whirlwind...

well, it's officially SUMMER! graduation was last thursday, and we finished teacher meetings up today. the next 2.5 months are all mine!

here's a quick(ish) recap of the past week.

monday - wednesday were insane for students but really laid back for teachers (well, at least for me) with finals. besides monday, i only gave one final a day, which means i spent about 2 hours a day asleep on the floor of my classroom. if i were more laid back than that, i'd be dead.

after finals, things picked up a little bit. wednesday evening was a senior dinner to honor seniors and their families. i sat at a table with some people i didn't really know - extended family of one of the seniors. after we finished eating (btw, you've never been to a potluck til you've been to one at an international school - my plate was heaped high with baked beans, indian curry, indonesian kebabs, korean kimbab, and many other foods!), an the older gentleman sitting across the table from me said, "i have something i think you could use." and he proceeded to hand me a graphing calculator WITH a manual! this man had been in indonesia for 30 hours, i don't know his name, where he got the calculator, or how he knew i'd need it... but a little known fact about me is that i've NEVER owned one. they're too expensive, so all through 4 years of a college math education, i taught myself how to do everything by hand. but next year, i'll be teaching trig/precal, a class that requires a graphing calculator. and our school doesn't have a single one. they're really hard and even more expensive to get here. what a blessing!!

thursday morning was commencement. it was possibly the best graduation i've ever been to. though this is the biggest graduating class our school has ever seen (30 seniors), it's still small enough that the ceremony was very personal. the speaker (a departing teacher) spent most of her address talking about barbies, which is totally an inside joke within our community. it was hysterical, well thought out, and VERY memorable! afterwards, we had a great time of fellowship and saying goodbyes to many of the seniors who are leaving.

thursday night, i stayed up until midnight with the 10th graders. and friday morning, i woke up at 6:30 to find 2 of them at my house... in tears! one of the 10th grade girls had boarded a plane to move away at 5 am that morning, and they had stayed up all night with her. so i was nearly late for teacher meetings as i sat on my couch and talked and cried with them.

saturday morning, i was woken up around 8 with one of the seniors in my house, her luggage exploding everywhere. (she claimed she was "repacking") i cooked breakfast and we spent a couple hours just talking and spending time together. and then we loaded ALL her stuff on my motorbike (no small feat), and i drove her to the bus stop and waited until one came for her. it was hard to watch the bus take her away...

shortly after i got back from dropping her off, i remembered that my brother was leaving for boot camp. so i got to skype with him at 4 am (his time) right before he left for the airport. i haven't seen the kid in 2 years, and he's only gonna be gone for a month, but something about all the combined emotion of the week and seeing him in full uniform for the first time ever finally made me cry a bit...

i spent saturday night with my adopted family, the linegars, saying goodbye to the kids. clayton and kelsey left for america on sunday. don't know when/if i'll see them again. they have really become my family here. another small blessing though - i've been wondering what i'll wear while working on sumatra this summer. the work there really calls for jeans, but i only have one pair of old jeans. i have 2 pairs of nice ones. and due to how ridiculously difficult it is to find jeans that fit me here, i'm not willing to sacrifice any of the nice ones. but kelsey had a whole garbage bag of old clothes she was getting rid of, so i looked through it and found THREE pairs of jeans that fit me! yohanes and i both wanted to go to the airport with them the next day to see them off, but there wasn't room in the car with all their luggage, so we devised a plan....

yohanes had to go to his aunt's wedding in semarang (the same city where the airport is) in the morning. so we decided to take my motorbike there in the morning, go to the wedding, then meet up with the family later in the day for dinner and airport.

well, that day turned into an adventure all its own... i'll write a new post about that one. this is getting long! ;)