Friday, November 2, 2012

October 30 & 31, 2012



10/30/2012

Just another day. I had culture class, Indonesian and Digital drawing. In culture class we just graded some papers. Indonesian class was spent copying tons of work and digital drawing I just talked to my friends. It was a pretty regular day.

Because, nothing too special happened today I am going to talk about something much more interesting... food. Indonesian people love to eat. We eat breakfast, then we have a break at school at 10am for more food after a few classes we have an hour lunch break at 11:45am. My family is always telling me to eat more food. I guess Americans really don't eat too much after all. Indonesians also eat everything. So far I have eaten: Chicken liver, kidney, brain, Cow hoof, lung, intestines, other unnamed parts, little fish (bones, head and everything else) and freshly sacrificed goat. Typically though I eat rice, soybeans and tofu. The fruit here is much better than anything we have in America and I eat as much Mango as I can get my hands on.

When I tell my friends that I am walking home they always tell me "Hati-Hati" or Be careful. After watching Taken 2, my friends told me that I should be very careful on the streets. But, I do not feel like I am in any danger at all. I take comfort that even though I walk home by myself I am relatively safe. First of all, I come home at a different time every day. Monday-Saturday my classes end at different times and even on the same day of a different week it is not likely that I will come home at the same time. Secondly, I have many different ways that I can walk home I regularly switch between two different routes. Of course, I still could be kidnapped but, I am not too worried.

10/30/2012 Highlight
It is nice to have a schedule and to finally know what to do in class. I can't explain how nice it is to have a 'normal' day. Hope you all have great days too!

10/31/2012

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!
Unfortunately, Indonesia does not celebrate Halloween, so I had to wear my uniform to school like every other day. I had English class in the morning. I always sit in the same spot in this English class, next to all the girls. But today, the sun was right in my eyes and I was not happy in my spot. I tried to scoot my chair around but the sun was always right in my eyes so I just held up my notebook to block it out. My teacher noticed my discomfort and came over to talk to me she said that I could move somewhere else in the room. I looked around and realized the only other place in the room that had a free space was the back corner or the room with the boys. My school is about 65% boys and 35% girls (this has something to do with the fact that it is a technology focused school). I moved my stuff to the back corner of the room and continued ignoring my teacher. When the teacher finished her lecture (about 5 minutes later) the boys started talking to me. The introduced themselves and asked me lots of questions. I was able to communicate in mostly Indonesian. The boys were funny and nice. They asked me to sing but they didn't make me when I said no (huge bonus in my book). I spent the entire class drawing and talking to my new-found friends. I talked to them about Halloween and "trick-or-treat" and how I missed celebrating. When class was over I moved to my math class. I don't understand anything in that class, I do not do homework, take tests, or even follow along in class. As far as I know I do not get any grades for school anyway so I guess it doesn't matter. I wish I understood because I actually enjoy doing math but it is just too hard. After the lesson the teacher talked for a long time. I know he wasn't talking about math, I think he was talking a little about his life and some of the struggles he faced moving from Japan to Indonesia. On my way home I stopped at a juice vendor stand to celebrate the holiday. I bought an avocado juice for the first time. I didn't know if it was going to be any good so I decided just to go for it. While the man was making the juice he poured something that looked kind of like water into the mix. I was scared, it looked like gutter water and I knew that if I drunk it I would get sick. I was planning on just paying for my drink and then throwing it away when he poured something that was defiantly clean water into the mix. I guess the first liquid was a type of sugar water. He poured chocolate in the cup and then gave it to me. I walked all the way home before taking a sip, it was delicious. I don't know how it didn't taste like liquid guacamole, or how it was sweet but it was. The drink was about the size of a medium soda at a fast food restaurant but it was fresh juice and it only cost me 50 cents. I can assure you that I will be stopping there more often from now on. At 6pm I had a church fireside that I was able to go to. We talked about family history and why we should do it. At the end of the meeting someone brought out snacks. There was a cake that was very good and then a variety of fried things. I can never tell what is fried and I just have to guess. The first thing I got was... soybeans. I eat soybeans every day so I decided to pick again this time I got vegetable stuffed tofu. It is actually very good and it is my favorite way to eat tofu but I still get a lot of tofu in my diet and I was hoping to get something different. Meanwhile my friend got pineapple. I would kill for some fried pineapple, whatever. My driver was already there so I said goodbye to everyone and went home.

10/31/2012 Highlight

It was a good day, I meet some new friends and went to church but my favorite part was my Avocado juice. I really love it when I try something new and I actually like it. It was totally worth 50 cents.
Another month is gone... I have been in Indonesia for about 2 and a half months now and I am loving it. I have also been able to keep up with my blog. I have typed page after page and thousands of words. My blog has almost 2,500 visits from people all over the world. I want to thank everyone for continuing to read me. :)

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