Is it December yet?

Yes, yes, it is (very nearly) December.

And this has been a whirlwind month. As lots of other fellows have posted in their blogs, November was crazy. (I just avoided saying cray-cray there, because I REFUSE to use cray-cray).

Anyway, I will provide a quick summary of my November:

1. Nov. 3-4: Go with English lecturers from another university in Surabaya on a 5-hour trip to Malang to do an English training for a very remote school, and then camp overnight on Sempu Island for the night, arriving back late Sunday night.

2. November 6-11: TEFLIN (Teaching English as a Foreign Language in Indonesia) Conference, which all of the Fellows had to present at, followed by a mid-year conference for the English Teaching Assistants in which we had to participate and share our teaching tips. And, oh yeah, the election happened sometime in there too. We managed to get everyone over to the Consulate to watch the results come in, which was a pretty awesome experience.

3. November 14-19: Fly to Jakarta to work as a counselor for the first (annual?) Access English Camp. Access is a State Department program that offers underprivileged high schoolers extra classes to improve their English. So this was basically a traditional American summer camp, which we tried to duplicate for 150 16-year-old Indonesian kids. Some of the elements were duplicated successfully (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, relay races), others less successfully (s'mores made with Ritz crackers instead of graham crackers, ultimate frisbee turning into a huge tackle-fest).  It was a lot of fun. The kids were great, the other counselors were great. After the camp ended, a few of us spent an extra day in Jakarta to attend Native Speaker Day at the Jakarta Police School, where Jackie and Jess work. It was great. We basically played one of those "myster dinnertime theater" games, but we were all suspects, and the police officers had to interview each of us and take notes, later accusing whom they suspected. Let's just say it ended with Jon and Adam being pinned to the floor with real handcuffs. Surprise!

4. Nov 23-25: Take the train (first time!) to Jogjakarta to celebrate a belated Thanksgiving (with no traditional Thanksgiving food, but oh well) and throw a surprise birthday party for Liz, one of the Senior Fellows here. Had a blast renting a tour bus and visiting Borobudur and Prambanan (two Buddhist temples from the 9th century) and finding a positively European reggae club to party at (how I've missed that vibe!).

So now it's November 29th, and I've been in Indonesia for over three months. The time spent here so far has been pretty great. I really like my students, my colleagues at IAIN Sunan Ampel, and of course, my fellow Fellows. At this time of the year for giving thanks, I am completely conscious of how lucky I am to be involved in this program, and have this kind of experience. And how grateful I am to have the great support network and of loving friends and family back home as well!