wow, yesterday

i kind of feel like i ended last school year and went straight into gallavanting all around the orient then came home just in time to be thrust directly back into a new school year. i'm not complaining. i'm not stressed. but i am busy. just the right amount of busy. besides being at school from 7 until 3 or 4 every monday through friday, each evening seems to have its own event. some regular, some not. monday has indonesian bible study. tuesday has single white girls bible study. wednesdays are a variety, depending on the week. thursday has indonesian english language fellowship. fridays i now help out at the coffeeshop until closing time. saturday evenings are always spent with my indonesian friends. and of course there's church on sundays.

sometimes a girl just needs a break. so the past few saturdays have been that for me. i've been sleeping in. not on purpose. but i've found that after the weeks i have, if i don't set an alarm, i actually sleep about 12 hours straight. amazing. my saturdays as of late have involved pajamas until 2 o'clock, french toast for breakfast on my front lawn at noon, multiple movies, an attempt at reading jane eyre, and other forms of general laziness. it's great.

yesterday was no different. until about 7 o'clock. my indonesian friends and i weren't meeting for dinner until 8 (re-read the first paragraph if you've forgotten what saturday nights are for), so my laziness was extending extra long. though i have to interject here that i did work out and shower. have you heard of the shred? it's about as pleasant as its name would indicate. anyways, at about 7, girl cat (yes, that's her name. her brother is named boy cat. though my neighbor calls him "mr chubbins", a name which i cannot abide.) thought it would be an awesome idea to catch a bat, NOT kill it, bring it into my house, and let it loose under my bed. maybe she was trying to be friendly with the bat - i mean, they DO like dark places, and under my bed is the most cave-like place in my house. when i saw her let herself in the front door and race into my bedroom with something in her mouth, i couldn't quite tell what she had. in fact, i didn't know what it was until i stuck my head under my bed and a bat flew out at me! some minor screaming may or may not have been involved on my part. i closed the cat and bat in the bedroom and came back out to the front room to plan my course of action and write a facebook status indicating that my cat had brought a bat into my house. of course.

first things first, i grabbed my camera and went to take pictures of this live bat in my house. then i shut them back in my room and pondered some more. i considered asking the jaga for help, but last time i did that, he almost got fired (not my fault). and i figured i am like 1000 times its size (the bat, not the jaga... but now i have funny mental pictures), so i should be able to take care of it myself. i thought back to the time i had a snake in my house and decided to replicate my capturing method, which was to throw a tupperware dish over the top of it, slide the lid underneath, then carry it outside. girl cat seemed perturbed that i took her playmate away. bat seemed perturbed to be inside my tupperware. i was just generally perturbed. oh, and jaga seemed perturbed due to all the screaming and me throwing various animals out the front door. but he never said anything or asked about it.

anyways, THAT adventure over, i settled back onto the couch with my laptop on my lap (hence the name) looking for some song chords. after about 20 minutes of this, my laptop started moving ever so slightly. then i realized it wasn't my laptop moving, it was i who was moving. right as i was mentally running through lists of diseases that could cause this involuntary movement, i realized it wasn't me so much as my couch that was moving. well, that's odd. so i smsed yohanes, "did you feel anything? i think i just felt an earthquake." he replied, "no. kmu gila." (you're insane.) i didn't think much of it until 30 minutes later when we all met for dinner - and my friends were talking about the earthquake in jogja 30 minutes ago.

i figure i've lived here long enough. it's about time i get a live bat in my house. and it's SURELY about time i feel an earthquake. i'll just add those to my list of life experiences and stories to tell my grandkids someday.

and as a footnote, jogja is safe. i haven't heard an official report yet, but from students who live there, friends who were there for the day, and other various people at church, they estimate it was around a 5 on the richter. there was some minor panic in the malls and some nightmares on the part of my students who lived through the devastating jogja quake years ago. but everyone is safe and sound this time around. alhamdulillah.