Surprises

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

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...

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...

"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...

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

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

Wins and Woes

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.