PICTURE TIME!

I haven’t posted pictures for awhile, so here’s a rundown of pictures I found on my camera during the month of April.

1. Laurel and I. My first year here, she was my only neighbor. But after our first year, the Indonesian government stopped giving teaching visas to ex-pats over 60, and she had to leave. She really had a heart for Indonesia though, so she didn’t let that faze her. She spent two years out of country studying language and saving money in the hopes of being able to come back, and she was finally able to last year! Sadly, her parents (in their 90s now) are in failing health, so she’s leaving this week to go be with them. She dropped by a few weeks ago to give me a hug and say goodbye. I made her take a picture with me. I think it is the only picture in existence of her and I. The woman is absolutely crazy, and I love her.

2. I often find random things on my way to school in the morning. I don’t often take pictures of them though. But this day I did.

3. These pictures don’t do justice to what my eyes actually saw. We were driving to Semarang on the new toll road, and there were little rainbow patches in the sky all around the sun! I took about 25 pictures. In these two, you can see just a little bit of rainbow to the top right of the sun, but there were about 10 others that you can’t see. It was like a dozen little oil slicks in the sky. Even my description can’t do it justice - I’ve never seen anything like it!

4. A student asked to borrow my camera one day to take pictures for yearbook class. This is what was on it when I got it back.

Exhibit A. Three of my 8th graders. And three others in the background.

Exhibit B. The entire 8th grade class being goofy. There’s only 1 American in the whole class, and even he has spent most of his life living outside of America!

Exhibit C. My future boss and my senior TA. What a jolly pair.Exhibit D. The entire senior class doing… something…

5. Got my birthday box in the mail last week. It contained many marvelous things, such as a 12 pack box of Pop-Tarts, canned pork, and a box of Tide laundry detergent. Good thing those packages are flat rate shipping, because that box was HEA-VY. Anyways, the box also contained a bag of Doritos, which is probably my most missed American food. Sadly, the Doritos were packed at the very BOTTOM of the box. Underneath 14395 pounds of other goodies. They looked like this by the time I dug down to them.

Surprisingly, there were still a few whole chips inside! Good thing they taste the same in the form of cheese flavored dust as they do in the form of actual chips!

6. “What are those boys doing?” you might ask…

Chasing each other with a dead scorpion, of course!

“Will it hurt me?”

7. What’s that on my pillow? A black praying mantis!

8. Due to the spring play being performed and dress rehearsal-ed last week, I had helpless boys coming to school in the morning with stage makeup on because they didn’t know how to wash it off before they went the bed the night before. One poor 8th grader was being teased so much by the other boys that he begged me to help him get it off. So I found some non-alcoholic baby wipes in my desk and a compact mirror in my bag, and had him wash it off in the first couple of minutes of class. Some of the others got in on the action and helped him wash up. It really was a group effort.

9. Church on Sunday. One of these things is not like the others.

OK, that’s all for this month. Happy May!

A Cat-spose.

The stages of a catnap in my chair-turned-dirty-laundry-storage-space.

I really don’t know how he can sleep like that, but he does. Consistently.

Visits

Two old friends came back to town to visit over this past weekend (they currently live and work on a different island), and they brought a few new friends with them. One old friend crashed on my couch for a few nights while the rest stayed in a hostel, but we all had lots of time to hang out and catch up on each others' lives. J, one of my bestest friends in the world ever, had the following conversation with me one day.

J: Do you know what I like about you?
Me: No.
J: I like how you care about other people.
Me: All of us do that. There's not a single one of us that doesn't care about other people.
J: But it's the way you do it. Everybody in your life knows that you care about them. We're not all like that.
Me: Really? I think we all do a good job of that.
J: *Proceeds to question everyone in the room and ask them if they know that I care about them. Everyone said yes.* See? Everyone knows you care.
Me: Well, that's because you're all my friends, and I've known you for a long time. Of course you know I care about you.
J: But it's the WAY you do it. It's not just KNOWING that you care about us, it's how you show us. I like how you meet people's needs and take care of them. I really like that about you.
Me: Well, thanks...

Anyways, the reason I say that isn't to brag or to point out how good I am at taking care of people, but to say that even as we were having that conversation, I was wondering to myself if it's really true that EVERYONE knows that I care about them. I would like everyone to know that, and I might do a good job of conveying that message to some people. But what about my 9th graders? What about my new boss? What about my Indonesian neighbors? What about people who are stressful to work with or people who just push my buttons all. day. long? Do I show them that I still care about them too?

It's good to know that my friends know how much I care. I haven't always been like that. But if I'm called to love - and I know that I am - then I need to make sure EVERYONE knows that I care.

Ouch.

I just ordered 2 supercute dresses from Target.com. For the past four years, I have owned exactly one "appropriate for Java" dress that I brought with me when I moved here in 2008. The rest of my dresses are Bali only items because you might be able to see my knees or, God forbid, my shoulders when I wear them. So that one dress has been worn to just about every nice occasion I've attended for the past 4 years. Banquets, Christmas parties, weddings, funerals, etc. I decided that it's about time for something new.

Anyways, after I placed my order, a survey popped up regarding my visit to the Target website, so I decided to do it because it's Saturday morning and I have nothing else to do currently. At the end of the survey, there are questions about how old I am, what my gender is, what level of education I have completed... You know, the standard get-to-know-our-demographic survey questions. Then there is the question, "What category best describes your total annual household income before taxes?" There is a dropdown menu with bracketed options. The lowest possible choice is, "Under $24,999".

Holy cow. I make like a fourth of that. Thank you Target.com for reminding me today of how poor I actually am.

Not that I would trade it for the world.

PS - Mom, you should be getting a package from Target.com addressed to me sometime between Thursday the 3rd and Monday the 7th. : )

Conversation With A Man in A Restaurant (In Indonesian)

Him: Do you speak Indonesian?
Me: Yes.
Him: A little bit?
Me: Um.. Yeah. Sure...
Him: Are you exchange students at the university?
Me: No, actually, I'm a teacher at the international school.
Him: Oh, really?
Me: Yes, sir.
Him: How long have you been here?
Me: Four years. But she (motioning to my friend) has been here one year.
Him: Oh, that's nice. Where are you from?
Me: America.
Him: America, huh? Both of you?
Me: Yes, sir.
Him: Do you feel safe?
Me: Umm... In America or in Indonesia?
Him: I mean over there by the international school. Do you feel safe living there?
Me: Oh.... uuuhmm.... well, yes. It's safe.
Him: Really? Are you sure?
Me: Uuuuhhhh.... Yeah?
Him: Even with all the Muslims?
Me: Umm... Oh...  Wait. WHAT?
Him: OK. Excuse me, I have to go now.
Me: Okaaaay... Bye...

Whenever I flounder in a conversation, I play it back in my mind, over and over, and I generally come up with a dozen things to say that would have been better than what I actually said. But this time, I've got nothing.

That happened at dinner, 3 hours ago, and I still feel entirely creeped out and at a loss for words. How am I supposed to take that??

Just Some Hints... You Know... For Future Reference

So from time to time, kindhearted, loving, wonderful people have an idea of something they want to mail to me, but they don't always know what else to throw in the box to fill it up and make sure they get their money's worth on postage. Most of those people read my blog, and a few of them have asked for some ideas of extras to send so far this year. So if you are one of those people, or if one day you find that you just want to mail something lovely to a poor, often homesick schoolteacher living halfway around the world, here are some ideas.

• Any good books in English that you would recommend.
• Dove chocolate.
• Yarn, thread, fabric scraps, scrapbook paper, cool buttons, paint cards, or any other kind of thing I can do something creative and awesome with.
• Doritos. I ALWAYS want Doritos.
• Cheese. Any kind of cheese.
• Sealed packs of pepperoni or a nice summer sausage or a bag of beef jerky.
• Mousse for curly hair. Pretty much any kind at least helps in this humidity.
• Index cards. I use them for everything, and they are not sold here.
• Bottles of Bath and Body Works lotion/body wash/body spray (especially brown sugar and fig).
• Non-neon colored nail polish.
• Card games or decks of playing cards.
• Basically anything from Burt's Bees.
• Any kind of Aussie hair product. ILOVEITALL.
• Things that smell nice. I miss American scents. Votive candles, soaps, chap sticks, body sprays, lotions, shampoos, etc. (Many Indonesian products are jasmine, lemongrass, or milk scented. Yes, milk.)

OK. That's a healthy list. And here's my address too, just in case you need it. : )

Kotak Pos #142

Salatiga 50711 Jateng

INDONESIA

(Make sure you include my name too, as that's a PO Box that roughly 100 people receive mail at!)

New Favorite Song

Click HERE to watch it.

These are the lyrics:

AnugrahMu kepadaku                                    (Your grace for me)

Tak pernah berubah                                       (Never changes)

PerbuatanMu terlukiskan                               (Your works are painted)

Di dalam hatiku                                             (In my heart)

Tercengangku dibuatMu                                 (I am amazed at Your works)

Ku kagum padaMu                                        (I stand in awe of You)

Tak ada hal di hidupku                                   (There is nothing in my life)

Yang luput dariMu                                         (That escapes You)

 

Kau indah, Kau mulia                                    (You are beautiful, You are glorious)

Tiada s’pertiMu                                             (There is none like You)

Ku ingin hidupku menyenangkanMu               (I want my life to bring You joy)

 

Kau terawal dan terakhir                                (You are the first and the last)

Pencipta s’galanya                                        (The creator of everything)

S’luruh bintang pun bersinar                           (All the stars shine)

Oleh ucapanMu                                            (At the sound of Your voice)

Engkau pun mengasihiku                              (You are the one who loves me)

Penulis hidupku                                            (The writer of my life)

Tak henti seg’nap nafasku                             (With every breath I take)

MenyembahMu s’lalu                                    (I worship You always)

 

Kupuji, kusembah                                         (I praise, I worship)

Tiada s’pertiMu                                             (There is none like You)

Ku ingin hidupku menyenangkanMu                (I want my life to bring You joy)

 

S'gala puji                                                    (Every praise)

S'gala hormat                                               (Every honor)

Seg'nap hatiku menyembahMu                      (My whole heart worships You)

Terimalah s’gnap hidupku                              (Please accept my entire life)

S'bagai persembahan yang hidup                   (As a living sacrifice)

 

Bukan kehendakku,                                      (Not my will)

Namun kehendakMu                                     (But Your will)

Hidupku bagiMu                                            (My life is for You)

Beliefs

*If you read this blog with your children (or anybody else’s children) looking over your shoulder, you should just know that there is an image that I am about to post that is probably not suitable for little eyes. Proceed with discretion.*
Even though the nation I live in is somewhere around 90% Muslim, the city I live in has one of the highest non-Muslim populations of all the major cities on Java. In fact, this town is only about 50% Muslim, or so I’ve heard. The rest is a mix of Christian, Catholic, and Chinese traditional religions. The people of this town are very happy about their ability to get along with one another. To a fault. While I do appreciate the peace that is found here and the relationships that are formed across religions, there is a permeating sense of religious apathy.
You have your way and I have mine. We all worship the same god. We are all going to heaven.
There is very little strict adherence to the religious code of any faith in this town. Most of my female Muslim friends wear shorts and tank tops, and none of them cover their heads. I would estimate that less than half of the Muslim women in this town wear appropriate head coverings. In fact, I only know of ONE family in this town of 160,000 in which the wife wears the full on burqa – the billowy, black, tent-like outfit that leaves only a narrow slit for the eyes. Most women who do cover their heads use only a simple jilbab which covers the hair and neck but leaves the entire face exposed.
The point I’m getting at here is that sometimes it’s easy to forget that I live in the largest Muslim nation on earth.
But sometimes I see things that remind me. Like when I go to Solo and I spot very wealthy looking men walking around the mall with 2 or 3 wives in burqas trailing behind them, all holding the hands of multiple children. Or when I go to Madura and see parents beating their teenage daughter in the street while her boyfriend, whom she was just caught having sex with, stands by and watches, and I learn that her father can legally have her beheaded for her actions that day.
Or when I see pictures condemning “scandalous” women on Facebook, which was the case last night. A friend of a friend made and posted this photo yesterday:

It is entitled: The Response to People who Violate the Laws of Allah, the Punishment is Very Painful.
And here is what it says. (I apologize in advance to my native and/or fluent Indonesian speaking readers. I know I made some mistakes. There are a LOT of typos in the text above, and I didn’t know a lot of the words – I’m not up on my fire and brimstone vocab – so I don’t have everything translated exactly. I think I got the general idea though. Feel free to make corrections in the comments!)
“For any woman who shows the hair on her head to anyone except her husband and those related to her, her torture will be to be hung by her hair in the fire of hell until her brain boils for as long as she went unpunished on earth.
For any woman who continually draws attention to her chest which is intentionally uncovered or any woman who looks otherwise sexy, her torture will be to hung in hell by a rope made of hellfire tied around her breasts, calves and thighs, and she will be roasted by the fire of the hell of Allah. The pain is infinite.
For any woman who becomes a seducer and uses her body to excite and stimulate men, her torture will be to have a black face and she will chew on her own entrails.”

And NOW I remember that I live in the largest Muslim nation on earth and that not everybody is as relaxed about their beliefs as the people where I live are.
(Interesting side note - Upon clicking through to this man’s Facebook page, I was not at all surprised to find photos of naked women that he had posted on his wall.)

Meteorology

I think rainy season is ending. And that possibility fills me with immense happiness. Every day for the past week (with yesterday being the only exception), it has been sunny and hot all day long. Oddly though, it thunderstormed every night at about 10 o'clock. But it was sunny again every morning, and at least 80 degrees by noon. Back in Indiana, we always joked about how unpredictable the weather was. "If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute." But we always knew when a storm was coming. And we always knew what direction it would come from. You could tell from the color of the sky how bad the storm would be and if you should call the dogs inside and go to the basement or not. But if you were really dense, you could at least turn on the news and let the weatherman tell you. No weatherman here. Storms come from any direction and can pop up with only a moment's notice. You can't ever tell what a given storm will bring. I miss being able to read the sky. I miss wanting to know if it would rain that day and just looking west to check. So I really like the predictability of dry season. Once it fully starts, it won't rain. Any day. At all. Until about September. (All the mold will also die.)

For Anna. And Dad.

Anna, in response to your comment on my last post, here is a GIANT, blurry webcam picture of my face eating oatmeal for breakfast at school.

And dad, LOOK! I’m eating oatmeal for breakfast! Just like you.

(Mom, I put brown sugar in it. I think you would allow that. Because it’s oatmeal.)

Satisfied, everyone??

LOOK!

I made my blog wider so I can post bigger pictures. Now all the other pictures I've posted over the past 4 years are gonna look funny.

"One thing I have to warn you of especially is your constant tendency to grow fainthearted under the weight of your faults and oversights and an inclination almost to despair when a sudden lack of confidence reduces your firm decisions to nothing. I know those moods when you sit there utterly alone, eaten up with unhappiness, in a pure state of grief. You don’t move towards Me but desperately imagine that everything that you have ever done has been utterly lost and forgotten.

This near despair and self-pity are actually a form of pride. What you think was a state of absolute security from which you’ve fallen was really trusting too much in your own strength and ability. Profound depression and perplexity of mind often follow a loss of hope; what really ails you is that things simply haven’t happened as you expected and wanted. In fact, I don’t want you to rely on your own strength and abilities and plans, but to distrust them and to distrust yourself, and to trust me and no one and nothing else. As long as you rely on yourself you are bound to come to grief.

You still have a most important lesson to learn: Your own strength will no more help you to stand upright than dropping yourself on a broken reed. You must not despair on me. You must hope and trust in me absolutely. My mercy is infinite."

-- John of Landsberg, 16th century Carthusian Monk

Scary Mall

You have to wonder what kind of sketchy mall you are in when there is a sign on the mirror in the women's bathroom that reads something like this:

"To all mall employees:
Please do not attempt to clean any apparatus of any kind in the toilets. This causes them to be clogged. Thank you for your cooperation. - Management"

Happy Birthday Me! (Subtitle: Bragging)

All the 7th and 8th graders took online Stanford Achievement Tests last week. The teachers got the class results today. Here are the results for the 8th graders that I teach.

The highest percentiles of all are in math! And the median grade equivalent was at a post high school level for EVERY area of the math test!!!

 

Also, from a 10th grade boy: “THERE IS NOBODY PRETTIER THAN YOU!” *long pause* “EXCEPT FOR KIM KARDASHIAN!!”

Thank you for that also.

Three.5 Things

1. A horse and buggy just drove by my classroom. Just clip-clopped on by. Very strange. Yes, horse and buggy is still a certifiable form of transportation in this country, public transportation even. But they don't usually come on campus.
2. There is a man named Budi that I pass on my way to work a lot. He usually asks me, "Apa kabar?" (How are you?) By now, he knows that I am not a morning person, so half the time, I just tell him, "Ngantuk". (Sleeeepy) But Pak Budi thinks it is unacceptable that someone could be only half-awake in the morning. So his advice to me is that when I wake up, I need to sing to God. That will help me be happier in the morning and to wake up joyfully. It sometimes works, I have to admit. This morning, I passed him, and he asked how I was, and I replied that I was "Baik" (fine) today, then I asked him how he is. He replied, "LUAR BIASA!" (WONDERFUL!) He was so emphatic that I had to ask him why. He basically said, "My whole family is walking with the Lord, and they are all healthy and safe. THAT is a blessing from God." That guy is such an encouragement to me. Every. Single. Morning.
3. Yesterday, I was asked the question, "What has been your greatest triumph in life?" And at the time, I was like, "Uhmmmmmmmm... Well... Like... Seriously??" I really don't know. But then later, while driving home from Bible Study, I had a re-memory. It's like a memory that recurs in my mind and I re-remember it. See, there is this blind lady at my church. Her name is Ibu Endang. She wasn't always blind, but she has been for as long as I've known her. She and her husband live in one of the poorest communities around. One day, I was over there visiting and playing with the kids, and I started up a conversation with Ibu Endang. It was probably right around a year ago. I don't remember what all we talked about. Probably her kids and where her husband works and things like that. It was the first time I had ever really talked to her besides shaking her hand and wishing her a "Happy Sunday" every week in church. The only real part of the conversation I remember is this:
Ibu Endang: Where do you live??
Me: Cabean (my area of town).
Ibu Endang: Oh, that's a nice place. Have you always lived there?
Me: No, only for a few years.
Ibu Endang: Where are you originally from?
Me: America.
Ibu Endang: .......... Wait. Are you WHITE?
Me: Um... Yes?
Ibu Endang: I've been talking to a white person this whole time?!
Me: Yes... Is that OK?
Ibu Endang: I THOUGHT YOU WERE INDONESIAN!!
I think that is one of my happiest moments.
3.5 The baby shower from hell was over by Tuesday. PRAISE THE LORD.

The Baby Shower From Hell, As I Have Affectionately Dubbed It.

PS – If you want the full effect of this video, I recommend plugging in headphones and turning the sound ALL THE WAY up.

COPS

Sometimes, when my neighbors are doing utterly obnoxious, disruptive things, I like to mentally list all the reasons I could call the cops on them if we were in America. Yes, the birth party from hell is still going on over there. Tractor generator. Dangdut music. To find out just how pleasant dangdut really is, click on the word dangdut and enjoy a YouTube video of one of the most famous dangdut singers in all of Indonesia, Ayu Ting Ting. And as you are watching the video (karaoke version, so feel free to sing along), try to imagine your neighbors in America blocking off the entire street to your house for 3 days straight and BLASTING this music so loud the bass causes your furniture to vibrate until at least midnight every night. And then pray for my patience. And also pray that they don't open the mic up for karaoke. BTW, that video was one of the most popular of 2011. NOT 1995 as the cinematography would seem to suggest. Also, I would just like to say that for what a conservative country this is, it took me a ridiculous amount of time to find a CLEAN dangdut video to share on here. Because dangdut singers are the naughty singers of Indonesia.

Indecision Gets the Best of Me

So first I was going to blog about how awesome Junior-Senior banquet was and how impressively the Juniors pulled everything off in this culmination of months of planning. I also would have mentioned what good swing dancers Jon and KyuHo are, and that even if KyuHo's date didn't want to dance with him because she thought he was too slow, I had fun and learned some good moves. She was missing out. Oh, and I would have had to write about how impressive it is that Kohl beat ALL the girls at both limbo AND the hula booty shake (the theme was Luau, in case you were wondering what kinds of bizarre things we do at banquet around here). Then I was going to blog about how refreshing it is to hear a sermon in my native language and how much Indonesian I can still learn when that sermon is being translated into Indonesian and I get to hear both languages side by side, as it were. I miss my bilingual church. I like hearing a sermon that I just GET. I don't have to translate it in my mind. I don't have to consider the culture that it's coming from. I understand the jokes and idioms. However, I have to cringe when speakers use jokes and idioms like that, because I know they're not getting translated correctly, and I am probably the only person in the entire room that isn't confused. Yesterday had an extra special effect when the speaker used a phrase in English for which the Indonesian translation is actually a curse word. Yes. There was cursing. In church. *forehead palm slap* After that, I decided to write about how I really wanted to go visit Aswan at work on the ranch, but I decided to wait until the monsoon stopped. But then it didn't. It rained so hard for so long yesterday that by the time I finally had to go out to get dinner, I was driving in the pouring rain through shin deep puddles. I did do some painting and make 2 different types of cookies, so the entire afternoon wasn't a waste. THEN I wanted to blog about how I thought the neighbors were having a wedding yesterday, based on the massive amount of decorations, tents, and chairs blocking off the entire street and the generator that sounded like a tractor plowing a field until well after I went to bed at 11. Oh, and the music. The BLARING music. Enough to drown out the tractor-esque generator. And the cicadas. And my own thoughts. It was causing my furniture to vibrate. But when I asked someone if it was a wedding, he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "No. It's a birth." I finally just learned how to tell weddings and funerals apart in this country! Give me a break! A BIRTH?! But in the end, I really couldn't decide what to blog about. So I wrote this post instead.

Reasons Why I Hate Whiteboards

Call me archaic, but I would choose a chalkboard over a whiteboard any day. Luckily for me, I have one of each in my classroom, side by side. Not so lucky for me is the fact that the chalkboard is approximately 23487 years old and made of some sort of material that is incredibly difficult to erase and just about any chalk I use on it squeaks something fierce. So I mostly just end up using the whiteboard.

But after 3 periods straight of teaching with the whiteboard, my hands look remarkably similar to how they did at the end of the day when I worked in a machine shop back in college, minus the millions of tiny shards of metal embedded in my skin.  And look, I actually found a picture from like 5 summers ago to illustrate this – not of the hands specifically, but the overall affect… You get the idea.

I don't remember this ever being a problem in the States, but for some reason here, whiteboard marker dust gets all over EVERYTHING. As I'm writing, little bits of whiteboard ink get on my hands. It's even worse when I erase the board. It sends little particles flying everywhere. Every day, my hands are almost immediately coated in a layer of whiteboard marker grime. Almost all of my teacher's edition textbooks have black fingerprints in the corners of all the pages. The lectern that I teach from has to have a vigorous scrubbing at least once a week. I end up cleaning the covers of my textbooks about once a month or whenever I can't tell what color they originally were anymore, whichever comes first. I cannot wear white shirts or light colored pants to school if I want to look professional for longer than the first five minutes of first period. It even gets on the floor, which means I walk in it and track it all over the classroom.

I've started buying large packs of baby wipes and keeping them in my desk so that I can wash off my hands between classes without having to make a mad dash for the bathroom every hour. (Tangent - I sometimes also wipe down my students and/or things they try to hand me immediately after I have just watched them put said thing in their mouth. That happens probably more than you would think, especially with calculators students borrow from me. My observations tell me that calculators must be delicious.)

The biggest problem with the whole whiteboard marker thing is that I have mold in my classroom. Which means I have allergies in my classroom. Which means I have a really itchy nose, I sneeze repeatedly, and I rub my eyes a lot in my classroom. With my black hands. I always try to pick the cleanest part of my hand to use, but by fourth period, when I have my first break of the day and I go to the bathroom to wash up, I generally have black streaks all over my face.

Basically, this:

After 4 years of this, I have come to terms with the fact that I progressively begin to look more and more like a coal miner as the day wears on. I’m just praying I don’t get black lung.

Culinary Oddities

Something weird must be in the water this week. I guess I can't really say that here though, since I don't actually drink the water. Not from the tap, at least. All week long I've been eating pretty much ONLY all the foods I hated as a child. What has changed? For breakfast, I've been eating Muesli bars with dried fruit and nuts (too bad I can only get those in Bali...) or vegetable crackers with a large jar of fruit juice. The really amazing thing about this is that I rarely eat breakfast at all, much less on that involves fruit and vegetables! Also, I hated pretty much all of the above as a kid. Fruit, nuts, juice, veggies, granola type things. All of it. I guess lunch has been pretty normal since I have no say over what I eat. I eat whatever is served at the dorm every day... On Monday though, I gave Ibu Sri $5 and sent her to market to buy "salad ingredients" with instructions not to cook anything for me all week. Every night for dinner this week, I've made myself a salad. With homemade salad dressing. I even had her buy an onion for the salad. (Did you read that, mom?! I've voluntarily been eating ONIONS this week! I even sliced it myself!) Last night was an exception because I ate at a friend's house - vegetable soup and rice. And I had SECONDS. Again, all things I hated as a child. I hated onions up until Monday, apparently. I really don't know where I am going with this post. I really don't know where I am going with this stomach.