9/5/2012

9/5/2012

For my second real day of school, I was exhausted before I even started. Maybe it has something to do with being an exchange student you are always tired, no matter how much sleep you got. My day started by leaving for school early because my host Dad had to go to Jakarta with the driver and our other driver is out of town so if I wanted a ride to school I had to go early. The fact that we didn't have any drivers also meant that I would have to find my own way home so, my Mom gave me 10,000 Rupiah to pay for a rickshaw to take me home. I got to school, we did the typical start-of-the-morning-powwow. After the ceremony I had no difficulty getting to the right class. I was able to ask someone and the class that they pointed to was actually the right one. My first class turned out to be a three hour long English class. Ironically the students in my English class were too shy to talk to me and when they did talk their English was somewhat hard to understand (although it is miles ahead of my Indonesian). My teacher had me introduce myself in English and tell the students about the American school system and she translated the more difficult answers into Indonesian for the students. Then she did a lesson which included an example sentence that taught incorrect grammar. I didn't correct her though because I am pretty sure that it is the only class that I am going to pass so I want her to like me. After the lesson she wanted to give us a listening comprehension test in English but the power was not working in the room. In Indonesian classrooms the windows let in the light and air so there is "no need" for lights or air conditioning. We were forced to relocate to another room to take the test. I think I got all the answers right haha but if the test had been in any other language I would have failed it miserably. I asked one of my classmates how many years they had taken English and she said that she had been in English classes for five years so I felt less bad for not knowing that much in Chinese. Class got out early so I walked to my next room and sat on a bench outside. I had only been sitting there for a couple of minutes when a couple of kids walked by and asked me to take the break with them in their classroom. When the break started I walked to the cafeteria area with my new friends. Everyone was eating and one of the boys helped me by from one of the vendors that stays at our school. I really have no idea what it was some tofu and sauce or something but, it was delicious. I ate every bite. When the break ended I tried to ask my classmates where my next class was but there was a lot of confusion. Apparently my class which was originally in D1 was now in G1 because D1 was being used for another class. I have no idea how I should have known that. The look on my math teacher's face when he saw that I was in his class was a face of pure horror. It really funny actually, he looked scared to death that I was in his class but when I showed him my schedule he agreed that I was in the right place.  When class was over my classmates helped my find my final class of the day. I still have no idea what that class was about I think I got there really late and I'm not even sure that was the class that I should have been in but I arrived just in time for a test. My teacher told me to try and everyone was discussing the answers again so I just copied off the girl next to me. Then we switched papers, graded them and in no time class was over. At this point everyone told me that school was over which really doesn't make any since at all because it was only 1pm but I didn't complain and lots of other people were leaving too. My friends convinced me to stay after school for a little to talk to them. After fifteen or so minutes I walked with three of my friends down the street. I decided that I was going to walk home instead of using a rickshaw because I would have to negotiate the price and I was just too tired to argue in Indonesian. Soon after we left school all my friends turned in different directions and I was all by myself. I walked for a little bit until I turned at what I thought was the right street. I walked for a while, longer than it should have been until I decided that I must have gone down the wrong road. I turned around and I was just going to walk back to the main street when I saw a sign that lead to another way to my house. So I took that road and within five minutes I was safe at home. I defiantly walked more than I had too but, it still was not far just less than a mile. Later in the evening my maid came in my room and we had a 15 minute conversation in mostly Indonesian and I understood her for most of it. When my Mom got home from work and my host Dad got home from Jakarta we ate dinner together. We talked about each other's days and they laughed at my stories. They were impressed that I walked home. I even tried chicken liver at dinner and it wasn't too bad despite all the horror stories my (real) Mom tells me about her having to eat liver and how much she hated it. For dessert we had durian which is a spiky and stinky fruit that is really good. It has a creamy texture and is nothing like any fruit I have ever tasted. My host family said that they were impressed that I liked Durian because most foreigners can't eat it because of the smell. Luckily for me years of swimming in a chlorine pool have dulled my sense of smell.

P.S. I think that I should retract my statement about it being easy to not have a boyfriend. I have only been at school a couple of days and several boys have already asked if I have a boyfriend and when I say no they ask if we could hang out sometime. I still don't think I will date anyone but I guess you never know haha.

9/5/2012 Highlight

Today, my best class was defiantly math. I quickly figured out that they were learning Trigonometry which I learned in tenth grade pre-calc (Thank you Mrs. Hrach!!!). The teacher put a triangle up on the board and was trying to explain to me how to determine Sin, Cos and Tan given all the lengths of the sides. I said that I understood so he wrote a new problem on the board for me to do in front of the class. I had it done in less than three seconds and when I stepped away from the board the teacher just looked at me surprised and asked me to explain my answers. So, I explained to the class how I got the answers and when I was done they all clapped and cheered like I had done something amazing, so I bowed (which only caused more cheers) and sat back down. After doing a couple of homework questions on the board the teacher taught a lesson on the Sin and Cos rules. Luckily he wrote the formula and I was able to figure out what he was talking about and how to do it. He gave us a problem which he then helped me through I am sorry to say that time and lack of sleep made me forget some of my Unit Circle so he had to correct me once. Actually I put down that the Sin45 degrees is (√2)/2 and he said no it is (√3)/2 and when I wrote that he said no it is (√2)/2  so I changed my answer back to what it was originally.  Math was easy and I thought it was nice to know the math lesson before the teacher taught it for once.