Spring reflections

its spring now. not that you can really tell much of a difference here, but on my home planet things are starting to change. its bringing back all sorts of memories from my spring break last year, when i found out i was going to come to indonesia. i can't believe how much has changed since then, how my life has just taken off full speed leaving me somewhat bewildered but loving every minute.here's a bit of a tangent of how it all happened.

i was in the car with my family on our way to arizona for spring break. we were in small town farm utah, and it was cloudy outside.my friend amber, who applied for YES with me, called me, screaming that she got turkey. so that got me all hopeful that i'd have an email or something from afs so when we got to the hotel we were going to stay at i waited and got mad at all the french and german tourists who were hogging the computers. couldn't they see that i was desperate? my whole vacation i was a little bit of a basket case. there was no news from afs every time i checked. one day i cracked and started crying and my mom just held me and said it was all gonna be ok. she said she knew i wanted it and she knew how disappointed i'd be if i didn't get it. but she said that i could always try again. who wants to try again though? not getting it is not getting it. i was an alternate at first, praying that someone would be fool enough to drop out so that i could take their place. waiting killed me. there were a series of conference calls, really for the people who got the scholarship but alternates had to participate too just in case. so there was one during the trip and it was kind of like salt on the wound, all the kids on the call knew their country placement and i was hanging on to a thread of a hope. in the car on our way home, i spent a good deal of time thinking about my life. things i want to accomplish, who i want to become, deep stuff like that you know. and then i started thinking about if i'd rather go to thailand or indonesia. indonesia was winning mostly just because the language is way easier, but in the end i decided thailand because it was my first place. where i wanted to go even before the yes program.
right when we got home that night, out of habit, i went and checked my email. for the first time in weeks, there was a new message, the subject line saying Scholarship to Indonesia. i squeaked out my mom's name and my sister raced down the stairs to see what happened. my mom started crying. so did i. the first thing i did was call amber to share my news with her.
all i had to do was say her name and she knew.she asked where i was going and it was all i could do to whisper indonesia. i don't know how to describe the feeling. i was not in my body. there was so much happiness and shock and excitement and emotion i felt numb. i was shaking. i couldn't believe it. it was nothing short of a dream come true. and that we both got it! that made it even better, because we'd gone through it all together. what are the odds really? and  i thought i wouldn't even get chosen to go to texas for the selection camp because i turned my application in a day late. and then after texas, amber did so good and me, well i could have done way better than i did. so i wasn't expecting much. that was without a doubt the best day of my life. and from there, its been a wild ride.

i only have 2 months left here and i'm dumbstruck. when i think about it, i realize how long it has been but i don't do that often, and it feels like hardly any time has passed. its flying by at an amazing rate. i'm starting to come to think that time doesn't even really exist, its all in our heads.

things are going great still. getting very excited for bali. i think we're leaving on the 26, and i will be sure to take loads of pictures that will make for a nice juicy post.

until then, cheers

all them bules

i've been thinking about something lately. being a bule in a place like indonesia it is inevitable that you will be stared, pointed, and yelled at. lots of people like to practice their english, yell stuff like "hey mister!" "how are you today?" and "i love you!" this was overwhelming for me at the beginning. whenever i saw other bules it was like we had a sort of camaraderie, everyone else stared at them too. however, as time has progressed i've noticed something to change. as i've become more indonesian, i find that i too stare and the bules. i don't really know why, they're just so foreign. haha. at the airport the other day i stared all the bules down and tried to guess where they were from and why they were in idonesia. i do it at malls too. its a fun little game. its funny to hear their accents when they speak bahasa. i know my accent is nowhere near perfect, but its funny all the same. what strange people the bules are. its going to weird me out to be back in america, suddenly surrounded by bules.

on another note, i became a victim of domestic abuse the other day. i was slapped in the face by my host sister's 2 year old daughter dewi.

the sky is closer to the ground here. i don't know how to explain it. maybe its the lack of mountains.or that the humidity magnifies the power of the sun. just being here you see it and you feel how air and earth are just so much closer and more connected, the clouds look so touchable. its so magical and fantastic. you have to come here to know what i mean.its really lovely. becoming a forest hermit just keeps getting more and more appealing... haha.

cheers

Pictures

told you i'd get these up soon :) its about time, i don't think i've ever uploaded pictures on this have i? enjoy

with friends at school

more friends

uniform!

this is the gado-gado padang

and the van where it was made

with a family friend, my host brother, and his daughter

my host brother, his wife, me, host sister, niece, host sister, family friend

durian! so weird but so good. i love it.

my host sister and some of her friends

i'll get more up as they come. i don't really have much to say...everything's going well still. you know, just school and stuff. not too exciting. today there was a really big rain storm. i was watching tv and then the room light up and there was a bang of seriously the loudest thunder i have ever heard. it scared me. i went to look out the window to see sleeting rain, making everything look smeared and wet. it is so amazing. i love rain. i've actually really started loving all the weather here. sometimes it really is too freaking hot i don't think its healthy but its grown on me. i'm probably going to freeze to death next year haha.
i'll post again when something happens.
cheers

Magic

to say that things have changed a lot since the last time i wrote is an understatement. change happening on a foreign exchange is something that cannot be stopped from happening. the biggest change that's happened to me is that i moved host families. my first family was really nice but we never really clicked, never felt the chemistry that really is needed in a relationship. so here i am. i'm still in jakarta, though now in the south instead of the east. my new family is amazing. everyone is really nice and i like them all so much. they're really pushing me too, we never speak in english. i've been with them for almost a month and i feel like i have improved so much! the other day i answered the home phone and all went well :) i understand a lot more and speaking is getting so much better. the more i remove myself from english and try to make my thoughts in indonesian the easier everything gets. i still haven't dreamed in indonesian, but i hope i will soon. also, my new school is this huge islamic high school in jakarta. its really religious and to me seems strict, but what do i know? anyway, for uniform all girls have to wear jilbab, the headscarf, so your hair is always covered. it is one of the weirdest things i have ever experienced. i'm getting used to it now, but at first it was just uncomfortable and hot. i'm really excited about my school though. getting to see up front what an islamic school is like and trying to follow lessons and just watching the way they do it is so cool and adds such a new range of color to this year. we take a religion class, a class special for reading the qur'an, and arabic. these three are the hardest for me but some of the most interesting.

the other day a bule came to the school. he's been living in indonesia for a while, though he speaks no indonesian, and he comes to my school to give english lessons. the teachers came and got me before he came and one took me out to the road in front of the school and we bought gado-gado padang. padang food has a special reputation for its spiciness. the gado-gado was so good. and the best part about it was that we bought it from a lady who had all the food set up in the back of a van. while i was sitting there eating i just thought about how some things that just don't fly in america are totally normal here and its really amazing. i would never buy food that was made in the back of a van in america. no way. but here, why not? it made me really happy and weirdly excited. just another one of those times when i thank whatever it is that let me get sent to indonesia.

so things are great. im so happy to be here. the time since christmas has flown past, i can hardly believe it. already the halfway mark of this year has been passed. time's just never going to feel normal to me. this sounds lame but lately i've been reading a lot of blogs by exchange students. its really inspiring to me to read about their life and their challenges and seeing how they got through it and made the best of everything they could. it also makes me die of jealousy. i have always wanted to travel, and my list of places i must go to just keeps on growing. i want to do study abroad in college, and at first i had it narrowed down to just a couple countries but now i have no idea. i want to go everywhere. i want to see and experience everything. can this be accomplished in one lifetime? i don't want it to be like touristy, when you're removed from the real life of the country. this year so far has taught me that the only way to really learn about a place is to let go and dive in and remove yourself from your own world with an open mind to see the new.

indonesia is a magical place. everywhere i look i see things that take my breath away, in good ways and bad. the scenery. mosques. the explosion of life in the city. and then there's the child beggars. sick dogs and stray cats. the traffic clogged for miles polluting this beautiful city. i used to see it so separated and think that it was the people's fault. their city is polluted because its too big and there's too many people driving cars. the beggars might be for real or they could be fake, taking everything they earn back to some higher power. its not like that anymore. the flaws are what really makes it and what gives it character. and i love it all. i wouldn't trade any of it for anything in the world.

life is so good right now. i am so happy to just be alive! to be in indonesia. to speak indonesian. it comes naturally now. sometimes i do have to plan out stuff to say but for the most part it just flows. i couldn't write you an essay or anything, but i can read and speak with little difficulty. knowing the language has made things feel even better. no longer being in the dark, understanding for once what all the noise around me actually is. its still hard sometimes and i get unbelievably frustrated with myself for not saying all that i want or for not talking at all sometimes. its getting better though.

sorry this is kind of short. i will post again soon though and try to get pictures. i wanted to this time but the camera's being slow and i don't feel like dealing with it right now.
cheers

Christmas and new years adventures

for christmas this year i camped at jillian's house for 2 nights. on the 24, we met in a mall and ate krispy kreme special holiday doughnuts to try and get in spirit. its hard though when its bright and sunny and around 90 degrees outside. when it started getting late we took a taxi to her house. when we got there her host family had a surprise for us. they were all standing around the table and praying. they stopped when we came in and said to take our stuff upstairs, wash our feet and hands, and come pray with them. confused, we did as we were told. we couldn't understand what they said, it was in arabic, so we stood awkwardly until it was over. we watched across the universe after that and then stayed up late talking about all our christmas traditions. it was kind of sad. i really missed my family during the holidays. just missing the familiarity, the traditions, and so many people. but it was ok. we still had a good time.

the first thing jillian said to me when we were both awake on christmas morning was, "santa doesn't come to indonesia." indeed he doesn't. its too far away. we ate twinkies and skittles in her room and then went downstairs to make breakfast. i brought pancake mix and she bought some bisquik biscuit mix, and we were very excited to try them out. the whole time we cooked the maids were hovering about, thinking they could do it better and staring in wonder and the weird crap we were cooking. the pancakes were weird. it was wheat mix and they tasted kind of dull, so i was hoping i could make good syrup to cover that up. we couldn't find regular brown sugar though, we had to use palm sugar, which comes sold in hard round cakes and does not look very appetising. it turned out ok but there was too much water, and the weird sugar gave it a strange taste. her host family's oven cooks the bottoms of things way faster than the tops, so the biscuits were a little brown but still edible. we both got phone calls from home, which were long and wonderful. it was weird talking to my family though because it was still their christmas eve. crazy time.

then we got ready to do some real cooking. our plan was to make a spectacular christmas dinner feast for her host family and us. mostly for us. we had everything we needed to make green bean casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, and peanut butter cookies. we had to peel the potatoes with knives. it was fun but took a lot longer than it needed to. 2 of the cans of green beans we had needed to be opened with a can opener but we thought that if they didn't have potato peelers why would they have a can opener so she got a knife and stabbed it into the top and tried to cut it open. the look on the maid's face when she saw was priceless. she took the can away and got out a super old school can opener and opened the beans for us. pretty much everything we made needed to go in the oven, but we didn't know how to turn it on and neither did the maid. she said it would blow up if we didn't do it right. so we got everything as ready as we could and then would cover it up and start something new. i think the stuffing was the worst thing we made. we had this huge loaf of white bread and we tore up tons of it until we thought we had enough. to check, we filled a coffee cup and then dumped it in a plastic bag because there was no where else to put it. we couldn't find celery at the store so we cooked up mushrooms and onions instead. we waited to put the chicken stock on the bread until someone came home to turn on the oven so it wouldn't get soggy. the potatoes were fun. the recipe jillian had said to mash them with sour cream and cream cheese so while they were still hot we put everything together and mashed them using big wooden spoons. they tasted so good! all night we kept eating them because they were easily the best thing we made. jillian had some frozen hash brown patties that we wanted to try to make something out of so we went online. the easiest recipe was some casserole type thing. we cut all the patties in half and made a layer on the bottom of the dish. then we did a layer of good cheddar cheese, more hash browns, and then covered it all in cheese and fried onions and dumped an egg and milk mixture over it. we were excited to see how that one turned out. we got the cookie dough ready and then just loafed around until her host family came home and did the simple task of turning on an oven. we grated cheese on top of the casserole and mashed potatoes and everything smelled so amazing. then it was time for the stuffing. the broth we got was some sketch vegetarian chicken stock from taiwan. we opened it up to find the most revolting looking fake chicken floating around in it. we picked it out and threw it away and hoped the broth wouldn't be too toxic. neither of us had ever made stuffing before and honestly i think it was a fail. it tasted ok, but it wasn't very good and nowhere near as good as its supposed to be. we hit another problem with the cookies. we could only cook one tray at a time so it was taking long. the first tray took forever, the tops just wouldn't cook. and then we remembered. it smelled awful. the bottoms were BLACK. and rock hard. we had the tray on the stove and i don't know how it happened but it slipped and fell on the floor. we both yelled "10 second rule!" and gathered the cookies. one solution we had was to just cut the burnt bottoms off, but that left the cookies so pathetically thin we just ate a couple and threw the rest away. the second tray went better though. we took it out a little bit early so nothing burnt and then broke a lindt bar up to put a square on every cookie. then it was dinner time! we explained what every dish was and started eating. everything was good, except for the stuffing. the hash browns were ok but i would probably never make them again unless it was for a joke. at the end of the meal there was just a tiny bit of green bean casserole left and they tried to get the maid to eat some but she's sassy and stubborn and wouldn't even come in the room when they called her, she just yelled that she didn't want any and kept watching her soap. after dinner we went to jillian's room, feeling successful. while it was a bit ghetto, it was a really great christmas. unlike any christmas i have ever had. definitely one of the most unforgettable. it was so fun.

for breakfast the next day we had leftovers from dinner. it took like 45 minutes to microwave them because the microwave was a dinosaur but they were delicious. we were lazy all day till lunch, when we met up with josh and rio and went to raka's house for lunch. i was safe eating vegetarian stuff, but josh got stuck eating man food, otherwise known as goat foot soup. of all the stupid things. it looked pretty bad. lunch was fun though. we talked a bunch and ate weird little cookies that glued your mouth shut and hung out till maybe 4, when we took a taxi to go to an afs christmas party. when we got there we were greeted and put to work. we had to crumble up styrofoam, which then got glued to a pole covered in red butcher paper with some sticks stuck on it and decorated with lights, tinsel, and ornaments. it was our christmas tree. when everyone came we sat in a big circle and someone gave like an introduction and welcomed everybody and then turned the time over to us, the bules, to tell a little bit about what we do on christmas. its always a bit awkward getting put on the spot like that but i find that i'm getting so much more used to it. i think thats a good thing. its about time too. so after that they turned on loud christmas music and we had dinner. the only vegetarian offering was mashed potatoes so i loaded up a plate and got tons of little cakes and cookies. there were presents under the tree and during dinner everyone got a little paper with a number on it. every present had a number too, so you would find the one that matched and it was yours.all the gifts were sort of white elephant-esque, so i thought there might be some stealing of gifts too, but it didn't happen. i got a cup. after the presents me and jillian went out on the porch and payed with candles. she was burning a leaf and i was dipping a pine branch in wax. some girls who were just leaving invited us to come to a mall with them, so we went and hung out for an hour or two and then went home.

that was christmas. a few short sweet days later, all the americans got together again for new years. we met at omar's and stayed there for a while before deciding we wanted some fake mexican food. there's a restaurant near his house that we went to. i got some burritos, which were ok but dang, i would kill for red iguana. or taco bell. either or both. anyway, all was well and good until they brought out the bills. i guess its not expensive for american terms but for indonesian terms, we got robbed. it ended up being like $40 for all of us. ridiculous. none of us really had enough money. we helped each other out though and jillian ended up paying for her food with mostly coins. that made me think of something me and my friends in america would do for fun sometime, haha. anyway, we decided then that we are done with amigo's. they will no longer steal our money for not so good mexican food. we were just starting to argue prices with a bajaj driver (ha we all wanted to cram in one bajaj) when omar's host sister jade drove up. she needed help grocery shopping for a bbq the family was going to have, so we got in the car and helped her. well really we didn't do much. we pushed the cart and talked while she did the real work. while we were in the check out line we saw someone eerily familiar get in line behind us. it was the creeper security guy from the us embassy! at first none of us really knew what to do but then he started talking to us. he remembered us when we said we were american exchange students and immediately asked where the one from la was. his cart was full of alcohol, mostly vodka. and he was the one telling us to be safe...tsk tsk. haha. at omar's house we watched the strangers and across the universe. then we helped with the bbq. what started out as us helping turned into us doing everything while the others disappeared. it took a long time to get the coals to light, they had no lighter fluid so we were fanning them with pieces of cardboard and eventually graduated to a real fan. this resulted in tons of crap being blown into the koi pond but it got the fire going. we cooked burgers, hot dogs, and baso. needless to say, the first things we cooked all got burnt. the second round went better, and then we pawned it off on someone else so we could eat. after dinner we met up with jascha and stoky. we didn't have any plans, we just went out. there was a big road block, we couldn't figure out what until we walked right up to it. the street was packed with people. and somewhere, i guess at the start (or end) of the sea of bodies, there was a stage where someone was speaking, i think reading from the qur'an or praying. that's what all the people were there for. jascha said he heard it was set up to keep muslim youth from going and partying all night long. seems likely enough to me. we met up with some other people and hung out for a few hours. we stayed out until 5, because stoky said we had to see the first sunrise of 2010. back at omar's we basically all passed out for a while. not long enough. when we left me and jillian went to a mall for a few hours. we were both dirty, tired, and kind of in bad moods, so we went to krispy kreme to eat our grief. i slept like a rock that night.

until this year, i never noticed how much i depend on my family. for really just about everything. i think the holidays were the hardest so far in terms of homesickness, but it wasn't like i hadn't expected that. i'm really grateful to all the people who have helped me thus far in my journey. without all their support and understanding and just being there to hang out with, i would not be here. i have made a long list of things i want to accomplish and change this year, as i'm sure many have. i never used to take new year's resolutions seriously, i just figured if i remembered to do them, good on me. if not, its not a big deal. but this year i really do want to try and work for them. we'll see though. i had an amazing holiday (s?) this year. the most unconventional, unforgettable christmas and new years. what better things could i have asked for? the only thing i wish i could have changed would be seeing my family. but that will happen soon enough. i cannot believe how fast time goes. already my time is near the halfway mark. can it be true? i think my biggest goal for the rest of this year is to live it up and leach every second for all its worth, because it seriously will be over before i know it.