Pusing dengan Senyuman

I will never admit to being stressed because of it's negative connotation. So I'll use an Indonesian's translation and say my subject line says "Dizzy with a Smile."

I've been on a wild whirl of life. We finally got our national creative writing competition approved, but we need to change our topic and title and we need to get moneyyy! So all you big spenders out there, beware - I'm coming for you! ;)

So the competition is one thing that's made my stomach turn and make me pusing amongst many other things. Yet to some extent this feeling makes me feel like I'm doing something good to keep my brain moving you know? And when times get rough I take a look at pictures like this one with my students and senyum at their kick arse percussion instruments -- drum duct taped up the wazoo, a chair, and the floor as instruments that they smack with hands and drum sticks or at least half of a drum stick. It sounded good too! Remind me to show you the video of this when I see yas.


Other video opportune moments was at this huge food court when my girl MC Peaches rapped/spoken worded about love -- and then Corey and I had a nice and embarrassing moment singing completely wrong words to "Every Breath You Take" oh man - we were glad when that was over - then made them let me try to redeem myself with "The Rose." I sucked, but it was times like this I was thankful to be in a country where they get that I always love to sing and dance - and it's not THAT weird.... (except when I look Indo and can't sing Indo songs. :S) BUT what was even cooler was that I was with my Bahasa Indo teachers, capoeira friends, Fulbright ETA friends, and new English teacher friends. Such a random group!

On to today -- I'm in the beginning of a backpacking trip at our 1st stop in Jogja in transit for a day before hitting up Surabaya on my way to BALI! yes again, but this time for Capoeira Senzala's Batizado! Wootywooo! Been playing a lot which has been a nice balance to other random craziness em minha vida. Here's a pic of one of our performances at the MIT of Indo ITB - Institut Teknologi Bandung - where I play pretty often.


Well, ya'll are in my thoughts and I miss yas muchly, whether I'm playing capoeira, dancing the night away, teaching amazing but nakal kids, planning a nation-wide competition, speaking Indonesian, Spanish, or Portuguese, chillin with fam at grandpas, driving people around, talking over shisha (hooka) n cervezas, performing, trying to samba, or just looking at pictures for extended periods of time on my laptop or behind my closed abnormal eyelids. :P Props to you if you know what I'm talkin' about.

Thank you for all of you that have been so very helpful this past month. I haven't ever had to rely on people (besides my parents and sibs) as much as I have this past month. Terima kasih banyak.