Saturday, August 7, 2010

A Lost Sense of Time

I'm sitting here, just about to get ready for bed (Saturday night) and I think, where the heck did the time go? Life keeps coming full speed ahead, whether I'm ready or not. I guess that's good - busyness keeps me out of trouble.

This week was insane (I feel like insanity is becoming the new norm) considering the lack of teaching I did. In a week and a few days is Independence Day (from the Dutch ironically) and so we've been working on our island presentation. For those of you just tuning in - the island Grade 3 is studying is a chain of 550 islands called East Nusa Tenggara. Where is it located? Good question - Budi and I aren't entirely sure - but once we find out, I'll report back to you.

We have successfully gathered more information about ENT aside from it being the home of the man eating crocodile (after 3 weeks of intensive research). To be honest I think I put more time and effort into researching this than any paper in college (not that I was a slacker in college - there is just no information on these islands!!).

Our room is slowly getting dominated by posters and decorations, and dance moves that go with our island song. With getting this all ready - I have to pull back on my teaching.

Somehow amidst all that, it got to be Friday. Leanne and I had to go to Lippo Village (the main campus of SPH in Tangerang - just outside of Jakarta) for the remainder of our training. The training was very repetitive of what I learned in college and prepped for during orientation. There were about 25 teachers - all of them in their 30's and 40's except four of us. The four of us "kids" had a blast. I brought a "fun bag" as I was told to prepare for a long day. In my purse I brought crayons, chocolate, five-ink-click pens, a Bahasa phrase book, and a camera. It is suffice to say we made the training quite enjoyable.

Instead of the usual 1 1/2 hours back to Sentul (2 hours if hitting traffic) - it took us nearly four hours to get back. We got hit by a monsoon and rush-hour traffic. Talk about bad luck! When I got home I went next door to attempt to watch a movie with the neighbors and made it about 15 minutes before I decided that I had to go to bed. After all, I was going Jakarta-bound in the morning (aka this morning) to go shopping.

The morning came as a challenge. Even getting up at 5 am every morning everyday for the past 3 weeks - I still hate mornings. I didn't shower because I knew I'd sweat (Jakarta is about 7 degrees celsius warmer than here - which is drastic once you step foot into the outside). After putzing around and doing absolutely nothing but whining to myself about how I hate mornings (yes - I do talk to myself - I won't deny it), I caught an ojek to Plaza Niaga bus station.

Sitting on the bus station bench, I was rocking out to some Drop Kick Murphy's and Theory of a Deadman. There were about a dozen of men sitting at the bus station, and they recognized the songs I was listening to (oddly enough). It's interesting how Indonesians can't speak English but they know every song that is out on the radio waves. The music isn't in Indonesian, it's in English. However no one here knows what the words or meaning means - and so when people randomly drop the f-bomb or some other obscene words - it's shocking to me - but to them, they have no idea of what they just said.

Anyway, I got on the bus and met Dini. We talked the whole entire way to Jakarta. We had coffee and breakfast before going shopping. My main thing that I needed to buy was a book on Vietnam (as I will be travelling there in November for holiday with one of my teacher friends, Febri). From there we went crazy - I got three scarves and a ton of movies/tv seasons. (Rachel - I brought every season of one tree hill - even season 7).

After that we met up with another teacher, Putri, who is doing her masters downtown. We walked around in the department stores and then went to go see Killers (the romantic comedy with Katherine Hiegel and Ashton Kutcher). It was intense but absolutely hilarious.

An hour long taxi ride home was what closed up the day. Wow. I am so thankful I finished all my lesson planning mid-week because I would have absolutely no time this weekend to do it (haha - too much fun!).

Hope that all of you readers have a great weekend!

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