December 1-4, 2012

12.1.2012

Happy December! November is over! I went to school today and faked a smile hoping that December would start off better than November ended. School started off normally for a Saturday. I had Animation class and the teacher wasn't there on time. After waiting for a while the teacher showed up, gave us a test, told someone to explain it to me and then left. For the test we had to answer a question that I didn't understand and then we had to draw a story board. I thought the question was "what animation films do you like?" So I said that I like Disney and then I listed several of my favorite Disney movies. My friends then told me the correct answer and had me write it down. Now I think that the question was "What are the different types of animation?" but, how to question was written it didn't make since. I copied my friend's answer and then I moved on to my story board. I took a significant amount of time drawing the boxes because I had no idea what I was going to draw. I finally settled on the graduation of my class in Florida. I have already graduated but I finished one year early. All my friends will graduate this year so I consider them "my class". In the little skit the administration as talking and they started calling out names. Between the names of Jeff Rodriguez and Kaitlin Rizzo I jump up from the crowd and storm the stage. I give the Principle a hug and then give a short speech to my friends. I know that I will not get home in time to actually do this but it is a fun thought. In my little drawings I also had everyone cheer for me. My friends kept judging my art an asking me what things were. Another thing I miss about Florida and American School systems. When we do a  'story board' it is to prove we know what a story board should look like it but, it rarely is to test our creativity or our artistic talent. I was very proud of myself for actually completing a test even though I will almost defiantly fail it. After I had turned in my test I waited for all of my friends to finish. When everyone was done we talked for a long time. My friends are obsessed with my brother Jesse. Today they wanted to talk about him. They asked me all kinds of questions about him. I think they like him because he is everything that Indonesians are not known for he is tall, super white and skinny. While I was talking about him I made a huge language mistake. I said "Anak saya" not "Adik saya". Anak means child while Adik means younger sibling. So I basically told my friends that my son was tall, not my younger brother. As soon as I said it I knew that I had said it wrong but, it was too late. My friends laughed at me for more than 5 minutes. I know they were calling me names and while I am not sure what they were saying I am sure that it is about the same as calling me a slut or a whore for having a child. As fun as it is to make simple mistakes in Indonesian it is not super fun to be teased. If I laughed every time one of my friends made an English mistake I would rarely stop laughing at school. Then my friends asked if they came to America where would they stay. I told them that they could stay at my house in Florida. This made them happy but, then they wanted to know what bed they would sleep in if they came to my house. They all fought over who would sleep with Jesse in his bed. When I told them that they wouldn't be sleeping with Jesse thy got upset and asked where they would sleep and they assumed that I was going to make them sleep on the floor or on the couch. I told them that we have an extra bed and that they could share that. One of my friends sill was not happy and they decided that if I made them sleep in the extra bed they would move to Jesse's bed as soon as I fell asleep. They then asked if Jesse would like one of the girls. I said that I don't know and they asked if Jesse wouldn't like her because Indonesians have dark skin and they are short. Many of my Indonesian friends have a huge fear of not being loved in America. They believe that America is filled with  actors, actresses and models (which of course is not the reality). They also think that people will not love them because of their skin color, because here it is beautiful to have white skin. I feel bad for them and I try to explain that I could marry someone with any color skin and that it doesn't matter. This concept seems foreign to them and I think it is just another cultural difference. They then on to explain the if Jesse did love the one girl they would get married and that she would have many babies and that all of the babies would be very beautiful because they would have Taylor Lautner skin. This discussion about my brother's future wife and children went on for a while until I changed the topic. I then told my friends that I had to go home and I walked home. When I got home I got dressed in normal clothes because I was planning on going to a mall with Leti. In the morning I told my maid that I wanted to be there at 1:30 and she asked me if I could leave a 12:30 so that the driver could pick up Diandra at the same time. I said that was fine and changed the time with Leti. When I got home my maid changed the time back to 1:30 because Diandra wanted to come home later. Then at 1:00 when we needed to leave I asked my maid and she said that we would leave a 1:30 (we would arrive at 2). At 1:30 my driver went to buy water and I couldn't go. When I finally left it was 1:50 and I forgot to ask my driver to take me to Leti's house instead of the mall. When we got to the mall I had to call Leti and tell her that I was already there and that I was sorry for the mix up. After the initial confusion of getting to the mall everything went really well. I bought a watch, a present for Aunt Melly (her birthday is coming up), a box to put the present in and new head phones. I know that I brought headphones from America but I cannot find them. When I bought my phone it came with headphones but they only work with the phone. When I listen to music on my computer in class I can't hear any of the vocals, which is slightly annoying. When Leti and I finished shopping we had some more time so we went to see Skyfall at the movies. We got to the movie theater in the mall 10 minutes before the next showing and it worked out perfectly. The movie was excellent and I was glad that I was able to see it. Diandra texted me and told me that I should sleep at Leti's house because of complications with the car. It was a good day!

12.1.2012 Highlight

Everyone who knows me knows that I have terrible Hand-eye coordination. I am a swimmer but that does not mean that I am athletic in anything other than swimming. My brother, Jesse, finds opportunities to tease me about my complete lack of skill and so do many other people. So, I was at school and some of the guys in my class had a football, an American football, and they were passing it around. I was surprised that they had a real football, because American football is not very popular here, most people like Soccer. The boys were really bad. It was funny watching them. A lot of the time their passes would go short and they would just bounced the ball off the ground (not exactly allowed in the official rules of American football). I watched them play for a while and latter when I was tired of pretending to do school work I borrowed the ball and played catch with one of my friends. I was awesome. I am a celebrity at school and it isn't like anyone actually has class they need to go to so about 50 people just sat watching me throw the football. None of my passes were bad and I was able to catch almost everything. I guess everyone has to have one shining moment and this was mine. I was a pro using the official Peyton Manning style ( 1. Elbow your brother 2. wipe the windshield 3. flick the booger). So proud of myself, when my friends told me that I was good I was like "Well of course I am awesome it is AMERICAN FOOTBALL". I just wanted to record this moment because it will never happen again.

12.2.2012

I woke up at 6 and got dressed because I knew that my driver would be there soon. I collected all of my stuff and got into the car. When we got home I straightened my hair and got ready for Church. I also was able to Skype with a friend from Florida who is currently in the Faroe Islands. It was a very eye-opening experience to hear and I truly believe that every exchange is different.  I went to church. I love going to church, it is something that is so normal for my in America and it feels like home in Indonesia. I hadn't gone to church for the last 2 weeks because I couldn't get there and it made me appreciate being at church even more. I didn't understand any of the lessons but it didn't really matter. Before the end of church I made an appointment with the missionaries to come over to my house on Wednesday. They just want to talk, I am not trying to convert my host family or anything like that. On the way home the car ran out of gas and the driver had to borrow money from me to buy more gas. He bought a little gas but the car wouldn't start so he had to go back for a second round of gas. This time the car started and we were able to make it home. I got home watched Lion King 2 and then took a nap. Basically it was the perfect Sunday. When I woke up I ate dinner and then did some seminary and watched YouTube videos showing me how to do my hair.

12.2.2012 Highlight

Awesome Sunday! This month is already looking better. I also realized that I have played 91 beginner games of Spider solitaire and I win 93% of the time. I have also played 112 Intermediate games and my win percentage is only 38%. I  am getting pretty good (maybe I should download some new games).

Thanks everyone for reading!

12.3.2012

I love Monday mornings (my Indonesian friends should look up the meaning to the word sarcasm). Actually today wasn't too bad. I got to school, typed tons for my blog, played solitaire and found other ways to waste my time. About 1 hour into class I realized that I forgot my drawing book and ruler, which was going to make manual drawing class tons of fun. Just after my discovery, my friends told me that we would not be learning today. I really don't expect us to learn anything on any day but I guess today it was announced that we would 'really' not be learning anything. My friends told me that I could go home whenever I wanted to. I stayed another hour and a half finishing my blog so that I wouldn't be considered rude and then I went home. I was watching TV when my host dad walked into the room. He doesn't think I can speak any Indonesian so he murmurs questions under his breath at me (it doesn't make it any easier to understand him). But today I understood him, it was something about why in the world I wasn't at school. I quickly answered him by saying that I already finished school because we didn't learn anything today. The rest of the day was very predictable but it was good to just have a nice and relaxing day.

12.3.2012 Highlight

Today I Skyped Callie Norton, my friend who is on exchange in Austria. We talked forever but it was so good to just compare stories and hear about how the other is doing. Callie is doing great in Austria and had lots of fun stories to tell about going hunting with her host father, snow and many other things that just show how different our host countries are. I love talking to my friends.

12.4.2012

Today started with a bout of morning sickness (not pregnant I promise haha). I went down to breakfast and I could barely keep my breakfast down. I am sure that my egg was cooked well and rice is a normal thing but my stomach just did not want to cooperate. I got to school and there was no one there. There were some people but, I arrived at the time I always do and the school looked like a ghost town. I had culture class this morning so I went to the classroom and sat down alone. I texted my friends and they said that we did have class and after a little while people started showing up. The culture class is held in the music room and for this unit of culture my classmates are learning a musical piece. The room is filled with instruments and my friends went crazy. When my teacher finally did show up (1 hour late) I had my laptop out and I was listening to music as loud as I could so that I could block out my friends terrible attempts at 'music'. The teacher told us that today we had free time and then she kicked us out of the room. We wandered around for a while and ended up finding a nice bench to sit on and wait for the class to be over. After culture class I had Indonesian class so I moved to a different room. My friends in that class told me that the teacher wasn't there and that we were free too. My classmates wanted to go home and they asked me if I would go home but I told them that I had one more class afterward so I couldn't leave. We tried to watch a movie but it didn't work and we just sat there for an hour and a half. After class I moved to my last class of the day to find that almost all of my classmates had already gone home. I took this as permission to go home so I left. From what I understand, we have exams for the rest of the week and that is why we are free now. I got home, ate and wrote a shopping list. I really wanted to go shopping today, which never happens, I hate shopping. But, today I wanted to go. The only problem was that it started to rain and the driver wasn't home, so I couldn't get a ride to the mall and I was not going to walk in the rain. So instead I took a nap (fail safe answer to almost any problem). When I woke up it was still drizzling and it was too late to go shopping anyway. It still was a good day.

12.4.2012 Highlight

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY LITTLE SISTER!!! Carly is now 14 years old and I was able to Skype her and sing Happy Birthday in Indonesian. Carly is super awesome and I want to take a moment to celebrate one of her huge accomplishments. This year Carly joined Drama club and she participated in Drama Districts. Carly has always been a tiny bit dramatic and she has done really great in the club. At drama districts she participated in set design, she performed a monologue and she was in a group thing too (sorry I can't remember). Carly is my favorite little sister and I hope she has an absolutely amazing day!!

Other awesome things from my family, Clay has been taking Piano lessons and he was just in a recital. So proud of my little brother. Also I am sure that Jesse is doing awesome with his Fantasy Football team.

I love my family! I hope everyone has a great day!