madura (mis)adventures

our trip to madura this weekend was like a train wreck from start to finish. (note: no trains were harmed in the making of this blog post) it all started with kim, which i mentioned in my last post… she had surgery thursday morning for kidney stones. routine procedure. it went well. kidney stones gone. we got on our bus and left shortly after lunch. by late that afternoon, it became obvious that kim was not doing so well. we are still not sure if a mistake was made on the part of the doctors or if kim just reacted very negatively to the anesthesia. at about 4 o’clock, we got word that her blood pressure had dropped dangerously low, she had been placed on oxygen, and though she was conscious, she couldn’t hear anything. by 8, they had called in the family. ron, her husband, made plans to come early the next morning from sumatra to be with her. we were hundreds of kilometers away, and there was nothing we could do except pray.

we arrived in madura at about 11 with no further word on kim. however, within 30 minutes, GT got word that his fiance’s father had died. pak tukiman had been a driver for our school for many, many years, so all the teachers and many of the students knew him. he had been in and out of hospitals for the last 2 years, so his death wasn’t entirely unexpected, but he had been doing somewhat better lately. GT made plans to head right back home by bus early the next morning. poor guy spent the last two weeks driving to aceh and back, only to arrive in madura, then have to go straight back home!

friday morning, GT left, and we got word that kim had not improved overnight, so she was being med-evacuated to singapore to be put on a ventilator. but nobody could contact ron. so with even more prayers being said, we headed to the local middle school to teach english. our experience at that school was great! the kids did a fantastic job teaching things like action verbs, emotions, conversation questions, and several other things.

their students responded well, and they even took time to sing and play music for us!

after we got back from the middle school, a small group of us went directly to a local nursing school where we practiced conversational english with the university students there. they were excited to have foreigners come visit them!

on our way back from the nursing school, we got a phone call from someone at the middle school we had been at earlier. she called to tell us that the police were there questioning them about our visit, and they wanted to know our REAL reasons for being in madura. she said that they were sending some officers to our hotel to talk to us. once we got back, jesse immediately went in search of yohanes to translate for him. i went back to my room to change out of my long sleeves, pants, and head covering (madura is roughly a billion degrees), but something told me not to. so i left my room, planning to wander to the beach. instead, i found nasreen and two police officers walking toward me. then we began to play 20 questions, which was not so much a fun guessing game as it was two surly cops asking me 20 very pointed questions and me trying my best to give 20 very polite, complete, and unincriminating answers. luckily, nasreen stuck around to translate. an eternity later, jesse and yohanes found us and took over. it seemed there were two options at this point: either they would make us pay them a lot of money (which we would not do) or they would make us leave.

in the meantime, some students had gone to the beach with no shoes and had actually WALKED ON CORAL! like, open your eyes? so on top of everything else, we now had blood and deep cuts to contend with. nasreen and dan, two of the seniors on our trip, opened up a little patching up shop with the bus first aid kit, and i came to help after my encounter with the police. everyone was fixed up in no time.

then some students and i walked across the street to a little food stall to eat lunch. unfortunately, nearly all the other students NOT involved in the interrogation – spectating or otherwise – had the same idea. can’t blame them, given that it was the only place to eat for 100 meters. and that is a far distance in the blazing heat. there were only four tables in there, and they were totally packed out, so the owner invited us to go next door and wait for our order there. wearily, we marched out of the warung, glad for a place to sit. and then we realized that next door was a mosque. and we’re not exactly halal. so we went back inside to ask the proprietor if that was REALLY what he meant, and he said ya, ga pa pa (no problem). we could eat there. so we all kind of looked at each other with that “what do we do now?” look in our eyes, and we wandered back outside. in a sudden burst of good vision, one of the students noticed some rickety looking benches in the shade along the side of the mosque, so we all sat back there instead. while waiting 45 minutes for our food, we spent quite a bit of time in prayer for all the things that were heavy on our heart that day, and it was an awesome and encouraging time… i love our students!

whew… this is getting long… stick with me…

shortly after we finished praying, jesse and yo came over to eat, and we were able to ask them about the police visit. like He always does, God worked things out and softened the heart of the police. they took copies of everyone’s IDs and told us that before we come next time, we needed to report to them. whew… that situation could have been a WHOLE lot worse, and in fact, everyone who has heard about it has been amazed that it wasn’t any worse! apparently, madurese police are known for their corruption – and indonesia is the second most corrupt country in the world! go, us…

while walking back across the street after lunch, we encountered an unusual scene – two parents beating their teenage daughter in the street. she was screaming and sobbing and laying in the road. they were trying to drag her out of the road while landing a few punches here and there while they were at it. right as we arrived, a teenage boy sped off on a motor bike, and we heard it rumored later that they had been caught together at the hotel. this is a bigger deal in muslim culture than i can even begin to describe to you. worthy of beating your daughter in the street in front of everybody. of course, nobody touched the boy… it was a very awkward situation though as we stood there trying to figure out how we could help, but quickly realizing that as foreigners, there was absolutely nothing we could do.

the students spent some time at the beach that day, and about 30 students from yet another school came to hang out with them and practice conversation. i crashed for 2 hours at this point from sheer emotional exhaustion, but i heard that many, many good conversations were had, and some students told me that this time was the most meaningful – and their favorite – part of the entire trip.

that evening, we drove to a nearby town to have dinner. there were WAY more food options there! and nobody had to be asked to sit in a mosque! as long as the students stayed in non-coed groups of three or more, they were safe to go wherever they wanted. we also left plenty of time for them to be able to hang out and meet people. there is a large muslim school nearby, so there were LOTS of opportunities to meet other middle/high school students. and they did! it seemed that everywhere i went around town, i would find a group of our students surrounded by a group of indonesian students! i myself was thronged by a group of second graders… not sure how that happened? maybe because my vocabulary is right about at their level. all their parents were food vendors nearby, so they were basically left to their own devices all night long. we had fun singing songs, counting in english and madurese, and talking about our families. they were super fantastic! when we had to leave, about 40 little kids paraded with us through the streets to our bus, cheering and singing and waving goodbye.

the following morning, we packed up all our things, checked out of our hotel, and drove to a local pesantren (muslim school) where we again taught english.

this school was night and day different from the school the day before… of course, this one was still noisy and chaotic, but it was also MUCH less respectful, especially toward women. the male students (and even some teachers!) were very disrespectful and even perverted, coming onto our female students and even me in very inappropriate ways – especially for muslim culture! it was unfortunate and very disappointing. even as a teacher, i was scared to go anywhere by myself in this school. it was VERY male dominated – the girls didn’t talk or participate in class at all. but AFTER the teaching, when we got time to just hang out with them girl-to-girl, they really opened up. we spent about 2 hours there after classes talking to them, getting to know them, sharing with them, and exchanging email addresses.

we left to come home after our time at the pesantren. by this point, we knew that GT had made it home safely and that kim was in more stable condition, but that she had an infection in her lungs (which turned out to be double pneumonia – she’ll be in ICU in singapore for several more days, but her entire family is with her now. please keep them in your prayers!). so spirits were much higher coming home. God has a way of working everything out.

after we crossed the suramadu (the bridge from madura to java) – which is one of the longest bridges in the world! – we stopped to change clothes. nobody really wanted to wear their muslim garb the entire way home – especially not the girls! so we stopped at a gas station. since there was one bathroom, 11 girls, and 25 guys, we decided that the guys would all change on the bus, and the girls would all change in the bathroom. to get to the bathroom, you had to walk through a sliding metal door into a 9’ x 12’ tiled room. in the back of this room were 2 doors. one led to a toilet stall and one led to a musholla. the toilet was occupied. by our bus driver. who had the runs. roughly 5 minutes later, he finally came out. we all decided quickly that none of us wanted to go in after him, so we closed that door behind him, made sure nobody was in the musholla, and decided to slide the big door shut and all change at once in the tile room. so we did. and when we finished, we found that we were locked in. in the 100 degree bathroom. that didn’t have windows. that smelled foul. luckily, a jaga came with a key (on his 5th or 6th try!) and freed us. gas station air never smelled so sweet.

i am happy to report that the bathroom incident was the last of our misadventures. we got home safely at 2 sunday morning. we’re all a little tired and cranky today. some more than others. me more than others. but in the words of my dad, which became my motto for this entire trip, God is bigger.

in control

wow. so this madura trip... it will be interesting.

kim had surgery for kidney stones in semarang this morning. praise God that's all it was! it could have been any number of more serious things. needless to say though, she won't be going to madura with us, which is a bummer. this is her trip. she always goes. she has great relationships with the schools and the people there. and she's the one who knows what she's doing!

as of 8 o'clock last night, yohanes and gt were stranded in jakarta. they were on their way home from their road trip to sumatra and had flown from medan to jkt, but once there (at about 1 pm), they found that there were no more flights and the bus to anywhere local had already left. yo mentioned that he had lots of stories to share, so i smsed back, "will tomorrow's 10 hour bus ride be long enough for all your stories?" to which he replied, "tomorrow?!" uh-oh.... they both thought we were leaving friday! so after explaining to them that we were leaving at noon today and stressing them out to their wit's end, we had to contemplate whether or not we could get along in madura with no translators. thank heavens they were able to find a night train to solo.

that left one problem though - how would they get from solo back home? they called kim's husband (who is currently working on another island) to ask if they could use her car so that yo's brother (a driver) could pick them up, and he said yes. but i informed them that her car is here at school, she is in a hospital 1.5 hours away, and nobody has the keys. not kim (who i had to wake up by calling to ask if she knew where they were.....), not me, not the jagas. ugh. they finally got tracked down. and yo and gt made it home safe at 6:30 this morning.

one student who was supposed to go woke up with a fever this morning so can't join us. however, yo and i both seem to be mostly over our sicknesses of earlier this week.

please continue to pray that God will protect us and keep us all healthy. madura would be an awful place for anyone to get sick...

pray without ceasing

an excerpt from a mass email i sent out earlier. . .

" Dear family and friends,

Until I sat down to write this, I hadn't realized how long it had been since I last wrote! I apologize for my lengthy silence.

I would like to break my loooonnnnnnng period of silence by asking for prayer. Every semester, our school has a three day weekend that is designated for ministry trips. This semester, that weekend is this coming weekend. Some of the trips this semester are here in town and last only one day. Some are to towns nearby where those involved will be spending the night. But every semester, there is always a trip to another island of Indonesia called Madura. Those going will stay from Thursday - Sunday. While I am asking prayer for ALL of these ministry trips, I would especially ask for you to partner together with our school in prayer for the team going to Madura (I will be going as well). Madura is a very strictly Muslim region and parts of it are under Muslim law. Because of this, when we go, all the girls must wear pants, long sleeves, and head coverings, and we cannot be very free in what we say. Because of the nature of our trip, I would rather not share many details via email, but I can tell you that we will be working with several schools there to teach English. We are planning to visit 2 schools but are expecting to get invited to more once we arrive (this is what typically happens).

Specific things that I would ask prayer for:

1. First and foremost, health and safety for all the teams. Every team except one (which will be working on campus) will be doing some traveling; the team to Madura will be driving most of the night Thursday and again Saturday to make the 10 hour drive there and back. Flu has been going around the past couple weeks, and some of the teams will be staying in village homes, so those are both major health conerns.

2. Unity on each of the teams. We have a handful of kids at our school who aren't saved, and in fact, there are 5 Hindu students going on the Madura trip. Also, as with any group of teenagers, there are some who struggle with having people in authority over them. Please pray for those students as well.

3. Pray that through all things on each trip, God would be glorified, and that love would be able to reach places where our actions and our limited language cannot - both to the people we are working with and the people we are working for.

4. Pray for the leaders of each team, that God would just give us an enormous amount of wisdom in directing the students, in organizing the trips, in trying to keep 120 highschoolers safe and healthy, and in reaching others. Please pray also that we would be willing to be led by the Spirit in whatever He would have us do.

I appreciate very much your support through prayer for not only me, but for our entire school body as we set out this weekend to be a blessing to the community around us!"


Something I would now like to add....
Please pray that Satan would be bound. He is certainly attacking us even now as we make preparations. There are 5 adults that are to go on this trip. Two fellow teachers, Yohanes, GT, and me. Yesterday, Yohanes woke up with a fever and I with a nasty head cold. And this afternoon, one of the other teachers was put in the hospital, possibly with kidney stones. She is the leader and organizer of this trip, but right now, it's looking like she won't be going with us. This puts me in the position of being the only female adult going, which is a little daunting. Please pray also that no matter what happens, God would work through it. And pray for the other teacher, Kim. If it's not kidney stones, there is a possibility that it could be something more serious. They'll be doing more tests tomorrow (Wednesday).

things unseen

it was a very strange weekend that started with a murder mystery and ended with john wayne. and nothing in between was any less random.

1. friday night was the annual 8th grade play, which i understand to be the epitome of 8th graderhood. it was very agatha christie of them and written by the 8th graders themselves! very well done. after the play, i hung out with some of the 10th graders and was invited to a future sleepover with some of the girls.

2. cat came home. but she's really in and out. which makes me think that she's got kittens hidden away somewhere. mostly she only wants to eat at my house and not visit or sleep. she's been hunting around the house. i helped her take down a massive skink (lizard) on saturday. possibly the biggest one i’ve ever seen. she crunched up the whole thing, bones and all. she's a veritable garbage disposal.

3. saturday i discovered that a lot of the dvds that wouldn't play in my old computer WILL play in my new one! so i definitely watched like 6 dvds back to back. i was just checking them, alright?!

4. saturday night i went to a friend's house where we watched a 3 hour bollywood movie and ate sour gummyworms. i left after 2 hours of the movie. i couldn't take it anymore. it was all in hindi. with indonesian subtitles.

5. when i got home, there was a snake in front of my house! i decided to try to kill it with my foot, so i stomped its head pretty good. unfortunately, not good enough. it was bleeding out its head and very angry. so it coiled and struck at me. good thing i had taken its moment of shock at being stomped on to jump away from it. i decided i didn’t want to mess with it, so i yelled for the jaga, who RAN over to me, knife drawn, and chopped that sucker right in half. my hero.

6. then, in a sudden (and rare) burst of inspiration, i got artistic! i came home and created things with sharpies until about 3 in the morning. things i actually LIKE. which is even more unusual…

7. i woke up sunday at 11:30 (good thing church had been cancelled) to an sms from yo asking me to take some money to his brother who is visiting from sumatra. he ran out of money and can't get back home. so half awake, i headed over there to give him some gas money. yo's mom asked me if i wanted to talk to yo, which is strange because yohanes and gt are both still gone. i didn't know what to say. so then she told me she thinks i'm getting sick, but i'm not allowed, because Jesus told her so. yes, ma'am.

8. after that, i headed into town. it seemed like there was an awful lot of traffic. i realized why when i got stuck in a traffic jam that involved dancing dragons. it was a chinese holiday. i managed to get out of that traffic jam and tried to circumvent it, only to find myself in another jam. so i took a different road to a different part of town, only to find the street i needed closed off. i'm sure glad i have my license plates though, because i passed at least 20 cops directing traffic. i FINALLY made it to the bank 45 minutes later (for what should be a 5 minute drive, tops), then to the store to pick up some essentials. like pomegranate juice and toilet paper. one leads to the other.

9. i got almost all the way home and realized that yet ANOTHER road was closed. i was all grumbling to myself about my bad luck when i heard the music... it was another horse dance. so i drove over and saw that nothing was really happening yet, so i prayed for awhile then went home.

a few hours later, i went and got marie (who had never seen horse dance), and we grabbed our cameras and headed over to see the action. naturally, as soon as we got there, it started pouring rain so hard that within seconds, the road had become an ankle deep river. luckily, a fellow teacher lives just a block over from where the dance was, so we hightailed it over there to seek shelter (and towels) for the cameras. ugh. eventually the rain stopped and we headed back over.

this horse dance was a little different. it was the same "troupe", if you can call them that, that i saw last time. but this time, they were using little boys. one boy looked no more than 10. and he was possessed. the field they were in had turned to mud, but that only made them dance all the harder. and they were fighting. and they were feeding cabes (reputably some of the hottest peppers in the world) to one of the guys. after they cast the spirits out of him, the very first thing he did was throw up all over. i never really thought before about what it must feel like to be thrashing your body around into stone walls and into the ground and burning yourself and getting whipped and eating nasty things, and then waking up from that and being able to feel it all. sounds horrible.

after the spirits were cast out of everyone, they got volunteers from the crowd for their last act. there was a large bamboo pole, and they would get 5 guys to come hold it. then the bah-wang (the man who had control over the spirits) would simply move his hands from some distance away, and it would cause the pole to spin around, no matter how much the guys were pushing and straining against it. creeeeeeeeepy.

10. after all the so-called festivities ended, marie and i headed home. i drove her to school, and as we were getting our bags checked by the guard at the front gate, we heard this awful crashing sound behind us. i turned around and saw that some parjo had managed to get his bike up on the sidewalk and had thrown himself off into the shrubbery. now, this is a fantastic feat, given that the curbs here are at least a foot high. i have no clue how he managed to get a motorbike up there, but he did so spectacularly. and he was fine. just a little shaken up.

11. when i got home, there was a tree frog with orange stripes sitting in my window and a bunch of dead termites on my floor… yes, it’s termite season again. also, the biggest ant i’ve ever seen was in my shower. almost 2 cm! then a grasshopper was sitting on my sink faucet when i tried to use it. and later on my toaster. and even later, right on my laptop. same grasshopper. apparently this was the weekend for creepy crawlies in and around my house.

12. and then, to finish it all off, i watched mcclintock last night. my first john wayne movie ever. i’ve been missing out all these years. it’s strange to watch old westerns with non-americans though. so much of the subtle humor is lost.

weekends are the best times for adventures. always.

WHERE'S MY CAT?!

so ever since my cat came back, needy and pregnant as ever, she's had this routine...
she spends the days while i'm at school laying on the couch, watching ibu work.
she greets me when i come home, then she goes into my room and sleeps on my bed.
unless i go into my room. then she gets up and goes to sleep on the couch.
until i go back to the front room. then she goes back and gets in bed.
right around the time i go to sleep though, it's time for her to go hunting.
every night, she leaves between 10 - 11 and returns in the wee hours of the morning.
i wake up with her either in my bed by my feet or sitting on the rug outside the front door.
and a new day starts.

two nights ago, i was watching a movie on my couch.
at about 9, cat slinks out of my bedroom, yawning and stretching, passes me on the couch, and marches out the front door.
and she didn't come back the next morning.
i didn't see her again until i came back after school.
she was waiting for me.
and quite a bit thinner and bedraggled than she had been the evening before.

kittens? yup.
but where?
in my bed? no.
in my laundry? no.
in the bathroom? no.
under the couch? no.
no kittens to be found anywhere.
i searched and searched. inside and outside.

i finally gave up and sat down to dinner.
cat was not feeling well though. she HAD to sit in my lap. (unusual).
and she was feeling very moany and mopey.
i would too if i had just given birth, i'm sure.

then i went to church at 6.
and i haven't seen my cat since.
i left her moaning in a ball on my couch.

i'm a bit concerned for her well being.

2 situations i can imagine.

1. she had babies and didn't know what to do with them (since it's her first time) and they either were born dead or died soon after. and there were complications resulting in her now being dead somewhere too.

2. her kittens are actually alive and well someplace secret and hidden and she has left me to go care for them.

the first one seems more likely.
she is too stupid to take care of herself, much less children.
but time will tell, i suppose.

quote(s) of the day

david: ms p****, are turtles insects?
me: uhhhmmm..... no.
david: (to jordan) i TOLD you!!

jose: kohl is singing a bad song.
me: kohl, PLEASE stop singing. for the millionth time. no singing. no rapping. no rhyming. no speaking in rhythm.
kohl: i'm not rapping. i'm just singing britney spears.

aditya: i don't want to travel 10 hours by bus to madura. i'm too lazy.
kohl: your MOM is too lazy.
me: *glare*
kohl: WHAT?! that's a GOOD thing! that's what pembantus are for!

me: josh, your portraits project is good except for the fact that you were supposed to use a variety of models and you used 4 high school girls.
josh: well, who else should i use?!
me: we have an elementary school! use kids! you have dorm parents! use adults!
josh: i can't ask my dorm parents! that would be so awkward!
me: why? they don't have to put on skanky clothes and stand in the middle of a forest in order to get good portraits! just have them sit for you!
josh: but then i won't get good pictures! you have to do kinky things for good pictures! i can't ask my dorm parents to do kinky things!
me: uhhhh... are you sure you know what kinky means?
josh: yes! it means awkward and a little sexy!
me: uhhh.....
kelsey: i think you should check definitions before you use words.
josh: me and yejun studied for SAT vocab!
me: and kinky was one of the words?
josh: yes!
yejun: oh, yes! i think that's the one that means "somewhat naked".

still

it STILL hurts to even walk.

i regularly have to hide my white comforter in case cat decides to give birth while i'm not at home.

i decided yesterday to go to madura in a couple weeks.

i went to a concert at the college last night. it was sweet. there was break dancing. and banjos. and rock and roll. and kroncong. and traditional javanese music mixed with electric guitar and drums. and little ballerinas. and one of the finalists from indonesian idol.

yo and gt just got to jakarta. they'll be driving until sunday to reach aceh. i miss them.

one of my male students has a mancrush on my brother. he watches my screensaver and waits for a photo of him to come up. it is awkward.

speaking of my brother, i found out that his birthday is NOT on thanksgiving this year. it is, however, on idul adha. the second biggest muslim holiday of the year. congrats, little brother! you win the birthday lottery!

ibu bought me a TON of very sweet smelling flowers yesterday. now if i could only figure out what they're called in english. . . maybe jasmine? honeysuckle?

i'm learning some afrikaans. which also means i'm learning some dutch. lekker.

i really want the bell to ring so i can go home and eat homemade guacamole and chips.

i made the 10th graders teach themselves today. it was fun. but i should probably not do that more often. they might start to think i'm lazy.

i talked to katy for a long time this morning. it was really really good.

i get to ride a horse and milk a goat in 2 weeks! things like that probably don't make normal people quite so happy.

a once in a lifetime experience. i hope.

earlier this week, a friend asked me if i wanted to hike merapi. my first thought was “no”. i probably should have stuck with it. but… it was a small group of girls going. and they were planning to go slow and take it easy. and i figured if i didn’t do it now, i never would. and i live on the most active volcanic island in the world, so why not climb its most active volcano? you know, while i’m in the neighborhood…

so we left salatiga at about 10:30 friday night, getting to the base of merapi at nearly midnight. our guide, pak superman (no joke), met us. he served us all tea and invited us to sit for a bit before leaving. unfortunately, he had a stomachache, so he sent us with 3 other guides, including his son. we set off at about half past midnight.

the first part of our hike was just making it to base camp. this entailed what seemed like an endless walk up a paved road through town. i was ready to give up at that point. after about 30 minutes of walking up the steep hill, we hit camp, and the road turned to narrow dirt trail. luckily, the moon was nearly full, so we didn’t have to use our flashlights much to see.

(the moon was still up over merbabu when the sun rose)

our group of 7 was quickly divided up into those who were going fast and those who were going slow. in front, there were 3 of us with two guides, and farther down the mountain, the remaining 4 hikers with the other guide. we would stop often and wait for them to catch up. it was great at first, because i could use up all my energy going quickly for a short amount of time, then take a short break while waiting for the others. sadly, my body didn’t agree.

we hadn’t even made it a quarter of the way before my heart started beating erratically and i was getting dizzy. one of the guides caught on pretty quickly that i was not ok. he asked me what was wrong with me, and i told him, “jantung saya sakit.” i have heart problems. he nodded and made a silent decision that i was under his protection. there is no way i would have made it up the mountain without him.

he made a point of staying directly in front of me, no matter where i was. and whenever we would hit a particularly steep part, he would grab my hand and help me up. there were quite honestly a few parts where he straight up pulled me up that mountain. and for about the last hour of the hike, when i basically just wanted to die, i don’t think he let go of my hand a single time. when i needed a break, he would stop and make me sit down. when i wanted to give up, he would tell me i could do it and he would pull me on a little further. and i never had to say a word to him.

so we went along like that. one girl had gotten sick and stopped about halfway up with another hiker and one guide. pita was with me and my guide. and the other three were somewhere ahead of us with our third guide. occasionally we would come across a group of campers with a fire and we would warm ourselves up and eat a piece of fruit or bread. we could never stop for too long though, because the tigers might get us. just kidding. we would get really really really cold though if we sat still for too long. even around a fire.

we hiked like that for four and a half hours. in the dark. in the cold. oh, and all our guides were smoking at least part of the way. fantastic.

the way merapi is shaped, at the top of the mountain, there is a plateau that faces east. but then beyond that is the true peak of the volcano. it’s about an hour hike from the plateau to the top, and the hike can be quite dangerous, as it’s all just a terribly steep pile of volcanic gravel, more or less.

(the peak, from the plateau)

it was just starting to get light out when pita, our guide, and i made it to the plateau. it was also VERY windy and VERY cold. so we decided to stay there rather than hiking to the top. we slid (on the gravel) partway down the backside of the mountain so that we wouldn’t be in the wind so much, and we waited for the sun to rise. luckily, we only had to wait about 15 minutes. by then though, my body was so cold that i felt like i was on fire. my eyes were stinging, my ears were burning, and my fingers and toes were numb. and i had five shirts on! i tried to take some pictures, but we only saw about 15 minutes of the sunrise before we were ready to head back down.

people always say the climb down is the worst part. i beg to differ. granted, there’s no fun in climbing down… but it’s infinitely better than hauling your body step after step up a rocky incline beyond the point at which your entire being screams that it can take no more. the walk down took about three hours, but at least we had light to see. and i have to say, it’s a good thing we climbed in the dark, because if i had seen some of the rocky walls and steep pathways that were in front of me going up, i would have quit long before i reached the top.

(try walking up this for 5 hours in the dark!)

the parts of the trail that aren’t rock or stone are dirt. loose dirt with rocks mixed in. that made coming down that steep of an incline terribly tricky. everybody slid and fell (and slid some more) at least once. one girl with not-so-good shoes slid out nearly 20 times! base camp was quite the sight for sore eyes by the time we reached it! but the worst was yet to come…

after resting at base camp for about 15 minutes, we tackled the road into town. i’d say this road is about a kilometer long, straight down a steep hill. true, it’s not loose dirt and gravel. but by that point, it felt even more difficult than that. i found that walking backwards worked really well and saved my poor quivering legs from even more undue trauma.

at about 9:00, we finally made it to the very bottom and collapsed into some chairs on pak superman’s porch. he was feeling better and made us some delicious banana pancakes for breakfast!

(indonesian banana pancakes – with chocolate syrup!)

the rest of our group, who had gone to the very peak, made it down the mountain about an hour later. our car was supposed to pick us up at 10:30, so it seemed like good timing.

and then 11:00 came. and we were still there. and then 11:30 came. and we were still there. tiffany called the car company and found out that the driver was going to be late (duh) and that he would be there sebentar (in a minute). then 12:00 came. and we were out of water. and we were out of food. and it was getting really hot out. and we were all too weak to walk anywhere. so we called again. and were told that our car would be there sebentar. mmhmm. sure. needless to say, we were all in a very pleasant mood.

i had to pee. and then i decided that the walk down the mountain was nothing compared to having to squat over a toilet AFTER the walk down the mountain. i have never in my life wished so badly to be a man.

our driver finally showed up at 12:30. we got home at 1:30. i slept until 7:30. i ate dinner and went back to bed at 10:00. i woke up this morning at 8:30. and i can’t lift my legs. there is not a part of my body that doesn’t hurt. it hurts even to touch anything.

and the worst part is that i don’t really even feel any sense of satisfaction or victory in climbing that mountain. maybe when i’m old, it’ll be a cool story to tell my grandkids. maybe by then i’ll be done wishing i had just stayed in bed that night.

merapi, you win.

wake up call

i woke up this morning to the sound of my cat outside my window.
it was a beautiful sound.
i haven't seen her for 3 weeks, mas o menos.
i actually thought she was dead.

i was wrong.
she's knocked up.
part of me is happy she's back.
and part of me is even excited about kittens.
but part of me doesn't want to deal with it.

but at least the rat/snake/pest killer is back in action.

and there might be kittens within the week.

conspiracies

i just found a very illuminating website run by Christians (naturally) in which they claim that the wizard of oz was made by the occult, beyonce is practicing satanist mind control over her fans, lady gaga is a tool of satan, and rihanna's song "umbrella" is an invitation for the devil to rape her. i mean, it's so obvious... how did i miss all this? sigghhhhhh.... people.

i also just found out that the registration and license plates for my bike are FINALLY ready! they said 2 - 3 weeks. it's been almost 5. yes, i've been driving illegally. granted, only around this part of town. mostly. it'll be nice to feel free to go anywhere for the first time.

i'm gonna try to hike merapi this friday night. "try" being the key word. i'm not really sure if i can do it. it's an all night hike. we're leaving at 8 pm, and we'll be lucky if we see the sunrise. i'm going with a group of girls, so that helps. hopefully i won't be too far behind everyone else. i figure by saturday evening, i'll mostly just want to die.

but i can't! because i have a date with mr l to watch harvey! we love old movies, and so far, nobody else does. yo and gt, my usual weekend accomplices, are going to be on a different island for the weekend. they get to road trip to sumatra. i'm extremely jealous, but oh well. i have a job. and a girl - especially a white one - should definitely not be traveling alone with a couple indonesian guys.

i watched all 4 seasons of criminal minds in the past 2 weeks. it feels strange to have a life again now that that's done. one in which i'm looking over my shoulder and leaving lights on a lot.

it is hot hot hot these days! i was sweating by 7:30 this morning. we thought rainy season was starting a couple weeks ago, but it was only toying with us. hasn't rained all week, except a quick sprinkle 2 nights ago. my hair is reacting negatively, as expected.

charles and marie have a new baby, william. since they can't legally adopt him, he's technically a foster child. they're still not sure what God has planned for his future. but he's an adorable little thing who definitely needs some love in his life!

gramma taught me how to crochet when i was like 8 years old. unfortunately, i never progressed past crocheting one looonnnnnnnng strand that could wind its way through all the rooms in the house. until this week. mom brought me a ton of yarn and a crocheting needle when she came (among many other fantastic things that i had been craving for a year) and i promptly taught myself how to actually make something useful! so far, i've made 2 hotpads (can you believe i went almost a year and a half without owning any?!), and i'm starting on a scarf. which might seem ridiculous, given that i live on a tropical island. but you'd be surprised.

christmas plans are in full swing. yo found us an awesome bungalow to stay in on the nearly deserted tropical beach island of gili air for new years (thereby avoiding last year's bali madness), then after about a week of that - and once the holiday is over - we'll likely head to a semi-remote part of bali to spend a few days before coming back to java. i'm excited. come here, christmas!

ninth grade is undoubtedly my hardest class to teach. there's only 10 students, but i have ALL the loudest and most attention needy kids in that class. i also have 2 of the kids who get teased the most and 1 of the kids who tends to tease them the most. and there is no quieting them down. i had about all i could take last week, and so i decided to appeal to their intellect by explaining to them how disrespected i felt every day and how little respect i saw them exhibiting toward each other. they quickly got in a shouting match, trying to outargue each other in their claims that they did respect me and that they were just "social" kids. so the next day, i instated my first ever seating arrangement and laid down some rules with serious consequences. so they started asking questions, two of them being "do you hate us?" and "which class is your favorite?" so i told them honestly that i didn't hate them, but that they did sometimes frustrate me, and that geometry was my favorite class to teach. so they asked why. and i told them that it was because geometry is my favorite part of math and because the 10th grade class is very respectful, but at they same time, they get excited about learning math. so now the 9th graders have decided that they want to be my favorite class. and the loudest kids in class have now become the ones who remind others to be quiet or raise their hand. i have not heard a single insult hurled yet this week. i have not gone home from work frustrated a single day this week. this is fantastic... my only concern is this: did i just pit two grades against each other in a competition to be my favorite?

i'm the little one.

i'm the little one.
Originally uploaded by i_am_amity

this might be my favorite picture i've ever taken. i keep looking at it.

9th graders

me: ok, here's your test.
*i hand it out to everyone, then go sit at my desk*
david: *raises his hand* can i borrow a pencil?
me: yeah. *i take him a pencil*
*i go sit at my desk*
kenny: can i have a calculator?
me: sure. *i take him a calculator*
jose: can i have a calculator too? i forgot mine.
me: sure. *i take him a calculator too*
*i sit at my desk*
aditya: can i use my calculator?
me: does it simplify square roots for you?
aditya: kind of......nnnnnnnyes.
me: then no. get one of mine.
aditya: there are none.
me: *i look for my third calculator. take it to him. go back to my desk.*
kyuho: i ran out of lead. can i borrow a pencil?
me: yesssss..... *i take him a pencil*
jenny: can i use a piece of loose leaf? i'm going to need more paper.
me: fine. anybody need anything else before i sit back down?! maybe a nice glass of ice water or a shoulder massage?!
jose: oooooooh.... ummm...... i don't think it's very appropriate if you massage us.
me: sigghhhhhhh....

what? hey! how'd that get in here?!

Here's a fun game. It's called Find the Poser.

Ready? Set... Go!

"The other men charged were identified as Mohammad Abdul Bassir; Muhammad Abdul Salaam; Abdul Saboor; Mujahid Carswell; Abdullah Beard; Mohammad Philistine; Yassir Ali Khan; Adam Hussain Ibraheem; Garry Laverne Porter; and Ali Abdul Raqib." - CNNnews

hotel searching

i'm searching for a hotel for us to stay in while on gili over christmas break... here are some fantastic website excerpts. needless to say, we will likely not be staying at any of these hotels.

Lovely open-air bathrooms.
[Excuse me?]

The entire place decorated with "BOLLYWOOD" style.
[The fact that you wrote it all in caps is supposed to entice me even more?]

Each room facilitate with an open-air bathroom featuring natural stone from south, bathtub, terrace, king size bed, television,mini bar, safe deposit box and american standard toilet.
[Wait, wait, wait. . . the king size bed is IN the bathroom? And what is this natural stone you speak of? Does it have an accent? And what is with the open air bathrooms?!]

Enjoy a total relaxing by staying with us, .....Get........Catch.....Sea.....Sand.......Sun...and of course a lots of fun... this bungalow managed by a local family.
[Hmmm.... I'd bet the website is too.]

The hotels itself providing airport land.
[You can land a plane there? What?! The whole island of Gili isn't big enough to land a plane...]

Traditionally styled buildup of international standard and comprehensive support serious are keynotes of this Villa Hotel.
[Buildup just sounds gross.]

Hotel features grass roof .
[Bugs. Need I say more?]

Run by an Italian called Nino and his Indonesian partner.
[What exactly do you mean by "partner", partner?]

kodak moments

bethanie: can i come home with you?
me: sure, but we have to check and see if my cat is there.
bethanie: right, cause i'm lergic!
me: right. she's probably gone though. she ran away again.
bethanie: ran away?
me: yeah. sometimes she comes home, and sometimes she goes away for a few days.
bethanie: where does she go?
me: i don't know. maybe she has a secret boyfriend somewhere.
bethanie: yeah! or maybe she goes to visit her mom and dad!
me: maybe, but i think she's an orphan.
bethanie: oh. that's why you dopted her?
me: yup.
bethanie: i wonder where she is.
me: well, if you were a cat, where would you run away to?
bethanie: i would run away to you.
me: *thinking awwwwwwwwww!*

last night, i was at home reading when every single female teacher showed up at my neighbor's house. granted, there's only 5 of us... but still, the 4 who are not me were all over there laughing and chatting and eating. we really have good community here, and it seemed strange to me that the 4 of them were hanging out and i wasn't invited. especially when i live in the same building as 2 of them. and the longer i sat there and listened to the sounds of dishes clanking and loud laughter echoing, the more upset i got. i think i let satan get in my head and lie to me a little bit. right about that time, yo sms-ed to say he was going to kim's house to eat french dip subs. he asked if i wanted to come, but i was so down on myself by that point that i made some excuse about not wanting to intrude in someone else's house. so a couple minutes later, i got another sms from him saying that he had asked kim and she said i should come. after a few more sms-es, i finally relented. especially since ibu had only made me a salad for dinner - and not even with chicken like she normally does! i was pretty hungry by then.
so me and my bad mood headed over there to find kim recooking all the food for me (i guess they had eaten and already put the leftovers away). she helped me dish up and showed me what to do (can you believe i've NEVER eaten french dip before?!), and she left me in the kitchen. but as she was walking out the door, she turned around and said to me, "you know, you never have to have an invitation to come here." i almost burst into tears right there, with my head halfway in the freezer looking for ice cubes. i always feel so loved in that house.

yo had to leave, but a little while later, he came back with gentur and a guitar in tow. after playing a fanastic game of seeing who could make the stopwatch on yo's phone start and stop the fastest (i am the undisputed champion, with a record time of 00:00:00.07!), the three of us decided to go up on the roof. we grabbed the guitar and some candles and went up. at first we just passed the guitar around and played and sang a bunch of random songs (including christmas carols!), but we quickly turned to singing praise songs. and after one particular song (Lord, I offer my life to You), gt asked if we could pray together. his actual question was whether it was alright if we spent sometime interceding for one another.

i was kind of surprised. in a good way. a very good way. i guess i'm just not used to hang out time turning into prayer time. but i'm glad it did. we all had a chance to share with each other and lift each other up in prayer. and all of us have some heavy stuff we're dealing with and praying for right now.

i don't know how long we sat there. holding hands. praying. by candlelight. on a roof. in indonesia.

that's one of those "i'll never forget the time. . ." moments.

and i came away from it VERY blessed.

as of late

1. my parents are home safely... it was REALLY exceedingly good to have them here. i hadn't realized how used to living alone i'd gotten though. i could tell by the end that being around people 24/7 was wearing me down. but did i get a break? no, of course not. they left on wednesday night... luckily it was late enough that gt, yo, and i got to all take them to the airport, so i got some moral support from friends. (thanks, guys) and then thursday, naturally, i had school all day then fellowship in the evening.

2. and then friday until saturday, on top of normal school duties, i was also helping out by babysitting a family of 4 kids while their parents are in padang doing earthquake relief. that was draining. i spent a lot of the time just wanting to retreat into some deep, dark, quiet hole. no such luck. we experienced things such as head wounds that bled profusely. twice. a dog trying to run away. a thunderstorm. fights over the remote control. a pembantu burning her arm. homework troubles. a head hitting a tile floor. lost keys. and the list goes on. the kids were enjoyable. and i was VERY glad to have some small way in which i could help with earthquake relief. i just wish i'd been in a better mood.

3. after all that, i spent sunday alone. all day. until nighttime. i was so emotionally/mentally drained that i slept straight until almost noon. NOON! it was perfect though, and i feel SO much better today and ready to face the week. this only serves to further confirm my suspicions that the Myers Briggs test i was forced to take in college that declared me an extrovert is nothing but a load of rubbish.

4. rainy season is finally moving in. it's rained every day for a few days in a row now. with that comes BIG winds in the afternoon (ushering in the change of season) and cooler temperatures, finally! unfortunately, that also means that the mold will soon rear its ugly head. ugh.

5. yohanes: hey, did you know that in america, you can just turn the faucet on and get a drink from it?
me: what? really?! just like that?
yohanes: yeah, it's really cool.
me: straight from the sink and you don't get sick?
yohanes: yes!
me: wow. and what does the water in america taste like?
yohanes: tastes like chicken!

Quotes of the day

"I've never seen you cry. So...... please cry now. Go ahead." - Mega

"I REFUSE TO ACCEPT YOUR BLASPHEMY!" - The quiet Korean kid who wears glasses and sits in the back of the class and never talks. While I was teaching about imaginary numbers.

Today

1. 3:45 AM
2. Old jeans/sweatshirt/flipflops
3. Cheese and pomegranate juice
4. Car crash
5. Peanut fields
6. Sunrise
7. Nap
8. Motorbike
9. Coffeecake
10. Meetings

parents are here!
thanks to all who prayed. :)

got an sms from dad about 30 minutes ago saying they're in boyolali.
if my estimate is correct, they should be arriving here within the next 1o minutes.
and conveniently, school gets out in ten minutes!

i am a goddess

parents are in bali!!
been smsing this morning.

tenth grade conversation
kang: ms *****, did you major in math?
me: math education
jimin: told you so
kang: did not
jimin: did so!
kang: ms *****, what does that mean?
me: i took math classes AND education classes. like a double major.
kang: oh.
jimin: what other kinds of classes did you take?
me: liberal arts
kang: what's that?
me: i took lots of bible classes. and i learned music and art and sociology and history and literature and astronomy and a foreign language and......
david: ms *****, are you a goddess?

status

"Our Dorm has a ShitZu" - one of the dorm boys' facebook status updates.

mom and dad are now in the same hemisphere as me! been tracking flights all day. they landed safely in japan 6 minutes ahead of schedule and took off again just under 2 hours after that. assuming they are on the correct plane, they are now en route to bali and should be landing in just about 5 hours from now. they'll spend the night there and reach java around noon tomorrow, then on to salatiga!

horse dance

horse dance
Originally uploaded by i_am_amity

pay attention to as much as possible. so many strange things are happening in this video.

menagerie

in light of some rather ________ (fill in the blank with whatever adjective you feel suits the situation best) events this past weekend, i've failed to mention some other important/humorous/worth-sharing things.

1. yo asked me out to dinner with "some friends" friday night. friends of his from college that i've also gotten to know. we all enjoy hanging out, and i hadn't seen them for awhile, so i was excited. yo picked me up and we went to a chinese restaurant and waited for about 10 minutes. finally, he got an sms and said that he had to go pick up mega and would be back shortly. looking back, i should have suspected something. like when yo ordered three drinks and plates of rice for dinner. or when mega - who has a bike - asked for a ride. at any rate, i was pretty near oblivious, and sat there by myself hum-diddling (or whatever else you call what it is that people sitting alone do) for a few minutes. then all of a sudden someone rushed up and engulfed me from behind. i pretty much freaked out. i had no clue who it was, but i could tell it wasn't a girl. so after a few terrifying seconds of being stuck in a from-behind-hug-headlock, i was finally able to crane my neck around and see....... PECO! my bestest indonesian white friend who left me in april! those two boys made a surprise for me! peco had just arrived by bus with all his luggage, and yo had gone to pick him up from the station. there were no other friends, just the three of us back together again. i think i smiled pretty much the whole night. the fact that he brought me chocolate covered pecans and season 2 of big bang theory didn't hurt either... except now i have the season and i can't watch it until christmas when the 3 of us are back together again. (he left again on sunday.) that is what is commonly known as torture.

2. conversation yesterday in 9th grade:
me: guys, i'm sorry the quiz looks rough... work around it. the copier is screwed up.
kyuho: that's because i screwed the copier!
me: uhmmmmmm.....
kyuho: i don't think i meant to say that.
*class erupts in laughter*
jenny: what? i don't get it. is there another definition for screwed?
kenny: yeah! kyuho just told the teacher that he had SEX with the copy machine!!!
jenny: KYUHO! AAAAAAHHHHHHH!

3. my parents are currently en route to japan. they land in bali tonight. they get to java (and me) TOMORROW!

4. http://thereifixedit.com is a fantastic website... if your name is red green.

5. my pembantu is super nice. she left me a note yesterday asking if it was alright to bake some cookies for my parents tomorrow. : )

6. my burn is healing super fast and is not getting infected! that is especially good news given that i would rate this as the worst/deepest burn i've gotten so far.

7. there's rumors of a restaurant in town that sells lambchops for $1.50 per plate... we'll be checking that out posthaste.

8. i was apparently more obvious than i originally thought at the horse dance. everyone and their cousin saw me there. people i don't even know have been walking up to me all week to tell me they saw me and to ask if i enjoyed it. that's a hard question to answer. obviously, i didn't enjoy it. but if i say no, i'm being kind of offensive - it's a cultural tradition for them. mostly, i've just kind of smiled and shrugged my shoulders at them. on the subject, i found out that it's pretty rare for white people tho show up at those (shocker)... not because they find it repulsive so much, but because the bah-wang doesn't want them there. they know that if white people are there (and in their mind/experience here, white people = christians), they can't exercise their power and the spirits won't come. i've heard of white people being asked to leave before. but that's only if the whiteys are there at the beginning. once the spirits are there, they're there.

9. an indonesian friend of mine went to a horse dance as a child where they cut a woman's head off then dangled it in his face by her hair. and she spoke to him. he's still traumatized. and my mild horse dance trauma suddenly seems so insignificant.

10. did i mention my parents are currently 3 hours away from japan and will BE HERE TOMORROW?! (i needed to have an even number of elements in my list.)

the sights

the horses

the whippings

the dirt eater/thrower upper/eater

the shredding of coconuts with teeth

the gas can/beverage of choice

the most possessed

the collapse

the horse dance

i was pretty wiped out yesterday afternoon, so i took a nap. i woke up about an hour later to the sound of javanese music playing VERY loudly somewhere nearby. at first i thought it was a wedding. but then i realized that it wasn't wedding music. so in my half asleep state, i decided to go find whatever it was. i grabbed my little camera and my phone and stumbled out the door.

the guard at the back gate saw me tripping toward him, and he was kind of chuckling at me. once i got closer, he said to me, clear as a bell, "hear something?" unfortunately, i was so out of it that i mostly just stared at him through squinty eyes, trying to translate "hear something" into english. once i finally realized that he had actually spoken english to me, i replied with, "yeah, and it woke me up." apparently his english is fairly limited, because he just stared back at me. so i translated into indonesian. i asked him what the music was, and he told me that it was a traditional indonesian dance going on. i asked him if it was alright if i went to find it, and he said yeah, but that it was far away. i told him i like to walk and he let me out the gate.

about 5 minutes of walking later (SO far away), i came upon a crowd in the road. they were all looking into a yard in front of a house. luckily, i am taller than like 95% of indonesians, so it was pretty easy for me to see what was going on. i saw men dancing around on horses woven together from grasses. i'd heard of the horse dance before, but this was my first time to see it. from what i'd heard, a horse dance is not a place you want to be. it starts out as a traditional dance, but once spirits are invited, it turns into a demon possessed frenzy. i'd heard all sorts of insane things, including children too young to walk getting possessed and dancing.

there were no children there yesterday, but even so, once i was there, i couldn't leave until it was over. it was like watching a train wreck. you can't look away... amazingly enough, everyone was so absorbed in what was going on, that they paid very little attention to the fact that there was a white person there watching too. i arrived after the spirits were already there and things were well under way.

from what i observed, this is the setup: off to one side of the open yard, there were about 6 musicians playing traditional javanese instruments under an open sided tent. in the yard itself, there were 3 "leaders". when i asked yohanes about it later, he called them bah-wang (i have no clue how to spell that, but that's how he pronounced it). they were not possessed, but had power over the men who were. there were several "handlers", as i call them. these men kept control over the demon possessed men, as many of them would try to run into the crowd or would lose control of themselves. (they're like the guys who stand in the corners with the panels at hog shows.) and there were about 10 possessed men ranging in age from (best guess) 15 - 50.

some of them were "riding" woven horses. some of them were dancing around. some of them were getting in fights. some were laying on the ground, twitching. some were doing flips and spins. some were shredding coconuts with their teeth. at various points of the "show", the head bah-wang would bring out a whip... he would go to one of the possessed men and they would bow in submission, then he would whip them repeatedly on the arms, legs, and back. but they wouldn't bleed. one of the other bah-wangs was giving the men gasoline to drink. one of the possessed man started shoving fistfuls of dirt into his mouth and eating it. a short while later, he threw it all up into his hands, then promptly proceeded to eat it all again. after the dirt was gone, he lit some sticks on fire, then ate those too. he also stole a lit cigarette from someone in the crowd and rubbed the burning end all over his face, then ate it too. he never got burnt. another guy spent the entire time trying to throw himself into the crowd. he was probably the most possessed. he had no control over himself. his eyes were empty, like he was dead. but he looked into my eyes a couple times, and i felt like satan himself was staring at me.

the bah-wang would let them dance until they were so exhausted they would just lay on the ground. then he would get them to stand up, and he would lead them over to behind where the musicians were. i don't think the people were supposed to see this part, but i was paying attention. once he had them back there, he would get the spirits out of them. it was a huge spiritual battle, because the spirits would fight with him. the possessed men would start howling and yelling like animals and their whole bodies would be convulsing. you could barely hear it over the music though. once the spirits were out of them, their bodies would just lay crumpled on the ground. they looked dead. then two of the handlers would come and carry them into a nearby house and lay them on the floor.

the dance went on and on and on until finally all the men had collapsed and the spirits were all cast out. i don't know how long i stood there watching. i've seen demons before. but not like this. i just stood there, and i felt completely numb all over.

i think that one of the worst parts of it was that for the people there, this was entertainment. whole families were there. the younger kids would try to press through the crowd to the front so they could see better. little kids were sitting on their daddy's shoulders. and they were laughing. every time one of the men threw themselves at the crowd, they would all run away screaming, then come right back. and every time someone would eat dirt or do a flip or get whipped, they would laugh and cheer.

when i got back to campus, the guard asked me how it was. i just shook my head at him. and he nodded. he understood.

i am fully mobile

bought a bike yesterday!

we went to the honda dealer, and i told them i wanted a black bike.
they only had pink but said black would be shipped in in 2 - 3 days.
so i ordered one and went upstairs to pay.
when i came back downstairs, they happily announced to me that while i was paying, the shipment arrived, and they would deliver my bike in a few hours!
true to their word, SIX HOURS LATER, they delivered.
along with a massive black helmet and a sweet honda racing jacket (just watch me rock that thing around town).
they were kind enough to put enough gas in it so that the guage ALMOST reached the E.
they kept my driver's license to make a copy, then forgot to return it with the bike.
and they said the registration would take 3 weeks to process.
so i can't get plates until then.
therefore, i bought fake plates.
BUT... the stupid fake plate people didn't drill holes in said plates.
so i can't attach them to my bike.

guess who went driving last night?
no license.
no plates.
no gas.
no registration.
no insurance.

that would be me.

ps - THANK YOU, CHUCK!

"I deal with hurt and, you know, so many, you know, celebrities, they never take the time off, and I've never taken the time off to really, you know, I just, music after music and tour after tour on tour." - Kanye West.

To Jay Leno. Making excuses and promoting literacy.

you got a message from the embassy

U.S. Embassy Jakarta
U.S. Consulate General Surabaya
U.S. Consulate Medan
Warden Message: Earthquake in Western Sumatra, Indonesia
October 1, 2009
On Wednesday, September 30, at 5:15 pm there was a major earthquake in Western Sumatra, Indonesia. The worst hit major population center was Padang, a coastal town, about 850 miles northwest of Jakarta. Aftershocks have continued. There is serious damage in the Padang area, and most roads and telephone lines are cut. Airports are open but travel to Padang is not recommended by other than essential emergency service providers due to the complete lack of infrastructure. Other areas of Indonesia, including Jakarta and Bali are unaffected. U.S. Embassy Jakarta and U.S. Consulate Medan staff are attempting to communicate with Indonesian authorities and affected Americans in the Padang area, and visit as soon as possible. We urge Americans in Indonesia to inform interested parties directly of their wellbeing to allow our staff to concentrate on assisting those Americans most directly affected and out of contact.


TRANSLATION: I had no clue there was an earthquake until I read about it in the news today. It was far, far away. You will likely hear about it in the news wherever you live. And when you do, don't worry about me. Also, anytime there is something going on anywhere in Indonesia that might affect Americans, I get an email from the embassy. They look out for us.

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.