Kindly Pointings

As my father kindly pointed out, I have not written on my blog for awhile. This is largely due to the fact that talking about everything happening in my life lately on the internet would make me a gossip. We have a new superintendent this year, and with new leadership comes a lot of change. I'm trying to be a good example to my more change resistant Javanese co-workers, but if I'm being completely honest, I am having a very difficult time respecting the majority of the decisions of my new boss. I've been praying about this and would appreciate prayers as well. As usual, I am in the thick of things because I am close to the Indonesian staff AND the foreign staff. I hear all the gossip from both sides about most everything that happens around here. A lot of it I'm sure I shouldn't know and it's hard weed out what is fact and what is fiction. Suffice it to say it's been a dramatic and stressful school year so far...

Other than that, uhmmmmm.... I am enjoying teaching middle school less and less. Well, I take that back. Half of it. I love the 8th graders to pieces. They are adorable and always do their best and crack me up a lot; however, the 9th graders are a different story. This particular class needs to go back to 4th grade and try high school again in 5 years or so. They seem to be unable to bring basic things like paper and pencils to class. They also appear incapable of holding in their belches and farts DURING class time. This, in turn, renders them unable to listen to a word I say, generally. I have had classes twice this large before, but I have never in my life had such classroom control issues - even in America! Aduh. Trying to come up with clever strategies to get these guys rolling...

Boyfriend is great and amazing and wonderful, as always. I went home with him for Lebaran (Idul Fitri) because his mom insisted that we come. She isn't Muslim, but even Christians travel to the homes of friends for times of feasting and forgiveness. I have lots of pictures of those 2 days that I need to upload. I met boyfriend's grandmother for the first time. And because she is half blind and I spoke only Javanese to her, we are fairly sure she has no clue that I'm white. Oh, and I also met boyfriend's older brother that he never told me he had. I was kinda mad about that one at first until I realized that he also had two other siblings that HE never knew he had (they died when they were young - before boyfriend was born). That led to some interesting front porch talks with boyfriend and his mom in which she explained her life story. That woman never ceases to amaze me.

So random tangent - when boyfriend was 4, police stormed his house and took away his father. They never saw him again. Aswan remembers that night clearly. You don't forget police kicking down your door and dragging your father away. His mom, who had never worked a day in her life because she got married when she was 17, went to work to feed her 3 kids. She opened a stand on the sidewalk selling pecel, a rice and vegetable dish with peanut sauce. She works there to this day, making $60 - $70 a month. Boyfriend and his 2 sisters went to work in elementary school to pay their way through middle school and high school because they knew they wanted to make something of themselves. That is the life boyfriend has always known.

Here is what we found out together on his mom's front porch last week - she was one of 9 kids (Aswan only knew of 3 aunts and uncles), but 5 of them died before reaching adulthood. His mom got married young and quickly got pregnant with her first child - a boy. When he was 3, he got typhus and died. That same year, she gave birth to her second child - another son. Because of some Javanese tradition that states that when your first child dies, you should give the second one away for its safety, she and her husband decided to let their neighbors (distant relatives who were unable to have children of their own) adopt the second baby. Shortly after that, they moved away, leaving their second child with his new parents. A year later, she gave birth to a baby girl. She died of a high fever when she was 2 months old. Then over the next six years, she gave birth to three more children - Aswan and his two sisters (but not in that order - one is older and one is younger). When their youngest child was 2, her husband died.

The strange thing is that Aswan's mom shared openly with us for the first time about her two children who died. But for his whole life, his mom has never talked about her husband's death, only brushing questions off with "He was sick". Seeing his mom being open, Aswan took the opportunity to ask his mom, "Mom, what sickness killed my dad?" Something shifted in her eyes, and she said, "I forget". "Where is his grave?" Aswan asked. "Lost" was the one word answer we got just before his mom stood up and walked into the house, leaving us on the porch wondering about everything she hides in her heart.

So yup, that was our Lebaran. Lots of traffic and heat and opor ayam (food). We visited 10 houses in 4 cities in 2 days. But life is back to normal as far as the mosques go.

I found some books in English and Toms shoes for sale here locally. The Toms are probably knockoffs, but at least they had the decency to come with original tags. I paid $20 for 2 pairs. I have pictures to post someday, I just never seem to have time.

I got a new layout for my blog, so if you're reading this on google reader, you should look at it.

I've been healthy for 2 weeks now - a record!

There is a lot of gecko poop on my wall that I desperately need to do something about.

I only use the right shift key, never the left one.

I have been writing random things here in an attempt to distract myself from wanting to watch Criminal Minds late at night because I know it will give me bad dreams if I do.

It is after midnight and I have church tomorrow morning. My pastor is in America until the end of the month. I like it when the elders take turns preaching. I also like it when Aswan is the drummer for the worship team. Because I think it's cool that my boyfriend is a drummer.

And... ummm... oh yeah - in the past 2 weeks, boyfriend has been asked in 2 different public places if I am his a) wife and b) sister. Sister? Really? Both of us were stunned at that one.

OK, I think I'm finally tired enough to not want to watch an episode of CM, so I'm gonna go to sleep. Goodnight from Java!