Rain, rain

It rained so much this weekend. And it seems like it made a special effort to only rain when I was somewhere where I couldn’t get away from it. By this morning, I had only one pair of pants that were dry (out of 5 pairs).

Yohanes had a guy building a guitar he designed in the next town over, Ambarawa. But the guy turned out to not be the most honest guy. He kept giving Yo an “It’ll be finished by” date, then we’d drive there to pick it up, and he’d have some story fabricated. And he would sometimes even go in his house (his guitar building shop is attached to the back of his home) and grab one of his little kids to hold while he made up lies about how his kids were sick so he couldn’t finish or some such. It was really frustrating, but Yo, being Javanese, insisted it wasn’t a big deal. I know he was really disappointed every time we went there and his guitar wasn’t done though. The boy eats, sleeps, and breathes music. Designing and building his own guitar is a dream that has been a long time coming. 

Well, I told him that at the very least, he needed to go see the guy and get his materials back. We had taken over some really nice pieces of wood and strings and a pickup and other stuff for this guy to use to build the guitar. I told Yo that if he didn’t, this guy was just going to use it to build someone else’s guitar. So we went yesterday morning. Right as we were getting into town, it started pouring, so Yo put his rain poncho on, and I ducked under the back of it. I hate doing that though, because then my view is reduced to the road whizzing by beneath my feet and it makes me a little dizzy.

We got to the guitar maker’s place and found that the body had been constructed. We thought that might be the case, so we had brought along a guitar case that fits on like a backpack (for easy motorbike riding!). The rain let up a bit, and we decided to leave with all of Yo’s stuff, which the guy grudgingly gave back to us.  Of course, as soon as we started moving, it started raining again. And of course, the rain poncho went over the guitar which was strapped to my back.  No protection for us!

The drive home was a bit terrifying. In some places, the water on the road was so deep it was over the tops of our feet. In other places, there were mini mudslides over the roads.  That road is really bad and full of potholes, but even those are impossible to avoid when there is so much muddy water rushing across/down the road that you can’t even see the pavement.  The 15-20 minute drive took us almost an hour as we made the whole drive going about 10 kph or less in places.  Every car that went by, naturally, sprayed water up at us, so water even got UP our helmets!  A huge tree branch fell and almost hit us, and lightning was striking and thunder was BOOMING. We weren’t even halfway home before I had so much muddy water in my eyes that my vision was so blurry I could barely see. I was sure thankful that Yo was driving.  He did a fantastic job, even avoiding a truck that pulled in front of us (we almost slid out on the river-like road trying to avoid it!). 

By the time we got home, we were literally drenched. There was not a part of either of us that was not soaked, except possibly the VERY tops of our heads.  Even the money that I had in my pockets  (which I was sitting on) was dripping water when I pulled it out!

(Notice the mini puddle in the crease)

When we got back to my house, I was not too keen on walking through my entire house while leaving a massive puddle with every step. So I snuck into the alley behind my house, stripped down, threw everything on the clothesline, and THEN went inside. While back there, I found my cats huddling, terrified, wet, and shivering, in a sink.  So I carried them into the house with me to find a dry place. Naturally, power was out. Taken down by the storm, no doubt.

I dried off and got changed real quick – right into my flannel PJ pants and a warm sweatshirt, and i curled up on the couch with a good book under a fleece blanket.  It was only a couple minutes before cat jumped up on the couch with me. I thought she was looking for some reassurance that she was NOT about to get electrocuted to death, so I started to pet her while she kind of stared off into the distance.  And then I felt something warm running down me. Siiiiiiiick. Out went the cats. Time for another wardrobe change.

(This is how much my cat peed. Correction, this is how much cat pee made it AROUND me and onto the couch. My clothes and my fleece blanket were all pretty wet. And of course, this is the middle of only three cushions, so I could no longer lay on my couch to wait out the storm.)

So. No electricity means no hot water (no hot shower), no music, no TV, no movies. Cat pee on the couch means no more snuggling with a book. The only other seating options in my house are the toilet, the tile floor, or the kitchen table. (But can’t flush the toilet, and the floor was covered in muddy footprints and the remainder of the cat pee that came out when I threw cat off me.) No electricity also means no water to wash my couch/floor with.  So I decided to SMS Marie to see what she was doing. But my phone had gotten so wet that it didn’t work right. The screen was full of water and the keys were all jacked up.  AND it was still pouring down rain.

Luckily (and unfortunately) the same thing happened to Yo’s phone, so after the storm, he came to get my phone and he took both of them to the repair shop. In the meantime, I am using some old PDA he managed to acquire somewhere. But the stylus thingie is missing, so I have to use my fat fingers on the tiny touchscreen.  It’s amazing how much damage one day of rain can inflict.

(View of rain through my front door. It may not seem like much, but the ground here is made to SOAK UP moisture. I’ve only ever seen my front yard flood like this once – when it rained for almost 24 hours straight. This was only after about an hour of rain.)

hospitals

last night i had my first experience with indonesian hospitals. i'd heard a lot of stories, but i had never been to one myself. i guess i should probably start by saying that it was only to visit someone else. nothing to do with my health (or lack thereof, which i guess is usually why people go there).

we had our first solafide meeting of the new year. i almost always go with yohanes since we live very close to each other and solafide is across town. no sense taking two bikes. also, one - if not both - of us almost always has to play guitar. and it's hard to carry a guitar and drive at the same time. so having a passenger helps.

anyways, after sf, yo wanted to go visit his uncle, who has been in the hospital for nearly a month now. he's not very old (maybe mid fifties?), but it seems like his body is shutting down. his kidneys have stopped working, and there must be some other problems too, because the family has been donating blood, which is constantly being dripped into him via an IV line. yo asked if it was ok with me to stop by, and i told him that was fine since it would be a new cultural experience for me! i'm SO thankful that i have the ability to see things that way.

hospitals here aren't so much places you go when you're sick. they are more like places where you go to die. and so your whole family goes with you. and by family, i mean everyone. and everyone you have ever known will come to visit you expressly to shake your hand and say goodbye.

yo's uncle is in his own room, which you enter directly from outside the hospital, kind of like a motel. if nobody had been staying in that room, it would have been completely empty, save for the old sink along one wall. it was all white - white tile floors and cement walls painted white with one flourescent light bulb in the ceiling. the uncle was sleeping in a metal hospital bed that appeared to be about 60 years old. there were no machines and no beeps - only a couple of IVs taped into the backs of his hands.

the family has definitely nested. there were 6 members of the extended family sitting on mats on the floor by the foot of the hospital bed. there was a coffeemaker there along with boxes of food and bottled drinks. there were tons of pillows in one corner, indicating that at least one person is sleeping there every night. since the uncle was sleeping, we visited with the family. i got asked twice if i'm SMA (still in high school). sigh. they gave us food and green tea and told me that i'm very pintar (smart) in bahasa indonesia. don't i wish.

mostly, everyone was speaking javanese, which i will never in my life understand more than a few words of. at just about every break in the conversation, someone would look at me to ask if i understood, and every time, i would shake my head, and every time, they would all chuckle at me.

after about 15 minutes, right as we were getting ready to leave, someone noticed that the IV drip with the blood had stopped. so they got a nurse who came in VERY keras (loudly), yelling all kinds of "how are you doing today?"s and "why aren't you better yet?"s. then she flicked the bag of blood. and when that didn't fix the problem (shocker), she grabbed uncle's hand and wiggled and jammed in the large needle stuck in the back of it. i cringed. then she kind of shrugged and said it was fine. the uncle had been laying on his side with his back to me, but someone in the family announced that a bule (white person) had come to visit him. he got himself turned over far enough that he could reach his hand out, quivering, to shake mine. he was a cute old guy. but his upper arm, near the shoulder, was about the same size as my wrist. he has withered away to something resembling pictures i have seen of concentration camps in 1944. this full grown man now weighs no more than 50 pounds.

right after i shook his hand, yo shook his hand and told him that we were leaving so he could rest more. we headed out the door. but uncle wasn't about to let me go without saying goodbye (even though i thought i already had. apparently, i was only saying hello the first time around.) he let out some unintelligible shriek and stuck his hand out to me again. so i had to go back in and shake his hand one more time.

at the same time, i wished him selamat ulang tahun (happy birthday) and cepat sembuh (get well soon). even though i know it was not a happy birthday in that hospital bed and that he will not be getting well soon.

(near) birth and (near) death

the youngest child that charles and marie have is caleb. i love all their kids immensely, but caleb and i have bonded in some strange way, which is unusual for me and babies that young (3 months). i like them when they have personalities and can say ridiculous things when i ask them questions like “if you were a hypochondriac, what disease would you think  you have?” three years old is best. caleb is the product of a rape and his mom didn’t want him. charles and marie got him at one month old, sick and malnourished. he’s made such a turnaround, you can hardly recognize this as the same baby who came to them 2 months ago.

whenever i’m at their house, caleb just watches me. no matter where he is and no matter where i am. his big brown eyes follow me and his little mouth works and works like he’s having a silent conversation with me. and if he’s ever crying, he stops as soon as i pick him up, and he’s the most content baby in the world then. i can just let him lay in my lap and he’ll gaze up at me and smile for no reason at all.

two nights ago, i was over there talking to marie. i was sitting cross-legged, and caleb was nestled in my lap with his head in the crook of my knee. i wasn’t really paying attention to him; he was just laying there. i happened to look down at him at one point, and he was staring right into my eyes, grinning his little toothless grin. for some reason, i just started to laugh – and then he joined in! a baby belly laugh! and most importantly, his first laugh EVER! and from then on, every time i laughed at something, he laughed along with me. it was SO cute! but then marie told me that babies don’t normally start to laugh  until 5 months. caleb is only 3 months, and because of how hard the first third of his life was, he has every reason in the world to be developmentally behind. but my baby laughed! : )

(caleb smiling up at me and looking vaguely cross-eyed)

i was over babysitting the kids tonight while charles and marie were in smg trying to get some visa stuff worked on. ugh. documentation related things here are awful to sort out. i won’t even go into all that. they got back around 9, and i jumped on my bike to head home. i had gone to tennis lessons for an hour and left the kids with the helper and then went straight back there after. so by 9, i hadn’t eaten anything except some rice, hadn’t showered, hadn’t been home since 7 this morning, AND it was raining. i was ready to be home. so admittedly, given the inclement weather, i was probably going just a little bit faster than i should have. (disclaimer: i’m not particularly reckless though. i realize that with a motorbike, if there’s a wreck, i’m the goner.)

anyways, i was coming up on an intersection, and i saw car headlights coming towards me, but suddenly, the car pulled in front of me, across my lane, to turn on a side street. i figured i had two options. 1. lay the bike down or 2. slam into the side of the SUV. luckily, my brain goes into overdrive in these situations. in the matter of about 1.5 seconds, i realized that there was a bike behind me. laying down was not a viable option. i’d likely take him out too. i noticed the color and make of the car pulling in front of me. a gold kijang. i also noticed that it was backlit, meaning there was another car behind it – traffic coming from the other direction. i also realized that jamming on the brakes would do no good since 1. i was too close already and 2. the road had water sitting on it.

in this state of brain overdrive, i saw an opening and i took it. my first instinct had, in fact, been to lay on the brakes (though not all the way). since the car was moving forward across my lane, i couldn’t swerve in front of it. but behind it… now there was the opening. i knew there was a car behind, but i didn’t know how close. i took a shot. reflexively, i let off the brakes. swerving on that much water WHILE holding the brakes would be disastrous. and i shot through the hole behind the turning car and in front of the car behind it. there was a split second that flashed before me in slow motion in which i actually thought i was going to hit BOTH cars, they were that close together (welcome to asian traffic), and i can just about swear that i saw my left handlebar pass THROUGH the back of the kijang.

i somehow managed to shoot through that hole. and by “somehow”, i actually mean “by the grace of God.” after gulping down a huge, shuddering breath of air, the first thing i did was yell, “THANK YOU, GOD!” and then i almost burst into tears. almost.

in my own “i can do no wrong” mind, i like to blame the other guy who used no turn signal and pulled right in front of me. maybe he didn’t see me. maybe he was exercising his right to the road as the bigger vehicle. either way, i just keep imagining the surprise of the people in the second vehicle (a black avanza, for the record) when a white girl burst into their sight from around the back of the car in front of them. i’m sure i looked like a frantic deer in headlights. a frantic, wet deer on a motorcycle carrying a tennis racket in headlights. now, there’s a pretty picture.

speaking of pictures, i drew one for you.

car two was actually a little closer to jerk, as he had already started to pass. but you get the general idea.

some lists.

i went to indonesian church this week. i understood about 90% of the sermon. but this is what i took away from it:
1. we are all just like chickens. we wake up, make noise, eat food, and go to bed. until we get our throats cut.
2. marriage is like living in hell.

i watched the golden globes last night. it was a good reminder of why i left america. things that annoyed me:
1. avatar. which is essentially pocohontas, but in the future. (http://failblog.org/2010/01/10/avatar-plot-fail/)
2. people who wear sunglasses indoors. especially with tuxes.
3. face lifts. or: the ladies with the plastic faces.
4. the haiti ribbons. what are those even for? did they DO anything? or are they just "supporting haiti" by wearing a red ribbon? because that makes a difference...?
5. "we have the best job in the world. we make entertainment." - james cameron. because, yah, that matters.
6. being ridiculed and told i was too ignorant and backwoods because i didn't recognize sophia loren and martin scorsese. or just about anyone else for that matter.
7. sophia loren.
8. dresses designed specifically to frame outrageous boob jobs. i was actually watching the awards with a muslim friend. a guy. and it was strange. probably even awkward. sometimes it's really easy for me to see why muslims hate us.
9. avatar.

decisions i have to make soon.
1. am i going to keep going to the chicken/marriage is hell church? it was easy to understand the language. but i really just don't fit well in indonesian churches. but are we called to fit? should we be able to worship in comfort? i also don't like the only white/western church in town. this sunday was the first time i've been to any church in almost 2 months. i want the fellowship. i miss the corporate worship. but i have yet to find a church where i ENJOY the fellowship and the worship.
2. summer plans. i was going to come home this summer for the wedding of my bestest friend in the whole wide world. but the wedding is getting pushed back to at least this fall for financial reasons. disappointing, but understandable. so my summer that i thought i would be stateside for is now wiiiiiiide open. i'm seriously contemplating going to sumatra and working for awhile. maybe up to aceh, but probably mostly in the medan area. i also would like to visit singapore and/or malaysia while i'm here. just because.
3. i have some decisions to make about modern conveniences. since melissa is moving to kopeng this week, she's been giving me several things to keep and/or store for her. she's moving from a large house to a tiny room that one bed and a lemari (dresser) will barely fit in. since her current house also serves as a guesthouse for visiting missionaries and an office/home base for members of her org, she didn't want to leave many things there for people to help themselves to. therefore, i am getting a 32 inch flatscreen tv, a modem, a dvd player, and a wireless router. so as long as i can get someone out here to get it all set up, i should have wireless internet and satellite tv in my house sometime this week or next. i suddenly feel thrust into the 21st century. but at the same time, i feel a little hesitant. i like that i've gone a year and a half with no television or internet at home. mostly, i just like being able to drop that piece of information to random people and watch the shock register on their faces. that's right, i'm cool, i don't have a tv. or a microwave. or internet. or consistent hot water. or AC. or a car. i'm carrying my cross. anyways, i don't even know where any of this stuff is gonna fit...
4. tennis lessons. do i want to continue them past this month? it's $35/month for 2 hours a week of practice. i had my first lesson last night. all in indonesian. my arm hurts pretty bad today. i only hit 2 people with the balls. unfortunately, my teacher told me that i play tennis like i should be playing baseball. you're supposed to "push the ball" not "hit the ball". he kept remarking on how strong i am and how i need to be less strong. from one end of the court of the indoor gym, i was hitting tennis balls that were slamming into the wall behind the opposite side of the court without ever touching the floor. hmmmm. it's definitely good exercise, good language practice, and i really like my teachers. but is it worth the money?
5. cats. so far, the options seem to be these: keep them or dump them. sigghhhhhh. neither one is appealing.

a year of change

the coming 6 months or so are going to be hard. our community is a very fluid, very transient one. people come. people go. some stay 2 weeks. some stay 2 years. not many stay very long. already, in only a year and a half of living here, i've built some deep relationships and solid friendships with people only to have them move away. peco was probably the first of my close friends to leave. and that was really, really hard for me. it was a good lesson for me though. i've always been the one who gets to leave and go on adventures. and now i know what it's like to be the one who has to stay.

this year will see a lot of my close friends moving away.
1. gt and wiwik were the first to go, last week.
2. tomorrow, melissa will be moving to the farm about 40 minutes up the mountain.
3. tiff is going to another island for a few weeks to visit tribes and to evaluate if she would like to live/serve there. if yes, she'll be packing up her things and moving shortly. and even if she decides it's not for her, she will be moving from down the street to a boarding house across town.
4. peco is in thailand right now. when he gets back, he may be moving from 2 hours away to a different island.
5. yohanes and ratna will hopefully be moving to join gt and wiwik at the farm on sumatra in june.
6. the linegars (my adopted family here) will be moving to another island this summer.
7. all the seniors will be leaving in may. several of them are more than just students to me.
8. amanda, my friend and confidant (also, the only other math teacher!), will be returning home at the end of this year.
9. almost a third of our staff will either be returning home or taking a year of furlough after this school year ends.
10. two awesome people that i met just last week are leaving this week, jim and christen. i connected with and have immensely enjoyed getting to know both of them over the past several days.

wow. reading back over that is depressing.

the beauty of this is that i have lifelong relationships with people who are going out from this place to serve all over indonesia. God is doing awesome things here. also, all those places are now potential vacation spots. : ) and whenever someone leaves, someone new comes to take their place. it's not always single people my age. but it's always exciting to see who God brings here.

i've heard people here bemoan the fact that the transience of our community has caused them to become somewhat hard hearted. i can see how it would be hard to want to build more than just a casual relationship with someone who you know will be leaving soon. but i've never felt that way. it's not always easy for me to feel close to people, and when those people come along... well, it's worth it. part of that might also have to do with the state of denial i live in. when i meet people, i refuse to think about them leaving because i don't want them to leave. so if i don't think about it, it doesn't hold me back, right?

even so, it's never easy to be the one who gets left behind.

oops, i did it... for the first time

i believe i previously mentioned the guy who stayed in my house for a few days while i was out of town, no? well, he must have been having some serious health issues because in three days, he managed to nearly wipe me out of toilet paper. and besides what was already on the roll, there were two new rolls under the sink. when i came home last week, there was a partly used roll on the dispenser. i, never having fathomed that a man could go through two and a half rolls in three days, thought nothing of it. until that roll was nearly gone. then i decided to check and see how much i had left. imagine my surprise when there was NONE. so i went the last three days with a strict "one square per sitting" rule. mostly because i was too lazy to drive to town to buy more. also, because it has been raining pretty much every afternoon, and who really wants to go out in that?

one last reason has to do with the fact that i tend to do most of my shopping at a store called ada baru. and i hate parking there. the facts are these:
1. the store has a parking garage type thing behind the store. you have to pay rp 500 (a nickel) to park there. you are given a receipt which you then have to hold on to and present it to another person on your way out. i don't know what happens if you lose said receipt. i've always been too scared to find out. maybe there is a dungeon. but the worst part is that the garage is pretty small and always very crowded with a tangle of motorbikes. i look around until i find a spot, i manage to wedge my bike in, and i turn it off. and almost EVERY TIME (there has actually only ever been one time that this has NOT happened), a gentleman will come up to me and tell me in indonesian that i should park "over there" which he will indicate with either a wave of the hand or the chin. so i then have to restart my bike, unwedge it, move it to a new location, and rewedge. i have never understood the logic behind this. there probably is none.
2. the other option is to park in the street in front of the store. there often is no parking available. and if there is not, then you have to drive like a billion kilometers to get around the back of the store to get into the parking garage. if you do park in front, it leaves the bike open to getting hit by a car or getting stolen. also, if i were to leave my relatively nice helmet there, there's a strong chance it wouldn't be there when i get back. so then i have to carry my helmet with me while i shop. and, as i mentioned earlier, it's usually raining, so no chance for a dry bike when you're done. and one last thing - there are guys here called parkirs. they "help" you park and unpark. mostly, this means standing beside you and blowing a whistle to make it look like they are stopping traffic (no traffic actually stops) and then you have to pay them rp 500 if you are driving a bike or rp 1000 if you are driving a car. i consider this a moral atrocity. why should i pay someone to do the nothing that i could do myself? (*note* some parkirs are actually helpful. for example, after eating nasi goreng last week, the parkir actually untangled my bike from those around it and backed it out for me and then took his shirt off and used it to dry my seat (it had been raining while i ate). some will hold your helmet. some will put cardboard over your seat if the sun is blazing so the seat doesn't get too hot. however, roughly 98% of parkirs are useless.)

at any rate, my entire monologue above has nothing to do with my actual story, which is toilet paper. i finally broke down last night, and 15 minutes before closing time, i went to ada baru to buy me some tp. and crackers. i wasn't at home before i left, and because it was a spur of the moment decision (due to a break in the rain), i only had a rp 20,000 bill on me. so i couldn't park in the garage. i didn't have a 500 coin to pay with. and i didn't want to get change for a 20 in units of 500. so i had to park out front and then plan my shopping in a manner that would give me a 500 coin as change to pay the parkir (quite a task when half the items on the shelf aren't labeled with their price). turns out, there was tons of parking. i parked in a nice, wide open stretch along the sidewalk, nodded toward the guy selling cds on the sidewalk, went in, got what i needed, and brought my total to rp 19.250. sweet action. (funny thing is that there is no rp 50 coin, but stores still price things in units of 50 or smaller. the smallest coin is rp 100.)

i left the store, walked over to where i had parked my bike, still in a nice, wide open spot, got on, and tried to start the bike. the key wouldn't go in. i tried again. and again. and then i noticed that the cd guy on the sidewalk was laughing at me. so i looked at him, shrugged my shoulders, and said "apa?" (what?) chuckling, he pointed a little further down the sidewalk. sure enough, there was another bike, identical to the one i was currently sitting on. except that one was wedged so firmly in between two other bikes that it could hardly be seen. so i jumped off the bike i was on, hoping desperately that its real owner wouldn't appear, and managed squeeze onto the other bike. my bike. all the while, the cd salesman was stopping people on the sidewalk to tell them what i had done, and they would all sit there laughing and motioning towards me while speaking in javanese with whoever else would listen to them.

feeling a little foolish, but relatively unflustered, i looked up and down the sidewalk to find the parkir, but i didn't see one. i thought i was free and clear. i strapped my helmet on, backed the bike into traffic, and was all set to take off when a man ran over to me, blew his whistle once, then held out his hand. dang parkirs.

i got home to find my neighbor attempting to throw my kittens over the wall to the language school. she hates them. they wake her (and nobody else) up at night. so they slept in my bathroom. then i almost threw up about 43 times as i tried not to gag over the cat poop smell while i brushed my teeth before work this morning. at least they were good and only went in the shower, which was super easy to clean out. but still. anybody want a kitten?

Bali proper?

i was watching never been kissed for the first time last night. random.
if you haven't seen it, it's about a reporter who goes back to high school undercover to write a piece about "today's youth" (the movie is from 1999).
overall, it wasn't that great, but there was one scene that made me laugh.
i even went online to get the script so that i don't misquote it.
it's when she goes to her first period class and is asked to introduce herself to the class.
this is what happens:

josie: my name is josie geller. i'm a high school student. i'm from. . . (at this point, an attractive guy walks in and she has a flashback to a guy she liked in high school). . . billy?
teacher: excuse me. you live in billy?
josie: b-bali. uh, billy bali. um, it's a suburb of bali proper.
teacher: bali! the island nation of bali! fascinating!

BAHA! so all in the matter of about 30 seconds, bali goes from being a large city to being its own country. the sad thing is that i wouldn't have even known any different had i not moved to indonesia.

cyberstalker

yesterday at teacher meetings, we were given the names of all the prospective teachers for next year so that we can see what positions may be filled and start praying for those people.

i've been cyberstalking. trying to figure out who they are. i want to see their faces. naturally, i started with facebook. there is one will phillips who is considering coming to teach science. do you even know how many will phillips there are in the world? a lot. as i was scrolling through the search results, i found who i desperately hope is the will phillips that will be living here next year.

i think it goes without saying which one caught my eye.

Monsters

Yesterday, GT needed to meet with the people at the farm up the mountain, but he didn’t know the people or the way, so I drove him up there. Since it would be inappropriate for us to share a bike, we each drove our own. He always teases me about driving a Beat (a relatively girlie bike with a small engine) and how I’ll never be able to keep up with him.  Once we got back to Salatiga though, he told me that I drove so much like an Indonesian that it’s scary! In a weird way, that was quite a compliment to me. But wow. Look out America… Me in my ‘85 Silverado zipping around semis on the right on I69 around a blind curve! Oh, wait… I sold that truck before I left. Danget.

I got back from our drive last night, and almost immediately got an sms from Mel asking if I want to take tennis lessons. My new motto has become “why not?!” So guess who is taking tennis lessons starting next week? Yup. I’m totally gonna get my teeth whitened and start running around in white tennis shoes and tiny pleated skirts with cable knit sweaters tied loosely around my shoulders. Oorrrrrrrr not. The situation though is that Mel pays for a month of tennis lessons in advance, but she’s moving to the farm this week, which is about a 40 minute drive up the mountain. So I’m finishing out the already-paid-for month with her instructor. And if I like it and can actually hit the ball, I may continue. I met and talked to her teacher last night for like 45 minutes (in Indonesian!), and he seems like a really cool guy. He’s a Christian, and he’s been teaching tennis for 15 years. He started teaching as a way to put himself through college! I’m a little nervous that I’m going to break someone.

it seems that little yohanes has acquired a large number of durian lately, and several friends gathered last night at his place to consume them. i can tell who my true friends are by who invited me and who didn’t. the people who didn’t invite me, of course, are my friends. i went over after tennis and after the durian had all been eaten. unfortunately, the stink still lingered. but we sat in yo’s front yard with a guitar singing songs in english, indonesian, and javanese. i love my friends. yo had been babysitting and playing my guitar over christmas break, and i finally got that back from him last night.

so i came home, plopped down on the couch, and started playing guitar for the first time in three weeks. i played through a couple songs, then happened to look up to see a worm crawling across the kitchen floor. now, this may not seem like a problem, but these worms are scary. when it rains out, they often will wriggle under my door and around my floor for awhile where they eventually die. (i don’t know why they come into my house. there is no dirt on the floor. through no fault of my own, my house is really, really clean.) if the worms are little, i just let them be. but if they are big, i try to get them out. i don’t want to accidentally step on them. there really is nothing like worm between your toes on a summer evening. the only problem with getting the worms out is that when you touch them, they stiffen their bodies like a stick and start maniacally flipping themselves end over end until you back off. every time one comes in my house and i contemplate throwing it out, i imagine myself touching it and it opening its mouth and another much LARGER worm with tentacles and teeth swooping out of its mouth, grabbing me by my arm, and slowly devouring me, limb by limb as i struggle and scream but nobody hears me. until there is nothing left in my house but a lone cricket chirping and a seemingly harmless earthworm wriggling across the floor. i drew you a picture. i wish real bad that i was a cartoonist right now.

so anyways, this was a pretty large earthworm of nightcrawler proportions. and i didn’t want it in my house. and i decided i had to get it out. so i set my guitar down and went over to get it. and then i thought to myself, “my… that very large worm has a pink tongue. and it is flicking it in and out of its mouth…”  yeahhhh… about that… there was definitely a baby snake. in my house. after i took a picture (see below) i quick grabbed a garbage can and put it over the snake to contain him. but then i noticed that the garbage can was a plastic woven thing and that the gaps in weave are like 4 times the diameter of the snake. that wouldn’t do. so i grabbed a tupperware-type dish from under the sink and put it over the snake. my plan was to ask the guard to come kill it. but it was scaryjaga at the back gate and i didn’t really want to ask him to leave his post and come in my house. so i slid the lid under the bowl and managed to get the snake inside of it. then i carried it, shaking, out to the jaga who yelled in surprise when i showed him. then a long discussion ensued about what to do with the captured snake. first he wanted to know if the snake crawled in there by itself. um, no. then he decided he should kill it or else it might kembali (come back). then he told me i need to close my doors. but i told him that snakes can get under it. so he decided i should get my door fixed so it goes all the way to the ground. then he asked if i needed the dish the snake was in. i said i wanted it, but if it was impossible, ga pa2 (no problem). so then he decided that he didn’t want to kill the snake because he would be kasihan (an expression that kind of means to pity someone/something) so he was going to carry it away and set it free. so out the back gate he went. a few minutes later, he returned with my dish and told me that he let it loose by the language school. haha. joke’s on them. then, mr jaga proceeded to regale me with tales of all the biggest snakes he’s seen around here in his lifetime. for the biggest one, he used his arm to demonstrate. that is a big snake. he saw it near my house. but years ago.

they say the smaller a scorpion is, the more poisonous it is. i wonder about snakes.

first day back and already. . .

me: define circle.
luke: three point one pi squared radius divided by two.

jordan: do you miss david?
me: yes.
jordan: let's have a memorial service.
(david moved to america over break)

big sigh

there is a job opening.
for a math teacher.
at my school in africa.
the superintendent emailed me.
and asked me to apply.

siiigghhhhhh...

showdown

here's my showdown with the monkey who tried to steal my ice cream.

he was dumb and i didn't like him.

also, he didn't get my ice cream. or my bag.

i've had a few share-worthy adventures since being back in town.

as stated previously, i only slept the entire first day back.

but the second day, i went up the mountain to visit a farm/school near kopeng. it's run by a christian indonesian family who all speak near perfect english. the mom is a math professor at a local university! the school is a boarding school for poor high school students from all over indonesia. they come to live, work, and go to school on the farm. they are assigned an area to work on, and besides doing their schooling, they are in charge of maintaining their area of the farm. they get to keep the profit from their crop. some work on the mushroom farm, some work with livestock, some work in the fish hatchery, and some work in the crop fields. they grow all kinds of things there, and they also work with local farmers to improve their farming methods and improve their product. they also do a lot of experimentation to come up with different kinds of foods to make with their produce! things like pumpkin cinnamon pretzel twists! by the time each student graduates, they have a trade that they can continue if they choose not to go onto college. melissa is going to be moving in with them up there to help teach english and to work on the farm, but mostly to continue her study of indonesian language and culture. i have to say, after being there and meeting the people, i'm quite jealous. i'm contemplating moving in with them after mel moves out in may, because their school year doesn't end until july. we'll see what works out.

the head of the school, samuel, is also a pastor in sala3 and is trying to start a homeschooling program here in town. he homeschools his youngest child, and his oldest is currently attending high school in idaho. after just 1st semester in the states, she has the highest GPA at her school. i talked a lot to samuel about the various things he's involved in, and he asked me if i would be willing to help out with some things such as teaching english and helping to start this homeschooling program. i'm excited about that. homeschooling isn't common here in indonesia, but it's slowly making its way here from australia. i'm also excited just to have these opportunities to help and to serve.

another great adventure came yesterday evening. some of us decided to go out for nasi goreng (fried rice). my friends knew of a fantastic place that i had never been to. it was under a tarp on the sidewalk, and there was one older gentleman sitting there making nasi goreng to order. it was raining, so we all huddled together under his tarp on a small wooded bench. the guy looked at me first and asked "pedas apa?" (what hot?) knowing all the words but not understanding the meaning of a question is one of the most frustrating things i've encountered in learning language. as i was trying to decipher what "what hot" could possibly mean, melissa shouted out "sepuluh!" (ten!) the kind old gentleman promptly proceeded to grab ten cabe (reputably one of the hottest peppers in the world) and throw them into the skillet. after mashing them up and frying them in oil, he added the rest of the ingredients: noodles, rice, chicken, garlic, more oil, water, soy sauce, and msg (definitely one of the healthiest dishes in asia!) as i watched in shocked horror. yeahhhh.... i decided to be a brave girl and try it. definitely lit my lips on fire with the first bite. and then ate two more bites before i could go on no farther. i felt bad though. i couldn't waste an entire bowl of rice in front of this old man and my indonesian friends. susu took pity on me and ate the entire bowl for me while ariel ordered me a new bowl with only 2 cabe. thanks, guys. you probably saved my life.

i spent wednesday babysitting 8 children under the age of 8. while it was pouring rain outside. in a house with no windows, doors, or electricity. speaking of which, charles and marie moved. ironically, to a house with no windows, doors, or electricity.

it was so hot in gili that now i'm freezing in salatiga. it's been rainy and cold all day. right now, i'm wearing jeans, socks, two shirts, and a jacket.

i got a box in the mail today! from one ruthie jacoby. it totally made my day. i never thought i would be so happy to get clothes from goodwill's half off saturday sale! they still even smelled like goodwill! also, ruthie sewed me a dress! a beautiful, white dress that i adore! thanks, ruthie. : ) and thank you dan for the awesome ccc cd that i put in RIGHT AWAY. ironically, the first song i clicked on was "home". and i sat there and listened to it while the rain absolutely poured down outside my door.

ok. that's all for now.

holidaying

so now that i’ve had some time to be home, relax, and catch my breath, i will regale you with tales of adventures. but only minimally. i don’t really feel like writing (gasp!), so instead, i’ll rely more on some colorful pictures.

the entire first day of vacation was spend simply getting to our destination. we took a car to jogja at 6 am where we boarded a train to surabaya. our flight from there to lombok had been delayed 7 hours, so we spent some time in some of the biggest malls in asia. luggage included. ugh. we had fun taking taxis around town since yo always invented colorful tales about who we were for our taxi driver. peco, mel, and i were quite the characters, depending on what taxi we were in. i don’t condone lying… but telling tales is fun. we all did an awesome job acting out whatever yo told the taxi driver about us.

much later that evening, after a flight, a car, a boat, and much walking, we made it to our bungalows on gili air where we spent the next 6 glorious days. it was incredibly hot there, but we made the most of swimming, snorkeling, relaxing in the shade, and eating tons of good food. we visited a sea turtle nursery and walked all the way around the entire island while there.

a baby sea turtle!

my view while snorkeling.

the four of us were traveling with a family with 2 young children. unfortunately, both kids got sick while we were there (one had an ear infection and one was teething), but in spite of all these things, we had an awesome time and we were all safe and (relatively) healthy!

new years eve was fantastic and might actually be my favorite holiday of the year these days, surpassing even fourth of july! our hotel served us a free dinner of baked fish and papaya curry and vegetables and rice. we stayed up talking and playing games for hours and we knew the new year was here when fireworks started going off all over the island. shortly after that, yo, peco, mel, and i decided to go for a swim. at 1 in the morning. in the ocean. beneath the full moon.

i even overcame my irrational fear of coral and dove in! it is basically impossible for me to sink in saltwater, so i just floated around in the ocean on my back watching the moon and thinking about God and all the good things He does. until peco and yo realized that neither of them could float without sinking, so they decided that i wasn’t allowed to either.

after swimming, everybody was pretty tired, but i tried to convince them to carry on last year’s tradition of staying up for the first sunrise of the year. they got a little cranky with me at that point, so i was the only person to stay up all night. i sat in a hammock for the remaining hours before dawn. and it was totally worth it!

first picture of the new year

after i showed the guys my pictures and told them how awesome the tidepools were at 5 AM, they asked me to wake them up the next morning for the second sunrise of the year. i was happy to acquiesce. we found all sorts of cool stuff! it always amazes me how big the world underwater world is and how most people never even get to see it.

a sea krait! one of the deadliest snakes in the world! it swam right up to me!

buddies

underwater plants

some strange kind of starfish?

gathering things in the coral at low tide

second sunrise of 2010

on 2 january, we took a boat to lombok (the island in the picture above, across from gili) and from there, got on a bigger boat to bali. from the big boat, we had 2 dolphin sightings!

once we got to bali, we rented motorbikes to drive ourselves and all our luggage to our house in ubud where we spent the next 2 nights. ubud is one of my favorite places to visit. there is only one downside to ubud, and that is the large monkey forest there. while walking by one day, a monkey ran out and jumped on my head and tried to steal my ice cream. but luckily, i’ve had tons of practice with monkeys, and he didn’t get any of my tasty treat.

ubud road, near the monkey forest

the guest house we stayed in basically transported me back in time. the house was owned by a family who rented it out to visitors. so i had lots of fun exploring all the desk drawers and bookshelves! it was right on the edge of the sawah (rice fields) and the house was made of wood, and it was all open air. electricity was an obvious afterthought. there were old black and white photos on the walls of white people (possibly the house's owners/builders?) being carried through the balinese jungles on the shoulders of scantily clad natives. because of its locale, we had to scare away snakes and lizards on a regular basis, the house smelled like cow manure, and there was a rooster who crowed for us every morning. naturally, i loved it. the bathroom was open air as well, and though it was secluded from the outside, we quickly realized that the shower could be seen clearly from several places in the house. showering itself became an adventure! but i have to say, that shower is probably the best one i’ve ever used. maybe it was just because it was the first fresh water i’d had in a week. also the first warm water… but i like to think it was the exhiliration of being buck naked outdoors with the sun shining on my face while i shampooed.

outdoor shower!

me and mel’s bed. thank God for mosquito netting!

it is worth mentioning that while in ubud, we got to eat some of the world famous balinese suckling pig (babi guling). we also got to eat at an organic restaurant – VERY hard to come by in indonesia – and we even ate real mexican food! one of our last stops there before heading to kuta was the lotus temple. it is one of many ancient hindu temples still in use on bali. and everybody knows that old temples are always very photogenic.

the lotus temple

if i had to pick a favorite hindu god, it would be him.

since we had to fly out very early in the morning on the 5th, and because the airport is very far from ubud, we decided to spend our last night in kuta – the shopping/party center of bali. we loaded up and got a car to drive us there, but once there, we had no plans. and since it was the holidays, hotels were either very expensive, very full, or both. after hauling all our luggage around for over an hour, we finally found a dive hotel that charged $12 a night. it was so bad that the proprietor was actually surprised that we were staying there and told us that maybe we should check out some other hotels before making a decision. but we were exhausted and hungry and decided to stay. after dumping our stuff, we headed to hard rock on the beach to eat dinner! i have to say, after living in indonesia for a year and a half, a $15 burger with bacon and real cheese and french fries is so worth it. even in spite of the guilt of knowing that in salatiga, that money would feed me for 2 weeks. while there, we met up with some other friends and ended up staying up all night (which worked out well since i was pretty scared of the bed in my hotel room and the sign hanging above it that read “please remember that you are responsible for your own security while sleeping”).

the next morning, we boarded our plane back to jogja, then bussed back to sala3. i didn’t realize how tired i was until hotjaga opened the back gate for me and tried to have a conversation with me about my vacation, and i couldn’t say a single intelligent thing. i came inside, showered, and promptly fell asleep for 18 hours.

gosh, i love vacation.

happy new year

home again.

feels good.

i stayed up all night to see the first sunrise of the year. again.

what's that noise?

so somebody is going to be staying at my place part of the time that i'm gone over the coming couple weeks.

and since ibu hasn't worked for like a week and a half now and there have been 3 cats living in my house, i decided it was time for a good clean.

first step, kick the cats out. they're old enough now. i put a sarong in the bottom of a box and put it in a place that will stay sheltered and dry in the alley behind my house. i'm not entirely coldhearted. and it was christmas, after all.

then the cleaning started. and as i was cleaning, i kept finding curious little sticky yellow puddles under, beside, and behind everything i moved. (yes, mom, i even clean behind things!) my house didn't actually smell like cat pee until i cleaned it. and then i couldn't get rid of the smell no matter how much deodorizer and floor cleaner i used. i swept and then mopped three times. then i used a rag and hand scrubbed the floors. i finally ended up having to use a toothbrush to bleach the floors then open all the doors and windows and turn the ceiling fans on. that seemed to do the trick. my house is really really clean now.

i was getting ready to start cleaning the bathroom when i heard what sounded like voices outside my house. at first, i thought it was a couple of the guards stopping for a chat on their rounds. but it sounded like they were singing. sometimes the guards do sing... but it wasn't them. it was call to prayer! so i checked the clock. definitely 4 AM. wow, i got really into cleaning.

in retrospect, that was kind of funny. i had gone to sunrise service that morning in town. at 4 AM. so on the biggest Christian holiday of the year, i both woke up to and fell asleep to the 4 AM muslim call to prayer.

leaving for the islands in less than 12 hours. i haven't even packed yet.

vaca-what?

so sometimes vacation doesn’t seem like much of a vacation. but it is always full of blessings, big and small. and parties. oh, the parties.

we had a half day of school friday, and thanks to my intense desire to be done with school, i had all my grades turned in before the final bell even rang. i was so ready to get out of there. and then the principal announced over the PA that all teachers needed to report to the auditorium for staff lunch. i was pretty bummed about having to stay longer. but turns out, this staff lunch was put on by the parents of our students. and it was a whole christmas spread, including three golden brown turkeys and homemade cranberry sauce. wow.

that night, i had not one, but TWO parties to go to. the first was a chili cookoff. i don’t want to brag or anything, but i’m pretty sure i unofficially won. then i went to some other friends’ house to watch cloudy with a chance of meatballs on the projector while laying on pillows in their backyard. awesome movie. watch it. really.

saturday i went to semarang with some friends to see new moon. awful movie. don’t watch it. really. i fell asleep after the first 20 minutes and woke up in time for the very last line. that is what i call good timing. after that, we went to yohanes’ parents house for a huge get together with his entire family and college friends. i started to feel a little awkward when i noticed that several of the men in yo’s family were coming to stand surreptitiously “beside” me (sometimes that meant behind me, depending on which way i was facing at the time) while who i assume to be an uncle was taking “our” picture from the corner. found out later his mom has designs on me. and didn’t really keep it a secret. fantastic. (side note: yo, if you are reading this, it’s more funny than awkward. promise. i like your parents.) we went to an outdoor lounge afterward that was built on a perch overlooking the whole city. we sat there drinking awesome drinks (honey, milk, and peach and strawberry ice cream – new favorite drink) and talking and taking pictures for an hour and a half STRAIGHT (nobody takes pictures like asians). we definitely got home well after midnight. which was a good feeling. because one of the best parts of break is staying up late and sleeping in!

sunday, i went BACK to semarang with charles and marie. to buy cheese. and to help them shop for christmas for the orphanage. i found feta! mm mm mm. AND miracle whip! kraft products were banned until just recently. i also found cherry tomatoes, mozarella, chocolate banana bread, and real-ish milk. this was obviously an above average shopping trip. i felt a little extravagant buying all those things, but you never know when you’ll see them again… oh, and we got clothes for 16 boys. that was mostly marie though. i just held the baby. and told her if things matched or not. while eating lunch, we ran into a family from charles’ parents church in jepara. they are extremely wealthy and support his church a lot, so as we approached them, marie quickly whispered to me, “shake hands and suck up.” okaaaaaay. i tried to be as charming as possible in a language i don’t really speak. i sat next to a really old guy in a wheelchair who kept talking to me, but i didn’t understand a thing he said. (marie said later that she can't understand him either, which made me feel a lot better.) luckily, in typical indonesian fashion, he asked a lot of questions, and each question ended with “ya?” (example: this food is really good, ya?) so i just said “ya” and smiled and nodded a lot. i have no clue what i was affirming or might have been agreeing to. but he seemed happy, so that’s good. his wife decided i am too old to be single (i AM getting there in this culture), so she promised to keep her eyes out for a suitable match. maybe i should give her yo’s mom’s number. they can duke it out.

(totaling up the last of the clothes for the orphanage)

monday was a staff christmas party at our superintendent’s house. and as much as i love hanging out with my fellow teachers, a better opportunity presented itself. a family who serves on another island was visiting and they were having dinner with some friends of mine that night. so i went there. the place where they live is very strongly muslim. but the husband was explaining to us that even more than that, this place is very strongly under the hold of satan. they are muslim on their ID cards, but they are more concerned with the spirit world than they are with the koran or with prayer. to witness to these people, he said that he often has to get them to be muslim FIRST, and then use that to lead them to christ. he also said that because he regularly reads the koran and is well known and respected in the area, people there will often say, “i wish i was more like him, he is a good muslim.” they were an awesome family, and i’m glad that i got to spend some time with them.

tuesday was the international school staff christmas party. all the indonesian staff get together and put this on for all the other staff. this year, i got to be designated photographer. in the auditorium. with all the lights off except for stage lights. ugghhhh. i think i did alright though. in a dress and high heels. i even understood the christmas sermon! well, most of it…

wednesday, GT and wiwik FINALLY got married! again, i was designated photographer. i was a little nervous about this one. i really had no idea what i was getting into. indonesian weddings are very different from american ones. and this wedding was particularly unique in that it was entirely planned in 10 days. also, the inside of the church was neon lime green. at the reception, there was a catered buffet, but NO tables or chairs! that was gt’s decision because he didn’t want people to linger. it worked.

today is christmas eve. i prayed a couple weeks ago that my christmas boxes would get here on time. God answered with, “what is christmas, really?” so i thought about it and came back with, “Christmas is about You. but You know how important it is for me to have that connection to my family when i am so far away. it means a lot to me.” and God said, “of course i know. your boxes will come.” so every day for two weeks, i’ve been bugging the office staff to see if my boxes came. nope. and school offices were closed today. so i asked charles to take me straight to the post office (i didn’t know where it was) so that we could check there. he did. they checked their incoming package log books for my name (yeah, records here are kept on paper. in ledger books.), but i wasn’t in there. then the man remembered, “two boxes came just a few minutes ago. we haven’t had time to process them. wait here.” he came back with two boxes that had my name on them. way to pull a last minute trick, God… though i already suspected that would be the case since it usually is. i got my boxes. and i’m really happy. and i’m being a very good girl and waiting until tomorrow to open them. also, the guy at the post office asked if charles is my dad. this is funny for two reasons. 1. he is only 10 years older than me, and he is pretty young looking. 2. he is 100% indonesian. i really don’t know how anyone could possibly assume we were even distantly related. i’m going to call him dad from now on, rest assured.

tomorrow, of course, is christmas day. sunrise christmas service in town and then i am apparently spending the day with charles and marie and another family that lives here. marie says if i don’t, she is telling my dad. i told her that he wouldn’t care. she said he would care that i was spending christmas day all alone. she might have me on that one. not really sure. how about it dad?

saturday… there is something going on saturday, but i totally forget what. hopefully it will come to me before then. or else get cancelled.

and then sunday… we take a bus to solo, a train to surabaya, a plane to lombok, a taxi to the northern point of the island, a boat to gili, and then a horse and carriage to our hotel. we like to use as many modes of transportation as possible. keeps things zesty. i am looking forward to getting away. majorly. and a lonely little beach island sounds perfect.

right here is good too though. my three cats are curled up in one giant ball sleeping beside me on the couch, and christmas music is playing through my speakers. oh, and don’t forget about the half eaten dead rat outside my door that was on my couch when i woke up this morning. festive.

and this thing was in my yard earlier. sorry, had to share.

Tis the season

One more day of finals!

I was a little bored today… I was giving two finals. And by “giving two finals” I actually mean “watching a DVD on my laptop and knitting while students took the final.” I figured since there was only one student in each class, I don’t need to watch them like a hawk to prevent cheating.

I think the rain thought the final school bell today was a starter’s pistol. It started pouring right as the bell rang. So now we all get to go home in the rain. Now there is what sounds like a 2 year old sitting outside my window yelling, "STOP THE RAINNNNNN NOW! STOP THE RAINNNNN NOW!....."

I have some weird rash or reaction or something on the top of my foot. The school nurse said just put hydrocortisone on it, but that really doesn’t do much. So I started rummaging around and found something that an Indonesian friend bought me when I burnt my leg and it got all infected. The label says it’s good for exzema, minor burns, rashes, irritation, etc. So I started using it. And it’s clearing up. Then I read the label. It’s 10% placenta. Fantastic. Twice a day, I’m rubbing placenta all over my foot.

My kittens are vampires. They were in the ceiling of the building next door for their entire lives thus far and so now they are scared of the light. They won’t come out from under my bed, which is where all my luggage was stored. That got relocated to under my desk for fear of my duffel bag filling up with cat pee. So far they’ve been very well behaved, going in the litter box and sleeping soundly all night long. I usually can’t believe that I have 3 cats living under my bed because I can neither hear or smell them. That is good news.

I've been working on filling out a recommendation for MIT. Thee MIT. As in Massachusetts. Intimidating. They ask all kinds of questions. But it's for a student that I really love and respect, so no problem giving a glowing report. I just feel like I have to do so perfectly. Because it's MIT.

Some students were complaining yesterday that my classroom smells like death. I couldn’t smell it. Until today. In one certain spot. So I searched my room, pulling books off shelves and everything out of drawers. No luck. I noticed that it smelled worst right in the middle of one wall. But there’s no way for anything to die in the wall – they’re solid cement. Weird. So I recruited Casey to come help me. He’s considerably taller than me and couldn’t even smell the stench. Until I convinced him to squat down. Then he almost immediately traced the smell to an electric outlet. He went to get a screwdriver, and sure enough, a poor gecko had electrocuted himself to death in there. It was very gruesome and smelly.

Casey pretty quickly decided he didn’t want to touch it, so he called one of the maintenance men to come do it. (“That’s why I hire employees.”) Poor guy replaced the whole outlet for me. Once he knocked the gecko out of the old one, it fell on the floor and started wiggling around. A miracle? We might have thought so until larvae and maggots started crawling out its stomach. I’ll spare you that photo. It was kind of like watching a small scale horror movie. With real life stink.

Humor for today:

Jose: Can I go to the bathroom?

Me: Jose, there’s like 7 minutes left in class. Can’t it wait?

Jose: It’s an emergency.

Me: Do you have diarrhea?

Jose: No.

Me: Then it’s not an emergency and you can wait.

Jose: It’s an emergency. Pleeeeeease let me go.

Me: A real emergency?

Jose: Yes, I think my water is about to break.

Me: Uhhhh… I doubt it.

I don't know why stupid blogger double spaces things sometimes. I can't make it undo that. Sorry.

stranger than fiction

i had a very odd moment in the school bathroom today.
the facts are these:
i had just come out of a stall and walked across the room to one of two sinks.
above the sinks is a long mirror, typical in a girls bathroom.
i watched as i walked toward myself, or rather, toward my reflection.
i was contemplating my hair.
more specifically, why it was sticking up in that manner.
as i neared the sink, my hands instinctively reached for the handles to turn on the hot and cold water simultaneously, thus resulting in warm water.
my right hand found what it was looking for.
my left didn't.
i stopped looking at my hair and shifted my gaze to my hands instead.
i realized that there was only one handle on the sink, now within the grasp of my right hand.
there had only been one all along.
i felt a bit silly as i realized that having two handles was a british convention and that the last time i used one of those was when i lived in kenya, exactly 2 years ago.
but then i remembered that my bathroom sink at home in america is like that too, and so surely the british must not have a monopoly on dual-handled sinks.
so maybe i'm not crazy after all.
not so fast: i don't have a bathroom sink at home in america.
so then, the kitchen sink.
does it have two handles or just one?
i think one.
the kind you lift and swivel to control the temperature.
or maybe two.
by this point i was very confused and mildly agitated.
water was just running into the sink.
and i was just staring at it.
then the startling realization hit me.
i have been gone so long that i can't remember anymore.

btw, mom, if you could email me sometime and tell me how many handles the kitchen sink has, i would appreciate it a lot. or maybe send a picture. thanks.

wonders never cease

as usual, the weekend proved to be the never ending adventure that it always is.

1. in a total lack of foresight back at the beginning of the quarter, i assigned quarter projects to all be due the friday before finals. i totally forgot that i would be writing finals and giving last chapter tests all right around that time. so on top of everything else that made last week hectic as all get out, i had to grade 36 quarter projects, a book, and 2 portfolios over the weekend. ugghhhh. guess who spent all night on friday at the coffeeshop with a stack of papers to be graded?

2. coffeeshop was pretty fun though because my old friend, parjo the barista was back in action! haven't seen that guy for a few months, but he's back behind the counter and still remembers my favorite drink!

3. it came out friday night (because all the good action goes down at the coffeeshop) that some threats have been made against our community. i don't want to go into too much detail because at this point, i don't really know what should be said and what shouldn't. but there's a fairly high ranking military man who approached a man in our community and demanded that he give him a white woman to have sex with. obviously, this presents a few problems. first of all, mr military man is married, and nobody in our community is going to help him have an affair. also, no white woman around here is even remotely similar to whatever his perception of white women is. that was explained to mr military, and he became irate. he threatened to kill one member of our community specifically, and then he went on to say that he has anti-american friends in the military who would love to have an excuse to do something to our community. we don't really know whether to take this guy seriously or not. is he just talking big to get what he wants? we are being more cautious though. not going anywhere alone, dorm kids have to be in by 8 now, etc. the problem is that we can't go to the police; the military are above the police. i'm not sure what's being done at this point, but we would appreciate your prayers for safety and for a quick resolution for all of this.

4. after all of this friday night, i FINALLY learned how to play dance dance revolution! also, i'm really, really bad at it. i attribute that to being middle class, midwest, and white.

5. saturday i realized how spoiled i've become when i went to babysit for charles and marie. besides having a dorm with 10 pre-teen and teenage girls, they also have 4 kids of their own. luckily, the oldest, joshua, was gone. unfortunately, bethanie, the 5 year old had 2 friends over. and they were wreaking havoc. they kept trying to eat cookies out of the kitchen, the baby had just woken up and was crying, and sammy, the 1 year old wanted to go outside and he is now tall enough to open doors and let himself out. so in the middle of holding a crying two month old, trying not to slam doors shut on sammy's fingers while attempting to keep him inside, and controlling three screaming 5 year old girls in pink dresses, i finally just shouted, "WHERE HAVE ALL THE IBUS GONE?!" there are normally 4 of them there. 2 working in the dorm, 2 taking care of the kids. they do everything. they keep us sane. and they had ALL gone home. rough. we managed. by the time charles and marie got back, the girls had been fed and were playing what appeared to be some rendition of hide-and-seek, baby was almost back to sleep, and sammy was playing happily outside with one of the dorm girls.

6. i got informed that my church is no longer having church. rough. so now i need to find a new church, i guess? and unfortunately, i have very little motivation to do so.

7. that night we had our last solafide (fellowship) of the year. it was a christmas party! we even had kind of a band going on... 2 singers, 2 guitars, and a piano! yours truly played the piano... i was amazed that i still could. it's been 7 years since i really played. i could tell i was rusty, but we made it through the evening without making any epic mistakes. it was fun, but i was pretty peopled out. so i spent a lot of time afterwards laying in the yard talking to mel and tiff and ariel. it was good times.

8. then i went to linegars and stayed there until midnight just being cozy and eating ice cream and watching movies under the watchful protection of the christmas tree.

9. i woke up sunday morning to the sound of my cat howling outside my window. but there was another cat making noise too... a much smaaaalllllller sounding cat. so i jumped out of bed, threw open the door, and standing there was my cat - and a kitten! she brought kitten inside and deposited it in my bed where it immediately began burrowing tunnels in my blankets.

a short while later, cat left again and returned over the back wall with a kitten dangling by the scruff of its neck from her mouth. she tried to stick this one inside a duffel bag under my bed, but i wasn't too keen on that. so that one went in the bed too. while momma checked on the other baby, she let me cuddle with the new one.

they're basically adorable and already going in the litter box. one of my students asked to have one of them a long time ago, and she was so excited when i told her this morning that the kittens are finally home! so there's a good home for one of them... not sure yet what i'll do with the other. for now, i'm just enjoying their cuteness. oh, but they got kicked out of the bed once i found fleas on them. so did all my sheets and blankets. sick sick sick.

10. i went to play more ddr with ariel and mel. we had lots of fun switching the level to expert while the person playing wasn't looking. i apparently look like i am trying to line dance to every song. ariel looks like he's at some kind of hiphop hoedown. and mel kicks our butts every time. then i rode my motorbike home in the pouring rain and spent the afternoon snuggled on the couch eating cheese and watching the office. oh, and reading a book in indonesian that ariel gave me. i made it to page 12 yesterday. incredible.

11. i ended the week by calling brian, newly returned from a tour of duty in iraq! it was awesome to get to talk to him, if only for a little bit. he was up fishin with the guys and didn't have good signal. i'll try again later.

i must be looking older

jordan: were there computers when you were our age?
luke: she's not THAT old, guys. the computers just stunk real bad.
me: well, you'll say that about your computers too 5 years from now.
*some silence*
jordan: were you alive during the holocaust?
luke: oh, my gosh. they ARE actually retarded... (*forehead palm slap*)
me: uhhmmm... do you know the actual dates of the holocaust?
david and jordan: yes.
me: my GRANDMOTHER was a child during the holocaust!
david: really? so when was your first dinosaur sighting?

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/07/connecticut.chimp.attack/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn

1. monkeys are never cute.
2. monkeys are never to be trusted.
3. even trained and domesticated ones.
4. but especially not wild ones.
5. under no circumstances.

places to go

glory: it's so hard to arrange a meeting with you.
me: why?
glory: because you have not much time.
me: and you have not much time.
glory: yeah.
me: and my not much time is not at the same time as your not much time.
glory: exactly. that's why it's hard.
me: so when do you have not much time?
glory: oh, i have a lot of not much time.

a present from Jesus

friday i was walking to my house when i spotted something shiny in the grass.
naturally, i went to see what it was, hoping for money.
i was not disappointed.
it was a quarter!
an american quarter!
how odd...
so i picked it up and looked more closely.
minted in 1986. same as me.

so there i was.
walking.
on java.
when i happened to find a quarter.
from the same year as i was born.

me: *looking credulously at the sky while holding said quarter in the palm of my hand* God? is that You?

and the best news!

in the craziness of the day, i have forgotten to say this:

KIM CAME HOME YESTERDAY!!!

and she is feeling so good after 2 weeks in ICU in singapore that after flying into semarang, she, clayton, yo, and gt spent TWO HOURS shopping and walking around the mall there.

i got to go see her last night, and she herself says that based on how she feels now, she can't believe that she almost died just 2 weeks ago.

God IS bigger!

paper

remember all those rules i put in place several weeks back for the rowdy 9th graders? one of them stated that if they slander, put down, or badmouth in any way anybody else in class, they have to write a paper on it explaining why they should not have said what they said, complete with Bible verses. i got a beauty from one student today entitled "Why I Shouldn't Insult People". It reads as follows.

"When I called Jose stupid it wasn't nice, even if it is true it isn't nice, therefore I shouldn't have said it. The Bible says to "love your neighbor as yourself", and I wouldn't have liked it if he said that to me. Also, I shouldn't have told Aditya to shutup. What Aditya has to say is important to [sic] therefore I shouldn't have said that. The Bible says to "love your enemies." Therefore I should love aditya and not tell him to shutup. Also, I shouldn't have called Kyuho a ho because obviously he isnt a ho because a ho is usually a woman, and obviously Kyuho has never done that."

well, i can see this student learned his lesson. ahem....

i found where my cat had her kittens at! and they are still alive! unfortunately, i cannot see them... i was out to dinner with some friends last night. one of them, andre, teaches indonesian at the language school next door to my house. apparently she had her kittens in the ceiling of one of their classroom buildings! so now during class, they can hear cats mewing and thumping around up there. oh no! dre assured me that they are no bother and that when they get bigger, if they are still trying to live up there, they'll have the guards get them down and bring them to me. whew! he replayed the following conversation for me from class earlier this week:

andre: oke, silahkan mengulang. (ok, please repeat after me)
cats: MEW, MEW, MEW!!!

he apparently thought that was hilarious, because throughout the evening, he repeated it 3 or 4 times.

visits from history

my skype has been real weird this week. it keeps sending me messages from the past. for example, yesterday, i thought katy was talking to me, but then i looked at the time stamp and realized the message was from the day before and that katy was currently offline. this morning, i got this one from over a week ago when the family + gramma drove to oklahoma to be with zach. this one made me laugh. and miss my family. love you guys!

18:36 - Love you
Have a wunnerful day - Mom

20:11 - You there?
20:11 - Hello Hello Hello
20:13 - Anyone there?

20:31 - Ijam going with your folks to see zach. am at your house right now waiting for the car to get here and your dad too. Deb took me to hicksville and your mom picked me up there wich was about half way .worked out very well. think the car is going to be loaded for bear with all the stuffweare taking.wished i could have gone to see you too but kn ew that was not possible. excuse the errors i am making.love you and take care .grandma

rice babies

5 kg bags of rice were distributed to all the seniors today for them to clothe and decorate. these will serve as their "babies" for the next 7 days. it's part of their contemporary issues class project. we don't get those fancy high tech talking, pooping babies over here. just rice. oh, so asian.

so at lunch, i got into a fantastic conversation with yejun regarding his naked rice baby.
nat: so who's the father?
yejun: it was a virgin birth.
nat: then who's the mother?
yejun: me. i virgin birthed the baby in ways you cannot imagine.
nat: ooohhhhh.
yejun: and its name is going to be PMS.... or Satan.
alexa: PMS?
yejun: yes, it's short for peter mose sullivan.
me: well, that's a very korean name.
yejun: i can't give it a korean name. it's white rice.

geometry today

me: uh-oh... we have a square root of 2 in the denominator. what do we need to do with that?
david: multiply both sides by the square root of 2!
me: both sides? but there's no equals sign.... so there is no "both sides".
david: uhmmm.....
jenna: oh! multiply by something equivalent to one, which would be the square root of 2 over the square root of 2! so top and bottom are getting multiplied by the same thing.
me: RIGHT! good explanation too.
david: that's what i said!
me: almost.... both sides implies there's an equation. top and bottom would imply a fraction.
david: *mumbles* you're gay.
me: WHAT?!
david: OH MY GOSH! i'm SO SORRY! it just came out!!! OH MY GOSH!
luke: david! are you ACTUALLY retarded?!
david: I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING!
me: woowwwwww....
david: I DIDN'T MEAN IT! YOU ARE SO HOT!
me: DAVID! you are NOT helping your situation at ALL!
david: why?! i'm trying to be nice!
me: oh, dear.....
luke and jordan: *chanting while banging fists on their desks* slap him! slap him! slap him!

things i’m thankful for

Number one.  My family and God's protection over them. Sometimes, I  think about how easy it is for bad things to happen.  There've been times when it's even been hard not think about those things.  And when I'm so far away from home, that's a really scary thing.  But God has always been so good to my family.  Nothing bad has ever happened to us.  We're healthy.  We’re warm and dry and safe.  We have the things we need, and plenty more.  No matter how far from home we go, He is there with us.  Sometimes I forget about that, but if I look, it's easy to see.

Number two.  My friends.  Around the world.  You are my surrogate family.  To those I’ve left: I miss you.  You are irreplaceable, and I can't wait to see you again.  To those here: thank you for who you are and what you mean to me.  It breaks my heart think about the day when you will become those I’ve left. And if I write any more in this category, I will cry on my computer, which is not ideal. I love you all.

Number three.  My job.  Seriously, I have like the coolest job in the world.  I get to hang out all day with awesome kids who love Jesus.  Yeah, some days are better than others, but no matter what, I love my kids and what I do here. God opened some serious doors to make this happen, and I am so thankful He did.

Number four.  The experiences God has allowed me to have.  I have had quite the life - and gosh, I’m only 23!  Earlier this week, I was reading my journal from college.  It included a lot of memories from high school and before.  I was just reminded of a lot of the experiences that I've had.  Some good, few bad. Some bizarre, few normal. But all leading up to who I am today and preparing me for where I am in this moment.

Number five.  The knowledge that my God is the biggest.  He is bigger than allah.  He is bigger than me.  He is bigger than the demons.  He is bigger than my circumstances.  And He always wins.

Number six. The rain. I hear it right now. It makes everything green. It sustains life. It keeps the heat away. It sings me to sleep.

Number seven. The body of Christ. It is living and active in every part of this world. Everywhere I go, I find it. I’m learning to see the beauty of it.  I’m thankful that it is here, and I am thankful that I get to be a part of it.

Number eight. The little things. Like the fact that technology has progressed to the point where I can call my family when I’m homesick. Or that feeling of accomplishment I get after having a conversation in Indonesian. Or that I’ve only ever found snakes outside my house and not inside. Or that my pembantu is an awesome cook. Or that Christmas vacation starts in 3 weeks.  ALL these – and SO many more – are things to be thankful for!

all 88

last night i went to a piano concert.
i have never heard such incredible playing in my life.
i didn't want him to stop.
during one song, i could hardly breathe.
it sounded just like water.
sounds like that don't come from this instrument.
at least, not for most people.

but anthony hartono is not most people.
and he is only fourteen years old.

skypes with dad

[11:10:34 AM] dad: I'll take lots of pictures this weekend
[11:11:16 AM] me: i don't want to see them
[11:11:43 AM] dad: even if I don't photograph the food?
[11:11:55 AM] me: oh, that's fine then.
[11:12:00 AM] me: i also don't want to see people having fun without me.
[11:12:01 AM] dad: k
[11:12:11 AM] dad: shellfish
[11:12:15 AM] me: so maybe some pictures of crying or sleeping people would be fine.
[11:12:31 AM] me: or maybe just send me some pictures of strangers or wildlife in the area.
[11:12:57 AM] dad: strangers crying in their sleep?
[11:13:49 AM] me: THAT'S IT!
[11:13:55 AM] me: yes, that is perfect.
[11:14:00 AM] dad: I'll try

mom and dad and gramma and kyley are renting an impala and hauling a turkey 11 hours to have thanksgiving in oklahoma with zach. meanwhile, i'm in rainy season in indonesia. and not very happy about it.