The first week of school

Whew! We just had a great but very busy/chaotic/busy first week of school. I missed my kids soooo much, and I was really glad to see them.

It was a crazy week because the 3 other English teachers that I'm in charge of in our dept. are all new, so they kept coming to me with questions...and other things happened...but it was a fun week, overall.

Here are some photos of my ADORABLE 7th grade homeroom students! They come in quietly each morning and just sit in their desks without talking to each other. I usually experienced this last year with my 10th grade homeroom kiddos, but they were quiet because they were sleepy and kinda lazy. The kids in my new class are just petrified out of their minds about being in the middle school now. :-P

Mandy, Michelle, Jin Ju

Clara, Amanda, Jeanne, and Chika

Alejandro, Hansen, Jeremy

Christie, Prisca, Alizka, and Jennifer

(Mandy and Amanda think they should get a photo taken with me, haha... If we ever do, I'll post it on here.)

In Homeroom, we can speak: English, Bahasa Indonesia, Korean, Mandarin, Japanese, and Spanish (my Costa Rican student). It's a beautiful thing. :)

Some interesting names in my classes I have this year are: Chika (for "Chiquita"), Pandya, Yuu, Miami, Bagas, Hansen, and Alistair. I love the variety of names that students have; they're never boring, that's for sure.

I don't have much else to report, other than I'll be having auditions soon for the play Robin Hood and Maid Marian. The kids are excited, especially the boys, since the play will involve some minor sword-fighting moves and bows and arrows. The girls are excited, too, and so far, they all want to be Robin's Merry Men, but not Maid Marian or the other girl parts. *Sigh* We'll have to work on that...

Now I'm off to go swimming. (a.k.a. sitting in the water, reading, while trying to get a tan/not burn) I'm feeling very lazy right now at school, and I can't decide if I want to take a nap or get some work done...sleep sounds realllllly good right now, though....!

I'm baaack!

I am soooo back in Indonesia! And it's a great feeling. I can't believe it was just a week ago that I began my 2 day-long trek back to Asia.
It felt totally natural to me to be back as soon as I walked out of the airport and into a taxi to take me home. Being back in scary traffic in Jakarta and seeing the millions of beautiful mosques felt normal, with no shock value whatsoever.
God is good. I was able to find a taxi driver who spoke English, which was actually an answer to prayer that I'd been praying during the looong flights. Thankfully, he was nice and agreed to drive me home according to the mileage meter instead of going w/ a fixed price that a different, sketchy man was trying to get me to give to him. I was insistent and told Mr. Sketchy that I was going w/ the meter and started to walk away, and then Mr. Nice said he'd do the meter.
Ohhhh, I am soooo good... ;)

I arrived home safely later on Saturday afternoon and was met by Yoshie and Lisa at my house. I also met one of the new teachers, and I forced myself to stay awake until 10:00, even though I was superrrr tired.
Amazingly, my body woke up at 5:30 the next morning, and I went to church with another new family. Then I slept from 3:30-8:30, finished unpacking, and watched "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" with the girls as we ate scrambled eggs and popcorn that I'd brought from home in my overweight luggage. Gotta love randomness and strange meals!

Other than that, I haven't had any jet lag--yay! I've been busy getting my house organized and jumping into teacher preparation days, which means it's back to the grindstone.

I'm currently watching "Monsters Inc." w/ Alia, mainly b/c it's our weekly tradition, but also b/c she correctly said, "May I please have Baby Boo" to me when I came home from school! I was so proud of her! Immediately after that, she passed out on the kitchen floor and took a nap for an hour, which means she won't sleep til later tonight, so it's ok for her to watch a movie at 7:30 at night.
She's such a big girl, and she's grown so cute since I've been gone! I smothered her with kisses last night and discovered someone's taught her to wipe off my kisses...hmmm... :(

Here's a silly photo of Lisa and me. I bought a helmet a few days ago, so this is proof.
Lisa is my teaching friend who came to teach at SPH halfway through last year. Now she lives next-door to me, and we've had great fun being in each other's business, and houses, non-stop! :) She lives in Leland's old house, which means she's inherited his way-cool backyard w/ a brick patio, umbrella table, pretty bamboo trees, and a small fish pond w/ Japanese fish. It's perfect for hosting parties.
The best part of her being next-door to me is that, since she grew up in the Solomon Islands and prefers sitting on the floor to sitting on furniture, she's given me her sofa and 2 living room chairs. Which means I have lots of seating indoors for hosting parties. She's currently in the process of repainting her downstairs, which was in a sad state of looking like a bachelor pad. (Read: BORING colors.)
When she's finished, we'll begin plotting fun activities that we can host at our houses. Wild parties will ensue. :)



Now...it's time to work on lesson planning...

Alia says good-bye

"Hi everybody!!!!
I know you all love me, so I'm going to write a good-bye letter to you because I know you'll all miss me sooooooo much when Miss Mandy goes home for the summer...

"I've learned A LOT of English since I last wrote on Miss Mandy's blog! I can ALMOST count to ten, I know a few more body parts, and I know some parts of the house, like the doors and windows. Miss Mandy says we're going to work on pronunciation for my "f" sounds, because she says I make a "p" sound instead. But it's very hard to make the "f" sound with my teeth, so we practice saying things like, "ffff...ffff...funny" and "fff...fff...Ferry". Sometimes, I come reealllly close to getting it correct! :-D

"Some of my favorite phrases to say are:
* How are you today? Pine, thank you! (Mrs. Christine taught me that one. I say it all the time but never wait for the person to answer me.)
* Pleeeeeeease, juuuuuuuice? (I say this when I want juice, even if there isn't any in the fridge.)
* Where is it Alia? (I say this when I want to play peek-a-boo.)
* Where is it Baby Boo? (I say this every afternoon/night when Miss Mandy comes home from school. It means I want to watch "Monsters Inc.", which is my favorite movie, because I have fun watching the little girl in it named "Boo".)
* COME ON, MANDY! (I say this every morning in the stairwell as soon as I wake up. I have to say it many times before I hear Miss Mandy come out of her bedroom.)


"I LOVE to watch "Monsters Inc." with Miss Mandy! We watch it almost every Thursday night. Miss Mandy says it's like a tradition. I wonder what 'tradition' means...??? It's my faaaavorite movie. I think I've seen it over 20 times! It's a miracle that the pirated DVD hasn't stopped working yet from me watching it so much. I always hold Miss Mandy's hand at the beginning when we see the scary monster under the bed. But we always know it's NOT a scary monster- it's a SILLY monster!
Even though it's my favorite movie, I always cry at the very end. It's a very, very sad movie! Sully, the monster, says bye-bye to Baby Boo, and it makes me think of saying bye-bye to Ibu, which I've never done before. HOW SAD! I always run crying to Ibu while Miss Mandy watches the end credits and sings along to the songs.

"Miss Mandy used to have a kitten, and I was SOOO excited! As soon as she let it in the house to feed it some milk, I ran over to pet it. That made Ibu mad and she scolded me and made me cry. I liked the kitten! I don't know why she said it was yucky. But Miss Mandy also said it was yucky, so now I think it was yucky, too. I ask her every day where it is, though, because it's gone now...


"Look at me! I'm eating Nemo! It's fun to say Nemo. It's even more fun to say, 'NEmoNEmomeno' over and over again! Miss Mandy says I'm silly. I begged and begged her to take this photo of me. She also says I'm becoming narcisse. *Harumph! (Stamp foot)*

"I have been reading lots and lots of books lately that Mrs. Christine brought to me from America. Some of them have doggies in them! I think I like doggies more than cats, because sometimes I pretend I'm a doggie. I look and Miss Mandy and say, "Alia doggie, woof woof!"

"Lately, I've been singing my favorite songs overrrr and overrrrr again. I like "If You're Happy and You Know It", "Happy Berfday", and "The Itsy, Bitsy Spider". I LOVE it when Miss Mandy sings along with me, because I can only remember one word in each sentence of the song. I think she really likes it when I sing "Happy Berfday" REALLY loudly each morning! It makes me so happy to sing! Even though I don't know the words, I like to sing the songs because I have so much fun with the motions! I dance around and wave my hands in the air and try to sing. I don't know why Miss Mandy laughs at me...?

"Here I am with Ibu, but she doesn't like to smile and act goofy for the camera. I wonder why...

* I can't wait until Miss Mandy comes back from America! I'm glad I'm her friend and that I'm not scared of her anymore, like I was in August. Her hair is a bit scary on Saturday mornings, but I'm used to it by now. :)

*Yawwwn*

"I'm sleepy. I think it's time for me to go to bed now, and Miss Mandy, too.

So...bye-bye for now! (Or, as some people here say, 'da-da'!)"

Graduation Day

Today was Graduation Day. I'm sitting in my classroom because I have technically 10 minutes left until I'm allowed to leave the school, because it's still considered a regular work day.

Anyways, today should probably have been a pretty stressful day, but I didn't feel like it was at all. The graduation ceremony was the shortest one I've ever attended- just an hour long!- and it was simple but meaningful.

We all hung out with the students, took photos, and ate lunch.

Then we went back to the gym to issue report cards and take more photos.

That's basically my day. Check it out...

The pretty gymnasium

Sigh.

I took the flash off and got a blurry image...but it's still kinda cool...

These are some of the student council members who coordinated the day's festivities. Their costumes are GORGEOUS!

(Regiana, Kevin, Hadrian, Agung, and Abel)

(Note: the girls' shirts are called "kabayas". They're traditional Indonesian blouses that are still worn for special occasions. I think I'll have one specially-made for me for next year, because I'm not a fan of the batik shirt styles; they make me look matronly, or they're about 3 sizes too small. Plus, they're wayyy more beautiful!)

With Detty and Fera :)

(Note: I look pregnant here, I think because I had my hip popped out to my side. I'm not pregnant. But DO look at my batik skirt throughout these photos!)

With Mr. Nick, our headmaster

With Ibu Yulvita and Yoshie

Ibu Ita is our vice-principal. (I wasn't able to get a photo taken with our principal.)

This one's for the ladies...!

Tiwi, me, Lisa, and Stela

The male teachers at SPH...

Steven, Benny, Aswin, Blasius, and Yoshua

Steve and Ibu Lisa

They were the coordinators for one of the academic programs I was involved with this year, and they were extremely patient with all of the mistakes I made. (They also granted submission extensions to me because of my involvement with the drama productions, even though they weren't supposed to...SSSHHH!)

Ibu Alissa, Stela, Pak Ngemal (pronounced "ING-mall")

I think Alissa's kabaya is absolutely GORGEOUS! If Barbie were Indonesian, she'd wear this kabaya!

Miss Mandy and Mr. Eric had a highly successful first year with the drama program--yay!!

(I actually took this photo mainly to show what a man's batik shirt looks like.)

And, of course, no day with students is ever complete without a crazy photo!

Here are Chikara, Sakura (twins) and Mayang. They were all actively involved with the drama program this year, so I can be slighly unprofessional with them. I'm allowed. :-P

I'll write another post soon!

End-of-the-year photos...

I'm not yet able to post photos of the musical, so here are some random snapshots of what's been going on lately around the school.....

I took this photo for two silly reasons:
1. So you could see our gym, in case you're curious; and
2. So you can see the brand-new, expensive curtain that Eric and I were able to buy before our "Secret Garden" performances.


Here are my Drama 9 students, after they performed the Japanese story, "The Bamboo Cutter", for the senior school.

(Kevin, Ivana, (me), Kenny, Jim, Nindia, Rodrick, Aldi, and Adit (in the front) )

...and here are the final few that showed up for class last week, although the boy in the pirate hat won't be returning to SPH next year... :(


The rest of these kids will be in Drama 10 next year.


And, yes, that's my Indian shawl on Adit's sweaty head...*sigh*!

On Saturday, after Fera, Yoshie and I went to the botanical gardens, Fera and I went with Eric to the "Secret Garden" cast party. It was at the same affluent house where we had our "JT and the Pirates" party, and, once again, it was nothing like a traditional cast party. They played with each other for hours, both in and out of the pool, and played piano. We didn't stay for the entire party, but the kids had a barbecue dinner right after we left. (But there weren't any fireworks this time.)


They're perfectly fine with just sitting around for hours and playing card games. They're so cute!

They're also perfectly fine with tormenting each other mercilessly. The kids take great joy in throwing each other into the pool...including certain drama teachers...

Here, Mr. Eric tried to throw one of my perpetrators, Tae Hee, into the pool as retaliation. (And because I commanded him to.)

More photos to come!

Where I've been for the past few days....

I've been on the downlow for the past 2 weeks because my life has been consumed with the musical, catching up on the grading that I couldn't do because of the musical, and wrapping up end-of-the-year procedures at school. And catching up on the sleep missed because of those things. :-P
It's Sunday morning as I write this post. This weekend has been relaxing, mainly because it hasn't involved any grading or rehearsals, but also because it's been filled with spending time with friends before many of us leave.
On Friday night, the other expats and I gathered at Eric and Christine's house for one last get-together before the summer break.

We sat around and shared memories, and Katie and Lisa entertained us with a puppet show of our memories.




Here are the puppets of Carrie and me. I have scary hair, haha!


Cahaya eventually collected everyone's puppets for her personal playtime, so I didn't get to take mine home.


Here we are, the expat gang:
(back) Steve and Cahaya Church, Eric, David and Kris, Leland, Alison
(middle) Christine, Chrissie, me, Shirley Anne, Julia C.
(front) Katie, Carrie, Lisa


Leland was my mentor and my next-door neighbor, which was interesting because I rarely saw the guy outside of school.

Meet Kris and David.

They're from Oregon, and they lived as missionaries in the Philippines for about 14 years with their kids. Kris works in the library part-time as a librarian and loves it. (Mom, you'd love her!) David works as a 5th grade teacher.

They're old enough to retire, but instead of retiring, they were bored and moved to another country. I think they're pretty much the coolest old people I've ever met in my life. (I often tell them that, and they laugh.) :) They serve as the expat girls' parents while we're over here, and they're a major blessing to us all!

Yesterday morning, I went to Bogor to visit the botanical gardens there with Yoshie and Fera. Yoshie is moving to Jakarta next year because she has a teaching job there, so this was our last girls' outing as a threesome. :(

(They're very snap-happy with their cameras, and they loved taking photos of themselves pretending to kiss each other. And doing the peace sign. I've noticed people here think that's really cool, because all of the teachers and students do that in their photos. And they LOOOOVE taking photos of themselves doing ANYthing! Kinda narcisse... so I've only posted relevant photos on here, but I have a few more that they've shared with me.)

It was a super hot day- don't ask me what the temperature was!- but it was a fun day. We walked around for a bit, taking photos, until we couldn't stand the heat anymore.

Here are a few photos of the botanical gardens.

An Indonesian waterfall

:-)

Bamboo

These trees are worldwide famous at the gardens b/c of their uniqueness. However, I forget why or what they're called...so I just took a photo to show off their funkiness.

In the distance is the cafe where we ate.

Pretty pond

And then we ate at this cafe, where Fera and I ate and graded at on Mohammed's birthday, back in March.

Leland and Alison are getting married next month, so we're celebrating their engagement tonight at a nice restaurant in Bogor. I need to start packing, and then I'll go swimming, in hopes that I'll burn and will be able to bring home a tan of some sort to arctic-cold Indiana. :)

New photos of Alia and Cahaya! :)

Hey all, just thought you'd enjoy these updated photos of my cutie pies!!!

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This one's my favorite.


:)


Girls: "We look like little angels, but we alternate between being best friends and worst enemies."

Cahaya: "Alia likes to push me when I don't want to share my tricycle."

Alia: "I also push the tricycle."



Girls: "We love being silly! We love the camera, because we know we're SOO cute and beautiful!"



Miss Mandy: "What does a lion say?"

Cahaya: "Raaaawrrr!"

Alia: "Mau makan?" ("Do you want food?")




Hanging out with Miss Mandy and Big Bear



(She covered me up because I was yawning profusely and she thought I wanted to go to sleep. Sooo cute!)





Hanging out with Mr. Eric


Again, here's her strange fixation with her tongue...???