no good

i am sick. again. for the third time this month. boy, when it rains, it pours, huh? the first two times were weather induced flu/head cold-type issues.... but this time is different.

it started saturday night, i was at church, and my back just started hurting really bad. i chalked it up to the metal folding chairs that i sat in for 3 hours. i got home and tried to watch a movie and was really uncomfortable and then got really nauseous as well, but never threw up.

sunday morning was the same, but i wanted to go to church. i was pretty miserable, but made it through the service and came home and spent the entire rest of my day laying on the couch watching geckos, spiders, and ants on the walls. no joke. because i found that if i laid really still, the pain went away. but if i moved, it just shot all over my body, mostly up and down my back. oh, and i watched the original version of cheaper by the dozen. since i rarely take medicine, usually 1 ibuprofin is enough to take care of whatever ails me. 2 is numbing. i was taking 3 at a time yesterday, and all it did was make me more nauseous than i already was, even though i took them with bread.

so this morning, feeling even worse, i decided to try to make it through school. the normal 5 minute walk took 15 because it hurts to move. i stalked the nurse's office until she got there, and she checked me out. she says it could be flu. what's going around lately usually takes 3 days to get out of the system. after listening to my stomach and heart and poking me all over, she also said it could be something kidney/liver related, even possibly hepatitis. or parasites. she said nothing is enlarged, but most of the pain is coming from my lower back.

so she gave me a cocktail of 800 mg of ibuprofin and 800 mg of something else for the pain and told me to see how long i made it. i taught my first two classes in misery and decided to come home after that. i have one more class today, but not until 5th period, and it's a pretty basic lesson. so someone else is gonna cover for me.

i'm at home now, laying in bed, hoping today is not as boring as yesterday. and also really hoping i don't have hep or kidney stones or something horrific like that. the nausea i can handle... it's this incurable back pain that gets to me. ugh.

oh, and if i'm not better by tomorrow, i'm gonna get blood work done to start ruling things out and narrowing the causes down.

thinking out loud. virtually.

so it’s an almost definite thing that i’ll be starting to teach english at a buddhist university later this month. and it’s gonna be a regular part of my life. and i have no clue where to start. this is not the first time i’ve been asked to teach english, and it certainly won’t be the last.

i never realized before i came here how much people WANT to learn english or how much of a need there is for native speakers as language teachers. and the third thing i am realizing as i go is how many doors teaching english can open. i’ve taught english to christians who have no clue who Jesus Christ is. i’ve taught english in muslim boarding schools. i’m about to start teaching english to monks. i’ve taught english in homes, in schools, in churches, in mosques, in cities, in villages to preschool kids, elementary school kids, middle school kids, high school kids, university students, and adults. but the thing is that i really have very little concept of HOW to teach a foreign language.

i made it through 2 years of teaching high school spanish because i had textbooks and workbooks to go through with the students. but when i teach english here, i have absolutely nothing to work with. no starting point, no curriculum to follow, no manipulatives, no books, no way of evaluating or assessing.

and i need to learn how to teach english without those things. hence, i really want to get my TESOL. i am eager to do the work necessary to help me learn how to teach english as a foreign language. i can get it online, starting in january. but i have to be signed up by the end of this month. and to do that, i need $400.

so here’s the thing. i’m writing this here and sending out emails as well to say.... i can’t do this on my own. i don’t have 400 extra bucks laying around. i need some partners on this one. i don’t have all the logistics figured out, and i don’t need promises written in blood from anyone, but before i pursue this further, i need to stop and ask – are there people out there who are willing to support me in this?

what’s the rule?

“look. i ate a gyro for you.” - dad

NO TALKING ABOUT FOOD THAT I CAN’T HAVE! NO FAIR!

 

in other news.... this is my new favorite thing:

i got it in the mail earlier this week from a friend. and it has improved my standard of living greatly. i’ve never had a nice water bottle before. i take it everywhere with me. and i now drink 8 times more water per day on average than i did before i had a water bottle. dang. that is a lot of water.

Gabriel Cramer

earlier this week, we were learning about matrices and Cramer's rule in Algebra 2. I assigned a brief one page paper on WHO cramer is to my students, since most people know nothing about this famous mathematician. students who have been here longer than me always joke about cramer's rule being written by jeremy cramer, a much beloved teacher i replaced when i came. when i arrived, i felt like i had some really big shoes to fill. i never met cramer, he left before i moved here, but i heard nothing but good about this guy. anyways, the papers were due today, and one student turned in this:

Jeremy Cramer was the coolest guy ever. We were really close. He used to teach at Mountainview International School. Crames is married to Rebekah. Bekah used to go to our school before Crames taught here. I miss him a lot. He was a good runner. His best times were, 800 meters: 1:58.42, 1.5 kilometers: 3:58.89; 3 km: 8:45.23; 5km: 15:35.61. He was a really good runner. Unfortunately he left before he could teach me, but then the best female teacher I have ever had took his place. But that is another story. Crames would do everything with us! He invented this new game at the beach called attack shark. It was epic! We would also wrestle at my house with all the pillows as an arena. He would teach me wrestling moves. But now he has gone off to America where he and his wife go to college, living happily without me. I will remember Crames as many things. Wise, cool, funny, and crazy. He was like my oldest brother and an older brother to my ssiter and brother. My dad also saw him as a brother and mentored Crames. We Skype once in awhile, but other than that, contact is limited. Life has been different without him, but I'm glad I have had awesome memories with my favorite Cramer in the world!

sometimes these kids warm my heart.... the things they say and the ways they think. and every day, i love living in a community where i'm more than just a teacher to my students and their families.

btw, after he knew i saw that his paper was about jeremy and NOT the famous mathematician, he turned in his real paper.

oh, language

so every day except friday, spanish class is held in my room. i don't teach it, but i'm usually working at my desk while class is conducted. sometimes, strange things happen. usually in the form of awkward conversations. i'm pretty sure the teacher doesn't think through some of the things he says before he says them. he's an awesome guy, fluent in spanish, and a MUCH better language teacher than i. he's also our only black teacher, and he enjoys dressing a la the cosby show, circa 1992. our urban influence.

actual conversation 2 minutes ago:

teacher: ok, we need to take a closer look at the verb "gustar". it means "to be pleasing", so it's conjugated based on what is pleasing, NOT on the person it is pleasing to. so for example, i like those girls. i like girls.
student: you only like girls?
teacher: no, i like boys too. but back to the girls. me gustan las muchachas. girls PLEASE me.
student: boys too?
me: APPLES! YOU LIKE APPLES!
teacher: good idea. i don't like where this conversation is going. me gustan las manzanas. apples are pleasing to me.

vomit

this has been one of those weeks... where every little thing seems designed specifically to test my patience. a lot of it has stemmed from the fact that i live in a third world country and few things are logical or efficient. a lot of it has come from situations with other people that have just been wholly aggravating. mix some work stress and some unruly students into that mix. THEN throw in me having to explain to 3 different guys in 2 weeks that i don't feel the same about them as they do about me (seriously - NOTHING for 2 years, and now all of a sudden three guys in 2 weeks! and 2 of them, i NEVER saw coming...), so i feel guilty about that too, and now i have 3 friends who don't really want to talk to me because their feelings are hurt. and top all that off with the fact that i can't sleep at night. i am absolutely exhausted, emotionally and physically, but sleep won't come. and when it finally does, i am woken up frequently for no apparent reason and can't get back to sleep for 30 minutes to an hour.

my students pointed out today that i haven't smiled very much this week. the IT guy confided in the school secretary, who in turn told me, that he's worried about me because he hasn't seen me smile lately. this from the guy i only see once in awhile when he ventures out of his techno cavern across the parking lot. aduh.

last night, with a dejected sigh, i crawled into bed. and i realized that since i'm planning to stay here for awhile, i should make a concerted effort to actually LEARN indonesian instead of just picking it up on the street. so i decided my first personal language lesson would be reading my bible (which is always what i end my day with) in indonesian instead of english this time, looking up all the words i don't know and making a list to memorize later. and what book did i "happen" to open up to? - yakobus, of course. james.

Saudara-saudaraku, anggaplah sebagai suatu kebahagiaan, apabila kamu jatuh ke dalam berbagai-bagai pencobaan, sebab kamu tahu, bahwa ujian terhadap imanmu itu menghasilkan ketekunan. Dan biarkanlah ketekunan itu memperoleh buah yang matang, supaya kamu menjadi sempurna dan utuh dan tak kekurangan suatu apapun. (Yakobus 1:3-4)

[my translation: my brothers, consider it as a joy, if you fall into some kinds of temptation, because you know that the test of your faith results in perseverance. And let that perseverence get some mature fruit so that you become perfect and whole and do not lack anything.]

[the real translation: My brothers and sisters, when you have many kinds of troubles, you should be full of joy, because you know that these troubles test your faith, and this will give you patience. Let your patience show itself perfectly in what you do. Then you will be perfect and complete and will have everything you need. (James 1:3-4)]

of course, i had to look up anggaplah (consider it), ketekunan (perseverance/patience), matang (mature) and utuh (complete).

but wow, God, thanks for slapping me in the face.

i slept well last night for the first time in a week.

*and when i woke up this morning, i still remembered about half the 22 words i had looked up last night. 50% is a good start.

those boys

so here's a picture of a typical mountainview lunch. a verbal picture. because it's all i have. we all eat in the pavilion, which is just what it sounds like - a long open sided "building" with a tile roof over the top, located between our secondary and elementary buildings. the elementary kids eat at one end and the secondary kids at the other. there's about 30 picnic tables that span the length of said pavilion in 4 rows, with a walkway in the middle. also, along one side of the pavilion are regular tables. before lunch, students' helpers, drivers, or parents bring their lunch boxes and leave them for the kids on those tables, where the kids retrieve them from and (hopefully) return them to when they are finished.

except for the kids who live in the dorm. we have 3 dorms - the girls dorm, the boys dorm, and the coed southern baptist dorm... those southern baptists. they all eat buffet style. the dorm helpers cook the food and bring it ALL out and each dorm basically claims one picnic table to spread all the food out on. this usually involves a big urn of white rice, a pitcher of juice, a casserole dish full of chicken thighs swimming in oil and hot sauce, a bowl of veggies and garlic, a bowl of fruit, and dish of cookies, and plates, cups, and silverware for everyone.

my job each day is to come to lunch, open up all the dishes (they bring them covered so flies don't get in them), and watch the food for the girls dorm to make sure that other kids aren't just coming and helping themselves. in exchange, i get a free hot lunch. mmm... chicken thighs. not my favorite, but i'm not complaining. it's a free lunch. so i sit there. by the food. usually 3 of the dorm girls sit with me. we're creatures of habit. or at least they are. i sit there every day because it's my job.

there's always some rambunctious boys who come along and try to sneak a cookie out of the dish. one of the costa rican kids is - for reasons beyond me - obsessed with dorm pears. so i gotta keep an eye on the fruit bowl. yesterday i had a kid trade me a half eaten bag of cheetos for a bite of my bacon sandwich. the "cheetos" turned out to be carrot sticks he had shoved in the bag to give it some weight. haha....

anyways, all that to say, something really funny happened at lunch today. four of the boys - juniors and sophomores - who are notorious for every day trying to weasel food came over to the table together. our table is at the very end of the pavilion, at the end of a row of tables. they examined the food for awhile, then one of them declared, "PLACES, EVERYONE!" each boy immediately ran to one corner of our table. and before i knew what was going on, one of them yelled, "LIFT!" and they PICKED UP our picnic table - with four people and all our dishes of food - and carried us to the grass!! then a couple minutes later, they decided they should put the table back where they found it from. so back we went. all without spilling a thing!

and the hilarity of that situation totally made my day.

the end.

i just learned la bamba with the spanish class that i don't even teach.
guess what's gonna be stuck in my head all week now....

today marks the beginning of 4 consecutive weeks of school with no breaks (except weekends, of course). that's the longest we go in a year with no holiday. but the light at the end of the tunnel is.... FALL BREAK! 10 days of no school! i love my job, but i love my holidays more. :) i think our schedules get acclimated to having frequent holidays. and when we don't have one for so long, everyone gets antsy and on edge about halfway through. no fun.

i think i'm gonna stay in salatiga for more years. God says, "what i have for you is here. and it is good."

and it IS good.

it’s overrrrrr

well, the fasting month has officially come to an end as of friday or saturday, depending on which calendar you follow. for most of indonesia, idul fitri was on friday. the whole holiday surrounding the end of fasting month is known is lebaran. this is a time for everyone, muslim or not, to travel to their hometown and ask forgiveness of family and friends. this is also a time when a simple 10 minute drive across town takes 45 minutes. because EVERYONE – literally – is on the road to somewhere. the only quiet place on the island is jakarta – because everyone has gone to their hometown. the capital city of the most densely populated island in the world turns into a ghost town this week.

as usual, i took advantage of the communal idul fitri morning prayer and turned it into a photo op. unfortunately, i couldn’t remember what time prayers started, so i woke up at 4:45 and walked to the soccer field in the center of town, pancasila. even more unfortunately, prayers didn’t actually start until 6:30. uughhhh. oh well, got some good praying time in myself before everyone else of the predominant religion got there.

here are some pictures of the morning.

(prayer fence for the women. they must be behind the men.)

(carrying his family’s prayer rug)

(filling up the street around the pancasila)

rencanas

pakd: do you still have holiday on monday?
me: yeah. no school.
pakd: good.
me: why?
pakd: i have plan to take you to magelang.
me: oh?
pakd: yeah.
me: ok.

guess we're taking a bike trip through the mountains to magelang tomorrow? not sure what we'll see there or what we'll do there, but i've been told to bring my camera and a jacket. i can't really decide if i like having plans made for me or not. for now, i'm excited to see what there is to see. i've passed through magelang several times, but i've never actually stopped to do anything there.

weekend webcam photoshoot with boy cat

he bit me!

that's really all you have to say?

i wore my hair in a braid today.
and one of my tenth graders asked me:
"how long did it take you to condense your hair like that?"

holy monday, batman.

1. i got asked this weekend to teach english at a buddhist monestary/school. it's a maybe at this point.

2. back when i was planning to move to sumatra (i'm waffling now), i was considering taking the time to get my TESOL (teachers of english to speakers of other languages - one of the most ridiculous "official" acronyms i've ever heard) certification, because teaching english is one of the biggest areas of ministry there. and frankly, i really stink at it. ya, i'm a native speaker... but really, try explaining how english grammar works to someone who operates under a COMPLETELY different system. i mean, why CAN'T you say "i have so many homeworks today"? btw, i do say that now after living here for 2 years. "gee, i have so many homeworks to grade today." maybe i shouldn't be allowed to teach english... but anyways, i kept forgetting to look into getting my certification online. i wasn't even sure if that was possible. however, in light of number 1 in this list, i finally checked it out. because even if i stay here for another year or longer, i am asked to teach english frequently. that ministry is NOT limited to sumatra. twice a year we go to teach in madura. indonesian friends ask me to tutor them or practice with them all the time. i've been asked to speak in so many schools and even churches. i even got asked to address a group of english teachers once. anyways, the bottom line is, i CAN get my certification online. it takes 12 months. and since i am a resident of a UN listed "impoverished country", i can get it for $400 instead of $1000. hmmmm.... definitely thinking about it now.

3. the minister of education came out with the most ridiculous law today. previously, foreign students have had to obtain a letter of permission to study in indonesia, but effectively immediately, ALL students of any nationality must obtain a NEW letter of permission to study at an international school. to obtain said letter, each student must fill out an online application which is incredibly buried within the ministry's website (100% in indonesian) and supply the following documents: student’s passport, student’s latest report card/transcript, statement letter explaining that the student is not and will not work during his study period in indonesia, sponsorship letter from the parents, attendance letter from the school in indonesia, and parents’ passports. and there is still some confusion regarding whether the necessary documents can be scanned and emailed or if they have to be delivered in person to jakarta (a 12 hour drive away). uuggghhh.

4. i played some intense badminton last night and i am really sore today. i never thought i would ever, ever say "intense" together with "badminton" in my life, much less with an "i played" in front of it. btw, don't ever play badminton with anybody named aswan. your sitting down skills will be impeded the next day.

5. i had lunch with the commander of the air force for the province of jogjakarta on accident on saturday. i was with 5 indonesian friends and i fell asleep in the car and when i woke up, we were at his house. i didn't figure out who he was for like 2 hours. nice guy. took us all out to his favorite restaurant. babi panggang - roasted pork. i've NEVER eaten that on java before! only on sumatra. soooo good. btw, this indicates that he's a christian, which is also awesome. not many people here are, much less people that high up in govermnent.

6. it finally clicked why money is so much tighter now than when i first came. first of all, my quality of life has increased now that i know how to operate here. i went from having a helper who could only cook fried chicken and rice twice a week to a helper who cooks the most amazing food every day. i now have wireless internet and satellite television in my home (though the tv is going away soon). i have friends in different cities - or on different islands - who i go to visit. i have a motorbike which requires fuel and upkeep. i have a nicer/better phone now. and while my quality of living has steadily increased, the dollar has progressively weakened. and since we are paid in dollars, that has really hurt how much money i am actually making. when i first came, the exchange rage was somewhere around rp12,000 = $1. so my $500/month paycheck ended up being about 6 million rupiah. for the past several weeks, the exchange rate has hovered right around rp8,900 = $1. so now, my monthly paycheck is a little less than 4.5 million rupiah. that's a 1.5 million rupiah difference. every month. it costs me 100,000 rupiah to eat for an entire week. 1.5 million rupiah is 15 weeks worth of food. that's a HUGE difference. and in a year, i'm making, on average, 18 million less. that's more than my BRAND NEW motorbike cost. that's enough to feed me for MORE THAN 3 YEARS!! but technically, i'm still making the exact same amount of money - $500/month. this was an exercise in sad realizations.

and the great experiment begins

tomorrow is a new month. a month in which i will be experimenting. out of necessity.

and that experiment is named: how little money can i live off of for a month?

see, due to some money troubles in korea and that place being WAY more expensive than i anticipated or was led to believe, money is tight. this also has to do with the fact that i only get paid once every three months. my next paycheck comes 1 october. so this is the last month of the july-october pay period, hence the tightness. this entire month (august), i have meticulously kept track of every rupiah spent in order to better budget what i have left.

grand total: 1,963,775
translation: about $200

how much money i currently have to live off of for the next month: 1,200,000 (about $120)

i just got finished looking over the last month's expenses, and here's what i spent my money on. (btw, i've never done anything like this before. it was interesting.)

fun/leisure/entertainment: 69,000 ($7)
food: 518,200 ($52)
transport (including gas and upkeep for my bike): 53,000 ($5)
school supplies: 14,400 ($1.50)
bills (LPG, water, electricity, internet, house helper, mail, etc): 1,062,575 ($100)
phone: 102,000 ($10)
tithe: 150,000 ($15) (less than what i should be giving, i know)

ok. i know i can live on less than this. first off, almost HALF of my bills expense was due to me getting slammed with a $50 charge when i came back from korea. who knew i had to pay to get back into the country?! also, i pay my helper $10/week to buy food for me at the market. so my food total should be closer to $40. that extra $12 came from eating out about twice a week. should be stocked up on school supplies. and now that we have a third person living in the building and i FINALLY got her internet up and running, that bill will be split 3 ways instead of 2. and someone was stealing phone minutes from my cell phone, but i think i finally got that blocked.

the bottom line is that i think i can make it. and still afford to have $7 worth of fun this month.

now for those of you who might be worried about me, don't be. God always meets all my needs no matter what. AND if worse comes to worse, i can try to find a way to use my credit card here, which is linked to my american bank account. it just stinks because i lost my pin number and it charges me an arm and a leg for a cash advance. but i had trouble using it in korea, so i ended up having to withdraw money from my indonesian account from an international ATM i found there (praise God for that or i'd have had NO money), which is why my indonesian account is just about empty.

i'm excited to see how this works out. sometimes i feel bad that i already live off of like twice as much as my indonesian friends do. they don't have internet bills or house helpers or pizza once a week.

and also, i'm excited to use this as a way to save money. because the more money i save now, the more i'll have when i come home next summer. and the more money i have when i come home next summer, the more places i can go and the more people i can see!

the down side to this is that i smell like a hobo. i've cut out nonessentials such as deodorant and bodywash. i mean, i live in a third world country, right? good thing i still had a bottle of shampoo and some bar soap.

look what i did!

since i’m the yearbook teacher for this year and since i have never even opened photoshop in my life, i decided to “join” graphic design class, taught by our new girls’ dorm dad – a professional photographer!

i’ve been busy the past few weeks and haven’t had time to ask the teacher if he minded if i sat in, but i finally had a chance to talk with him this week, and he said he’d love to have me. so today was the first time i sat in. i was nervous that i’d be behind after missing the first 5 classes (it meets twice a week), but i managed to keep up.

this here is what i made.

i’d imagine that if you’re at all familiar with photoshop or graphic design, this probably looks like something a 4 year old retarded kid could make in their sleep. but i’m quite happy about it.

because when i started, there was only a white screen in front of me.

ramadan. the holy month.

so all my "cousins" (neighbors of the dominant religion) are fasting this month. well, almost all of them. apparently you can get special exemptions. anyways, because they have to abstain from all earthly pleasures during daylight hours, they wake up at 3:30 or 4 in the morning to eat breakfast so they can fast all day. well, until sundown, when air raid sirens sound all over town letting people know it's safe to eat again. back to morning time though. usually, there's someone who goes around each neighborhood at 3:30 beating a drum or banging a piece of bamboo on everyone's gate to wake them up. after the first day of this each year, i sleep through it. we're well into the second week now...

and apparently, someone decided that banging things wasn't loud enough. someone RIGHT. NEXT. TO. MY. HOUSE.

i woke up very suddenly, panicking, in the pitch dark at 3:30 this morning to the sound of bomb-like fireworks being set off by my neighbors. imagine my discombobulation.

once i realized it wasn't a terrorist attack and got my heart rate back down, i fell back asleep for 3 hours.

siiiiiigh....

new experience. but not necessarily a good one.

alright. so pretty much everyone drops their bike at some point. i mean, if you let the thing lean too far one way or another, it's just too heavy to hold up. and down it goes. and it always happens in front of lots of people. doesn't matter if you're indonesian or foreign, it's gonna happen.

i have seen SO many people drop their bikes, and i have prided myself on the fact that i have been driving motorbikes for over a year now, and i have NEVER dropped one, never wrecked one, and never been stopped by police for anything. sparkling record.

until the one fatal error...

i was driving home from bible study, and as i got close to home, it started raining. ugh. rain? in august? dry season? well, that's a different story. i was one street over from my street. i could go to the end of the street, take a right, and drive down that road til i meet up with the end of my street, and take another right to get to my house, essentially making a giant U and backtracking in the process. but it was raining and ick, so i took the short cut.

the short cut is scary. it is a TINY footpath that goes down a ravine, across an even narrower little bridge over a river gorge that is known for being demon possessed (my neighbors say that the spirits that were in my house a year ago came up from this river), and back up the other side of the ravine. the shortcut ends immediately outside the gate to my house.

so due to the rain and me not wanting to be in it any longer than necessary, i shot down the little footpath. i didn't take into account that the path is bricked over. and that all the bricks are mossy. and that mossy bricks on a steep downhill slope turn to ice when rained upon. i realized my mistake immediately upon hitting said downhill slope, scary river gorge below. back brakes: on. front brakes: on. bike: accelerating downhill rapidly.

now would also be a good time to mention that the trail takes a slight left hand turn before meeting with the bridge. and if you don't make the turn, you miss the bridge. and then... well... not pretty.

so i've got both feet on the ground. no good. felt like ice skating. my bike is going too fast to make the turn. but i can't slow down.

dramatic enough?

in retrospect, it was probably only by the grace of God that right as i hit the turn, my back end slid around to the side and the bike dumped. i had my feet down already, so i didn't go down with the bike. it kind of just fell between my legs and laid where it fell.

i was expecting the commotion to bring people out of their houses to see what had happened (indonesians love a good tragedy), but thankfully nobody was there to see. i picked the bike up, pointed it at the bridge, and went across, praying that i'd be able to make it up the other side. it took some work, but my good ole bike made it up the slippery uphill slope.

then i swallowed my pride and asked the guard at the gate to grab a flashlight and check my bike for me. he'd notice dings and scratches that i probably wouldn't. i told him what happened, and after asking about 50 times if I'M ok, he did a thorough once over on the bike and couldn't find a scratch anywhere. so he made sure once more that i was unharmed, reminded me that the roads are slippery when it rains - in indonesian AND english because he's THAT good, and sent me on my way.

won't be making that mistake again.
and my record is now tarnished. boo.

possibilities

just an hour ago, i had my eyes opened to a need/mission field right here in salatiga. the local university here attracts students from all islands of indonesia. salatiga is a veritable melting pot. it's great living here and being exposed to so many different cultures, all without leaving town. the university is a christian university, but 90% of the faculty are muslim, as are many of the students. they have openings in the mathematics and education departments for foreign teachers. and i was kind of halfway offered a job. as in, "i'll throw it out there and if you're really interested in pursuing this, come talk to me."

if i were ever to do that, my "salary" would be more than cut in half (the salary is $1800/year) and i'd have to move out of my aparment (that i live in for free) and into a boarding house (where i'd have only an 8 x 8 bedroom that i'd pay rent for). so what's the draw? the potential mission field. it was a christian friend who talked to me about it. and that was how he laid it out.

right now it seems ridiculous. but the idea is there, planted in my mind. let's see if it grows now.

wow, yesterday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quotes of the day

"you're too skinny to hug!!!" - christy (a senior)

"kamu harus belajar bahasa jawa. ya, karena bahasa jawa dipakai di sorga." (you have to learn javanese. yeah, because javanese is what's spoken in heaven.) - aswan