This made my day

The House of Representatives passed on Wednesday the amendment of the five-year-old fishery law, now allowing sea patrols to shoot-on-sight vessels found poaching in Indonesia's sea waters. [This is hilarious! We get to legally kill people.]

The ministry's director general for surveillance and control Aji Sularso said it needed the law to legitimize its "firing and drowning" actions on poachers and to discourage them from repeating similar actions in the future. [Drowning would seem to be an effective means of discouragement, yes.]

"Firing and drowning can now be done under certain conditions, and we will immediately prepare for operating procedures to carry out the measures," said Aji, who is also the head of the government's working committee for the fishery law revision. [Certain conditions? Prepare? Operating procedures?]

He added that the sea patrols, however, would only be allowed to shoot at vessels not sailors as they must respect human rights. [Shooting is a violation of human rights. But drowning is OK.]

"The implementation of the ruling shall not breach human rights and international law," Aji said in a press conference after the endorsement of the law revision. [How is legalizing drowning NOT a breach of some international law?]

He said the move was important to protect the sovereignty of Indonesia. [God bless Indonesia.]

The revised law also grants the authority to investigate alleged poachers in Indonesia's exclusive economic zone to civilian patrols from the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry in addition to the Navy, which was previously the sole authorized institution to do so. [Drown first. Ask questions later.]

- The Jakarta Post [With additional commentary]

top 5 reasons why i love 9th grade

"did you know that i'm more attracted to women than men?" - kyuho

"i could never be attracted to anybody not korean. i want my kids to be purebred." - kyuho

*throws shoe out of the room* "can i go get my shoe? and while i'm out there, can i pee?" - kohl

me: kohl, is that your phone ringing?
kohl: no. it's on silent.
me: your phone is in this classroom?!
kohl: yes. right here.
jose: mine would be too, but i'm out of pulsa.

jose: doesn't kyuho remind you of chuck bass?
kyuho: don't i remind you of brad pitt?

weekenders

adventure 1.
went to semarang all day saturday. last time i'll be there for awhile, likely. i usually go with chuck and marie, but they're moving into the dorm this week (so that the current dorm parents can return to their home country to have a baby!). so that means some serious ball and chain for them. we took the 3 kids with us (big mistake) plus one extra. 2 of them got carsick on the way there and whined the whole time. the baby was mostly fine, but by the middle of the day when he still couldn't fall asleep, he decided to pretty much just scream for the rest of the trip. a white girl carrying a black baby gets a lot of attention. a white girl carrying a screaming black baby gets even more. luckily for me, charles and marie carried him most of the time... it was bethanie's birthday, so she felt entitled to grab everything she saw off the shelves then get all cry-ey faced when you told her she couldn't have it, even if it WAS her bithday. then when josh was playing at the kids play station at the mall, he had some sort of freak accident that involved him falling from a high place, getting ALL the wind knocked out of him, and knocking himself unconscious. fantastic. oh well. got what i needed. glad to be able to help out with the kids. was ready for bed by 8 o'clock.

adventure 2.
bethanie's birthday party. 10 screaming kindergarteners. i designated myself camera person, thus minimizing contact with the little people. karma was swift and sure. a monkey man came around and decided to put on a show for us. this involved getting his trained monkey out of its cage and beating a drum furiously while the monkey performed a variety of tricks for about 10 minutes. those of you who know me well know that i HATE monkeys deep down in my very soul due to some tragic experiences while living in africa that i'd rather not talk about right now. so obviously, i was less than thrilled that one showed up at the party. but add to that the fact that i am pretty sure that both the man and the monkey were demon possessed... makes for one scary party. the kids thought it was hilarious when the monkey danced and rode a bike around and whatever (btw, the monkey's head and eyes were twitching the whole time, but not in unison). i tried to slowly back away from the evil creature... and backed right into a parked motorbike. and for the third time in six months, i managed to melt the skin off my leg. in retrospect, that was probably less painful than having more direct contact with all the kids all afternoon. for everyone.

adventure 3.
bike ride with yohanes. we ended up at some body of water outside town in a small village where i was the only white person in sight. i call it a body of water, because i'm not really sure what else to call it. it was a river that ran into and back out of a small pond, but parts of both were walled or stoned off to form a variety of pools. yo called it a swamp, but it was actually very clean water. there were lots of people down there washing dishes, doing laundry, and bathing. so basically everyone was staring at me while i was trying not to stare at them. because seriously - in what muslim country is it ok for men and women to bathe in public together? geez. at any rate, it was REALLY pretty there, and possibly the first clean body of water i've seen on java. oh, that place is also very spiritual for javanese. a javanese hero once killed a crocodile there like a thousand years ago, and they believe that the place gives special powers. during the full moon, people will come soak in the waters for 6 - 12 hours so that they can absorb some of his power. after i got tired of mostly naked people, we rode around for awhile, through some villages, then back into town. we ate a lovely dinner of jackfruit curry and whole catfish and curried eggs and peppers and white rice and orange juice (total cost for both of us: $1.80), then spent some time at our adoptive family's house where we watched the rocketeer on the projector. that was one of my favorite movies when i was little! i probably haven't seen it since i was 12. oh, and we also discovered that the largest snake in the world lives just a few hours away from here! that's definitely on my list of things to see before i leave. so all in all, it was a good end to a very exhausting weekend.

ouch. again.

di jalan, dekat rumahku.

cowok: hei! mbak!
aku: apa?
cowok: hai. bagus.
aku: bagus apa?
cowok: boleh saya berkenal kamu?
aku: nggak.
cowok: oooooh... sombong!
aku: *glare*
cowok: oooh.... londo yang SOMBONG!

oh, boys.

wednesday, the principal asked me what day would be good to interrupt 1st period so the 10th graders could get class pictures. i said friday. on thursday, i told the 10th graders that the next day, we would be taking class pictures.

we all assumed that meant a whole class picture.

it was yearbook pictures.

so today they all accused me of being a liar and misleading them. all the girls were fine and didn't really care. but the boys all decided they were underdressed and didn't look pretty enough. ONE of them knew it was actual yearbook picture day and had worn a nice button down shirt. so he let the other guys borrow it. ALL the other guys. they just kept taking it off and passing it down the line. this year's yearbook will feature every single 10th grade boy wearing the exact same black and blue plaid shirt.

awesome!

in other news, there is currently a butterfly sitting on my head. it has been there for over 10 minutes now. the lady who cleans my room declared it a "modern hair accessory" and had a good laugh about it.

rough day

i just got told by a student that i'm too immature.
ouch.

i did have him clarify that what he actually meant was that i'm too young to be a teacher - too close in age to my students. not that i, personally, am maturationally impaired.

but still...

i feel like i get that crap from other teachers (though not in so many words)...
and now students?

this one's gonna stick with me.

i love kids. from a distance.

bethanie comes and sits by me on the couch...
bethanie: *sigh* i am soooooo smart...
me: *ignoring her. watching tv.*
bethanie: i guess i am just SOOOO smart.
me: oh yeah?
bethanie: yeah. SO smart.
me: fine. what's the first letter in bethanie?
bethanie: B. that was easy.
me: ok. what's 1 plus 1?
bethanie: ummm.... two!
josh: hey, bethanie, what's 6 plus 6?
bethanie: twelve.
josh: what?! did you tell her?
me: no! how did you know that, bethanie?
josh: you told her!
bethanie: i am SOO smart.
me: what's four plus four?
bethanie: hmmm... this one is harder. it's ummm... fivesixteenseventeeneighteen!
me: nope.
bethanie: then what IS it?
me: eight.
bethanie: noooooooo, silly! you're making that up!
me: nope.
bethanie: you are SOO smart.
me: thank you.

IT RAINED!

amusement for the day

i found a prewritten message to send all your friends on a pro-obama website.

Friend --
Barack Obama was born in the state of Hawaii in 1961, a native citizen of the United States of America.
Smears claiming Barack Obama doesn’t have a birth certificate aren’t really about a piece of paper, though -- they're about manipulating you into thinking Barack is different.
See Barack Obama's birth certificate for yourself and help push back with the truth:
http://my.barackobama.com/birthcertificate
Together we can make sure these negative and divisive attacks don't affect this election.
Thanks for your help.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

more news is not always good news

i found out some interesting things about noordin top...
remember about a month ago when they thought they'd killed him?
well, that's because they were able to visually identify they body as him.
but the dna didn't match.

people are saying it's because he had powers which enabled him to project his face onto anybody else.
he got the power from his land, and that was the only place he could do it at.
and guess where that shootout was at? - his land.

i don't know for sure if this is true.
but things like that are real. they happen here.
if it is true, that man was more than just a terrorist...
he had the power of satan working through him.
but isn't that true in some way for all terrorists?
hmmmm....

i was watching video footage of last week's shootout on the news a couple days ago.
they like to make things very dramatic.
the footage was set to what i'm pretty sure was a song in the lord of the rings soundtrack.
and it all ended with them showing a photograph of noordin's dead face.
shot up, bloody, swollen, and very, very dead.

i can handle gore.
but i very nearly threw up.
i don't care who he was or how many people he killed... i don't want to see that.
it was disturbing beyond belief.
on national television.

oh, yeah!

another reason to celebrate....
after years of manhunts, gunfights, and close calls, noordin top is dead!
the police killed him in a gunfight thursday morning about an hour from here.

God and i have been talking a lot about if it's ok for me to rejoice in that.
and He says yes.

because one man is dead, hundreds more will live.

the only part of this that brings me sadness is thinking of his family.
imagine someone killing your daddy on christmas eve.
that's essentially what happened for those kids.
i don't necessarily feel so bad for his wives.
they knew who they were marrying.
but those kids didn't choose to have a terrorist for a dad.
and they didn't choose for him to die the way he did.
especially not on the eve of idul fitri.

idul fitri

once again, it is idul fitri.

ramahdan ended last night.

town was crazy. traffic and people everywhere.

parades of children dressed in white carrying torches and drums were marching through all the neighborhoods.

at the center of town, panca silla, all the action was happening.
it's a large, soccer field type area with a roundabout road all around it.
dump trucks FILLED to the brim with human bodies were cruising around with massive speakers playing arabic music.
people were shooting off fireworks, bottle rockets, and mortars on the field.
(and all night long)
food vendors had their carts of fried rice and tofu there.
and hundreds of people were milling about, being generally festive.

i stayed there until about midnight then came home and went to bed.
and theennnnn... woke up at 5:30 this morning for sholat id - idul fitri prayer.
i joined the pilgrimage back to panca silla.
all the muslims join together, filling the field and the surrounding road, for prayer.
the women were (almost) all dressed in white, and the men were in their nicest clothes.
(a photographer's worst nightmare once you throw in all the shadows from the trees)

it reminded me of christmas, when all the christians got together at the town stadium to pray.
but this had a different feel.

people who know that i went keep asking if it was creepy or spiritually dark.
but i think i've been desensitized to a lot of it.
it wasn't creepy. it wasn't particularly sad. it wasn't heavy.
i'm glad i went. i'm glad i saw.

but i wish i had been moved.

sr papers

senior paper rough drafts due tomorrow. guess who has spent the week proofreading? some gems....

"The Renaissance period experienced one of the greatest discoveries ever known to mankind; the removable printing press was one of the most important inventions of all times."

"This humanism movement created many people to think for themselves. . ."

"Due to some strategies the Spanish Armada was significantly dented because of the bad weather. . ."

"As notified, all of these events truly influenced the face of literature."

it's on

"you and ms morgan should have a contest where you throw math books at each other. whoever wins is the best math teacher." - kohl

a curious sound

i was getting ready for bed last night when i heard a curious sound.
it was a sound i recognized. a sound i missed.
it was rain on my tile roof!
just a little bit of rain.... but rain!

about a month ago, it sprinkled a tiny bit.
but other than that, i can't remember the last time it rained.
it's definitely been a few months.
that's normal. i mean, it IS dry season.
but everything is so brown and dead and ugly.
the ground is cracked and dry.
and the sun just blazes down on us every day until it feels too hot to move.
i think somewhere down in the farmer part of my soul, i've just been craving rain.

so last night, i ran outside and stood in my front yard and got rained on.
i was thanking God for this rain. and then i started thinking. about kenya.

this week i heard from a guy who was my neighbor when i lived there.
he's been going out into the bush villages to check on people.
he went to one village and met a widow there.
she has 6 children and she takes care of her father-in-law as well.
her mother-in-laws died of aids.
they usually dig down in the riverbed to find water underground.
but this week, they dug down to rock.
there was no water.
it has not rained in that village for two years.

it was bittersweet as i celebrated the rain last night.
i felt like i could hear the dirt and the plants singing as they swallowed the rain.
but my mind was on my kenyan family...

so after i thanked God for the rain, i told Him africa could have it instead.
and then it stopped raining.
and i went to bed.

theology gone awry

a conversation between varun - a hindu and my TA, kelsey - a Christian student, and me.

varun: aish. why do i have to type all this up? why can't i just photocopy it all then cut out the parts you need, then tape them onto one page, then photocopy it again?
me: because that would be a waste of paper.
varun: no it wouldn't. it's not like you're ever gonna kill all the trees anyways.
me: i'm more concerned about the money. if you copy all that, cut it out, tape it, then copy again, it's gonna use like 9 pages, whereas if you just type up and print the parts i need, they fit on one.
varun: but it says in the bible that man has dominion over the earth.
me: sure, but it doesn't say we can be wasteful.
varun: do you know how many THOUSANDS of sheets of paper are coming from one tree? you're not even hurting a single tree, really!
me: it also says in the bible to be a good steward of what is given to you.
varun: but God gave everything to adam and eve to name and to do whatever they wanted with. including trees.
me: i'm pretty sure God just let adam name the animals. i don't think he marched the plants by him too.
varun: yes he did.
kelsey: how do you know? were you there?
varun: yes.
me: you're looking awfully good for your age.
varun: thank you. i was actually reincarnated. i'm not that old.
kelsey: reincarnated?
varun: yes.
kelsey: then how come adam and eve didn't get reincarnated?
varun: because they're CHRISTIANS. obviously! *exasperated sigh*
me: *laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and....*

oh, now i remember...

last sunday, the sermon was on exodus 1. and it made me think about how i usually tend to avoid reading the old testament. well... not in all cases. i enjoy psalms and proverbs. my favorite chapters are in job. my favorite book is ecclesiastes. i have a verse from isaiah tattooed on me. but really, i've read through the entire new testament like 4 or 5 times by now. and i've read through the entire old testament exactly once. i'm not really sure why. i guess when i think of the old testament, i tend to think of the long lists of rules and laws that i'm no longer bound by (therefore, irrelevant) or i think of the tedious genealogies that i usually skim anyways (boooooring) or i think of stories of ancient races of people being totally slaughtered (God did THAT?!). but the sermon brought back to mind how many COOL stories there are back there! stories of God's love and faithfulness and wrath and vengeance that those of us who grew up in church tend to get bored of due to the watered-down-for-children versions we heard over and over and over all the time in sunday school.

so this week i've been reading - like, REALLY reading - exodus. the grown up version. and for the first time i can remember, i am truly ENJOYING the old testament.

but when i got to chapter 4, i remembered another reason why i usually don't read this part of my Bible. it confuses me. more like it confounds me. i don't really understand why a lot of what happens is going on. here's what i got hung up on...

v. 19: While Moses was still in Midian, the Lord said to him, "Go back to Egypt, because the men who wanted to kill you are dead now." (this is right after Moses saw the burning bush and got in an argument with God, and God was all, "look here, boy, you will do what i say because i am God and i made you and if i say you can, you can. and if you STILL don't believe me, throw that little stick in your hand on the ground and just SEE what happens.")

so moses packs up his new wife, his kid, and he sets out. here's where it gets good.

v. 24 - 25: As Moses was on his way to Egypt, he stopped at a resting place for the night. The Lord met him there and tried to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife and circumcised her son. Taking the skin, she touched Moses' feet with it and said to him, "You are a bridegroom of blood to me."

WHAT?! God JUST got done telling Moses to do as he is told, Moses obeys, and then God tries to KILL HIM?! He must not have been trying very hard though. i mean, seriously? moses didn't stand a chance. and there's no explanation. no background. no reason. no battle scene. no play by play. just that one tiny sentence and it's over. and then there's the "but". as if what zipporah did was to somehow counter what God was doing. because yeah, that is everyone's first reaction when... oh, never mind. that is gross.

sighhhhh....

wait for the punch line.

"The photo on page 47 is of the Great Mosque of Cordoba, built in the 8th century. The Arabs crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in 711 and conquered almost all of Spain. They remained there until 1492 when Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada, the last Arab territory in Spain. Ask the students if they know what a mosque is."

- Our (published in America) Spanish textbook, teacher's edition

things i miss

i miss my dog a lot.

she doesn’t poop in the bed.

she doesn’t pee on the couch.

she doesn’t howl when she’s alone.

she’s not afraid of stuff.

she doesn’t bite or chew.

and i’m not scared to step on her.

sadie

i'm dogsitting this fantastic little retarded ball of fur.
she's sadie.
a 2 month old daschund.
she doesn't come when she's called.
she poops and pees on the floor with no shame.
she sleeps in ridiculous positions.
her toy ball is bigger than her.
she runs kind of like a chicken.
she walks into things.
she's scared of cracks in the floor/ground.
and she's scared of heights (the couch).

but she's adorable, and i love having her!
my cat decided to come home today. great timing.
needless to say, she was absolutely appalled.
and ran away spitting, with her tail poofed out like a raccoon.
sadie didn't even see her.

i just made her walk with me all the way to school.
and now she's asleep on my lap with her little heart beating a thousand miles a minute.

while we were walking, one of the penjaga came around the corner in front of us.
sadie rushed to greet him.
he sure did some fancy footwork to avoid her onslaught of love.
then i got embarrassed, because i forgot muslims aren't supposed to touch dogs.
so i had to all but dive on the poor thing right by the guard's feet and apologize profusely to him.
closer to the school, we came upon someone's driver sitting on a curb.
sadie again rushed, and i tried to grab her, but the guy welcomed her and played with her.
whew.
so i guess this dog is like religion radar.
but way cuter.

hotttttt DOG!

so finally, after a whole year of being here.....
I ATE DOG!

and surprisingly.....
it was pretty delicious.

except for it was REALLY pedas (spicy).
and i had to drink a whole glass of grape juice to counter the effects.

but it was so worth it.

in which i discover i can't not swallow

someone told me last week that during ramahdan (fasting month), some people take the "no eating or drinking anything" rule so far that they don't swallow ANYTHING.

from 3:30 AM until 5:45 PM, there are people who don't even swallow THEIR OWN SPIT.

so i decided to do a little experiment the other day.

my hypothesis was this: "i can totally walk to the neighbor's house without swallowing my spit. no problem." (i clearly missed my calling. i should have been a science major.)

i made it about halfway there before my eyes started bulging out of my head and all my throat muscles were twitching.

then i nearly gave myself a panic attack as i contemplated actually doing this for 14.25 hours straight.

and then i had to swallow. and swallow again. and swallow again.

and then swallow one more time, just to reassure my throat that i would never ever put it through 14.25 hours of not swallowing.

this is what is known as: epic fail.

gotta love these early morning moments

my question is:

WHERE'S

A

GOOD

GECKO

WHEN

YOU

NEED

ONE?!