Sand of time running thin... and I keep stackin' them lil grains!

Just six more days until I can read the work of my students for the WORDS competition about What does it mean to be Indonesian? woooowee I'm stoked!

In helping them get the ball rolling on what to write, I did a group brainstorming lesson plan about what does it mean to be American. It is pretty challenging to fit the meaning of American into 500 words! I mean just finding what approach or piece of the American you want to discuss. Ah, well many myths were dispelled or at least doubted about Americans, and then they worked on their own to brainstorm "What does it mean to be Indonesian?" In the beginning many of the students struggled, but once they understood that it's more about their opinions of Indonesians, they had a lot to say with a lot of emotion.

It looks like a live stream is not a feasible option for the final competition, but we will be working on a DVD and we have foundations willing to publish finalists' work. Whether we are able to work with them depends on our higher ups - AMINEF (American Indonesian Exchange Foundation) admins. Ah, bureaucracy, how I loathe thee.

Before my head aches from thinking too much about that, I shall move on to happy thoughts. My kids! Oh man, I'm feeling time running thin and.... right happy thoughts, so my kids rocked at a debate competition that we had been preparing for, for about 2 months. Really just one month intensely practicing. It was beautiful getting to know them and watching them really develop their critical skills - realizing that there are numerous sides of an issue, and arguing those points in English! Their English skills are still a bit shaky, but we still ended up going home with 3 wins out of 6 debates with some of the top-ranked schools in the city - we beat schools ranked higher than our school. Yay!

Imagine being in high school and debating why supermarkets should pay farmers more money in a foreign language. Ok so for some of you it may be easy, but still ideas of supply and demand, benefits/drawbacks of domestic goods, etc. are tough! especially in another language. (I kind of look like a high schooler in that pic eh?)

Soooo since ya'll get to see lovely pics of my students, I thought it was only fair that they see pics of you! haha. So I made a few lesson plans revolving around pictures of ya'll and another set of pics from USA. teehee! They wrote some funny stories about you guys. I should have copied them all, but there have been like 200 I've read so far. I'll try to pick the best ones and email yas. So here are your pictures on the board. They were guessing which were the three that were not U.S. citizens.

I know I haven't been the best at keeping in touch, but I just got internet at my house so I should be better about it. Although I also just started a capoeira class, salsa class, and words workshop in addition to students Eng club, teachers Eng club, and English tutoring...and bowling and friends' wedding - performing capoeira :P


Miss yas. Paz e amor.

OH WORD?!

Hey all.
Sorry it's been a while. I've been pretty busy as we're getting things going with the W.O.R.D.S. national creative writing competition. Here is a poster we have going around... and then leaflets made as well. Too bad the copying centers on every block of Bandung are not that reliable for a 1,500 copy job. :(

Anyhow stay tuned for more updates and please check out: http://summitedoutreach.org for more info about Fulbright Indonesia, W.O.R.D.S., and how you can donate. ^_~

My stories here are just a blink of the life in Indonesia. Every day I see things that are just so backwards from the life in which I was raised. I'm not the best person to explain such things as being fully covered in 90F weather, sleeping while working at a mall, driving against traffic, 50 cent DVDs, nature calls without toilet paper, or praying 5 times a day in prayer rooms that are in nearly every building. Maybe students here will shed light on things that I don't have the words for. Stay tuned to broaden your perspective and read what these students have to say when given an international platform.

Selamat Tahun Baru! Happy 2008!

Wouldn’t it be nice if the New Year was actually a new stage in life – like a new level of a tight video game where you’re on the beach swinging from trees and stomping the ground for bananas? Ahm, well I guess for those graduating or finishing projects in Dec it kind of is, but for me I still find my digital post its with “things to do” from last year that roll into this year. But what is time anyway? Haha. Ok ok so before I lose you, in the spirit of our tradition of the “new year” I’ve made New Year’s resolutions… to find a job for after SMAN 11 (recommendations are welcome), to read at least one article in Indonesian per week, to learn a new Capoeira song every week, and to compliment people more… genuinely cuz it makes my day and figure it works for others too ;)

Oooo this is a good lesson plan! What are your New Year resolutions? (feel free to post your answer – we’ll keep you accountable.)

Orale. So instead of chillin with my high school crew in FL this year (which I missed muchly), I was on the opposite side of the world with my Bandung and Jakarta Capoeira crews. Bandung was rowdy man! Like it was midnight from sunset until 1am! We played until we got rained out at 11pm… then played some more from like 1-3am. Teehee! Someone once told me that if you’re a capoeirista, you’ll be welcomed like family by other capoeiristas all around the world. So far that’s proven to be true in the 10 cities I’ve played.

I traversed Java to get to Bali with a couple of my Capoeira chicos for Senzala’s 1st batizado in Bali (Capoeira convention) ft. Mestre Gato, Mestre Ousado, C.Mestre Gatinho, C. Mestre Bangu e otros… It was about a 2 ½ day trip with a brief stop in Jogja and the rest of the time on trains, train station floors, and a ferry with a sick beat. :P It was beautiful and it makes me soooooo mad to see so many people littering and polluting here! I yell at the offenders, usually my friends, and they laugh and then forget 2 mins later… most are just used to people picking up after them. But dude, I don’t wana wear a gas mask when I go outside!

Yeah… there are interesting cultural habits here that make me perturbed but I guess Hooters doesn’t really make me happy either.

Ok… well it’s time for me to get back to doing work for this WORDS competition. Hope alls well where ever you are… even if you’re freezing your bum off while I’m sweating here. Much rather be sweating though. I was in Paris with the fam for Christmas and while it was refreshing to breath fresh air for the first few hours, I gotta say I don’t miss the cold. But it’s always good to have the cold or rainy or gray days to appreciate these sunny hella hot days ;)

Miss yas. Peace.

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.

highlights of past weeks

This is a story all about how my life got twisted upside down and I’d like to take a minute just sit right there and I’ll tell you how mold became black in my air.

So I tried to post something last week but the internet crashed and I lost a lot of writing about my whereabouts the past couple weeks. So here I am trying again a bit late I know. Sorry.

Here are the highlights. Read what’s in CAPS if you’re too lazy to read it all :P
1) I’m MOVING. I don’t know where to quite yet but there’s some major mold growth goin on in my house and the water pressure and quality is not so groovy. One night I didn’t take a shower because I just couldn't after 30mins of killing about 23 cockroaches coming out of my bathroom. Then a few days later I didn’t shower because the water pressure was like cold drizzling rain out of 4 holes of my showerhead .. and there are some days I have to brush my teeth with the bottled water cuz it looks like what's in that green bucket of tap water. So when the mold was growing to the point where I felt like I was breathing in a sauna I decided to move to my grandpas temporarily. A friend of ours, fellow ETA in Bukitinggi, Padang, Sumatera had a lot of mold in his house and now he is in the health care of Jakarta pollution diagnosed with bronchitis. Finding a decent place to stay for 6 more months is just not that easy though so I might be staying at my grandpas. I have been at my Opa’s for the past week and it’s been pretty funny as he’s 95, deaf, and delusional sometimes.

2) Our program leaders the LOVED the NATIONAL CREATIVE WRITING COMPETITION idea we have! In fact they love it so much that they want to double the funding of the project, they want embassy people abroad to watch on a live stream, and they envision it being an annual program. WOOWOOT! That means a lot more work for Jamie and I, but it seems that we have a lot of great support from all the right people so far. Hey we’re kinda iffy on the competition name, what do you think of: “Worldviews of Real Daring Students” (W.O.R.D.S.) ????

3) This past weekend in Jakarta I met a Brazilian Contre Mestre of Capoeira and Columbiano salsa teachers, so I got to practice my ESPANOL and PORTUGUES! As well as Indonesian and English ;)

4) In days before this weekend I have hit up HOT SPRINGS an hour up in the hills, played with FIREWORKS, and had an amazing BBQ with the neighborhood I’m very sad to leave. (P.S. Many Indos don’t believe black mold is bad for people, so some think we’re a bit strange to complain about it. They think our friend has bronchitis for some other reason.)

5) The students are wonderful! They rocked this CHANGE THE WORLD creative writing project based off the song “With My Own Two Hands” by Jack Johnson and Ben Harper. Credit to Jamie for it being her idea. Next up I think I want to work a Michael Franti song… maybe “Bomb the World” with an article about Franti in Iraq. But that’s deep … hum. But some students are capable of ideas like: “Money has become our god/To buy things that do not last;” ““I think USA is enourmous country but sometimes I think USA is greedy country because USA pleasure to appress another country;” “smile like virus (contagious).” Even if the words or grammar aren’t there, the ideas are provocative eh?

My English Club students are mantap! Awesome! We watched Take the Lead and talked about educational issues and motorcycle gangs in Indonesia and US. Some of them can even hardcore debate on issues such as uniforms, arranged marriage, and authority through fear. Psh’yah I’m learnin a lot too.

Ok mis sayangs, thanks for reading. Holler back youngin’. Oooo oooooooo!

“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.

3:30am Breakfast call!

Sometimes the explanation doesn’t matter. I mean the reasons for why something is in existence doesn’t always matter you know? It’s the results of that something that matter. I guess that goes along the lines that it doesn’t matter what the intent a person may have, it’s the impact that matters.

Specifically I’m thinking of puasa – Ramadaan – fasting. People have different reasons for fasting – or for believing in anything right? The beautiful thing about puasa for me is that everyone recognizes it, and once the sun goes down it is a time in which we can all be thankful for the food and community around us. In the beginning of puasa I went to Capoeira from 4-6pm. Everyone was pretty exhausted but it was still a pretty tough practice. Around 5pm I was excited to see the sun going down so that I could have some water. By 5:48ish :P the prayer sounded and everyone cheered and ran to their water and snacks. I was thankful to have some water and I had lunch that day! Everyone shared their treats and we played around a bit more.

A couple days ago I talked on the radio about this and they had asked if we have fasted at all. Jamie and I had fasted for 8hrs while we were working, but never the full 14hrs. So today was the first day we fasted like many around us. We had sahur at 3:30am with some of the family members from next door, and I had my last sip of water at 4am. It really wasn’t bad at all with just spurts of hunger or thirst, and a bit of tiredness and crankiness. By 6pm it wasn’t really a rush for food, but it was nice to be with people that immediately brought us water and snacks, with dinner that followed. It’s like open family dinners all around.

Yesterday I took some studio pics with the English club and then we had buka puasa (breaking fasting) for the day at a food court of a nearby mall. Bandung ppl love their malls ;) Bandung is the Paris of Java – home of the Gedung Satay, SMAN 11, good lookin’ men, no drugs, and rebellion… riiight. Ooo I should use that for a quick True or False quiz :P

Now my school is in their pesantren week – their week of religious study. Then the Ramadaan break starts next week until Oct. 21. So I’m off to Manado – Bunaken to go scuba diving for a week, and then I’ll be in Yogyakarta for a bit.  Abracos y saludos. And for all yas fasting, much respect and I hope you're getting some beautiful community love or at least a refreshed body. ;)

PS. I taught the capoeira crew here: “Obrigada/Obrigado; de nada; boa noite; cuidado; voce tambem.” teehee!