My favorite compliment received so far

Bobbing along

Here are a few pictures of the stingless jellyfish we got to bob along with on Kakaban Island. They were in a big lake in the middle of the (very tiny) island. The water in the lake was amazingly warm. It was raining all morning and a little chilly, so we really enjoyed swimming being in that water!

Very blurry shot of (l to r) me, Holly, Autumn, and Iris. 

Me.

Autumn with some good jellyfish. 

In unrelated news, I only have 5 presentations to give before my time in Indonesia is done! Yes, I counted them and wrote them down, so I can check them off. Considering I only have 2 weeks left of regular classes, that's really packin' those presentations in. Looking forward to being finished. 

Teacher Post

Here is a short story that provides a recent example of why I love my students here at IAIN.

Yesterday, during my Cross-Cultural Understanding class, I passed around the attendance sheet that every student signs. They sign once, for that meeting, and if they're absent, well, of course, they don't sign it. This allows me to monitor who's coming to class and who's not.

I got back after class and noticed that everyone had signed twice, for two meetings, which was weird. Also, students who I knew to be absent had also had their names signed. This kind of annoyed me, since the students KNOW they can't sign for their friends. So, I left a slightly angry post on the class Facebook page, basically saying, "Why did you do this? Explain yourselves."

The next day, a group of six students from that class showed up outside my office, and waited half an hour, until I'd finished teaching, to explain. They'd been confused about how many days to sign, because of the midterm last week. They also admitted to signing their absent friends' names, because they didn't want their friends' grades to go down. I reminded them that they weren't allowed to do this, and they all said they were sorry and wouldn't do it again.

I suppose this story doesn't sound so impressive to the casual observer, but I found the students' honesty  surprising and refreshing. Even though they'd broken the rules by signing for their friends, they didn't lie about it. And they came to me directly, rather than trying to answer on Facebook.

This is one of the ways that teaching in Indonesia has been really gratifying. I am really going to miss these students.

Reflections after living in Indonesia for over six months

I passed the 6-month mark of my contract on February 22 (Ari was here with me when it happened! But that’s a whole nother blog post). And I was thinking how interesting it is to look back on how my priorities have changed as I’ve adapted (or refused to adapt) to living in a really foreign culture. There are some things I’ve grown accustomed to that really frustrated me at the beginning of my contract, and there are other things that didn’t bother me at first, but now I can’t stand. Allow me to enumerate them in a semi-coherent list.

Things I thought I couldn’t handle at first, but eventually got over:

• ·      Not having a bedside table or reading lamp. (I just use the glow light on my Nook or use my headlamp.)
• ·      My neighbor knocking on my door at 5am to deliver water. (Just roll out of bed and get it.)
• ·      Jogging outside (as long as I get out before 8am!).
• ·      Not having internet in my room. (That was a difficult one to get over.)
• ·      Students texting me at all hours to ask me questions ranging from urgent to “Good evening, Miss. What are you doing right now?”

Things I didn’t mind at first but can’t stand now:

• ·      Being asked to speak at a conference and having it run hours over the time that they told me it would end (I realize Indonesia has “rubber time,” but I just can’t always accept it!)
• ·      Being asked to attend a day-long conference that is conducted entirely in Indonesian. (This only happened once, but it will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN! Why was I even invited??)
• ·      Getting across a really crowded/polluted street to go to the closest grocery store. (I got fed up with the effort of crossing the street; now I just prefer to pick up my groceries when I’m already out for a movie or using wifi.)

Thing that has stayed pretty much the same:

• ·      Being amused/mildly annoyed/pissed off at people randomly yelling “Hey Mister!” or “How are you?” at me. It all depends on my mood.

·       

So those are fairly short lists, I guess. Overall, I think I’ve been able to adapt to the most important aspects of the culture when it comes down to working and building personal and professional relationships in a foreign country.  And I realize that last sentence sounds like it belongs in a resume. But it’s true! 

Thanks a lot, "Tarot"

My roommate Katy's friend, Sat, reads tarot cards, so Katy and I both asked her to look at her cards to get advice on where we should teach English. Right now, I've sort of narrowed down my countries to South Korea, Vietnam, and Poland (well, basically just Eastern Europe, but I had to choose just one country). Lately I've been leaning the most towards Vietnam, mostly because it just sounds the most exciting (and the mildest winter).

This is what the cards apparently said:

1. Korea: According to the cards, I feel uncertain about teaching there, but in the future I would be very good at passing on knowledge to other people (so good teaching opportunities perhaps?).

2. Vietnam: Very good, strong positive card, representing future hope, peace and harmony. So I could have an awesome, empowering experience. But then I got the "tower" card, apparently the most negative card representing death or chaos (see picture). So Vietnam could be an amazing experience, but also really bad. Like, someone could die. Or alternatively, "you might feel emotionally like your world is crumbling around you." Hmm.

3. Poland: This one had the most straightforward positive cards; however, nothing really remarkable about it. The main reason I'm interested in Poland is that I would be so close to the rest of Europe, and Poland currently has the highest demand for English teachers in Europe. But hey, Europe is overrated. OK, maybe not overrated, but there are so many equally awesome parts of the world.

So while it was definitely need to get another kind of input on where I should apply for jobs, the tarot cards didn't help me narrow things down too much. Oh well. I think a lot of this kind of thing should be placed on chance, and adapting to whatever presents itself.