Rainy season never ended in Jakarta this year. Normally by September, I'm breaking a sweat two minutes after I walk outside into muggy, thick heat. But this year, month after month has brought thunderstorms or plain rain up to several times a week. Someone told me it's El Nino or La Nina, but I'm not complaining. I've always loved a good thunderstorm, and rain in Jakarta beats down the pollution, cools the heat, and leaves us with blue skies and fresh air.

Of course, enjoying rain is a something of a luxury, one that I usually enjoy from indoors or inside a taxi. For many people, rain is a inconvenience and a hassle that does more than just snarl traffic beyond ordinary wretchedness, but I love the ingenuity and preparedness that I see in Jakartans. If you're out driving when the first drops start to fall, you'll see lines of motorbikes pulled over on the side of the road while riders retrieve rain jackets, ponchos, waterproof pants, or even large garbage bags from their storage compartments. Street vendors stretch tarps over their carts, and people find any kind of roof under which to wait out the rain.

I was not so prepared last week. When I decided to make a quick trip to the grocery store last weekend for some last-minute ingredients to round out a salad for a potluck, I knew that I was flirting dangerously with the growly-looking weather. I would have stuck an umbrella in my purse, but somehow I've lost both my umbrellas. I made it to the mini-bus before the heavens opened, but by the time I needed to get off, I knew that I couldn't avoid getting very wet. I dashed into the grocery store, getting some laughs from the security guards, who laughed again when they saw me walk out.

My grocery list?
2 yellow peppers
1 candy bar
1 umbrella

Australia (alternatively titled: "What has taken me so long?")

2010-05-15T12:18:00.011+07:00

Australia was not the trip that I would planned for myself (that is amply demonstrated by the numerous times we went shopping, the lack of museum visits, and the vast numbers of photos of students that I took, photos that I will not be showing you because I think it would be weird if pictures of me popped up in my teacher's blog), but it was still a great trip, not least because I got to see some of my students outside of the school context.

And it was Australia, where I felt surprisingly at home and started playing the "where would I live in Australia?" game (answer: Melbourne).

Brief chronology:
Sydney--We arrived Tuesday morning after an overnight flight and left Saturday morning. We spent some time visiting our "sister" and "brother" secondary schools and touring the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales.

Brisbane/Gold Coast--We arrived late Saturday morning and stayed in a tourist town called Surfer's Paradise. We were here for pure theme park pleasure: DreamWorld and MovieWorld. We left early Monday morning.

Melbourne: We visited two more universities (Monash University and the University of Melbourne) on Monday and Tuesday before flying back (via Sydney) on Wednesday.

Ok, so you knew these pictures were coming, so I'll just get the Opera House out of the way right from the beginning. It's an incredible structure, and we saw it on a beautiful day, so I had way too much fun experimenting I've spared you from many of the "playing around with these cool functions on my camera," but forgive me if I still have too many favorites.

Here's what I mean when I said that it looks kind of funny from close up. Please ignore the tilt.

And my postcard perfect picture?

Thank you "vivid blue" function.

I don't know if you can tell from the photos, but Sydney Harbour (should I include the "u" in harbor or not?) is really big, much bigger than it looks in Finding Nemo.

This is the Harbour Bridge (to get into your best Australian accent, trying dropping your "arrrs" when you say "harbour). It's not on quite as many postcards as the Opera House, but it's definitely a city landmark. If I'm ever in Sydney again, I want to do the Bridge Climb to the top.

Isn't it cool? When deciding on a print to buy as a souvenir, I wanted to say "I was in Sydney" not "I WAS IN SYDNEY!" so I went for the Bridge and not the Opera House.
I would like to explore Sydney more. It has modern skyscrapers and office buildings.

But also beautiful older buildings.

And it has Bondi Beach, where I was able to spend a whole afternoon. When the kids wanted to go shopping for the umpteenth time, our tour guide let me stay at the beach for a couple of extra hours. Reading, walking on the beach, people watching, sunbathing, swimming in the ocean, and playing in the waves made for a beautiful afternoon.

Again with the tilt. I'm sorry. My head must have been on crooked.

I don't have many pictures from the theme parks on the Gold Coast because roller coasters are pretty much the same the world over, but I had encounters with Australian wildlife in DreamWorld. Here's the baby koala I held. It had some cheesy name like "Pepper," but it was very cute and soft.

I'm pretty sure that I petted a kangaroo, but I actually don't remember. They were really placid, trying to stay cool at midday, so I saw no bouncing, only this slow, strange way that kangaroos move when they're not bouncing, which kinds of looks like a swing set or the wheels of a locomotive.

I have no good pictures of the Melbourne sights. For example, this one has runner blur and bus glare, but I really did like Melbourne. It seems like an interesting town with a strong arts and culture scene. It has a good public transportation system, and it actually has coolish weather, so I got to wear a jacket. If Sydney is a cool place to visit, then Melbourne is where I would actually want to live.

Here's the place where I had the yummy Vietnamese soup pho and where I laughed at the sign on the window.

And then, just like that, we were back.

Overall? A beautiful trip.

Dah-ling Hah-bah
(Darling Harbour)

It's not you...

2010-04-30T12:40:00.002+07:00

Dear blog,

I have neglected you sorely lately. Ever since I got back from Australia, I've had grand plans to put up beautiful pictures of the sights I saw to show the fun I had. But you know what coming back from a trip is like. There's dirty laundry to wash and souvenirs to distribute to friends and then there's work to catch up on.

Ah yes, the work. It seems like a mountain of work was waiting for me when I got back, and I'm still not out from under it. It seems like no matter what I do (waking up early, staying late at school, clearing my weekend schedule), the work doesn't go away or get any better. And frankly, this month has been a long stretch of feeling like I'm not cutting it. I'm behind on grading, and when I get stressed, my apartment goes to pieces, and I forget to buy groceries and decide that popcorn for dinner isn't such a bad idea--again, and then the procrastination starts and then I'm swamped again, feeling like I'm failing my students, feeling disappointed with myself, feeling like I'm just not good at life right now.

I'm hoping that I've turned a corner. I'm hoping that April showers bring May flowers. I'm hoping that the women's retreat I'm going to this weekend will be a time of refreshing, a time of feeling the Savior's love and encouragement, a time of renewal.

I'm hoping.

Warmly,
Laura

Australian Ode

2010-03-31T10:09:00.000+07:00

Oh what a joy,

To drink water from the tap.

Australian Lament

2010-03-29T17:03:00.001+07:00

The trouble with coming to Australia
in autumn
is that they are all summer brown,
while I
(an indoor creature in Jakarta,
who moves from air-conditioned space
to air-conditioned space)
am white white white,

until I got sunburn
on the backs of my legs.

Surprises

2010-03-27T16:54:00.002+07:00

When I asked one of my students what was surprising about Australia, she said PDA (a newly aquiredand quickly adopted acronym for her) and prices.

Yes, Australian boyfriends and girlfriends are more demonstrative than their Indonesian counterparts, and yes, stuff is much more expensive, but for me, Australia feels comfortable. I understand people (how exciting to eavesdrop again!), and I can make myself understood. I don't have the constant nagging feeling that I'm doing something wrong to offend someone.

So beside the theme park and getting to hold a koala, besides visiting Bondi Beach, besides meeting with Australian teachers, besides the good food and lovely hotel, it's been nice to feel a little bit closer to my cultural home.

Of course, I broadcast my "not-from-hereness" as soon as I take out ridiculously large bill, fumble with change, or open my mouth and let forth my Midwestern accent. But when I apologize or say thank you, I hear that wonderful Australian expression in reply:

"No worries."

Sydney, briefly

2010-03-24T16:56:00.002+07:00

It's impossible to describe any trip without resorting to cliches like amazing and incredible, but so far, this one has been pretty good, particularly because it's a treat to interact with my students outside of school. We've done a little too much shopping and not enough museum-going for my taste, but I only have my parents to blame for my taste. I'm taking pictures of all the things you would expect me to photograph (Opera House, students, city at night, waterfront), and some of them have even turned out well. We still have a few days left in Sydney and a bit more free time, so I'm hoping to see more and find some souvenirs that are better than a koala keychain. I have seen some items for sale made from unmentionable parts of a kangaroo, but I don't think those will make it into my suitcase.

Just a snippet that made me laugh today: Outside the Queen Victoria Building (shopping center), there's a majestic statue of the lovely queen, and a few yards away, there's a much less majestic but much more entertaining fountain that features Ivan, the queen's beloved Scottish terrier. The money tossed in goes to charities for deaf and blind kids. If you stand nearby, every couple of minutes you'll hear a recording say:

"Hello, my name is Ivan. I was once the companion and friend of the great Queen Victoria. Because of the many good deeds I have done for the deaf and blind children, I have been given the power of speech. If you cast a coin into the wishing well now, I will say thank you. (Pause.) Thank you. (Woof! Woof!)

And if you're like me, you'll laugh a lot and then whip out a notepad to take notes.

I'm going to...

2010-03-22T16:04:00.002+07:00

Australia! We leave tonight, and tomorrow morning, I add my sixth continent to my travels. Wish me luck! With 33 kids, 4 chaperones, and 3 cities to visit, it's sure to be eventful. I wish I could insert an Australian joke here, but I have too many friends from down under who would seriously roll their eyes. I'll just say that I'm taking orders for koala-themed souvenirs.

Pictures and stories to come soon.

Finally some Singapore Pictures...

2010-03-20T08:41:00.007+07:00

"What's with the no blogging recently?" asks my sister. Good question. Question to which I have no good answer. So I'll just put up some of my Singapore pictures as an apology.

We started at the airport.

We ate these yummy noodle pancake things
with sugar (the orange stuff) and shredded coconut for breakfast.

We rode this bus.

Don't worry; we wore sunscreen.

The bus took us through Little India.

We ate lunch near here.

We enjoyed art.

What is this, you ask?

A merlion, obviously. You heard it right.
Not a mermaid or a merman but a merlion.

We played with mirrors in a jewelry store before
one of us got a nose piercing. (Hint: it wasn't me.)

I liked taking pictures in Little India of people,

vegetables,

and shoes.

We went to Chinatown on Chinese New Year's Eve.

I got fancy with my camera.

It was crowded.

And colorful.

We went to the night safari.
I have no more good pictures of it because it was dark.

We bought bangles from this store in Little India.
Did I mention that we liked Little India?

We had fun.

For my amusement...

2010-02-26T10:37:00.002+07:00

Because Indonesia has no reason to care about the Olympics, I haven't watched any of the Olympics this year, though I've been casually following the events through Internet news. You have not idea how it hurts me as a self-professed Olympics junkie to be only casually following. So until this morning, I had only seen about three minutes of biathlon at the Singapore airport on the way back to Jakarta a couple of weeks ago. By the way, what a strange sport that one is. And this morning, when I was talking to my parents, they pointed the webcam at the TV so that I could see the Olympic-themed commercials, the end of a cross-country event, and one Georgian figure skater's routine. And that was fun...until my computer froze and crashed. Yes, the computer problems linger. No, I don't want to talk about it.

I've been running at the gym recently, but I'm trying not to make too big a deal out of it because I'm hoping that it's a habit and not just a brief craze. Of course, by running, I mean jogging extremely slowly. And I'm clearly a novice because yesterday when I went to the gym, I entered all my information (type of workout, weight, incline, and speed) and was standing there gearing myself up when the machine timed out and turned off, but then something must have gone wrong because the screen was flashing and asking for a password, and I was pressing buttons right and left, and I thought about changing machines, but this is my favorite (yes, I have a favorite treadmill already), and so I just kept hitting buttons and when it finally restarted, the treadmill was speaking German. But, coward that I am, I did my "run" and then left. I'll keep you posted if this is a permanent translation problem.

Oh, and Australia is definite! Wahoo!

Oh, they make me laugh

2010-02-09T19:57:00.008+07:00

Question: Can you name any people from Russian history?
Answer: Napoleon Dynamite!

Wins and Woes

2010-02-06T11:42:00.004+07:00

So according to my track record, it seems like January is just not my month to blog. I could blame it on the weather, but this is my favorite time of year in Jakarta. In rainy season, it's much cooler and clearer. The mountains off to the south are visible most mornings, and I saw stars the other night. Even though the rain has inconvenient effects on traffic, I can't complain about all the awesome thunderstorms.

More accurately, I could blame it on my computer woes, which include a bad motherboard, a ridiculously high and how-can-it-possibly-take-6-to-8-weeks estimate, eBay comparison shopping, a trip to North Jakarta's computer repair center, a much more reasonable quote, a phone call several days later informing that an LED and more money is involved, and general demoralization.

So this leaves my computer access limited to school's impossibly slow internet or my old computer whose hard drive issues leave it vulnerable to sudden freezing only remedied by rebooting.

My computer difficulties are all the more disappointing because it means that I can't share the pictures from my sweet new camera that I bought over the holiday. Pictures of the luggage locks that I broke with a pair of barely adequate to the job pliers when I lost my keys between Indianapolis and Jakarta. Pictures of street scenes taken during long taxi rides. Pictures of my Christmas decorations (which are still up...here's to family tradition). Pictures of the Jakarta skyline taken from my school.

Enough with the griping. Here are snippets of recent excitement.

I bought a guitar. A pretty little acoustic. I put it in my lap while I surf guitar lesson websites and try to learn my way around a fretboard. I have sore fingertips to prove it.

I'm on a mission to spruce up my apartment. New pillows transformed my couch. A new rug is next on the list.

I have started the new year of teaching 11th grade with some moderate successes. I have a new teaching partner, so we're still figuring out how to operate together, but I'm cautiously optimistic that this will be my best year yet.

I just started teaching kindergarten Sunday school, which takes me out of the high school world of novels, analysis, essays, discussions, and puts me into the world of coloring, learning to read, and total enthusiasm. Last week, I met a kid who tapped me on the arm every two minutes to tell me, "I went to the dentist this week, and I thought it was going to be scary, but it wasn't" and "I like pizza and KFC." When I asked them to draw pictures of the best and the worst thing that happened to them week, one kid's best was getting new underwear. I am utterly charmed by them.

I'm going to Singapore next weekend for Chinese New Year with Carol and Disha. We have Monday off for Chinese New Year, so we hoping to fully enjoy ourselves on good food and as many tourist attractions as we can cram into three days. I've always thought it would be cool to spend New Year's Eve in all the major cities of the world, but Indianapolis is my biggest city so far. So I feel spending Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year as I should probably call it) in Singapore is a step in the right direction. Right?

In other travel plans,

[Just as a side note, it might seem like all I do over here is travel to interesting places, but in actual fact my life is mostly trying to educate young people, sometimes against their wills, which not always that thrilling to write about or to read. Plus, you don't have to travel far to find interesting places, so I try to hit as many as I can while I'm here.]

I'm probably going to Australia in March! I'm on the list of teachers to chaperone the 11th graders study tour to Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast, and as long as five more kids sign up, I'm there. I'm a little apprehensive (other teachers have said it can be an exhausting or stressful trip), but mostly ecstatic. I'm going to add another stamp to my passport and another continent to my travel log.

Oh, and Colts in the Superbowl? Me = thrilled.

Selamat Tahun Baru

2010-01-11T19:38:00.009+07:00

In keeping with tradition, I stopped blogging to enjoy my vacation, which was everything a good vacation should be--good friends, good family, good food, and good times.

A few highlights:
My flight from Chicago to Indianapolis was delayed long enough that I could driven the distance home twice during my layover, but I was proud of myself for being very patient after 36 hours of traveling. I only felt like crying once.

I actually grinned when I walked out of my house on my way to the dentist and saw that I would have to wipe fresh snow off the car. I got over that pretty quickly.

I visited family in Grand Rapids to celebrate the New Year and got interested in family history documents, which prompted me to take a different way home and take pictures of an old barn that might have been built by my ancestors.

Those pictures were taken with my new camera with lots of snazzy features whose battery charger I proceeded to leave in Indianapolis.

I did NOT put a dent in my father's car when I failed to get up our icy, inclined driveway and drifted dangerously close to a big rock. Instead, I asked for help from Dad. Good things come to those who surrender.

I went sledding with two little boys down the slope in our front yard that is really not so big. Going down is much easier and much more fun.

I caught the bouquet at a friend's wedding. Go ahead and laugh.

I got to play handbells at our church's Christmas Eve service.

I ran into one of my high school English teachers and networked. A little weird.

I watched the Colts lose. Twice. I left the country so they would start winning again.

And so I'm back, thankful for a good holiday and excited (if overwhelmed) to start school again.

And what does "Selamat Tahun Baru" mean?
Happy New Year!

I should be packing...don't tell

2009-12-18T18:48:00.004+07:00

In about three weeks, a very tired traveler will walk through the door of my apartment. Now, I want to make things as pleasant as possible for her, so there will be...

-clean sheets on the bed for when she crashes
-tidy right angles and parallel lines to soothe her travel-worn sensibilities (except for the couch which has a new diagonally-oriented location that I love)
-clean floors so she can enjoy being barefoot again
-no dust bunnies or dirty dishes for her to clean
-a neatly folded blanket on the couch for an afternoon nap
-Christmas decorations still up for her to enjoy (I can't help it; I like them too much)
-lentil stew in the freezer waiting to be reheated when she's hungry
-ice cubes and a full jug of water for when's she's thirsty
-clean clothes, especially pajamas, in the closet

Have I forgotten anything?

Just to mention that I can't wait to be leaving tomorrow to go home. My flight leaves at 7:10pm, and the taxi will be here at 3:30pm since I don't take chances with Jakartan traffic. That much is certain, but everything else is in a state of partly to mostly.

The laundry is mostly done (some is still drying).
The suitcase is partly packed (I threw in the Christmas presents but nothing else yet).
Those presents are mostly wrapped (I love bringing home wrapped presents).
The apartment is mostly clean (I still need to sweep and mop tomorrow).
The errands are mostly done (today I obtained chocolate, earrings, adaptors, minutes for my phone, a printed itinerary, newly adjusted glasses, and pencils).
The carry-on is partly packed (in my head, at least).
The dishes are mostly clean and put away (but I keep dirtying new ones, goshdarnit).
The electronics are partly charged (and I still need to sync my iPod).

And I am 100% ready to be home.

What did Laura do yesterday?

2009-12-15T08:41:00.003+07:00

How did I spend my first real day of vacation, you ask? (Weekends don't count by the way.)

I woke up early. I called my family. We had a family conference on how/where/when to spend Christmas/the days before/the days after.

I tidied my apartment. Tidied is perhaps to mild a word because there was definitely scrubbing involved. Desperately needed scrubbing.

I did laundry. Is it strange that it still gives me a great deal of pleasure to put my dirty clothes into a laundry machine and not into a bucket?

I watched a lot of Gilmore Girls. I know that I am late getting on this bandwagon, but I am definitely enjoying the ride.

I didn't get dressed all day. Corollary: I didn't leave my apartment all day except to dump the trash down the chute right outside my door.

I made mashed potatoes for lunch. The great thing about living alone is that no one gives a second thought to how much you're eating. They were pretty delicious.

I regretted the amount of mashed potatoes later when I fell into a starch-induced coma and conked out of the couch for most of the evening.

I rallied after the coma for a shower and a couple more episodes of Gilmore Girls and...I stayed up until midnight!

Today will be more interesting, I promise.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2009-12-08T21:20:00.003+07:00

When my birthday package from my parents arrived yesterday, it included a handful of lovely handmade ornaments. Not having a tree to decorate, I could have let them sit in a box somewhere in my apartment, but I got inspired.

As it turns out, a two foot fake Christmas tree with twinkly lights, gold star ornaments, a tinsel garland, red ribbons, and a tin angel on top has an extraordinary power to make me smile.

When I don't feel like doing dishes...

2009-12-07T20:29:00.005+07:00

I put on my cute apron in this fabulous print.

I light candles.

I fill my orange bowl with soapy water...

and I whisk.

Three small pleasures = dishes done.

Giving Thanks

2009-11-27T10:28:00.005+07:00

Everyone loves an American Thanksgiving meal. Last night, I was one of only a handful of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving with 40 or so people from Indonesia, Australia, Japan, and who knows where else. Forget Obama as the great world unifier. It's turkey.

What's great about spending Thanksgiving overseas is that I get more than one turkey dinner. Early in November we had a Thanksgiving meal at church, my Bible study celebrated mightily last night, and today I'm going over to Joseph and Karla's for a third delicious meal. And my Indonesian Thanksgivings always have something a little unique. At our pitch-in Thanksgiving last year, we had sushi and Indian food, and last night's dessert included chocolate cake and donuts.

I'm pie-maker again this year, and this time I actually have pumpkin (thanks to a little foresight when I was home over the summer and my mother), Crisco (thanks to Karla), and a rolling pin instead of a bottle of sparkling apple cider (thanks to my grandmother). My only trouble is that when I cook something more complicated than dinner for myself, all the deficiencies of my kitchen supplies become readily apparent. I'm supplying mashed potatoes, too for our dinner tonight, and so my thought process this morning went something like this:

Ok, the pumpkin pie filling is in my big red pot and the pie dough is in my orange bowl (thank goodness I planned ahead), but I need the orange bowl to take the potatoes over to Karla's and I need the red pot to cook the potatoes, so I need to make the pie early, so that I can wash dishes and use them for potatoes. The red pot is not that big so I'll probably have to do more than one batch of potatoes, but now that I've put the potato peelings in the orange bowl, I need somewhere to put the cooked potatoes until I mash them. Red cleaning bucket...? No, no, no. I guess I could use the blue strainer until the red pot is done cooking the potatoes and then transfer them to the orange bowl. But if I use the orange bowl for the mashed potatoes, then I can't whip the cream ahead of time, so I'll have to bring my hand mixer plus sugar, whipping cream, and vanilla. I hope Karla has a bowl in which I can whip the cream. Wait, how am I going to juggle mashed potatoes, pie, whipping cream, sugar, vanilla, and hand mixer in the taxi on the way there? Mmm, that pie smells good.

It's all going to be delicious, and Karla finally has an oven big enough to cook the turkey. Last year, Karla prepared the turkey at my apartment, stuck it in my oven and then I babysat it while she made other preparations at their house. We drove the turkey back to her house, and I got all the credit for a turkey I didn't really cook.

We're lucky that we don't have school today because Friday falls on the Islamic holiday Idul Adha. It commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac, and people generally celebrate by killing livestock and distributing the meat to the less fortunate. I think that spirit of generosity is very appropriate for Thanksgiving.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some red pots, orange bowls, potatoes, and pies to attend to. Happy Thanksgiving!

Recent Pleasantness

2009-11-23T18:48:00.002+07:00

I had one of the nicest weekends in recent memory.

Friday, I went with Carol and Disha (expat colleague/friends) into the city for dinner at a cute little bar/lounge that Carol and I found a while ago. Delicious food, excellent company, and even some good people watching.

Saturday, we were required to go to a 30th anniversary celebration for the foundation that supports my school. I was expecting it to ruin my afternoon, so I gave myself an extra nice morning to put me in a good mood. I got coffee and donuts. I talked to my dad and my roommate. I bought myself a new book. I called my sister on the way there. I was a very happy camper who was then pleasantly surprised that the anniversary celebration actually featured some lovely student performances. Who wouldn't be charmed by kindergarten dancers in Indonesian dress dancing to "Jesus Loves Me" played on traditional Balinese instruments?

After the celebration, I headed down to Saturday night church with Carol and Disha. We got there half an hour late, so we decided that a hot coffee would do nicely. It was the rare rainy day in Jakarta when warm drinks actually sound cozy.

We stuck around because there was game night after church. It was a glorious racket of kids and food and charades and four-on-a-couch and all manner of good things.

Sunday, I went to Sunday morning church, heard an excellent sermon, went out to lunch at the yummy Italian place by church (delicious minestrone soup). Then I read some of my new book, took a divine nap, and did some blogging.

Sunday evening, I joined some Saturday night church friends for Christmas movie night. Since we don't have cold weather or crass commercialism to get us in the Christmas spirit, we have to do it ourselves. We watched Elf.

The end.

In Which I Do Not Mention Recent Pleasantnesses

2009-11-22T15:44:00.004+07:00

Again, I've been feeling decidedly un-bloggy, but this time, it's not for lack of interesting things to blog about, some pleasant and some decidedly unpleasant.

By way of introduction to the unpleasant, I remember being struck by these words when I first heard them, but I felt particular need to look them up recently.

"I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed."
~Matthew Henry

It has not been easy to be thankful that several hundred dollars was taken from my locked apartment several weeks ago, and I have felt alternately angry, frustrated, stupid, frightened, and cynical but rarely thankful. Yet in the manner of Matthew Henry, I am grateful that it was not my all, that it was probably taken by someone who needs it much more than I do, that it has been a part of my recent reflections on suffering, and that it has spurred me to greater prayer.

And the management of my apartment complex has taken it very seriously, particularly since it seems to be part of a pattern of thefts. They've interviewed all the employees, provided me with a safe, replaced my locks, interviewed me for more information, and replaced the bathroom stall quality sliding bolt on my door with a legitimate bolt and chain. They haven't done what I would really like, which is to say to me, "Don't worry about your bill for the next couple of months," but that would be too much to hope for.

I think it was one of God's little jokes that I discovered the theft the very same day that I gave a morning devotion on suffering. I told the teachers that morning (and I tell you) that I'm not sure that I can sum up my thoughts about suffering very well yet, but a combination of things--a Bible study on Philippians, the death from cancer of the toddler daughter of some acquaintances, reading (again) The Giver, and some Spirit-given urge to research and reflect on Scripture--got me thinking. Thinking not so much about why suffering happens but what it does.

First of all, I don't think suffering was ever intended for us, at least not in the way that we experience it now. But suffering entered the world as a consequence of sin, and with our hurts, confusions, angers, wars, depressions, deaths, harsh words, sicknesses, crimes, hatreds, secret pains, oppressions, griefs, injustices, weariness, aches, and wrongs, we have suffered. Lord, we have suffered.

But something changes with Christ. Christ was sinless and undeserving of suffering, and yet he chooses to enter into the grime of suffering. The image that came to mind recently was from the movie Slumdog Millionaire. In one scene, the protagonist as a little boy is locked by pranksters in an outhouse lifted on stilts over its pit of excrement. If that weren't bad enough, his hero--the Bollywood star whose picture he keeps with him at all times--has just arrived and is giving out autographs not far away. The boy has a choice, and for the sake of something supremely valuable to him, he plunges into the filth, races to his hero, and gets his autograph.

Christ, for the sake of something supremely valuable to him, has entered into the world and its pain. By some mysterious miracle, his Father has heaped honor on him precisely because he chose to suffer (Hebrews 2:9). By some mysterious miracle, we can embrace suffering as a calling to follow in his footsteps (1 Peter 2:20-21). By some mysterious miracle, we can call suffering a kind of grace (Philippians 1:29). By some mysterious miracle, suffering becomes an occasion for greater worship, faith, and service (1 Peter 4:15-16, 19).

Someone once pointed out to me that ugliness is not hard to achieve, but bringing beauty out of ugliness takes creativity and faith in ugly things. Thank goodness for a loving Artist.

My favorite insight came when I read Act 5:41. After the apostles have been publicly humiliated and flogged in the Sanhedrin, I read "The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering for the Name." What a change from the cowardly men who fled the scene of Christ's suffering when he was betrayed in the garden. What a difference Easter makes.

I warned you that I don't have any great summative thoughts about suffering. I don't pretend that my life has been filled with suffering. That would sound pretentious anywhere but particularly so in Indonesia. I don't pretend to know why suffering happens, but I want to be looking for the ways that my God is turning suffering into glory and bringing beauty out of ugliness. I want to offer my meager sufferings as material for sacrifice and opportunities for praise.

My reflection on suffering isn't over. Just this morning, I listened to a sermon about Paul and Silas in the Philippian prison singing hymns of praise to Christ in the dark hours of the night after a day of injustice and pain.

So today I am thankful for one more thing.

I am thankful for a Lord who has also suffered.

You've got a point there

2009-11-04T11:31:00.002+07:00

So, I've been trying to learn the 10th graders' names, but my techniques mostly involve consulting the seating chart, guessing, and "What's your name again?" Yesterday, I was employing all three in my quest to figure out the name of Mr. Row 2, Column 2, when he informed me that their class changes seats every week.

"Well, that doesn't help me learn your name, does it? How am I supposed to get your names right if I don't know where you're sitting?"

"Miss, you're supposed to learn my face."

Touche.

The Long and Short of It

2009-11-02T18:36:00.001+07:00

It's not that I've been particularly busy recently; it's just that I haven't felt bloggy. But I got inspired again this weekend, so here's the long and short of the last couple of weeks.

Long:

The leadership retreat two weeks ago was my last hurrah with my year 11 students. With beautiful, cool weather up in the hills around Bandung, it almost felt like a mini-vacation. We teachers had almost no supervising responsibilities since the programs were run by an outside organization, so we were free to enjoy each other's company or hang out with the kids. We watched them earning points to eat supper by participating in team-building activities (don't worry; no one starved), and I got to slip out of teacher mode and just enjoy being with my students one last time.

Since I've said goodbye to the year 11 kids, I've been in a weird transitional time for a couple of months until I get a new batch of year 11 students. Last year, I taught 8^th graders, but this year I'm teaching year 10 English and Study Skills. It's a good opportunity to get to know them before January, and it doesn't hurt that my teaching schedule is a bit lighter (no classes on Mondays or Fridays), which gives me some time to reflect on last year and plan better for next year.

Last week was a snore. Karla was out of town about half the week, and Carol was gone the whole week, so I had no one to bug, and hardly any classes to teach. I compensated by taking the morning off to go to the bank on Friday. I tried going on Monday, but apparently they won't let me take money out of my U.S. dollar account after 2pm. (I asked about four times just to make sure.) It only takes 5 or so minutes to walk to the bank, but I was drenched in sweat by the time I got there. Ick. Thank goodness for air conditioning.

I've had a nasty cold. I'm mostly over it now, but it's been a slower recovery than I expected. I've consumed mountains of tissue, cups and cups of tea, a whole bottle of hand sanitizer, plenty of cold medicine, and hours of extra sleep, but I'm still croaky, and it feels like someone's driving nails into my sinuses when I bend over. On the bright side, one of my students remarked that my voice sounds nicer when I'm congested. Thanks?

Saturday I went to yoga class at my gym for the first time in a couple of months. I always find yoga class vaguely amusing, but I was welcomed back with a friendly "Apa kabar?" (How are you?) from our instructor, whose black mesh shirt and navy swish-swish pants I know so well. I also got a "We haven't seen you in a while" from the guy next me who was wearing a blue striped polo, white man-capris, and a red terrycloth headband. Ok, maybe the clothing is part of the reason I find yoga funny, so in the interest of descriptive fairness, I wore my teal yoga pants and my black cotton/spandex t-shirt.

I also worked up enough courage to get a haircut on Saturday. I've only been to a salon twice now in Indonesia. I have this mistaken idea that no hairdresser in Indonesia knows how to deal with curliness, and I choose to ignore the fact that my hair is very forgiving of imperfect haircuts. Mostly, it's the language barrier that keeps me away from Indonesian scissors, but I haven't actually had a bad experience yet. And this time? Success.

Short:

I have 120 new 10^th grader names to learn, and I'm not very motivated. I think I miss my 11^th graders.

The funniest moment of my weekend was hearing a Nigerian imitate JFK's Massachusetts accent in "Ask not what your country can do for you."

I conquered the stubborn gradebook software and successfully entered all my grades and comments last week.

We had an American-style Thanksgiving lunch at church yesterday. Yum!

My current bedtime reading is The Magician's Nephew.

I got to teach people how to play euchre, and I'm hoping we can start a regular euchre-playing evening.

I accidentally bought chunky peanut butter last time I was at the grocery story.

My computer's power cord is shot. Likewise the battery. Lethal combination.

Work is eating up two Saturdays this month, so less yoga fun for me.

I've started mentally packing to go home and making a list of everything I want to bring back with me.

I just had three year 11 students who are leaving IPEKA to pursue studies elsewhere come in to say goodbye. Did I mention that I miss them?

Again.

2009-10-16T22:51:00.002+07:00

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

2009-10-13T21:04:00.003+07:00

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

2009-10-11T15:11:00.002+07:00

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

2009-10-10T10:04:00.004+07:00

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

2009-10-02T17:33:00.002+07:00

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.

Hong Kong: The weird and wonderful

2009-09-28T16:44:00.009+07:00

What would a trip in Asia be if not an opportunity to take pictures of things that baffle and confound?

Ok, the first two aren't from HK, but I did allude to them, so here's the Malaysian square toilet and the Man in Red.

And on to Hong Kong oddities!

On a wall along a street:

Parable of the ten virgins anyone?

This picture doesn't seem that strange (well, except for the half a zebra)

until you zoom in.
It reads:
"most important thing
laprotect natural from
environmental disinplio
Don't worry broke to every!
Life comes first"

Indeed. It wouldn't be fair to post that example of mangled English without also mentioning that this week I found a blog chronicling misuse of Chinese characters, often in the form of tattoos. Ouch.

This isn't so strange as interesting. Ever wondered how Chinese characters work on those dot-light signs?

Me neither. Until now.

Yes, I already put up a picture of the giant Buddha, but I didn't point out that it has a swastika on its chest.

Did I mention that the statue is not even twenty years old? This sent me researching to find out more about the history of the swastika, and it made me realize that the symbol is not so taboo outside Western culture.

And finally, my favorite night market stall sold...

...rows and rows of fake hair.

Hong Kong: Four Markets and a Wedding

2009-09-28T14:44:00.014+07:00

The happy couple

Is this getting boring? I have visions in my head that I'm turning into one of those people who pulls out travel photos and doesn't let up on how AMAZING and INCREDIBLE and AWE-INSPIRING the trip was for at least an hour. I'm not trying to be that person, but I loved visiting Hong Kong, not least of all for the people I met there. Have I mentioned that the wedding was lovely? That the celebrations lasted from 11am to 9pm? That I almost couldn't move by the end of the day from all the delicious food? It was quite the international wedding, seeing as the bride is originally from India, the groom is American, and guests came from Hong Kong, the United States, Singapore, India, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates. There were other nationalities represented, too, because Hong Kong itself is such an international city. I had just as much fun getting to know new people as I did catching up with Wheaton classmates. In particular, I had excellent hosts, church friends of the bride's parents, who welcomed me and one of the bridesmaids with beautiful generosity.

Bridesmaid A and our lovely hostess D who never let us out of the apartment without a good breakfast and rebuffed my thanks with a simple "God is good, sweetheart."

Having no good transition to share my market pictures, I'll just say that my roommate M likes to go to church and grocery stores when visiting a new country. I think she's onto something. I visited Indian church on Saturday afternoon, where I was roped into playing piano, which probably wouldn't have happened if they had know how long it's been since I regularly played piano, and I visited four different markets (that's kind of like a grocery store, right?). I first visited the Pearl and Jade Market in the Yau Ma Tei area after a spectacular dim sum brunch. I don't have any pictures, but I do have some very affordable pearls and jade to show for my visit. After that I did some wandering through the neighborhood and stumbled on the Yau Ma Tei market.

This part smelled. And my sister, the nominal vegetarian who hates the sight of raw meat, wouldn't have liked it very much.

A passer-by kindly informed me that the stuff in front on the left is dried preserved duck. He didn't give me any help on the rest of it though.

I think there's some durian (beloved but smelly Indonesian fruit) in this picture. Can you find it?

After the wedding, I went to Stanley Beach which is just as famous for its cheap tourist market as for the shoreline. What can I say, I'm a cheap tourist. With art, trinkets, dishes, linens, clothing, and "your name in Chinese on (insert object here)," I got a great start on my Christmas shopping. But I didn't get any really good pictures there except for this one at the back of a trinket stall.

This little kid was cracking me up with the animated interaction between him and his GameBoy.

My last market was the Hong Kong night market, which is pretty interesting. The vendors' stalls fill the streets and shut down traffic from early evening to after midnight.

This stall was my second favorite.

My favorite night market stall belongs in tomorrow's post: strange (to me) sights.

Hong Kong: Town and Country

2009-09-27T15:32:00.008+07:00

When you think of Hong Kong, it's the city that comes to mind first, and I saw plenty of interesting city sights.

Street views:
(The little red spider-like symbol on the blue sign tells you that there's an MTR station nearby.)

View from my bedroom window:

But I was also pleasantly surprised to find that there are some not-city parts of Hong Kong to discover.

Stanley and its beach are at the end of a 45-60 minute bus ride from the central business district.
To get to the wetlands park, take the MTR and a light rail line. Yes, I know that a wetlands park doesn't seem like much of a tourist destination (to people not raised by my parents). The ranger told me so.

(This shot might lead you erroneously to think that I have a spectacular telephoto lens or bird whispering abilities. Not so. I was however, able to manage a skillful combination of binoculars and camera.)

This bronze Buddha statue is out at the end of an MTR line. I was hoping to take a cable car to the top of the hill, but the cable car was under repair, so I went by bus instead, passing through some beautiful countryside on the way.
If only that trash can had been about three feet to the left...

Of course, it's a mistake to think that you can really away from the city in Hong Kong.

Stanley Beach:

Wetlands park:
Next time: day markets and night markets.

Hong Kong: The Waterfront

2009-09-26T10:53:00.006+07:00

One of my favorite places was the waterfront down by the art museum looking from the mainland toward Hong Kong Island. I visited at midday,

at dusk, and after dark.Here's what happened when I decided that I would look good as a part of the scenery.

What a beautiful view! Wouldn't I look nice in front of it? Let's try out that handy remote function on the camera.

Oops! That was the two second delay not the ten second delay.

Better, but too much bench and not enough view.

Nice enough, but what about all that junk I'm carrying? Let's get rid of that.

Finally: perfection. And bonus points for making myself look tall(er).

Hong Kong: The Beginning

2009-09-25T14:59:00.007+07:00

I averted a crisis today. Somehow I banged up my camera enough in Hong Kong that it wouldn't upload the pictures to my computer, but a trip to the mall and a multi-language technology consultation mostly fixed it. That means I finally have pictures to share, but so many that I think I'll break it up into several posts. I still have some time before I go back to school next week, so look for lots of Hong Kong pictures this weekend.

While I was in Hong Kong, it was hard not to compare it with Jakarta. For starters, if Jakarta is more horizontal--both geographically and architecturally,--then Hong Kong is all vertical with hills and high-rises everywhere.And if there's a sort of sleepy charm to my neighborhood in the evening, then Hong Kong is all hustle and bustle, with hustle early every morning and bustle until late late late at night.

If you're ever in Hong Kong, I highly recommend the Octopus card, which gets you on any of the public transportation systems in Hong Kong.

(The logo is what's blurry, not my picture of it). And with the excellent public transportation, it was easier than falling down to find my way from here to there. Here's how I got around the city:

MTR (or Mass Transit Railway. I went everywhere on this thing)

Double decker buses and taxis (the red and white taxis are way more expensive than Jakarta's Bluebirds so I mostly avoided them. I really like riding in the top of the double decker bus, though)

Tram (to the Peak for great views of the city)

Ferry (from Hong Kong Island to the mainland)

You've seen how I got there.
Next time: where I went.

Clothes make the woman...meet the man who makes the clothes

2009-09-22T15:01:00.005+07:00

So I decided to save my last clean t-shirt for the trip back to Jakarta, and naturally I saved my favorite. Well, actually it was more that I didn't want my favorite t-shirt dripping with sweat after a day of sightseeing in Hong Kong. But then...

(A word about my favorite t-shirt: I bought it a couple of weeks ago at a mall in Jakarta. It has a picture of R.A. Kartini, an educated woman of letters of the 19th century and one of Indonesia's early pioneers for independence and woman's rights. It also just looks cool, and it's a way for me to say that I love Indonesia and its history.)

...in the airport in Singapore, a guy came up to me and told me that he's the one who makes the shirts (there's a whole line of Indonesia pride shirts that are similar). I told him that I love the shirt, and he wanted to take a picture, so I gladly obliged.

Cool, huh?

Not all I'm cracked up to be...

2009-09-20T21:29:00.002+07:00

You would think that a somewhat experienced world traveler like myself would NOT:

forget the map I bought especially for this trip.
bring razor blades but not razors.
panic for about 5 seconds about the multi-entry visa I need to re-enter Indonesia before remembering I took care of it more than three months ago.
forget the 3 Hong Kong dollars that have been sitting on my desk in Jakarta ever since I got Hong Kong change in the airport when I paid for something in U.S. dollars.
check two symptoms on the swine flu health form upon entering Hong Kong (I'm recovering from a cold not swine flu, and I could have told them that, but no one asked me), which earned me a face mask and an escort downstairs to have my temperature taken. It was normal.
assume that "all plugs in Asia are the same" and not bring my universal adapter.
forget sunscreen.

You would think....

But you'd be wrong.

It's been a crazy week, but...

2009-09-17T05:00:00.002+07:00

I'm off to Hong Kong! I'm writing from one of the free Internet kiosks in the airport in Singapore, which means that this is going to be short because the sessions are only 15 minutes each. And yes, I know that I can restart, but my flight leaves here pretty soon. (Since third gate's the charm, I guess.)

The Singapore Airport and I are old friends, but I got to meet the Kuala Lumpur airport for the first time last night. The only notables were the square toilet seats (huh?) and the fact that a man seemed to have no problem coming into the women's restroom to aid with toddler potty training. Oh, and the guy I saw dressed head to toe in red. Jeans, jacket, shirt, belt, shoes, backpack, rollaway, and when I got closer-- eyeglasses, too. International travel affords plenty of opportunities for great people watching.

And I'm off! Pictures and anecdotes from Hong Kong coming soon!

The Promised Smattering...

2009-09-04T13:34:00.003+07:00

Seen: Michael Jackson buttons on a messenger bag in the angkot.

Heard: "I love you cool!" (yelled at me from the street).

Released: A 2000 rupiah note. Worth about 20 cents U.S.

Bought: Dishes and silverware (finally.)

Taught: An unit on journeys. New thoughts on "The Road Not Taken" too long for this post.

Disciplined?: A swarm of students flicking flakes of sunburned skin off the peeling scalp of a surprisingly calm classmate.

Discovered: A very nice little lounge perfect for dinner, dessert, or drinks on a Friday night.

Ate: Indian food three times in one week.

Cooked: pancakes at school with a friend.

Laughed at: The name on my new tax id card--MAIL LAURA ELIZABERTH

Celebrating: Ramadan

Looking forward to: Wedding in Hong Kong. Two weeks. (Not mine, if that was unclear)

Dreading: All the papers to grade between now and then.

EArtHquAkE!

2009-09-02T18:19:00.003+07:00

I had all these tidbits percolating in my head and brewing into a series of good blog posts, but they'll just have to wait while I explain that:

1) Yes, there was an earthquake near Jakarta today. 7.0 magnitude if you're curious.
2) Yes, I felt it.
3) Yes, I'm ok.

I was in the computer lab on the fourth floor with my last class of a busy day, when suddenly I had a weird feeling of vertigo. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that the feeling of unsteadiness was external and not internal.

Now, really I should have been more alarmed, but this being a Midwestern girl's first real earthquake (my mother tells me I slept through a modest one in Indiana at the age of 18 months), I was more curious. I did not climb under my desk, and what's more I didn't even give my students instructions to do so. I joined them at the window to watch the trees down below slightly swaying as though there were a breeze for the duration (15? 30? seconds)

The aftermath was actually more unpleasant than the earthquake. Students flooded the halls, and we didn't know whether to evacuate. The fire alarm (which unlocks the emergency exits) was slow to go off, the students don't take evacuation very seriously, and I ended up with a more grumpy and rushed end to my day than I would have liked.

But still: an earthquake!

I was wondering what effects my apartment had felt, and on the way home I was imagining broken glass on the floor, or the books on my unsteady shelf upset, but there was nothing. Not even the toiletries around my sink had been overturned. So you'll just have to take my word for it.

Makes All the Difference...Apparently

2009-08-26T08:55:00.001+07:00

This morning, during class discussion in the library, I was leaning against one of these sloping walls, having sat there purposefully because otherwise the boys sit there and slouch into inattention. But I was slouching now, and I was getting frustrated with the students who weren't paying attention. So I sat up.

It was like a miracle. All of a sudden, the postures around the circle improved, and the behavior improved with it. The conversation wasn't perfect from there, but it was a lot better.

I have a new reason to sit up straight.

Warning: Reflection Ahead

2009-08-25T18:32:00.004+07:00

I was humming a hymn in the hallway today, when I messed up the words in my head and sang "All things bright and beautiful, all teachers great and small." I laughed at myself, and then I thought about those stories of little kids mixing up the words of songs into something adorable and ridiculous. Like my mother who imagined the infant Jesus surrounded by vegetables when she misheard the line from "Silent Night" as "Sleep in heavenly peas."

Since I'm a little too old for that to be cute anymore, I started thinking about how I want to be a "teacher great," but more often I feel like a "teacher small." Someone asked me recently if I feel like a veteran teacher with a year of experience under my belt. The answer is no. Emphatically. I'm still waiting for the day when lesson planning comes easily, when classroom management is a breeze, and when I feel like I have enough time to teach/grade/prepare/review everything I need to.

In some ways, I'm a better teacher than I was last year. But mostly, I feel like I have a long way to go. In particular, I've realized how little I know about teaching English to non-native speakers. It's a different ballgame, and I'm still learning the rules. Sometimes, I feel sorry for these kids because they're my first batch, my experimentees, and I improvise a lot.

But here's where my reflection ended up: what I love about teaching is that I always have another class, another day, another week, another unit, another chance to do better. If nothing else, this job forces me to accept grace for my failures. And grace spurs me on to make myself a better teacher tomorrow than I was today.

It's been a while since...

2009-08-18T19:21:00.009+07:00

...a picture post. So I rooted through some old and new pictures to bring you this. Enjoy.

Here are some photos from when colleague Ami and I went to Ancol, Jakarta's theme park and beach on the north side of the city.

Boats on the beach. I think you can take these boats out to the Thousand Islands north of Jakarta on the Java Sea. Bet you didn't know I was so close to the (not quite) namesake of a favorite salad dressing.

Both times that I've been out with Ami exploring Jakarta, people have asked to take my picture. Actually, it's happened more often than that. Once when I was riding the angkot on my way to the mall, a woman plopped her baby on my lap and snapped a picture with her cell phone. I don't mind that much, but I joke with Ami that I'm going to start charging people for the privilege. I haven't, but the second time it happened at Ancol, I insisted on taking a picture of my own. So here's the photo of the people who took a photo of me.

It's been a while since Ancol, but it was only a couple of weekends ago when Carol and I decided to take an architectural tour of our neighborhood. Here are some of the fun things we found.

Traditional

Modern

Big
Small

Sticks Out

Blends In

Front

Back

And even though it's not in my neighborhood, just because I liked it when Erica and I drove by...

Color!

Indonesian Independence Day

2009-08-17T13:34:00.003+07:00

We kind of had today off for Indonesian Independence Day, but we had to go into school for an hour to attend the flag ceremony, which was a bit unpleasant. It involves standing outside in full uniform, and even at 7 in the morning, it's too much like a sauna to be wearing a blazer. Since I still don't really understand the Indonesian, and I don't know the songs, my participation was pretty much limited to counting trickles of sweat.

Actually, the songs always make me smile. The Indonesian national anthem sounds as much like stirring European band music as you could want, but I'm more fond of the Independence Day anthem because it sounds like the kind of song that you might hear at an outdated theme park ride and have stuck in your head for the rest of day (a bit like "It's a Small World").

But even with a slightly painful morning, I'm glad for the rest of the day off, particularly since I had a busy weekend to recover from. Saturday, after talking to the family (including roommate passing through Indianapolis!) on Skype, I helped lead worship for an evening church service. Have I mentioned The Gathering Place? It's a small satellite service of my church that meets on Saturday night in South Jakarta. It takes a while to get down there, but I've met a great circle of friends. So for a while, I've been doing "social church" on Saturday night and "Sunday church" on Sunday morning. One thing I love about TGP is that there are always people going out afterwards, so dinner and ice cream followed the service. Yesterday, I did more church, and then decided to go see Up before meeting Carol and some new friends for supper.

Now I have long been a sneaker of food into movie theaters, but I've moved away from candy bars and towards...fresh fruit? Yes, I snuck organic strawberries into the movie theater, after I washed them in the mall restroom and dried them under the hand dryer. It was totally worth the strange looks. And Up? Delightful.

One More Lesson in Humility

2009-08-13T16:12:00.005+07:00

Today's Tally:
One failure
One success
One I-don't-know-yet

Failure:
Just as I was 75% done with putting in a new jug in my water dispenser, congratulating myself on the drip-free installation and composing a blog post to that effect in my head...disaster. More specifically, my worst water jug disaster by far. On the plus side, my floor got an unintentional mopping. On the minus side, one towel doesn't quite cut it on a five gallon puddle (and I'm having flashbacks to helping friends dry out their flooded basement apartment two years ago). Why did I decide to stick my other one in the laundry ten minutes ago?

Here's hoping for better things with the next one.

Success:
I bought airline tickets to Hong Kong for a friend's wedding in September. I'm thrilled to be going because it feels like a make-up for the other weddings, babies, and milestones that I'm missing among my friends and family back at home. I also get to see a new city, and I have a beautiful dress to wear. The next project is Christmas tickets home.

I-don't-know-yet:
This is totally unrelated, but I'm thinking of buying a guitar and learning to play. What do you think?

The Apartment Complex Giveth...And the Apartment Complex Taketh Away

2009-08-12T16:43:00.003+07:00

When I moved in here, the apartment complex provided basic linens for me, and my kitchen was supplied with bowls, plates, teacups, silverware, and glasses in multiples of three along with the necessary cooking vessels and utensils. There might have been whispers that my use of these items was temporary, but when I didn't hear anything more from the apartment office about it, I figured I'd have this stuff for as long as I'm here.

UNTIL...Saturday morning when I got a knock on the door from two women who said they were here to take the stuff back. What? And I don't even get a warning call? I told them that it wasn't a good time, but we rescheduled for Monday. When they came back, they packed "my" dishes into "my" pillowcases but were kind enough to leave "my" dishrack and "my" frying pan. They also remembered to take the ash tray that I had nearly forgotten I had.

So until I go out and get some new kitchen stuff, I've been eating out of my tupperware with a cereal box spoon and a fork I got at a funeral (long story). Which makes me laugh enough that I'm not rushing out to buy dishes and silverware.

Another kitchen update: The Hanukkah miracle is finally over. I had to replace the gas cannister a couple of weeks ago. And of course, it petered out just as I was boasting to Carol about how long it had lasted.

An update having nothing to do with my kitchen: I had a really good day of teaching today. :)

Adventures in Volleyball

2009-08-05T21:17:00.005+07:00

Some of my students have been pestering me for a couple of months to come play volleyball with them after school. Now my volleyball playing is usually limited to one week a year at family camp (I promise it's not as dorky as it sounds), but I love playing, as long as the competition doesn't get more serious than trying to spike on your dad.

So playing with students sounded like fun, and yesterday I brought clothes to change into and headed down to the volleyball court. It took about ten minutes to realize that this was not the pick-up game I had imagined. The gym teacher was running the show, there were approximately a million kids there, and before I knew it, we were doing drills, balls were flying everywhere, and my old P.E. anxieties started to resurface, coupled with questions like "Can a teacher do this and maintain any dignity?" Worse, when I finally did get to play a game, I was on a team with 11th and 12th grade girls pitted against six middle school boys. I'm not sure that it was meant to be demeaning, but it sure felt that way. I bet it was fun to watch because neither team was acting like one: the little boys just wanted to pelt us with their surprisingly strong serves but got in each other's way when the ball was returned and they actually had to work together, and the girls on my team shied away from the ball and looked at each other accusingly when it hit the ground. They beat us 2 games to one, but at least I personally had relatively little to be ashamed of, which was my highest hope for the afternoon.

In other news, I discovered that I grade papers very efficiently when listening to country music. Thank you, Rascal Flatts.

Taking the Long(?) Way Home

2009-08-03T18:39:00.000+07:00

Today, traffic was so bad around the school parking lot that four of us teachers walked home. After sitting in the sweltering school van for fifteen minutes in the stuffy underground parking lot, surrounded by a fleet of unmoving cars who only seemed to be good for raising the carbon monoxide levels and with no hope of budging anytime soon, we abandoned ship. We didn’t save that much time getting home, but it was time infinitely more pleasantly spent. I never thought I’d be relieved to be out in the “fresh air” of Jakarta.

Normality and Grace

2009-08-01T21:14:00.003+07:00

This week has not really been that noteworthy. I’ve just been getting back into the swing of things, giving and grading a test, being disappointed by my students’ ability to do homework over the holiday, but very happy to see them back at school. I know I’ve said this, but it’s been fun to see Indonesia anew through the eyes of our new expatriate teachers. I’m reminded how much that used to be strange to me is now normal. Things like:

Food served in palm leaves

Toilets with sprayers attached

4:30 AM prayers projected from the mosque

Riding with 14 other people in a van to the mall

Giving taxi directions in Bahasa Indonesia

Prices in the tens and hundreds of thousands

I did have a new experience of my own this week when I took an “ojek” to school. Ojeks are motorbikes for hire, but they’re not metered, so the drivers are happy to rip you off, especially if your skin is light. I’m sure that I made a lovely spectacle for the people we passed, trying to balance purse and school bag with laptop inside while holding on and riding sidesaddle in my school uniform. I guess that’s the price I pay for missing the shuttle to school.

[Even though I still got to school with plenty of time, I was a little upset with myself, mostly because I had prided myself on always getting to the shuttle on time. But bumping along on the back of the motorbike, I realized that that kind of pride is only for the graceless. And I’m blessed to be one of the grace-full. I love and need James 4:6--“But he gives us more grace.”]

Tonight Carol and I walked to an Indonesian restaurant for dinner and then to the nearby Italian restaurant to get gelato. The gelato was exciting enough (have I mentioned how hard it is to find good ice cream in Indonesias?), but they also packed it with dry ice. One piece went into the water as we were enjoying dessert at the poolside. A second piece is in my freezer awaiting further experiments, and the third is bubble, bubble, toil, and troubling in a Halloween-worthy fashion in a bowl next to me. I know: mild thrills.

Feeling. Better.

2009-07-19T16:29:00.003+07:00

Well, my perfect record for health in Indonesia is over, but I'm better today. Lying on my couch in the fetal position for about ten hours yesterday seemed to do the trick. Along with the crackers and juice diet. Being sick by myself was not fun at all, and I'm a wimp when I don't feel well, but I learned that I complain much less without people around to listen to my whining.

Still, I'm glad for a holiday tomorrow to have one more day to relax before the madness of school begins again. But it seems that my music video career has had a major setback. Bummer.

In case you've heard...

2009-07-17T19:02:00.003+07:00

Yes, there were two bombings in Jakarta today. I was not in the city when it happened, but I heard about it pretty quickly from friends more technologically connected than I am. The two hotels attacked are in Central Jakarta, not very close to where I live (West Jakarta), but reasonably close to my church.

I wasn't worried until one of the members of the foundation that governs IPEKA gathered the expatriates at the end of our retreat and told us not to worry. He also suggested that we maintain a low profile for the rest of the weekend. Wise advice, since the bombings seemed to target foreigners.

I don't really know anything more than what you can find online at this point. If you want to see what the reporting is like from Indonesia, here is the link to The Jakarta Post. One point of interest is that the bombings could be in response to the presidential election last week. It isn't official yet, but it looks like the incumbent president, a moderate Muslim who has helped Indonesia move away from its militaristic/dictatorial past, won with a sizable majority. Also, in the April elections, the more radical Islamic parties posted significant losses. Altogether, Indonesia needs your prayers, for the victims and their families, for the perpetrators, and for the people in power.

Actually the bombings are not so much occupying my attention as my digestive tract, which has rapidly turned unhappy in the last few hours. It's a bummer because it's threatening to interfere with my music video debut. A musician friend of mine has asked me to be a part of his music video, and they're filming tomorrow. But I am not. feeling. well.

Happy Bastille Day!

2009-07-14T16:05:00.003+07:00

(Naturally, I am celebrating France's destruction of a prison by watching a televised parade of uniformed French people marching down the Champs Elysees from the Arc de Triomphe. It's actually kind of boring, but the band music is stirring. Goodness, my French is rusty.)

It was not really a good idea to arrive on Sunday morning and expect myself to start work on Monday bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but I've actually managed fairly well. Every time I have jetlag, I feel like I'm a baby who deserves to be praised for achieving a normal sleeping pattern. To date, I've slept through the night twice without pharmaceutical intervention, and while my output at work hasn't been spectacular, I haven't fallen asleep at my desk yet.

I've actually been fairly busy orienting new teachers to Jakarta and to IPEKA. Carol is our new English teacher for year 11. (Not that the personnel changes of a high school in Indonesia are particularly interesting to you, but Karla, with whom I've worked for a year, will be teaching year 10.) So my job has been to make Carol's life a little bit easier by overwhelming her with thousands of pieces of information like:

"Put your copies here for the office boy to take down to the copy room." (Have I mentioned we have office boys? We do.)

"This is where you can buy really yummy juice drinks. My favorite is fresh orange juice mixed with vanilla frozen yogurt."

"Those buildings over there, they're called Taman Anggrek, and they're my landmark when I'm out in Jakarta and don't know exactly where I am."

"Here's the section for English materials in the teacher resource room."

"When you need medication, you don't have to have a prescription. Just go to the pharmacy and ask for whatever you need."

"I don't really understand tipping. Just give them a few thousand rupiah extra in taxis and restaurants."

"Our students' writing skills are not as strong as their oral skills in English."

I've also taken Carol and Disha, another new expatriate teacher from the elementary school, to the mall and the grocery store, navigating taxis and angkots along the way. We're still in the early days of friendship, but I think we're all going to enjoy each other's company very much.

I am, however, missing Tim. He moved back to the United States during the holiday, and with him go some excellent conversations and verbal sparring sessions.

And now, with my suitcase still not unpacked, tomorrow I'm headed to a retreat (since when is 6:00AM a godly hour to leave for a retreat?) for the next three days with the teachers and staff from all the IPEKA schools around Jakarta. I'm trying to be optimistic, but I'm expecting to be a bit bored, so I'm bringing a new cross-stitch project to get started on. Go ahead and laugh.

From Singapore

2009-07-12T01:28:00.002+07:00

This is the third time that I've had an overnight layover in Singapore in my travels to and from Jakarta. I don't like it.

That's not to say that Singapore airport isn't nice. I'm using its free wireless Internet, sitting near the koi pond, which is not far away from a butterfly garden. They have a movie theater upstairs that shows movies 24/7, "art interactive zones" where you can make your own art (I did some wood rubbings the last time I was here), and comfy sitting areas galore, including leg-massaging chairs. Right across from me is "The World's Largest 103-inch 1080p HD Plasma Display," which made me laugh. If I wanted to, I could take a shower, work out, enjoy the rooftop jacuzzi, get a haircut, or (after 6am) shop in one of dozens of designer brand stores. I even found a powder room this time, which always conjures up luxurious visions of ladies chitchatting and re-applying lipstick in 1960s era ballroom gowns while their dates get them champagne at the charity ball.

But, the layover does get lonely. And that's always the worst part of traveling for me: not having anyone to talk to. Though perhaps I got what I wanted when I sat next to an overly talkative man from San Francisco to Seoul and again from Seoul to Singapore (we just stopped briefly in Seoul, so we had the same flight number and the same seats for both flights). He was also a leaner. I will admit to being squirmy, particularly when I'm trying to find the least uncomfortable position for sleeping, so Talkative Neighbor put up the arm rest, so I could get a little more room. But when he started leaning on me (in a way that seemed a little heavy for a stranger) for his own sleeping position, I thought we needed to re-establish social boundaries, so I put the arm rest back down. Problem solved.

So in Singapore, I'll walk around a bit, check my email, finish reading my book, maybe explore some of the cool things at the airport, but mostly I'll be looking forward to getting home to life in Jakarta. In particular, I'm looking forward to meeting a new American teacher who's about my age. We've corresponded a little by email, and she seems nice, so my fingers are crossed for friendship.

Best part about my trip so far: hearing a preschooler singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" from the back of the plane.

Second best part: ice cream sandwich.

50th Post

2009-07-10T03:42:00.006+07:00

Here's the problem with my blogging. I start doing interesting stuff and I stop blogging. Now I'm not sure what that says about my navel-gazing tendencies or lack thereof, but it seems like there's an inverse relationship between the fun I'm having and the number of times I've posted recently.

Which means that the long silence of the last three weeks has been a really good thing for me. Actually, you might have noticed that blogging dropped off significantly after Erica arrived as there was a huge spike in fun.

The best part about having Erica there was introducing her to all my favorite things and people. She met lots of teachers (and put up with lots of teacher talk), friends from church, and people like the man who sells me phone cards and the guy I buy bakso from at school (more on bakso in a minute). She went to Monas, the national monument, Taman Safari (where she got to hold a baby orangutan, fulfilling one of the desires of her heart), and Pasa Raya, a department store with so much cool Indonesian stuff that it can overwhelm the faint of heart.

I was especially proud of converting Erica into a lover of bakso and "Bondi Rescue." Now, there is no way for me to convince anyone in writing of the superior quality of these two experiences, so don't expect to be persuaded. In fact, you can probably just add this to your files titled "Strange habits and hobbies of Laura." I'm sure there are some big ones out there.

Bakso. I avoided trying bakso for more than eight months of living in Jakarta, a classic example of judging by appearance. But the appearance of bakso is not exactly appetizing. They are a pasty grey color, their texture is a little on the rubbery side, and no one has ever been able tell me confidently what kind of meat they're made of (beef? I hope?).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hellochris/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

However, my misgivings disappeared quickly when I found, thanks to my hosts for spring break, that these savory meatball-y things, usually served in broth with noodles, are absolutely delicious. They've become my favorite food at the school cafeteria, where the bakso man knows my "usual" now (sprouts and greens--yes please, MSG--no thank you). Even my sister, the quasi-vegetarian admitted to bakso's yumminess.

"Bondi Rescue." When I admit that one of my favorite television programs is a reality show about the lifeguards at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, I know that I'm fighting a losing battle against saving face (there's a reason that bakso gets a picture and "Bondi Rescue" doesn't). So it won't help when I say that it's not "Baywatch," and that I've learned about how to swim safely in ocean surf, and that there are some genuinely suspenseful moments like when a riptide is washing dozens of people out to sea, or there's a shark sighting, or an infestation of jellyfish, or thieves preying on tourists. Just to make myself feel better, I like to think of it as a series of modern day hero stories. And by the time Erica left, she knew exactly when "Bondi Rescue" was aired and didn't like to be interrupted when watching it. Me, I had seen all the episodes more than once, but I'm way too excited that there'll be new ones when I get back to Jakarta.

Having Erica in Jakarta was delightful. Even that time she gave me a heart attack when she wasn't answering the phone after being out in Jakarta by herself, which--of course--meant that she had been robbed, kidnapped, or killed, causing me to run frantically through a mental list of what I should do to find a lost girl who doesn't know her way around a city of 10 million people (do I call the American Embassy? the police? my parents?). When she finally got out of the shower and answered the phone, Erica was more than a little befuddled when I immediately burst into tears of relief and said "I thought you were dead!"

And it was heavenly to have her with me on the trip home. Twenty-four hours of travel feel a lot shorter when there's someone to share it.

Since we arrived I have:
Stopped in California to visit family.
Met a new baby cousin who won me over with her irresistible cuteness.
Enjoyed drinking tap water.
Unjetlagged with a little help from my faithful friend Mr. Benadryl.
Flown to Indianapolis.
Received clean bills of health from my ophthalmologist and dentist.
Eaten Chipotle.
Missed bakso.
Shivered. To my everlasting shame.
Worn layers. To avoid shivering.
Driven eight hours to northern Michigan. (I've missed driving.)
Spent a week at Cedar Campus, my personal happiest place on Earth.
"Counseled" 17-18 year olds at Cedar Campus.
Made friends with 17-18 year olds.
Learned to play Fluxx, which I recommend.
Heard the stories of my parents who just got back from a trip to Cote d'Ivoire.
Visited my grandparents.
Delighted in Grandma's homemade bread.
Missed friends in Jakarta.
NOT worried about traffic.
NOT worried about what time it is in Indiana.
Breathed clean air.
Been overwhelmed by the sheer selection at the grocery store.
Ooed and ahhed at fireworks.
Found that celebrating nationalism seemed less important this year.
Gotten caught up with some friends.
Not gotten caught up with enough friends. I'm so sorry.
Reflected on the last year.
Gotten excited to go back.
Packed a can of pumpkin for a Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.

That's the Cliffnotes version, which means my trip here has been mostly restful and filled with good people, good places, and good food. And in a nice way, I'm ready to go back. I leave tomorrow morning (Friday), and if all goes well, I'll be in Jakarta late Saturday night (EDT).

Briefly...

2009-06-20T09:53:00.002+07:00

Erica and I have had a great visit while she's been here. I've converted her to some of my favorite things, managed to stay on top of my teaching during a crazy time of year, prepared for a trip to the United States, and finished my first year in Indonesia.

What? I've been here a year? It seems pretty strange because in some ways I feel just as green as when I first stepped off the plane, but I'm actually getting pretty competent at living and working here.

More later, because I have to take a shower and finish cleaning my apartment before our taxi comes at 11 to take us to the airport. Lucky us, we're flying Singapore Air. Nice airlines make such a difference when you have to deal with them for more than 24 hours. We're stopping in California to see family there, and then we'll be on to the Midwest by midweek.

See (many of) you soon!

She's here!

2009-06-07T20:54:00.002+07:00

For the first time in months, I have a sister with me! When I asked her what I should write about her here, she said, "Say that I light up your life even when my light is dimmed from jetlag." That's my sister for you--charming and witty even when she's struggling to keep her eyes open at nine o'clock. I've already dragged her across Jakarta several times in two days, to church, shopping, for good food, and she has been characteristically patient and good-humored. "Time for Benadryl and bed," says Erica. She does light up my life.

Achoo!

2009-05-27T13:34:00.002+07:00

When I was reading this cool article about sneezing recently, I learned that infants sneeze mostly through their noses. As we get older we learn to sneeze through our mouths, and apparently, that's not as effective at clearing your sinuses. So when I got that familiar tickle in my nostrils today, I thought that I might try the baby way.

The resulting blast sounded so funny that I ended up with more giggling than sinus-clearing. And then I had to explain to the students within earshot why my sneeze made me laugh.

Happy Faux Birthday to Me!

2009-05-12T12:49:00.004+07:00

Today is my faux birthday. When you write May 12 in the Indonesian way (day/month), it looks like December 5 in the American way (month/day). It's not really that exciting, but cool enough to make me smile when I wrote the date for checking stuff out at the library this morning.

AND, I'm not really allergic to mangoes. Just to unripe mangoes. That's faux birthday gift enough for me.

Teachable Moment and Lesson Learned!

2009-05-11T16:14:00.002+07:00

I had a minor victory today.

My classes have been giving oral/PowerPoint presentations for the last few days, and today everything was going well in class 11.2 (not the case in another class where I tried two computers and two projectors before I got all the technology working). Of course, that's a lead-in to what went wrong, but I should first explain that giving a 3-5 minute oral presentation in English is pretty intimidating for most of my kids. They cope by burying their heads in their papers, mumbling, looking everywhere except the audience, or speaking so softly you can't hear them. To help them out, I keep the rest of the kids as quiet as possible, and I get frustrated on behalf of the presenters when the class is disruptive.

It's hard enough to keep 30 youngsters in the class quiet, but when a group of students from another class started making noise right outside the door, talking, applauding, and peeping in (distracting the presenter, the rest of the class, and me), I started to get angry. When the presentation was over, I went to the door to have some words with them, but I must have had my "angry walk" on because by the time I got to the door, they had scattered, sprinting down the hall like zebras fleeing a hungry lion. By that time, I was really POd, and I roared down the hall at them. (I don't really remember what I said, but it was loud and mad-sounding).

The trouble was that I only saw one face, and while I could make some guesses about the other identities, I wasn't sure enough to do anything. But I was pretty sure that they had come from class 11.1, so when I got there I made a "that was really disrespectful, but I'm sorry I yelled" speech in a "I know who you are" way. And then I suggested that they write a letter of apology to the student whose presentation they disrupted.

And here's the amazing part: THEY DID.

One kid wrote the letter, and the rest of them signed it. I don't know what felt better, solving my own little whodunit, or watching them do the right thing when they didn't have to.

Today was a good day to be a teacher.

Mangoes vs. Laura

2009-05-10T17:43:00.002+07:00

First of all, I should clarify that my complaint letter was a work of fiction. But next time my flight is delayed, the staff won't listen to me, and I miss an important meeting because of it, I know exactly what to write.

And now to the bad news. I think I may have an allergy to mangoes. I've had a weird chapped lip and itchy feeling around my mouth before, but I only connected it to my love of that beautiful fruit when my first mango in a while produced an itchiness that went all the way down my chin and neck and lingered.

It only takes one Google search for "mango allergy" to supply you with all the horror stories and paranoia you need, gruesome pictures included. Turns out mangoes produce a chemical similar to the irritant in poison oak and poison ivy. Poison ivy and I have already had a long and turbulent history, so I was starting to think that my beautiful relationship with mangoes would have to come to an unwilling end.

Two things give me hope. First, I learned that the allergen is mostly in the skin, so I'm hoping that if I'm more careful about that, I'll be in good shape. Also, I read at least one anecdote that said that unripe mangoes are worse, and the one I ate most recently was on the sour side.

In the meantime, I'm a bit wary of the last mango ripening on my counter. If I believe everything the Internet says, I should be treating it like a chemical weapon, if not evacuating my now contaminated apartment. Instead, I'm going to eat that sucker. Just as long as I know where the Benadryl and anti-itch cream are.

I can write in Indonesian

2009-05-08T18:23:00.003+07:00

This is my first real composition in Indonesian. I wrote it today in my Indonesian class. It's a little bit sad that it's a letter of complaint, but I'm very proud that I got all the words right.

Dear Manajer,
Saya kecewa dengan pelayanan Garuda Indonesia. Penerbangan saya (GA 432) ditunda lima jam. Staf Anda tidak dengar waktu saya mau minta. Karena ditunda saya terlambat presentasi penting sekali. Saya mau ganti rugi untuk waktu hilang saya.

Translation:
Dear Manager,
I am disappointed with Garuda Indonesia's service. [Garuda Indonesia is Indonesia's national airline.] My flight was delayed five hours. Your staff didn't listen when I wanted to ask a question. Because of the delay, I was late for a very important presentation. I would like compensation for my lost time.

Tomorrow Ami and I are going to Ancol, which is kind of like Indonesia's Disneyland. I'll let you know what it's like. Expect a picture post soon.

Touring Jakarta

2009-04-27T17:58:00.000+07:00

This has been a while, but a couple of weekends ago, fellow teacher Ami and I decided to explore Jakarta for a day. The result was an early morning, a late night, a lot of walking and a lot of fun. Here are the results:

It was the day of the national election so one of the first things we passed was a polling station, which is pretty much what it looks like: a makeshift tent in the middle of the street. (By way of update, the election went pretty smoothly, except for the fact that many people couldn't vote because their names weren't on the voter lists. We still don't know who will be running for president in July since coalitions haven't yet been finalized.)

We moved on to Monas, the National Monument, where we spent some time on the grounds around it. Here's Ami:
And here I am in front of Monas. You may recognize it from when my parents, Megan, and I visited in October.

Then we walked down to one of Jakarta's oldest cathedrals, which has a lovely wooden ceiling. Because the doors to the cathedral stay open, there were little birds flying around the columns, perching on statues, and chirping little choruses. I loved the idea of sparrows and songbirds living in God's house.
Walking around the cathedral, I snapped this picture. These people live under the bridge and live off whatever they can find, including the garbage in the water.

After the cathedral, we walked around a bit back toward Monas, where I got a taste of a traditional plant drink. Sweet and woody, it was served to us out of this bamboo-like container.

Next, we headed up to a mall for lunch and the Indonesian version of a dollar store where everything costs 6000 rupiah (about 60 cents) as long as you have exact change. This sign says "Everything!! One Price!" I'm not sure what the dancing rabbits are for.

The last thing we did was to go to the top of Monas. We waited in line for a long time, but it was definitely worth it. One thing I noticed this time was how cool the gardens around Monas look from above.

There are metal bars to keep you from falling off, but what are metal bars for except sticking your head through to take pictures? ("That wrist strap better be in working order," thinks my camera.)

(Yes, I got sunburned.)

Every once in a while, I take a good picture. This is one of my favorites.

Heightened Visibility

2009-04-26T14:22:00.003+07:00

By this time, I should be used to the extra attention that I get when I go out, but it's starting to get old. Obviously, I am taller, blonder, curlier-haired, bluer-eyed, bigger-nosed, and lighter-skinned than most Indonesians I encounter, but this seems to project a silent "I'd-appreciate-it-if-you'd-randomly-say-hello-to-me" signal, mostly to men. Some people want to take pictures with me in public places. I even had a woman plunk her infant son on my lap to take a photo of us in the angkot on the way to the mall.

I try to be gracious, giving nods, smiles, hellos, or pictures as I feel comfortable, but I get tired of it sometimes. This is probably due to my American over-developed sense of privacy. One of my Indonesian colleagues has a collection of cartoons that highlight Indonesian-Western cultural conflicts, and my favorite documents an experience I've had more than once. An Indonesian man gets on a bus and sits down next to a Western woman with comically curly hair. As he asks her questions ("Hi. Where are you going?" "Where are you from?" "How old are you?" "Are you married?" "Not yet? Why not?" "So when?"), her expression goes from quizzical to irritated to furious before she yells, "SHUT UP! NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!

Of course, I'm sure that many the people I encounter are thinking, "What the heck is she doing?" Like when I stayed to the very end of the credits last night at a movie, the theater attendants were giving me extremely strange looks. Apparently, that isn't done here.

Hanukkah Miracle

2009-04-15T22:36:00.002+07:00

Way back last July when I was just moving in, one of the apartment helpers came to install the gasoline canister in a compartment under my stove. I think almost all gas for cooking comes in canisters here, and that's what allows for the pushcarts on the streets that make all manner of fried delights. Here's the miracle part: for nine months now, that same canister of gas has been fueling my stove and oven. It has baked pies and cookies, roasted a Thanksgiving turkey, heated gallons of water for tea and coffee, fried stir-fry, steamed rice, popped popcorn, boiled beans, and simmered soups. Every time I put peanuts in the oven to roast (home-roasted peanuts are my new favorite school snack) or scramble an egg or make curry, there's a part of me that wonders how much longer that canister can last. But mostly I enjoy having my own little kitchen marvel. Here's to another nine months!

Campaign Season

2009-04-03T18:11:00.004+07:00

Good news! National election + Good Friday = four day weekend.

Real Campaign
Tomorrow is Indonesia's election of the national legislature. I haven't been following it very closely, but I know that the outcome will be extremely important for the presidential election later this year. In honor of the election, here's a picture from Kalimantan (but I've seen the same kind of thing lots of places in Jakarta.)

It's the Indonesian version of lawn signs: campaign posters with pictures of stoic politicians (no artificially whitened teeth or Blagojevich hairstyles) and checkboxes with the corresponding party number. I've also seen some campaign ads on TV that are very poorly spliced into the commercials breaks interrupting all those commercials that I really wanted to see. I can't really comment on those since the only thing I understand of all of them is "Untuk Indonesia," which just means "For Indonesia."

Campaign to Learn More Indonesian
Fun fact about the Indonesian language: to express a belief or opinion, most Indonesians will say "saya rasa," which is literally "I feel." But it is a mark of a more educated person to use "saya pikir," which is "I think." This is the kind of stuff that I find fascinating about learning a new language, all the little cultural assumptions that are hidden in language. Like "terima kasih," the expression for "thank you," is literally "receive" + "love." And "sama-sama" (which means "you're welcome" and is just plain fun to say) is something like "same here." I know I said fact (which usually implies one), but it's hard to stick to just one when I'm learning so much interesting stuff about the language. Please forgive the dorkiness.

Campaign for Having a Great Weekend
Even though I don't have school tomorrow, I'm still getting up early because I'm being introduced to the Jakartan public bus system tomorrow by Ami, one of my fellow teachers. We're going to the national monument and a cathedral, and I'm hoping for cool pictures and all around good times. I love Ami because she's my personal cheerleader for learning Indonesian. She forces me to speak Indonesian when we eat lunch together, and she teaches me songs in Indonesian. Today we performed a song she taught me for our Wednesday afternoon chapel service. And I didn't screw up the words.

Other campaigns I've supported this week:
The Movement for Getting Student Work Off Laura's Desk
Drink More Fresh Juice Society
People Recognizing That Taxes are Especially Painful When You Graduate from College and Move to Another Country in the Same Year
Lovers of Leftovers
Campaign to Stay Up Late for No Good Reason
The Movement to Promote Better Student Grammar
People Looking Forward Visiting Home in Two and a Half Months!

Adventures in Kalimantan

2009-03-28T07:29:00.009+07:00

Kalimantan had its ups and downs. Downs included that I didn't have many people to speak to in English (my conversational Bahasa Indonesia is still very limited), and traveling with another family made me miss my family. However, ups included getting to see a new part of Indonesia, trying new food, some beautiful scenery, and getting to know a new family and their traditions.

I flew into Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan, but we stayed in Singkawang, a three hour drive north. Here are the coordinates for the gate at the Pontianak airport. This is the best proof I have that I crossed the equator. Turns out there's no sign or celebration to usher you from one hemisphere to the next.

The first morning I was there, we woke up before dawn to go to the Chinese cemetery--the English title on the sign was "Hereafter Park"--to have a ceremony to honor the family's deceased ancestors. The family is Chinese with practicing Buddhists and Catholics, but honoring ancestors unites the faiths. This is the gravesite. You can't see it, but behind the stone is a large mound of earth. Hundreds of these mounds in various sizes covered the hillside. As the sun came up, I watched them light sticks of incense, set out food and drinks, and burn a mound of fake money and paper clothing (the belief is that the items will become real when burned).

Later that day we went swimming and picnicked by this lovely little mountain stream.

The next day, we went to a zoo owned by a family cousin. I saw some of the biggest snakes of my life, and now I will never forget the Indonesian word for snake: "ular." We also saw lizards, monkeys, orangutans, lions, tigers, bears, (Oh my! I'm sorry. I had to.) and a monster crocodile. As a sidenote, I've visited two zoos in Indonesia now, but both of them have gotten me curious as to how well the animals are cared for and how committed the owners are to promoting education and conservation. When the orangutans know to stick their hairy red arms out of the cage to get the bananas that you've brought to feed them, it makes you wonder.

The animals were fun to see, but even better was going up to the top of the hill where we had beautiful views of the city of Singkawang and the ocean.

I should have gotten some pictures of Singkawang close up because it's an interesting city with a strong Chinese flavor. Apparently the Chinese New Year celebrations there attract people from around the world. Even my limited Bahasa Indonesia wasn't always useful because many of family members spoke mostly in a dialect of Chinese.

Tuesday, we drove a long way to visit this beautiful waterfall.

What I didn't photograph was the massive construction site just above the waterfall where they were doing something for flood protection. On our way out, they set off a dynamite charge that made us all jump. Cool!

Even though the drive was long, it was interesting to see the countryside homes and fields. I know this video is fast, bumpy, and pixelly, but you can see some of the houses and even a school with kids playing outside.

If you can't tell yet, I think that Kalimantan is beautful. And the people I met were as beautiful as the scenery. One aunt who couldn't speak any English or much Bahasa Indonesia either knew I liked their sweet tangerines and made sure I was kept in good supply. I stayed at the home of another aunt and her family, and they made me feel at home with good food and brave attempts at communication. They even turned the TV to movies in English so that I could watch with them. The Indonesian taste in drama veers to the supernatural, so the movies on TV were strange B-level suspense flicks, like Mammoth and Inhabited, which you've probably never heard of and which I wouldn't recommend. Actually, the best thing I saw on TV was an Indonesian Obama impersonator who lifted his arms and yelled something about change.

And finally...

Yes, people actually wear these hats.

Upcoming plans

2009-03-19T19:38:00.005+07:00

Spring break is next week. Well, I call it spring break because it's in March, but since Midwestern seasons don't really count here, I think it's more accurately "midterm break." Regardless, in the long tradition of spring breaks, I'm taking a trip to a tropical location for some fun and relaxation. In the road less traveled of spring breaks, I'm going with a student's family. We're headed to Kalimantan, also known as Borneo. Here's the (very short) list of what I know about Kalimantan:

1. It's Indonesia's largest island (3rd largest in the world, apparently), and Indonesia shares it with Malaysia and Brunei.
2. It was part of the Pacific arena of World War II, and I'm proud to have a little family history in that realm.
3. Kalimantan's rainforests are being destroyed rather quickly (along with the homes of the people who live there) to make room for palm oil plantations. You can thank Unilever.
4. I'm excited to go, so I have a load of clothes in the laundry tonight, I've called a taxi to take me to the airport, and my camera battery is charging. Expect a picture post soon!

And that means that I have a lot to get done tomorrow to be ready to leave. I collected a video project on Monday, study guides on Tuesday, and I already had a traffic jam of work to assess on my desk. Fortunately, this week has been much more relaxed because of a computer competition at our school, so I've had some time to get caught up on grading and planning.

And finally:
Correct answer on Animal Farm quiz:
No animal may sleep in a bed with sheets.
Favorite student answer on Animal Farm quiz:
No animal may sleep in a bed with sheep.

Two and Half Battles and a Steamroller

2009-03-15T18:42:00.005+07:00

A battle I am winning:
A few months ago, I decided to do something about the fact that my accumulation of plastic grocery bags vastly outstrips my consumption of them as trash bags. So now at the grocery story, I confuse the people at the cashier by whipping out an enormous wad of plastic bags from my purse. I'm not sure that they have ever seen anyone bring her own bags. They security guards certainly haven't; I once had problem (the substance of which I never understood) at the entrance to the grocery store when I had the bags in my cart. A security guard explained the problem to me in Indonesian, and I explained in English that the bags were empty and that I wanted to use them for my groceries. We eventually came to an uneasy understanding. And finally, I've started to make a dent in the plastic mountain under my sink. Small victories.

A battle I am losing:
Ants. There seem to be three main colonies in my apartment. One raids my kitchen trash can. One invades my kitchen from behind the sink. The third inexplicably scavenges in my bathroom. I prefer to use behavior modification techniques to control them, as in "If you crawl on my counter, you will die, so tell your friends." I even had a dream of perfect ant behavior in which I squished five or six, and hundreds of them turned around and went back where they came from. (Erica described it as a strange mix of teacher and exterminator.) However, I'm starting to think that chemical warfare is the next step.

Steamroller:
It's no secret that the expatriate teachers at IPEKA are much more vocal complainers that our Indonesian counterparts. And sometimes I feel like I steamroll over Asian personalities when I say how I'm feeling, what I think, or what I need. I didn't consider myself an especially outspoken person before I came here, but in comparison to Indonesian gentle politeness, sometimes I feel like an inconsiderate buffoon. The worst is when I can tell that my students are not being direct with me out of some kind of respectful non-disclosure. I can't help them if they won't tell me how they're struggling. I have yet to figure out how to let them save face when they're feeling uncomfortable, but I've realized that that is one of the kindest things I can do for them.

Half a battle won today:
My apartment is much tidier than it was this morning, and I made a delicious chicken curry for supper.

Domestic Felicity

2009-03-12T18:55:00.004+07:00

For most of the month of January, I watched the pile of dirty clothing in my bedroom grow as my motivation to wash it proportionally shrank. My laundry experiences in Jakarta had been fairly unpleasant until then.

Some of it, like my school uniform, went through the laundry service at my apartment complex. The clothes I send there come back clean and pressed with a "Laundry Order Form" attached, which has 37 subdivisions on it. I had no idea laundry could be so complex, but there are different categories for "Skirt," "Long Skirt," "Blouse," and "Skirt and Blouse." "Shirt," "Polo T-Shirt," "Sweater," and "Undershirt" are also subdivided. My favorites are "Scraf" (sic), and "Small Doll," "Medium Doll," and "Big Doll, which is the most expensive item on the list at at about $1.75.

However, the bulk of it went through this little red bucket, washed by hand and hung to dry on the clothesline in my utility room. If I were to rank the laundry experiences of my life, handwashing my clothes in a bucket in Jakarta is dead last, below even the summer I worked in a camp in Wisconsin and had to beg a ride into town six miles away to spend an afternoon at the coin laundromat.

So after being spoiled by the washing machine at home over Christmas and dreading more bucket time, I went to the apartment office to see if they had a washing machine I could rent. They did, and two hours later, I had a load of clothes going. I felt like a 1950s housewife marveling at the miracle of mechanized housework. The sheen hasn't worn off yet, so now I'm enjoying washing clothes more than I ever have before.

Thank you, little washing machine, you have shot to the top of my list of favorite appliances. Sorry, red bucket.

Erratum (and more fun with Indonesian)

2009-02-28T21:39:00.003+07:00

My sharp-eyed mother has pointed out errors in my last post's puzzle, which I'm sure others have figured out, too. I believed that I've fixed them (let me know if there are still problems), so I'll post the answers today.

Easy words:
1. jus = juice
2. restauran = restaurant
3. doktor = doctor
4. taksi = taxi
5. kalculator = calculator
6. tomat = tomato
7. organisasi = organization
8. institusi = institution
9. konsep = concept
10. tenis = tennis

(That was hardly worth typing.)

Intermediate words:
1. tur = tour
2. es. es krim = ice cream
3. teh = tea
4. saus = sauce
5. konser = concert
6. stasiun = station
7. bir = beer
8. mal = mall
9. konteks = context
10. apel = apple

Advanced words:
1. pir = pear
2. sains/saintis = science/scientist
3. botol = bottle
4. coklat = chocolate
5. fesyen = fashion
6. buku = book
7. porsi = portion
8. kopi = coffee
9. apotek = apothecary/pharmacy
10. alpukat = avocado

My Indonesian is continuing to improve. This week, I was inordinately proud of myself for politely asking an employee at the mall "Maaf, di mana toiletnya?" (Excuse me, where's the restroom?). Even if I can't speak very well, I'm picking up more words out of dialogue I hear, and I can understand more of the subtitles on TV. And lucky me, the Indonesian language is very welcoming to its students. It doesn't really have verb tenses. You can royally screw up syntax and still be understood. Words don't have gender. Spelling is light-years easier than in English. But what it lacks in complexity, it makes up for with added syllables and dictionary difficulty. To look up a word in the dictionary, you have to make sure that you know the root word (not as easy as it sounds), and with prefixes and suffixes, a fairly short word in English like "ignore" turns into a tongue-twisting monster in Indonesian: "mengesampingkan." But there are also little delights like "kaus" (T-shirt) + "kaki" (foot) = sock (kaus kaki).

And thanks to Wikipedia, I've learned some of the words that Indonesian has given to English: junk, amok, bamboo, gecko, gingham, cockatoo, papaya, and orangutan. You can see others at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Indonesian_origin.

Am I having too much linguistic fun? Probably. Am I going to stop? Absolutely not.

In praise of the Indonesian language

2009-02-14T06:38:00.003+07:00

First of all, I'm alive, and I did not feel the earthquake that you may have heard about in Indonesia recently. I learned about it on the Internet like everyone else. My father looked it up for me, and it was about 1500 miles away from Jakarta. But thanks to those of you who worried. On to more interesting things.

In the last couple of weeks, I've started Indonesian classes with some of the other expatriate teachers at IPEKA. We are a very small class, but we love our teacher, one of the school's Indonesian teachers, who does a great job preparing for the class and answering thousands of our questions. I can actually make some sentences now instead of just rattling off vocab words. I've been trying out some of my new conversational skills on students and colleagues, but they seem to find my speaking Indonesian incredibly funny, and more often than not, I send them into stitches. My favorite response was when one of my students said that I spoke Indonesian with a French accent.

In many ways, Indonesian is a delight to learn. It doesn't really have different verb tenses, you can really screw up syntax and still be understood, and its spelling is very phonetic. This means that you can look at a word and know how to pronounce it, and you can hear a word and know how to spell it. My favorite words are the ones that come from English but have had their spelling "Indonesianized." So in honor of the Indonesian language (and my puzzle-loving friends and family), I have a bit of a game for you: "What's the English counterpart of these Indonesian words?" I'll put a pronunciation guide and a word bank at the bottom to help you out.

Easy words
1. jus
2. restauran
3. doktor
4. taksi
5. kalculator
6. tomat
7. organisasi
8. institusi
9. konsep
10. tenis

Intermediate words:
1. tur
2. es krim (one of my favorites)
3. teh
4. saus
5. konser
6. stasiun
7. bir
8. mal
9. konteks
10. apel

Advanced:
1. pir
2. sains and (its counterpart) saintis
3. botol
4. coklat
5. fesyen
6. buku
7. porsi
8. kopi (hard one, sorry)
9. apotek (another hard one)
10. alpukat (this isn't the advanced section for nothing)

Pronunciation guidelines:
Consonants are almost all the same as English with these exceptions:
"c" = "ch" ("k" stands in for the hard "c" sound)
"sy" = "sh"
"r" is always rolled
Vowels remind me of Latin pronunciation but it's not quite the same:
"a" = "ah"
"e" = "eh" but frequently "uh" inside a word
"i" = "ee"
"o" = "oh"
"u" = "oo"

Word Bank:
Apothecary (more accurately pharmacy)
Apple
Avocado
Beer
Book
Bottle
Calculator
Chocolate
Coffee
Concept
Concert
Context
Doctor
Fashion
Ice cream
Institution
Juice
Mall
Organization
Pear
Police
Portion
Restaurant
Sauce
Science
Scientist
Station
Taxi
Tea
Tennis
Tomato
Tour

Hope you had fun.

Happy Chinese New Year! In Bali!

2009-02-01T20:24:00.012+07:00

After spending almost 7 months in Indonesia, I've had dozens of people ask me if I've been to Bali or tell me about their trips to Bali. Some of my colleagues even went with the year 12 students for an end-of-year trip. So when I remembered that we had a long weekend for Chinese New Year, I thought Bali might be fun because it's not too far away. (Interesting but brief sidenote: Chinese New Year has only been publicly celebrated in Indonesia for about 10 years since the end of Suharto's presidency.) Tim thought about joining me, but I ended up going by myself. And I had a great time.

The whole thing was a little spontaneous. I only bought tickets Thursday night to leave on Saturday morning, and I didn't really know where I was going to stay until I got there. It went like this.

Saturday: I met a young American woman at the airport. She works in Beijing, and she was extending a business trip in Jakarta into a vacation in Bali. Because we were headed for the same area, we exchanged phone numbers, and tentatively agreed to meet in a couple of days. When we got to Bali, I took a taxi to Sanur, which has a lovely stretch of beach, but it's a little less commercialized than its near neighbor, Kuta. Since I didn't know where I wanted to stay, I had the taxi driver let me out when I saw a vacancy sign, and so I stumbled onto a lovely little homestay (a small private accommodation somewhere between a motel and a hostel) where I got a cute little room for less that $9 for the night. The homestay was called "Little Pond," so here's its namesake.

Later on Saturday, I found my way to Bali Orchid Garden, which featured orchids from all over the world, which were lovely in the late afternoon light. I took lots of pictures, and here's one of the best.

Since I could only get one night at Little Pond, I decided to get in as much beach time as possible before I left for another part of the island, so I took a sunset walk on the beach at Sanur, which has a nice walkway along the beach that takes you by restaurants and vendors selling sunglasses, clothing, fruit, art, and other trinkets. It's a calm beach, partly because it's not as touristy as Kuta, partly because a reef keeps the surf pretty far away.

Bali has a very different cultural feel from Jakarta. For starters, Bali is predominantly Hindu in contrast to Jakarta's Muslim majority. It's impossible not to notice these little woven baskets which hold sacrifices because they're everywhere. In doorways, in shrines, in taxis, on sidewalks, even at the desk of the man who collected my airport tax. Incense wafts up from some of them, especially ones in shrines.

Sunday morning I got up early and took a walk/wade on the beach. If Sanur's beach is international later in the day, sunrise is Bali's turn to enjoy the beach. Vendors, fishermen, and other local residents were enjoying the water and the sun coming up over the water. I sat on the rocks for a while, watching the sun, the tide coming in, crabs skittering between the rocks, a heron wading, a fisherman out on the reef, a man doing his morning calisthenics facing the water, a dog scratching for crabs, kids playing in the water. I was enjoying myself so much that I was a little disappointed when a Balinese student sat down and started talking to me. We chatted for a bit before I finished my walk.
I had lunch at a seaside restaurant (this was the view) where I tasted black rice pudding with coconut milk, a local delicacy that I enjoyed very much. After I checked out of Little Pond, I walked around Sanur a bit before taking a shuttle bus to Ubud, a group of villages north of Sanur and further inland.

I loved Ubud. It's more of a artistic and cultural center, and there was lots to do there. When I got there it was raining (and I forgot to bring an umbrella, which was dumb), but there was an Indian restaurant nearby. Since I can't resist Indian food, I ate an early dinner then walked to an art museum set in a beautiful garden.
I should have asked why they put skirts and flowers on some of the statues, but instead I just took a picture.

Maybe the climate is a little wetter in Ubud (it rained both afternoons), but I saw lots of moss in gardens and on statues, which made the place feel settled and ancient.

After the museum, I headed toward the homestay where I was staying that night, and I walked a long way to get there. It was a lot further than I had anticipated, but one benefit was that I happened on a woman selling tickets to a dance performance at the palace in Ubud. After I settled into my homestay, I walked back the palace and enjoyed a front row seat at the performance. In comparison to the demure Javanese gamelan music, Balinese gamelan music is a lot more energetic. It was hard to get good pictures or videos of the dancing, but here's a picture of the "stage."

And then back to my homestay, which was gorgeous. I picked it out of my guidebook because it said that it was in the middle of a rice paddy, and I ended up with a great view out my balcony.

Here's my room, complete with mosquito netting.
Along the walk to my homestay.

On the spur of the moment Monday morning, as I was eating the delicious homemade breakfast provided by my homestay on the balcony of my room, I decided to take a bike tour. They picked me up a little before 9 o'clock, and we drove to the top of a mountain and rode down. My tour group included a American couple living in Singapore and an Australian family, and I had a great time getting to know them.
Here's the view from the top: volcanic Mount Batur and its neighboring Lake Batur. Unfortunately, my camera was starting to run out of battery in the afternoon, so I don't have a lot of good pictures, but we went through a bunch of interesting little villages.
We also stopped at the home compound of a local Balinese family where we learned a little about their way of life and met the family pig. We ended up at a restaurant where they stuffed us with great Indonesian food before dropping us off in Ubud again. From there I walked down to the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary where you can get very personal with the monkeys.

Some of them are big and scary, but I coaxed this cute little one onto my lap. And then it started to rain again, and I got stuck under a shelter thing with both monkeys and humans until I decided waiting was more painful than getting wet, so I shop-hopped for a while, had some tea at a cafe, meandered into the local art center where you can take art lessons, explored the library, struck up a conversation with a French woman (en francais, bien sur). Then I met my American friend from the airport for dinner before heading back to my homestay for bed. One thing I never thought about was that rice paddies are perfect havens for frogs, I loved hearing their nighttime croakings.

Tuesday morning, I didn't have time to do a lot before I had to catch the shuttle to the airport, but I wandered around the local market and bought a couple of souvenirs. After one more serving of black rice pudding, I headed for home, by shuttle bus, plane, and taxi. Really good trip.

Catching up...

2009-02-01T19:37:00.002+07:00

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy as I got back into the swing of things: reacquainting myself with my new 11th grade students (fortunately I had many of their names from 10th grade), teaching a new unit on good study skills, and adjusting to greater proportion of planning that I've been doing.

I also did some flood preparation. Since it's rainy season, city-wide floods are increasingly likely, though fortunately my part of the city is pretty safe from the worst of the flooding. Just in case, though, I went to the grocery store to make sure that I have enough food in my pantry for a few days, and I ordered an extra five gallon jug of water. All I have to do now is wait for a day off from school. I've heard that if 40-50% of the city is flooded, we won't be having school. It seems incredible that that much flooding is possible, and it's definitely one of the biggest problems that the city of Jakarta faces. On the way to the airport, they're rebuilding the highway so that it's higher and out of the way of flood waters. Part of me wants to see what it's like when flooding gets bad, but another part knows that a relatively minor inconvenience for me threatens lives and homes for my neighbors in this city.

In other loosely-related-to-rain news, I found myself on the wrong end of an interesting cultural clash a couple of weeks ago. As a thank you gift from the administration for coming to the Christmas program in December, teachers at IPEKA each received an umbrella. When I playfully decided to try mine out as a desk ornament in our shared teacher room, I was gently informed by an Australian coworker that open umbrellas indoors are a bad omen in Javanese culture. A little embarrassed and not wanting to offend my Indonesian colleagues, I of course took it down. Later, it was interesting to reflect that even in a sterile school building lit by fluorescent lights, Indonesia is still much closer to a world of magic and supersition than I'm used to. My only access to that kind of world has been through my favorite fairy tales, but it is very near for many Indonesians.

I also had fun enjoying a little more of the Chinese-Indonesian culture in the last couple of weeks. I think I've mentioned that my neighborhood is home to many Chinese-Indonesians, so the local mall was all decked out in red and gold for Chinese New Year. Waiting at the mall for a movie to start a couple of weeks ago (a friend had invited me to see a Chinese action/historical fiction film called Redcliff 2, which I recommend it if you ever get the chance to see it), I got to see the Lion Dance. It's an incredibly acrobatic dance performed by two dancers who work together underneath an elaborate costume to imitate the animal. As if that weren't enough, they dance on top of small round platforms six or seven feet off the ground, leaping from one to another with incredible ease. I was fascinated and I had trouble tearing myself away to go see my movie. I also got an invitation from one of my students to celebrate Chinese New Year with her family, but since we had Monday and Tuesday off for the holiday, I had already decided to go to Bali for the weekend. Which was wonderful and deserves its own post.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-10T15:02:00.001+07:00

It was funny to get back to Jakarta this week because I feel like I have home in two very different places. Indianapolis was delightful (even without snow), and we had a grand Christmas. I am very blessed to honestly enjoy spending time with my family. And I got the party started quickly. I was able to cancel my flight from Chicago to Indianapolis, so that within two hours of having my passport stamped at the airport, I was at a birthday celebration for my great-uncle in Zion, Illinois, north of Chicago. We spent Christmas in Indianapolis and then my sister, my mom and I drove to Grand Rapids, MI for the New Year.

The beginning of 2009 gave me the occasion to reflect on all the cool things that I did in 2008. I started last year at Cedar Campus (one of my favorite places in the world), took great classes at Wheaton, lived with some awesome girls, traveled to California with my sister to visit family for spring break, graduated from college, celebrated with a road trip to Florida, visited my roommate Megan in Seattle, got to spend a little more time at Cedar Campus, moved around the world, started my teaching career, found new friends, settled into a new life in time to introduce my parents and Megan to it, and traveled back to tell everyone what an adventure it's been.

Traveling here sometimes feels like an adventure in itself. I think my brain works really hard to forget those 30 hours of traveling because they feel blurry every time I try to remember them. It truly wasn't bad this time. I was a little worried about getting on my flight from Chicago to Hong Kong because they didn't give me a boarding pass until there were only 10 minutes to board, but I even got an excellent seat, a blessing gratefully accepted on a 15 hour flight. After a minor luggage hiccup in Singapore, I arrived in Jakarta with both my bags and was back at my apartment by 10:00 AM on Wednesday. The hard work was staying awake until bedtime. Which I didn't. I took a loooong nap in the afternoon before going to dinner at Joseph and Karla's house. (Warning: what follows is a pharmaceutical cautionary tale.) Before bedtime, I thought it would be a good idea to take some Benadryl to help me sleep. Usually, one little pink pill knocks me out, but afternoon naps can throw off my nighttime sleep, so I decided to take two just in case. Now, I've never had a hangover, but when I woke up Thursday morning, groggy and headache-y, I think I was as close as I've ever been. Lesson learned. About Benadryl, that is.

With a few days to recover under my belt, I'm actually excited to get back to teaching. In some ways, I felt like my first five months at IPEKA were a little like another student teaching experience since I didn't have very much control over lesson and unit planning last semester. On Wednesday, my old 10th graders become my new 11th graders, and I become the lead teacher for 11th grade English. Karla and I will still be working together, but she's taken on other teaching responsibilities. We're starting the semester with Animal Farm and Marked this time, so I'm looking forward to improving what we did a few months ago. It's nice to have a fresh start. That's one of the things that I like about teaching. There's always a new year, a new semester, a new unit, a new lesson plan, another chance to do better than the last time. And I need all those chances.

Everyone has different signals for what home means, and home in Jakarta for me means: morning light and evening darkness with 6:00 o'clock precision, Walters on my kitchen counters, the call of the mosque, sweating, the ding-a-linging of vendors in the street, heat, air conditioning, the funny smell under my kitchen sink, drinking from a water cooler, my too-big bed, saying hello to my security guards when I enter or leave, my ugly pink bathroom, time alone to think or read or waste, figuring out what time it is for the people I love, and a thousand other pleasant and not-so-pleasant things. It's nice to be home.

Getting in the Christmas spirit

2008-12-13T19:08:00.002+07:00

It's been really hard for me to believe that Christmas is fast approaching when I sweat almost every time I walk outdoors. December just doesn't seem like December without gloves and scarves and waiting for snow. But yesterday we had our school Christmas pageant. We sang "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "Joy to the World" and "Silent Night," and it started to feel like Christmas. I loved watching my kids up on stage--three of my goofballs playing the shepherds with comic flair, a girl who seemed shy in class as the angel Gabriel, and a kid whose incredible singing voice I never suspected playing Joseph. I was proud of them.

After the pageant, we had a reception in the cafeteria with an open stage where kids were singing "White Christmas" and "Feliz Navidad," which made me laugh since snow and people who speak Spanish are pretty much unknown to Indonesia. And then we were done for the year. I don't leave until next Saturday, so I'll do some Christmas shopping and wrapping this week. If you thought that living in the world's most populous Muslim country would protect me from the American commercialization of Christmas, you were wrong. I saw fake Christmas trees being sold at the mall in early November, lines are longer, and I hear classics like "All I Want for Christmas Is You" while shopping.

The "I'm-still-getting-used-to-being-a-teacher" moment of the day: I ran into a student at the gym. It could have been worse. I could have been sweating, out of breath, and red-faced, or it could have been an unfriendly student, but I was just getting on the treadmill when one of the sweet ones came up to say hello. I've forgotten how interesting it was to see teachers out of context. I couldn't have been much more out of context. At school, most days I wear a uniform--blue skirt, white blouse, dark shoes, makeup--but today I was wearing yoga pants, running shoes, and my high school gym class t-shirt. It shouldn't feel weird to see students outside of school, and it's happened before, but sometimes it still does.

If you're interested in knowing, I'm flying out of Jakarta on Saturday, December 20, and I'll be flying through Singapore and Hong Kong before I get to Chicago the next day. I'm meeting my family and driving from Chicago, so I'll be in Indianapolis from about the 21/22 of December to January 5.

Things I'm looking forward to when I go home: singing Christmas songs, snow (hopefully!), sweaters, Christmas lights, seeing friends, seeing family, being cold, cooking with my mother, Christmas services, my room, taking walks around my neighborhood, driving myself around, streets without traffic, drinking tap water, living with other people, using a washer and dryer instead of a bucket and a clothesline, making mincemeat pie, and having a fire in the fireplace.

God bless us, every one.

How to have a Happy Birthday in Indonesia

2008-12-05T20:05:00.002+07:00

The Indonesian tradition for birthdays is that the birthday person treats. It's kind of like grade school, as one of my elementary education major friends pointed out. So I made chocolate chip cookies for the teachers at school today. It's a good feeling to be giving on your birthday and not just receiving. Plus, I got to enjoy some warm cookies and milk for breakfast. Another Indonesian birthday tradition is that everyone shakes your hand. Now this does seem like that big a deal, but it's warm and friendly, and I enjoyed it. I also ended up with some lovely orchids (from my parents via Karla), balloons, and far too many sweets.

The cool thing about having a birthday on this side of the world is that it seems like it last longer. My birthday started this morning for me, but I don't feel like it's really over until it's over in the U.S., which isn't until tomorrow afternoon. I even got my birthday started early here. I went out to dinner on Wednesday with a few friends from work. The Italian restaurant near my apartment was celebrating its first anniversary by having everything half off. It was good times. I didn't go out for my birthday tonight. I decided to stay in, finish the book I'm reading (That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis), talk to my family, finish off the cookie dough, and enjoy a quiet birthday evening.

It still feels strange to have 80 degree weather in December. In some ways, I feel like my sense of time passing is all wrapped up in seasonal weather changes, which means I'm a little discombobulated by Indonesian weather (and it sure doesn't feel like I'm been here almost five months). A good example would be rain. I'm used to Midwestern rain, which usually gives you some clues that it's coming: it gets colder or windier, or you hear thunder in the distance, or it's gets darker with that strange greenness right before a thunderstorm. Not so in Jakarta. Rain comes without any preliminaries, as if someone flicked a switch. I'm really looking forward to some weather variety when I go home for Christmas. It will be wonderful to have something besides hot hot hot, but I'm a little worried that I'll be a cold weather wimp. I think that I need to go ice-skating at the mall before I leave, just to practice.

It was really nice that I didn't have to teach today. I didn't have a lot to do except plan for next semester since I'm done grading finals for my eighth grade students. I was sad to say goodbye to them last week. They gave me headaches, but they also made me laugh. My favorite answer on the final exam was in response to a question about the target audience of a Burger King ad for the Whopper. One student wrote that the ad was directed to almost everyone--families, teenagers, adults, children, etc, "except for people who can't eat solid food." Thank goodness for students like that who add a little spice to the bland monotony of grading.

Technically, this is a long weekend because of a Muslim holiday on Monday, but tomorrow there's a Christmas service for all the IPEKA teachers, so I have to get up early for that. It's kind of a bummer, but I'm going out to see Twilight afterward. To the shame and embarrassment of my sister, I have read the book by Stephanie Meyer. It has pretty much swept the school by storm, so I thought I'd better get on board. And I'm thrilled to see kids getting excited about reading, especially in English. I borrowed a copy from an eighth grade boy, and I was reading it in the library facing these big windows where students pass on their way to the chapel. You should have heard the squeals of excitment when some of my old 11th grade students passing by saw that I was reading Twilight. They loved it, and I'm pretty sure that I'll see some of them at the movie theater tomorrow.

15 days until I leave for home!

Happy Turkey Day!

2008-11-22T10:30:00.003+07:00

Thanksgiving is coming early to Indonesia. Karla and I wanted to do Thanksgiving dinner together for some of our colleagues, but we decided that it would be easiest to do it today. It has to be a collaboration because Karla has a beautiful home for entertaining, but she has no oven big enough for a turkey. Which means that our bird's fragrances are wafting through my apartment right now, and in a couple of hours we'll put it in the car and take in over to Joseph and Karla's.

Jakarta's grocery stores are not exactly friendly to Thanksgiving needs. We have a turkey and stuffing, but Karla and I found no pumpkin, and I went to four different grocery stores looking for Crisco for making pie crust. I couldn't find any, so I tried making the crust without it. I don't recommend it. It's probably the ugliest apple pie that I've ever made, but I'm hopeful that it'll taste good.

Difficulties aside, it's really nice to have some way to celebrate my favorite holiday. It's a different Thanksgiving for sure (like I've never had a Thanksgiving where I don't have to wear a jacket), and I'm missing cooking and spending time with my family, but it's also fun to share Thanksgiving with people from around the world.

I will miss the pumpkin pie, though. So I've already made my mother promise I can have one at Christmas.

A little international news

2008-11-04T09:03:00.003+07:00

Happy Election Day! I won't write much on the election because I know that most of you have been ten times more saturated with election news than I am and are consequently ten times more exhausted, but I thought you might be interested in an international perspective. Briefly, almost everyone wants Obama, some for political reasons, some because of Obama's connection to Indonesia, some (students) because McCain looks too old. When my boss Joseph put up on his door a "Who should I vote for?" survey for passers-by, Obama was the overwhelming winner. I voted a week and a half ago by email. I had no idea that the state of Indiana was so progressive, but after completing a couple of forms (including one that waived my right to voter privacy), I printed my ballot, filled it out, scanned it, and sent it back. One piece of interesting election-related news that you might not have heard is that Obama's former home in Jakarta has gotten a lot more attention recently. One Dutch man is offering to buy it and set up an Obama cafe. My favorite part is that it would feature "Obama blend" coffee made with beans from Kenya and Java.

I read about that in the Jakarta Post, and I've been trying to get my hands on a copy of it more often so that I can be better informed about current events in Indonesia. My favorite part is the letters to the editor section, where you can see a wide range of opinions on news and Indonesian issues. What I've noticed recently in some of the articles and comments is the struggle in Indonesia to maintain local culture and to create a unique national identity out of the incredible diversity that comes from being a nation of islands. Language plays a really interesting role as local languages are threatened by Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Indonesia is threatened by English.

In other international news, the financial crisis in the United States has actually been really good news for me, since I get paid in dollars. The Indonesian rupiah (with other Asian currencies) has dropped significantly against the dollar over the last month. When I first got here, one dollar was about 9200 or 9300 rupiah, but yesterday one of my co-workers got more than 10,000 Rp to the dollar at the bank.

Bandung was interesting this weekend. I went on Sunday with Yuli, one of my co-workers, whom I didn't know very well before, so it was a great time to get to know her better. We went to drop off a student for a computer design training camp, but we stayed just to have fun. It rained a lot in Bandung (streets-flooded rain), so we didn't get to go to see a volcano like we had hoped, but we did some shopping and ate some good food, so it was a good trip. Bandung is at a higher elevation than Jakarta, so it was blessedly cooler. The bad part was the rain made traffic nasty on the way back, so it took about an hour longer to get home. But Yuli and I talked about our college experiences, and it turns out that college students in the United States and in Indonesia do some of the same kinds of crazy, spontaneous things. Good times.

TGIF

2008-10-31T15:41:00.003+07:00

It's Friday!
Today was a particularly long Friday because beside teaching 8 periods of eighth graders, I had professional development for two of my free periods, I planned with my co-teacher Douglas for Monday's lesson during my lunch period, and I stayed after school until 6:00 to talk to parents at the report card distribution for my old year 11 students.

Funny/frustrating moment at IPEKA today. I haven't talked too much about how IPEKA's administration can be difficult to deal with at times, but today is a good example. We got a notice on the school message board at 2:23pm which announced that we will be having a school service/gathering on Monday to plant trees as a follow-up to the "I go green!" seminar some teachers and administrators attended today. Between some unclear communication and the short notice, there were some irritated teachers. In general, expatriate teachers are better at complaining than the Indonesian teachers, so sarcastic comments popped up on the message board almost immediately. We all want this school to be a better learning environment for students, and it's frustrating when that doesn't happen.

We're getting into rainy season now (it rains every other day or so), and while I've heard that it can get kind of miserable later on in January and February, right now I like it. It's much cooler (I don't start sweating immediately when I go outside), and the rain clears up some of the smog. I've seen seen the mountains to the south of Jakarta twice in the last two weeks, and I didn't even know that there were mountains to look for!

I'm going to Bandung this weekend. A teacher who's accompanying a student to a competition invited me to keep her company. I'll let you know how it goes.

I realized recently that in the last three months I have taught 119 tenth graders, 120 eighth graders, 108 eleventh graders, and about 40 seventh graders, which comes to a total of approximately 387 students. And 387 names that I should have learned. Actually, I count it a mark of progress that I thought I was on the wrong floor today because I saw students whose names I know.

Finally! A long juicy post to catch you up

2008-10-28T11:43:00.007+07:00

So this will be a long entry with lots of pictures to make up for almost a month of non-entries. The last time I wrote, I was in the middle of our Ramadhan break. I stayed at home for most of it, but stayed busy. Things I did during break:

1. Watched the national finals for Australian rules football (which is different from soccer and rugby and American football, but looks a little like all of them). Imagine a lot of men on the field kicking and throwing the ball around and tackling each other.

2. Baked brownies with two 15 year old girls, both daughters of coworkers. Baked is actually the wrong term since the brownies were cooked in a steamer. Weird, huh? They tasted delicious, but we had to wait until the next day to eat them because they took forever to steam, and we had already pigged out on chocolate fondue by the time they were done. It was a perfect girls night, something that I've been missing in Jakarta.

3. Went to Taman Safari with Tim and Karla. It's this place up in the hills outside of Jakarta (my first time outside of the city) where you drive through different animal exhibits of bears and lions and tigers and zebras and cows and elephants and deer and hippos and monkeys and apes and you feed them carrots and then you can park and walk through other exhibits (like the Komodo dragon) or see some animal shows. You can also hold some baby animals. It's the kind of place that is a bit of a guilty pleasure because you know that this probably isn't the best way to take care of animals, but it's definitely a unique experience.

When you drive through the lion and tiger territory, they tell you to roll up your windows for safety.
Here's Tim feeding the elephants.

Yes, we were that close to the hippos. Yes, it made me a bit nervous. Yes, he liked the carrots we tossed in his mouth.

This beast is massive. Ok, maybe not quite as big as the hippos, but they can inflict some serious damage. I learned that Komodo dragons have some nasty bacteria in their mouths that will kill their prey if those jaws don't.

Me, Karla, and Tim with our tiger friend.

This little guy made me laugh because he was ticklish. And he had a cute potbelly.

4. Went to Taman Mini. Taman Mini is kind of like a world's fair just for Indonesia. You can go there and see architecture and dance and artifacts from different parts of Indonesia. Unfortunately, when Karla and I went, it was extremely hot and kind of crowded and people were staring at us, which made the experience less than pleasant. We left without seeing a lot, but we did take a gondola ride over the lake which has a model of Indonesia's islands (which are upside-down in my picture). I'm pretty sure the big one is Kalimantan/Borneo, but I'm not positive. They're hard to see in my picture, but there are some little white dots that are miniature volcanoes on the islands.

5. Got ready for my parents and Megan to come. Remember my locked bedroom? Because my apartment has two bedrooms and the school only pays for me to have a studio, one of my bedrooms is locked, but they let me open it so that Megan could stay there. I got to see a whole new part of my apartment.

6. Welcomed my parents and Megan at the airport! It was so good to see some familiar faces.

7. Went to Yogyajakarta and Solo in Central Java with them. We had such a good time. We visited a couple of incredible ancient temples (Prambanan and Borobudur), a batik factory and a silver-making factory, and two interesting palaces of the local monarchs. And after living on an island for three months, I finally saw the ocean. We waded in the Indian Ocean on the south side of Java. Awesome waves! We also drove through a lot of countryside, which is very different from American countryside.

At the batik factory: this is a woman putting the wax by hand on the fabric before it's dyed. Batik-making a very complicated and time-consuming process. In the background you can see a little more of the kind of thing she's working on here.

The Buddhist temple/pilgrimage site: Borobudur.

Taken from the top of Borobudur.

This is the Hindu temple Prambanan. The scaffolding and the stones that you see in the foreground are part of the reconstruction efforts, which have been complicated by extensive damage from an earthquake in 2006. Imagine it as the world's largest puzzle. It ties my brain in a knot just to think about it.

The Indian Ocean and Indonesian beach-goers.

8. Got back to Jakarta.

Megan and my parents spent about a week in Jakarta with me after we got back from central Java. My apartment was a lot busier with four people living in it, and it was really nice to have some one to come home to. They kept busy with finding their way to the mall and swimming in the pool at my apartment complex. Over the weekend, we went to a wedding of one of my coworkers (the groom is Australian and the bride is Chinese-Indonesian). I learned that it's not impolite in Indonesia to skip the ceremony and just come to the reception. We were among about 30 people at the ceremony, while more like 350-400 appeared for the reception.

Keep this a secret, but I played hooky from school on Tuesday (when I don't teach any classes anyway), so that I could spend their last day with them. We went to the Dutch district of Jakarta, which wasn't quite as interesting as I hope it would be, partly because it hasn't been very well maintained and partly because it was really, really hot while we were walking around. We managed to find a very nice restaurant for lunch, though, and we finished the afternoon at Monas, Indonesia's national monument. Up at the top, it was clear enough for us to get a great view of the city.
Mom and Dad and Megan left the next day (two weeks ago), and I've been missing them a lot. I really enjoyed introducing them to the people and places that I'm growing to love here. If anyone else wants to come visit, feel free. It makes me very happy.

Since then, I've been getting used to teaching eighth grade. They are so funny! They give me a little more of a headache than the 10th and 11th graders do, but they have so much energy and creativity. I got some great results when I had them write a fractured fairy tale, and I saw some interesting Powerpoint presentations yesterday on war posters. Two of my favorite quotes from eighth grade:
One male student to a group of giggly female students: "Stop acting like a bunch of howler monkeys!"
One student to another: "You're speaking unproper English!"

My tutoring student also cracks me up. When he doesn't want to do something I've asked him to do, he simple says, "No need. No need." How can you argue with that?

On Saturday, we had an all school social gathering at hotel restaurant. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet with Indonesian, Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Western food. It felt like Thanksgiving. My favorite part was the cheeseboard right around the corner from the breadbasket. I haven't had such good bread and cheese since I came here. It was a communal gorging on delicious food, so a good time was had by all.

I'm approaching my four month anniversary in Jakarta. It seems a little strange that I've been here that long because I still feel so new here and I still have moments where I think with disbelief: I'm in INDONESIA. But I'm learning a lot. God is good. All the time.

Thoughts on Ramadan and other recent news

2008-09-30T21:02:00.002+07:00

So I promised that this post would be about Ramadan (which started October 2 and ends today, I think), but as I’ve been thinking about it, the fact that it’s Ramadan isn’t that apparent, at least not to my untrained eye. There are a few things that stick out. People get up early to eat so I sometimes heard an air rifle being shot off at about 5:15am and I saw a few fireworks at night as the fast was being broken. Right now, some one’s setting off a lot of fireworks in the neighborhood, and they’re getting just high enough that I can see them bursting over the rooftops out my living room window. When I was tutoring late at my private student’s house, I would have to wait a few minutes until the family’s driver had broken the fast so that he could take me home.

I have been learning more about Ramadan, though. I’ve learned that it’s a time of purification, generosity, and forgiveness for Muslims. At the end of Ramadan, Muslims celebrate Idul Filtri (known as Lebaran in Indonesia). Giving money is an important part of the celebrating. The wealthy give to the poor. Employers (though not mine) give to their employees. Parents give to their children. What’s interesting to me is the culture conflict that happens in that arena. Many of us gladly contributed to funds for the security guards at my apartment and for the cleaning and security staff at school, but I overheard an Australian coworker complaining about how his paper boy came begging for a Lebaran donation. Walking the line between generosity and handouts is difficult here.

In some ways, the Indonesian celebration of Lebaran resembles the Christmas season in the United States with the emphasis on generosity and family (and increased consumer spending). There’s a mass exodus out of Jakarta for Lebaran as people go home to their towns and villages to celebrate with family. Even though IPEKA is a Christian school, we get a week and a half off for Lebaran, so I’m enjoying easy transit around the city and sleeping past five o’clock until....

My parents and my roommate Megan get here on Sunday! I’m beyond excited. We’re going to Yogyakarta for a couple of days and then they’ll spend a week with me in Jakarta. I’ve been delightfully busy with figuring out details like groceries and linens and who’ll sleep where. Which means that I haven’t been doing as much grading as I should be. I got slammed with 11^th grade papers and then 10^th grade tests and then 11^th grade finals, and I’m still not done. The hard part about giving out an assignment is that I know I’ll have to grade more than a hundred of them. But with my family coming, I’m really motivated to get it all done.

In other teaching news, I’ve been easing into eighth grade, where we’ve started a unit on war. My first class with them kind of devolved into shouting matches of their opinions on war, which was fun, even though it was a little chaotic. They’re definitely different from my 10^th and 11^th grade students, and they have lots of energy. Here’s one thing that’s been cracking me up. One of the problems that we have as English teachers at IPEKA is that students don’t always speak English in class. IPEKA is supposed to be a 100% English school, but it certainly doesn’t work out that way. So, we English teachers try to discourage Bahasa Indonesia in our classes as much as we can. About a month ago, I was thinking about how my high school French teacher made us sing a song in class if we made a certain verb mistake in past tense. Inspired by Mrs. Lattimer, I wrote the following lyrics for Indonesian-speaking infractions.

(Sung to the tune of Alouette)
This is English class where we speak English,
We speak English no matter what the task:
In our groups and to our friendsies
Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Wednesdays
Fridays, too, yes that’s true. Ohhh.
This is English class where we speak English,
We speak English no matter what the task.

Since it was a little late to start it with my 10^th or 11^th graders, I decided that my ditty would have to wait until January, but then eighth grade fell into my lap, and I thought I’d see how it worked. Well, I taught it to them on my first day with them (Monday), and when I saw them again on Friday, I heard little choruses of “This is English class” erupting as I walked down the halls. It made me laugh. I hope it works.

I did something really exciting today, but I want to tell the story with the pictures I took.

Flotsam and jetsam news

2008-09-16T22:54:00.004+07:00

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy, so I apologize to those of you who’ve been waiting with bated breath for my latest report.

The end of my time with my year 11 students kind of snuck up on me. It’s probably because I’ve never ended a school year in September. I had my last regular class with them yesterday, and it didn’t really hit me that I’m done teaching them until one of my classes handed me a little poster with a class picture and their signatures. I laughed a little because more of their comments complimented my looks than my teaching (Nicole Kidman and Annie of “Tomorrow” fame” have joined Barbie on the list of women students have compared me to), but I suppose I’ll appreciate it when years of teaching have made me grumpy and sour. I’ll miss my 11s.

The school calendar is really complicated, and I won’t explain it completely, but basically the year 11 students begin year 12 next month, while the year 10 students won’t move up until January. This means that my schedule for the next few months has a big hole, which will soon be filled by teaching grade 8. And with this newest reshuffling of the schedule, I'll only be teaching 3 days a week, and I’ve been relieved of my grade 7 responsibilities. I’m starting to think that they want me to learn the name of every student in all of junior and senior high.

Sushi and bookstores have been a fun feature of the last couple of weeks. My coworker Tim (he’s a fellow Midwesterner) and I started exploring good sushi places a couple of weeks ago. Some of our Indonesian co-workers know of an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet, so a group of us are going next weekend. I’m pretty excited, even though wasabi and I have a complicated relationship. As a small side note, I’m getting much more proficient with chopsticks. On the subject of bookstores, Tim and I also found an excellent one in a western suburb of Jakarta (Lippo Karawaci) where you can read in egg shaped wicker chairs that hang from the ceiling while looking out the window and sipping “Refreshing Tea” or “Relaxing Tea” from the bookstore’s café. Good bookstores are rare enough in Jakarta, partly because this culture is not much of a reading culture, and the ones I’ve found don’t make leisurely browsing easy. The same area also has a lot of restaurants that look like they’re worth trying. We had some tasty Indian food at one and enjoyed dessert and live music at another.

Last Monday we had a blackout at school. Apparently, random power outages are fairly common in Jakarta. The school is equipped with a generator to deal with it and the light came back on a couple minutes later. It doesn't really surprise me that this city has power problems. Infrastructure is not exactly Jakarta's strength, and a city of 10 million takes up a lot of energy.

Also along environmental lines: yes, this city suffers from air pollution and trash everywhere, but they do have some good ideas. At the grocery store, you buy many liquids and gels in pouches not bottles. For example, I bought hand soap in a bottle the first week I was here, but now that I'm running out, I can just buy a pouch of hand soap, and it cuts down on waste. The same goes for cooking oil and laundry detergent and dishwashing liquid. Packaging in general seems less wasteful here. (Unfortunately, there’s no recycling, and I still cringe a little when I throw away plastic bottles or paper.) Another thing is that there’s no central air conditioning. IPEKA cools classrooms and offices with wall units, but the hallways and the lunchroom don't have AC. Besides cutting down on climate costs, this also means that we can control the temperature of individual classrooms, unlike most American classrooms.

I miss fall. I’ve never had a September without autumn, and it’s hard to believe it’s September without changing leaves and crisp, cool sweater weather.

Last week I found a Walter in my refrigerator. “Holy cow!” I said. He crawled out more slowly than usual and posed for several photos on the side of the fridge while he was warming up.

Topic for next time: Ramadhan

Grocery Shopping

2008-09-01T17:14:00.009+07:00

Grocery shopping has never been my favorite thing to do. I always get overwhelmed by possibilities and take way longer than I should. And grocery shopping here is part of that “everything is more complicated and takes longer than it should” feature of living in Jakarta. But here are some interesting features of my grocery shopping.

I shop mostly at two big supermarkets, Carrefour and Hypermart. They sell other stuff beside food, so they’re kind of like a Walmart or a Target but only kind of. When I arrived at Carrefour the other day, there was a promotional tent outside where this was happening. Yes, those are children in oversized plastic balls rolling around like hamsters in an inflatable pool filled with water. I couldn’t stop laughing, and I really needed to share it with someone.

Carrefour has a garage on the first floor so you have to take this moving ramp up to the second floor. They magnetize the cart wheels so that they don’t slide down. At first glance, Carrefour looks pretty much like a grocery store in the U.S.

There are some differences, though. For one thing, there are a lot more store employees. Labor is very cheap in Indonesia, so at times there are more employees than customers in an aisle. Sometimes they thrust products at me or try to get me to sample something. There’s always someone mopping the floor. Actually, that’s true almost everywhere I go—school, mall, grocery shopping. Floors and windows really do need to be cleaned often (pollution brings in a lot of grime), but sometimes I think employees just need something to do. Other grocery store differences: eggs aren’t refrigerated, there’s a whole aisle of powdered milk, bread pretty much only comes in white, and when there’s a problem at the register (at least at Carrefour), they wave a flag until someone come to help.

My favorite product that I've seen recently was in a Indian grocery store which I visited with my Indian neighbor from across the hall (he and his wife are also IPEKA teachers). Sorry for the blur, but it says "World's No. 1 Fairness Cream for Men." For a white person who cannot tan to save her life, this looks very funny.

The story of this week is me starting to fall in love with fruit here. I started with familiar fruits, bananas and apples and oranges and grapes, but I’ve been branching out. I discovered pink guava juice a few weeks ago, and I’m pretty much addicted to it now. My exciting discovery this week was that guava naturally prevents or cures dengue fever (a nasty virus transmitted by mosquitoes). I love it when I’m smarter than I think I am. I also tried fresh guava, pink and white, for the first time. If you haven’t tried it, it’s a green fruit about the size of a small apple or orange, and you wash it and cut off the top and bottom and bite it and it’s juicy and fleshy and it can have some small seeds, but overall delicious. I also found some excellent mangoes this week, some at a fruit stall near my apartment (thankfully, I had an Indonesian friend to translate), and some at Hypermart. Mangga is Indonesian for mango, and they’re fabulous here. I'm also learning to cut up a mango successfully, but give me a little more time to practice.

I have one more piece of grocery news, though it’s not really my grocery news. On the way to church last week, we saw this motorbike. Those chickens are alive (or were). I hope they enjoyed the ride.

Lessons learned this morning

2008-08-29T14:10:00.002+07:00

1. If I don't get my 8 hours of rest, I am at risk of oversleeping.
2. Oversleeping becomes much more likely when I hit "off" and not "snooze."
3. Waking up at 6:05 (five minutes before the shuttle leaves) is enough to induce heart pounding panic.
4. Wearing a uniform really reduces that paralyzing "what will I wear?" feeling when there are thirty seconds to get dressed.
5. Morning non-essentials include face-washing, teeth-brushing, breakfast, jewelry, make-up (though I did manage a couple sweeps of mascara), and a packed lunch.
6. I can go from bed to door in about three minutes if I really need to.
7. I'm not doing that again.

Skype

2008-08-25T12:48:00.002+07:00

I am a new and passionate fan of Skype. If you have a computer with a microphone, please download Skype and call me (I'm easy to find). When I talked to my dad this weekend, I was blown away by the quality of the sound. Downloading the application and computer to computer calling are both free. What could be better?

2008-08-22T12:34:00.003+07:00

Good news: I am less that an hour away from the weekend!

Bad news: My computer has at least a hard drive problem and perhaps other problems, too. Which means that I need to find a friend who speaks Bahasa Indonesia to help me buy a new laptop, since I'm tired of fixing a four-year-old computer. I'm not really that upset about it (all my files are safe, thank goodness); it's just the hassle that I mind. Everything here takes about 5 times more effort and 10 times more time.

Busy news: With the resignation of one of our English teachers, some teaching responsibilities have been redistributed to cover the holes. Right now it looks like I'll be helping 7th graders in "individualized instruction," which means another 100+ names to learn, bringing my total to more than 350 students in three grades. I'm kind of looking forward to it because seventh graders have an energy that gets lost by the time they get to high school.

I just realized that I may not have described my teaching responsibilites very well. If this will bore you, feel free to skip this paragraph. Most of my responsibilities are in eleventh grade, where I work with Karla. We're almost done with a unit on power in which we've been reading Animal Farm and Marked. Once a week, I and two other teachers work with tenth graders for individualized instruction, which is more of a support class for their English skills and classwork. Now I may be adding 7th grade individualized instruction, where I'll be in their classrooms once a week with another 7th grade teacher.

More busy news: I saw my tutoring student (I'll call him Daniel) for the first time yesterday. I'll be tutoring him three times a week. Teaching him will be something of a challenge, but it's nice to work with a student individually for a change.

Disciplinary news: I handed out my first "note of concern" today. A note of concern sends a student to "Special Afternoon Meeting" or SAM, which is basically detention during lunch. Actually, I wrote 16 notes of concern for students in the same class who were all five minutes late to my class after their morning break. Lateness is kind of a part of Indonesian culture, but it is frustrating to Indonesian and expatriate teachers alike at IPEKA. So I also made the students write down and turn in ideas to solve their lateness problem. My first note of concern should have come long before this since I've let things slide before, and I know discipline is one of my weaknesses as a teacher. With 16 under my belt, I think I'm over that hump. I hope SAM was a party today.

Tasty news: I made a really good curried tomato, bean and potato soup the other night, and I've been enjoying the leftovers all week. I would post the recipe, but I pretty much made it up, and I don't actually know what kind of beans I'm using since I don't recognize them and can't read the label.

More tasty news: I'm going to my favorite Korean restaurant tonight where you get to grill your food at a little grill built in the table. I always overeat there.

More good news: I successfully bought a pair of shoes last weekend. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

The much promised and long delayed first photos

2008-08-17T18:16:00.005+07:00

Finally, Internet installed at my apartment and a brief respite from my computer woes let me give you a visual taste of my life in Jakarta.

Two views from my balcony. This was a not-so-smoggy day where there was actual sunshine instead of cloudy glare. When I'm standing on my balcony and I turn around, I see...

My kitchen is at the back to the left. My utility room is straight back through the door you can see, and my bedroom and bathroom are to the left.

My bedroom with its ginormous bed and ugly art. Sorry, no pictures of my pink bathroom and its sickly yellow toilet seat. You'll just have to come visit.

My kitchen. One of its little oddities is that each of my four burners is a different size. Don't ask me why.

Three basic vehicles on the road. Cars, vendors, and motorbikes. What you can't see, and don't want to see, is the open gutter-canal that runs through the median. I sometimes imagine what I would do if I fell in. The answer involves tears and a lot of disinfectant.

I walk down this street to catch an ongkos to the mall. You can see a few vendors' stalls along the right side of the road. I exchange smiles with a beautiful old woman at one of them when I pass.

I'm anticipating more good photo opportunities Tuesday when we celebrate Indonesian Independence Day and the students enjoy "traditional games" for the rest of the day. I've heard that there's chicken chasing involved, so it should be good. And finally, the best shot so far of one of my Walters.

So cute!

Happy Birthday, Indonesia!

2008-08-16T13:38:00.002+07:00

Tomorrow is Indonesian Independence Day. On August 17, 1945, two days after the Japanese surrender of World War II, Sukarno declared independence from the Dutch, and the Indonesian flag was adopted. I had secretly found the Indonesian flag a little boring until a visit to Wikipedia cured me. The red represents courage, physical life, and the color of palm sugar, and the white signifies purity, the spiritual life, and rice. Together they represent a whole human being and good Indonesian cooking.

Actually, so far I'm not in love with Indonesian food. Most of my experience is limited to catered meals provided by the school the first week I was here, but the food tended to be either very spicy or very deep-fried. Once they put little tiny fried minnows no longer than my thumbnail in a little plastic bag. I think I was supposed to sprinkle them on my rice, but I couldn't eat them once I figured out what they were. That's not to say that I haven't had some good food. A co-worker and his wife introduced me to an excellent little Korean restaurant near our apartments and I've had good Chinese and Japanese food. I can find plenty of American restaurants in the shopping centers, but you'll never guess what the most popular fast food joint is: KFC. I also cook at home, but sometimes it just seems like such a bother to spend time cooking just for me.

So the nice thing about Indonesian Independence Day is that I get a three day weekend out of it, but I'm not exactly sure what I'll do with it besides wondering why the three countries (United States, France, and Indonesia) I've spent the most time in all have their independence days in the summer. Actually, I think I'll go shoe shopping. I've been meaning to buy a pair of more comfortable shoes to wear to school, but my wide feet make shoe shopping hard even in the U.S., and I'm not keen on adding a new sizing system and a language I don't understand to the mix. However, I've gotten the kick in the pants I needed from my sister who told me, "Laura, suck it up, and go buy some shoes." Thank you, Erica.

Present participle post

2008-08-12T12:50:00.003+07:00

So I've been neglecting my blog-writing responsibilities recently, but not for lack of things to share. Here's what I've been up to recently:

Mourning what looks like a fatal end to my faithful computer of four years. Just as soon as my Internet was installed in my apartment on Saturday, my computer came down with the Ebola of computer ailments. I can get it to turn on about once in every ten times I push the power button, and then I'm lucky to get five minutes of operation before the screen starts to quiver like an analog TV not quite getting the signal, and then everything freezes. I haven't exactly decided on a course of action yet, but it doesn't take a prophet to predict that there's a new computer somewhere in my future.

Ice skating. A co-worker and her daughter took me to a little ice rink in one of the malls here. (I don't know why I didn't think to bring my ice skates to Indonesia.) I wanted to go not just because I enjoy skating but also to see if I've turned into a weather wimp with all this heat. I haven't. The cold was delightful, and I'm looking forward to Christmas.

Buying my ticket home for Christmas. This was far more complicated than I expected, but the end result is that I'm arriving in Indianapolis on the 21st of December and leaving January 5. I'll be so ready for snow and cold and sweaters and seeing family and dear friends.

Receiving a delightful package of books and goodies from my mother. The way to make Laura smile is to send her books.

Researching interesting places to visit when my parents and roommate come to visit in October. My excitement goes way beyond exclamation points.

Getting a tutoring job. I'm about 90% sure that I'm going to start tutoring a very artistically talented 7th grader boy in English.

Celebrating one whole month of being here. My "anniversary" was 08/08/08, which is almost celebration enough by itself (one of the few dates where it doesn't matter if I write the date American style or rest-of-the-world style), but it was also Friday, and I was invited out to dinner at a Japanese restaurant by the family whose son I'll tutor. Then I got to watch the last half of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. It hardly seems like I've been here a month, but it's been a good one and I'm looking forward to more good months.

Teaching a graphic novel. We're reading Marked by Steve Ross in my 11th grade classes, an adaptation of the gospel of Mark. I am not very familiar with the graphic novel world and I'm not totally comfortable with the portrayal of Christ, but I love the way Marked avoids traditional iconography and refashions situations and characters to remind us how strange and crazy and challenging the gospel story is. I won't say anything more, but I definitely recommend it as a book to get you thinking.

Creeping into my kitchen every morning with a camera to capture that perfect shot of Walter.

Watching the Olympics. I've been an Olympics junkie since I was a little girl. Erica and I have sung along with the NBC Olympics theme song many times (I can hear those timpani and trumpets now), but it's a little harder to get my Olympic fix in Indonesia. For one thing, the Olympics aren't very popular here, largely because of Indonesia's limited medal prospects. Badminton is their best hope this year. In fact, there was hardly any competition for the TV rights to cover the Olympics in Indonesia. The coverage I've seen is sometimes laughable in its badness. The transition between events usually involves cutting one event off in the middle and sometimes going to an Indonesian anchor before cutting into another event in the middle. Maybe it would help if I understood more than a few numbers in the Indonesian transitions, but I don't think so. My favorite was when the visual showed a women's basketball game while the audio followed the men's bicycling road race. Perhaps Indonesia has discovered an efficient way to cover two sports at once. All in all, even though I'm closer than most of you to the Olympics, I'm feeling further away, and I've been re-examining my enjoyment of the Olympics: do I just like them because I get to watch the U.S. win? And what is it that makes a country good at the Olympics?

Living alone. This isn't anything new, but I've been thinking about how living alone has been one of the hardest things to get used to here. While living alone it has its benefits (I don't bother anyone and no one bothers me), I've decided that I vastly prefer living with other people. To all the people I've lived with, no matter how short or long the time, I miss you.

Growing, stretching, and learning.

On prices and passports

2008-08-02T18:02:00.003+07:00

One U.S. dollar equals about 9100 Indonesian rupiah. This means that you only need $110 to be a millionaire here, but the first time I saw my 6-digit grocery bill, I think my heart skipped a beat. Unfortunately, this means that knowing how to count to ten (let me show off just a little: satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima, enam, tujuh, delapan, sembilan, sepuluh) in Bahasa Indonesian doesn't really help me.

As far as prices, some things are very cheap here, but some are surprisingly expensive. At the grocery store, produce and most basic commodities are less expensive than you would find in the United States, but imported goods cost a lot more. Cereals can be $6-7 a box. One the other hand, I usually get to the grocery store by ongkos, which costs 2500 rupiah/less than $0.30. Most of the time, I "splurge" and take a taxi home, which puts me back around 12,000 rupiah/$1.30. When my taxi driver didn't know where he was going, and the ride cost close twice what it should have, I had to remind myself that I was still getting a ride home for less than three dollars. Today when I sent my mother's birthday present--wish her a happy birthday on August 30th--, a woman in a little shop next to the post office sold me a box, packed the present, and wrapped the box for 5000 rupiah.

However, most of the places where I feel comfortable shopping are pricey by Indonesian standards, and sometimes even by American standards. When I go shopping at the mall nearest my home, I'm not getting any steals. I've been looking for a watch for the last couple of weeks, and I can't find anything (besides large pink plastic ones) under 400,000 rupiah. Last weekend, I visited a very upscale mall called Senayan Plaza, which featured marble floors and designer outlets like Prada, Burberry, and Coach. In a country where people assume that I have money to burn because I'm white, it was interesting to find a place where I can't afford to shop.

My students certainly can. They come from extremely wealthy families with cooks and maids and drivers. Their jaws dropped a little when I told them that I clean my own apartment and ride the ongkos.

By the way, I have my passport back! I've been reluctant to tell this story until I was sure that everything was ok. When I first arrived, Suli, the head of administration at IPEKA, told me that I needed to give her my passport to get my kitas. I'm still not exactly sure what a kitas is. It's not my work visa, but it's still issued through the immigration office. IPEKA sponsors me and pays for it. When I forgot to bring my passport the next day, Suli called me that afternoon and told me that a man from the apartment complex would be coming by to pick up my passport and take it to the immigration office. With some trepidation, I handed off my passport to a man I had never seen before (to his credit, he did give me a business card and a receipt) and hoped for the best. I caught a glimpse of my passport when I went to the immigration office a couple of weeks ago to sign in half a dozen places and to be photographed and fingerprinted. However, I was not exactly comforted about my passport's safety when a co-worker reported that the kitas process is very expensive because of corruption. But as of Thursday, the school has my kitas, and I have my passport, which means one less thing to keep me awake at night.

There was another sighting of (newly christened, thanks to Megan Ranney) Walter the lizard this morning on my kitchen counter. Unfortunately, he's still a little camera-shy, but I promise that pictures from other parts of my life in Jakarta are coming soon.

2008-07-29T17:45:00.002+07:00

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.

How to cross the busy street north of my apartment complex:

2008-07-28T18:50:00.001+07:00

Pray.
Don’t bother going to an intersection; crossing in the middle of the block works.
If you’re American, look right first. They drive on the left side of the road here.
Wait for a break in the traffic, but remember that motorbikes usually go faster than cars.
When there’s a gap, proceed into the street. Hold your hand out, palm to the traffic and fingers up. This is Indonesian for “Please don’t hit me.”
In the middle of the road, cross the median by:

Finding an intersection with a break in the median. Watch for extra vehicles doing U-turns here.
Finding a little metal bridge that crosses the open gutter in the middle of the median.

Look left.
Repeat step 5.
Get to the other side of the road.
Thank God.

A word on Islam

2008-07-28T18:36:00.002+07:00

When I came to Indonesia, I knew that it was a predominantly Muslim country, but I had heard that its Islam was "gentle." Here's what I've noticed in that vein so far:

Most women do not wear head coverings, and I haven't seen a single one wearing the full burqa.

You can find all the trashy T.V. here that you want. I haven't noticed any censorship of objectionable material, at least not on the cable channels that I receive.

There is a mosque within hearing distance of my apartment, and I occasionally hear the prayers over the loud speakers, though to date, I haven't seen anyone stop what they're doing to pray. Maybe I just need to be looking harder.

Women do go out unaccompanied. I didn't even think about this aspect of Islam until my mother asked me about it (in the context of me going out by myself). Women go out, ride motorbikes, and have jobs. I'm told that some more traditional families might require a male escort for their female members, but unaccompanied women are not unusual. I stick out for other reasons.

In other news, I found Nutella at the grocery store and an English bookstore big enough to satisfy me. I'm a happy girl.

2008-07-23T13:16:00.005+07:00

This past Sunday, Joseph and Karla (my boss and his wife, who's my co-teacher in year 11) took me to church in the downtown part of Jakarta, which is south and east of where I live and work. It's taken me a long time to recover any of my sense of direction here, and I still get really mixed up because the streets run like a pile of spaghetti, complicated by one-way streets and streets that are blocked off.

Anyway, in Jakarta's downtown, we visited a department store which had two floors dedicated to traditional Indonesian wares. On one floor, there were paintings, wood carvings, jewelry, knick-knacks, incredible (huge!) Indonesian beetles in framed boxes, exquisite pieces of silver-smithing, and other handicrafts. The floor below it was nothing but batiks: traditional clothing for women and men and pieces of fabric with gorgeous colors, textures, and patterns. Though I've seen little flashes of beauty here, like blossoming bushes, kids playing soccer, lovely faces, and colorful pushcarts, I've mostly noticed Jakarta's dirt, poverty, and pollution. I've taken it on faith that this is a beautiful country. It was so refreshing to see the richness that Indonesia has to offer, and I'm looking forward to some more exploring.

To be fair, we also had lunch at Chili's, not exactly culturally enriching, but it tasted really good.

Patience

2008-07-19T16:58:00.002+07:00

The word of the week, maybe the word of the year, is patience. I'm finding that I often have to set aside my American expectations for smooth, efficient speed and accept that things don't always work that way here. The traffic is a perfect example. On the way back from grocery shopping this week, my taxi driver got lost. (I was very proud of the fact that I knew where I was going when he didn't.) With a traffic jam, it took probably four times the normal time to get home. If only patience weren't so difficult to learn.

Other notable items of the week:

I found a lizard in my apartment one morning this week. I tried unsuccessfully to catch him and photograph him, but he was very speedy and very good at hiding behind my couch. My co-workers have assured me that this is fairly normal. I have to admire any lizard willing to climb three flights of stairs up to my apartment.

Stairs are kind of the story of my life right now. My apartment is on the fourth floor, and I teach mostly on the fifth floor at IPEKA. I'm pretty sure that my legs are going to be in the best shape of my life by Christmas.

In other fitness news, I attended my first ever yoga class this morning at the gym by my apartment where I have a membership. I didn't understand anything the instructor said, but by the end, I had learned a little yoga, and I think I had worked out the Bahasa words for "inhale" and "exhale."

Even when I'm feeling impatient, I can't ignore the wonderful kindness shown to me from all directions: my co-workers at IPEKA and my friends, family, and church families. I gave some devotional thoughts at a teacher fellowship meeting this week, and it was a great opportunity to reflect on how God has been good to me here. I am very grateful. Blessings on all of you.

2008-07-17T07:37:00.003+07:00

This is the week when I've started to notice all the little things that I have to get used to. Things like:

1. My hair will always be a little on the frizzy side here.

2. The sun always goes down at 6 o'clock.

3. Cars drive on the left side of the road, so I need to make sure I'm looking the right way when I cross the street.

4. Shopping will always more difficult than I think it will be.

Actually, a lot of things turn out to be more difficult than I think they will be. Like going to the bank this week. Fortunately the woman who opened my account spoke fairly good English, but I had a terrible time trying to deposit my US dollars into the account because 1) I had fifty dollar bills instead of hundred dollar bills, and when I had exchanged them for hundred dollar bills at the money exchanger next door, 2) my hundred dollar bills didn't have the right serial number. Not all cash is equal here.

Yesterday, I had my first day of classes, so I met all of my students. I have around 115 students in grade 11, and I don't think I'm going to learn all of their names before Christmas. Fortunately, their names are mostly Western-sounding names, so pronunciation shouldn't be a problem. They call me Miss Laura (all teachers are addressed by first name here), and they seemed interested in me--I fielded a number of questions about my romantic status--, so I'm excited to jump into teaching. The first book we're reading is Animal Farm, so it should be interesting, particularly in a country where the government is often corrupt.

Favorite student comment of the day: "Miss, you look like a Barbie." Which made me laugh.

Fun fact to know and tell about Indonesia: Like many Indonesians, some of my students have only one name, and it's not always a particularly unique one (like Ryan or Kevin). This makes it really difficult to tell them apart when their only name is the same as someone else's. I am newly grateful for my three names: Laura Elizabeth Mail does not get mixed up with anyone.

I'm here!

2008-07-12T13:40:00.001+07:00

Please congratulate me. I have successfully navigated by foot the city of Jakarta to arrive safely at the mall and its free Internet, and I did it all by myself. It helps that someone showed me how to do it two days ago, but I’m still proud of myself.

The last week has been something of a whirlwind. We got back from Michigan; I packed, slept, went to church, and left for the airport on Sunday afternoon. My travel was mercifully smooth, despite a delay in Los Angeles (thank you for your prayers). I even made a friend in Hong Kong who was also on the way to Jakarta, and I realized that traveling alone makes you hungry for conversation, so I was very grateful for company.

Since I arrived on Tuesday, I’ve been busy with preparing for the new school year. I’m teaching mostly 11^th grade and a few classes of 10^th grade. The school schedule is possibly the most complicated thing I’ve ever seen. Some days I teaching two periods out of 11 and some days I teach 8. Preparations have included PowerPoint presentations, a 5 hour worship/welcome-to-the-new-semester service, meetings with the English department, getting to know my colleagues (Joseph, Karla, Tim, Laura, Glenn, Tricia, and others), and the like. If you’re interested, you can see a picture of my school at its website: www.iics.ipeka.org. It’s just as spectacular as it looks. The facility is only a year old, and it’s gorgeous, much nicer than the school where I student taught.

One thing I love is my apartment. It’s huge! Or maybe it just feels huge after four years of college living. I have a large room that includes a kitchen, dining table, and living room, a bedroom, bathroom, balcony, utility room, and oddly enough, a maid’s bedroom and bathroom, each more like a closet than a room. I also have a phone and a phone number, so let me know if you want it. I live on the fourth floor, right across from an Indian couple who both teach physics at IPEKA, and I have a great view of...well, mostly of haze. That’s something I’m still getting used to: not seeing a blue sky.

Other interesting things I’ve seen so far: avocado drinks with chocolate, on-carts (little red vans that are the only public transportation I know of), a family of five on a motorbike, and more familiar stores and products that I expected to see (Pizza Hut and Ace Hardware among others).

I’m not entirely comfortable here yet, particularly because I don’t speak any Indonesian (I don’t even know how to say “I don’t speak Indonesian” so I’m pretty much helpless when it comes to communication), but I’m feeling like this is a place where I can be happy.

Thank you for your love and prayers.

Laura

The hopefully-not-too-boring first entry

2008-06-27T07:03:00.004+07:00

Welcome to my blog! I'm hoping that this is a good way to keep it touch with all of you while I'm making my way in Jakarta, Indonesia as an 11th grade English teacher. Here's the scoop:

Departure date: July 6

What I'm doing until then: freaking out and going to Michigan for a family vacation

Hours I'll be in Indianapolis between vacation and getting on a plane: hopefully 24

Time it will take me to get from Indianapolis to Jakarta: about 30 hours with stops in Dallas, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong.

Things I wish I were taking: my cute sweaters (too hot there) and more books (not enough room)

What I've been doing this week: saying goodbye (to Indianapolis, to clean tap water, to weather below 70 degrees, and to people I love), driving to the Indonesian consulate in Chicago twice, worrying about my visa, getting my visa, hanging out with my parents, getting new luggage, and not putting stuff in that luggage (yet).

Best way to reach me: email--lauralizmail@yahoo.com--since I don't know what my phone service will look like until I get there. I can also receive snail mail at my school.

Laura Mail
c/o IPEKA International Christian School
Kompleks Taman Meruya Ilir Blok K
Jakarta 11620

What would make me really happy: to hear from you during my Indonesian adventure and to have your thoughts and prayers with me.