“Indonesian Writers Idol” ….? Jamie and I are trying to write up this formal proposal for a national creative writing competition for our students. Suggestions for a name of the competition are welcome. There are 31 of us English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) all over Indonesia so it’d be pretty groovy if we could get some of our students to compete against one another, eh? Plus I think it would provide an awesome forum for students to be heard… hopefully. Wouldn’t you want to know what my Indonesian high-schoolers think about the world today? I’m interested to see how they perceive the world and specifically the US through our wonderful pop-culture that is kind enough to dominate the world. meh.

We’re tossing around the topic idea of Gandhi’s “We must be the change we wish to see in the world,” or a Kennedy quote, or something else along the lines of Fulbright’s mission for mutual understanding between nations. Perhaps a quote from his book, Arrogance of Power.

This week I’ve been gathering writing samples from students to hopefully motivate sponsors to give us some moola. Today my 10^th graders rocked on this activity about being world leaders and writing ideas of what they thought are the world’s biggest problems. Among the 50 something issues raised, my favorites are: global warming - destroys the ozone layer, melts the north pole, and makes land sink – such as Indonesia; creating diplomatic relations between countries; war between America and “Irak;” and Malaysia stealing Indonesia’s songs!

It’s really great to be back in Bandung with these awesome students. Apparently I’m one of the luckiest because other ETAs said that their students really can’t speak English too well, and their areas are pretty secluded. I had the chance to chill with about 12 of the other ETAs out in Bunaken under the sea, Manado, and Yogyakarta.

Had a short refresher dive after 7 yrs in Bunaken, and in the following dives I saw a lot of pretty fish and coral, a ship wreck, and went night diving and had glowing things, red worms and freaky fish swim all around. Purty sweet.

Breathing under water again was definitely a highlight of the trip, but chillin with Bunaken locals (diving crew to the left) was pretty awesome too! The kids there (not in pic) were my tour guides, and we jumped off the dock, n played water football and marco-polo :) and they even brought me mangos one day when I was sick. I miss them.

In Yogya we saw the famous Borobodor (left pic is of D and I reaching for Buddah's left foot for good luck) and many other sights including the “sex temple” in Solo (right pic). Yeah… history and Indonesia today don’t really match in my head. I haven’t quite figured out the social dynamics of Indonesia – everyone has a different take on social norms… but I’ve noticed amongst the 31 ETAs, we have pretty different ideas of America’s norms.