Final round of updated house photos!

Hey all,

Here are some updated photos of my house. I'm pretty much done with it as far as decorating, so I won't post any more again any time soon, unless something drastic happens to my house...

I bought some little dishes made out of coconut from a store at the mall a few days ago. They're shaped like flowers, but they remind me of leaves in the fall back home, so right now, they're serving as decorative therapy for me. :-P

My eating areas

(a.k.a. the area formerly known as the dirt that used to be breeding ground for cockroaches)

My living room, with added furniture, thanks to Lis. She didn't want furniture in her living room, so I get to borrow hers. That just means more seating for my wild parties! :)

This is my Indian/Chinese/Thai bedroom. (Indian wraps covering bookshelves in the next photo; Chinese pillowcases from Singapore; Thai photos on the walls)

The camera flash here doesn't do my bedroom justice; it makes my walls look bubble gum pink. I can assure you they are NOT! They'd make me nauseous.

The wall color is still slightly too dark, but closer than in the first photo.

This is my art studio. I'm currently painting canvases with Bible verses on them to go on the walls to add more red, gold, brown, and black color in this room. It's also a multicultural room-- more Chinese pillowcases from Singapore...

...with French doors! I love opening the doors in the evenings when it's cooler, right before the sunsets, and even during thunderstorms. It's a great feeling. I have to keep an eye open when I'm in other rooms, though, to make sure cats don't come creeping into my house!

Selamat Idul Fitri!

Today was Idul Fitri. For Muslims, this means this is the time to travel away from Jakarta to go to their hometowns, cram tons of people into homes, verbally confess and forgive each other, and eat all nightlong to break their fasts. For me/non-Muslims, this means easy, breezy traveling into Jakarta for the next few days!
I got home several hours ago from being at the beach resort called Ocean Queen. I went there last year with the Churches during Idul Fitri, but this year, we had most of the expat teachers go along, too. We all crammed into 2 bungalow huts and had a BLAST!
Here are a few photos of our time there...

Meet the Skeens family-Jared, Becky, and Cara Grace. They've spent the last 6 years living and teaching in Guam. They adopted Cara from China about 4 years ago and love traveling the world. Obviously! Jared teaches science at SPH, and Becky will, hopefully, get a teaching job there when Cara enters Kindergarten next year.

Remember Cahaya from last year's posts? She's now 3 years old, slightly bigger, and much more talkative/slightly sassy.

She and her parents joined us at Ocean Queen, and she and Cara played (fairly well) together.

Water buddies!

The girls were so cute and played together well, for the most part, but they had a problem with sharing, including sharing Miss Mandy during playtime in the pool.

This photo actually turned out well, because they were playing "Tug-of-War/kiss Miss Mandy".

Cara was supposed to be "fixing" my hair, but it looks like she's baptizing me instead! Haha!

Enjoy the random photos and commentaries!

I really love this photo! The colors are so beautiful because of the sunset's rays!

A close-up of a fishing boat.

Yoshie and Fera came with us. This photo is significant because I'm wearing a green tank top. There's a legend at Ocean Queen that the sea goddess, or queen, will pull in and drown anyone who wears green to the beach, so I did it just to defy the legend. The locals really believe this, so they bring food and drink to the beach to appease the goddess. How sad.

This is how the Ocean Queen workers got coconuts for people. They climbed a long, scary-looking bamboo ladder, scaled the rest of the tree, wrapped a red cord around a bunch of coconuts...

...and then they cut them down as a group. That's very considerate of them, since the coconut trees were shading the swimming pool.

Eating fresh coconut and drinking watery coconut milk with Christine and Eric.

(See my sunburned face? It's now a nice, freckly tan instead of a sunburn! Yay!)

David and Kris, relaxing in a cabana. When they weren't splashing around in the ocean like cute, little teenagers, they were reading books here. (They're still the coolest old people I've ever met!)

This is an unofficial group shot when someone in the group-NOT me-claimed he/she saw dolphins in the ocean. We couldn't see them, though. Too bad! That would've been the highlight of my beach experience, for sure!

Meet Elise. She's originally from Minnesota and is one of the three new English teachers at SPH this year. She's doing a great job teaching, especially considering she just graduated from college and this is her first full-time teaching experience. (!!!) She's also into eating wayyy healthy, organic foods, and she's ardently trying to get me to enjoy her flax seed pancakes that she likes...it's not working, though...

Dancing with Yoshie in the waves!

Here we are with our innovative sand...fort... creation...thing...

This is Diane. Diane and her husband, Scott, are new to SPH, but they're not new to Indonesia. Scott was born and raised on the island of Kalimantan, and they raised their 4 sons there and on Java over the past several years. They lived in Michigan for awhile, too.

Diane also teaches English with me. (She's drop-dead hilarious, too!) :)

Cara made sand angels! Haha!

I don't think she's ever experienced snow before.

Isn't she cuuuuute????

Before our trip, Cara Grace and I had made a deal with each other: I was going to help Mommy bury Cara, and then they would bury me.

The other expats found out about this and didn't believe I was adventuresome enough to allow people to bury me in the sand. (I wonder why they doubt my bravery?? Hmm...) They all wanted to help Cara/take photos.

Somehow, this deal began in reverse, and then Cara ran away from Mommy and me, so she never fulfilled her end of the deal.

Oh well.

This is Zeek. Zeek is in 11th grade at SPH and is Scott and Diane's youngest son.

He's very skilled in digging in the sand and also in digging graves. He was the only one who actually volunteered to help Cara bury me. :-P

Cara discovered that it takes a lot of help-and sand- to bury Miss Mandy.

Hmm, not sure if I still want to do this or not...!

They did it!

Aaahhh, freedom from the sand!

(This was taken on the last full day of being at the beach. You can tell this from my very red face...)

Here's a friendly crab Zeek found while digging through the sand. I was glad he had found it BEFORE I was buried, because he was much bigger than he looks in this photo, and my burial could've been very painful.

We threw him back into the ocean and didn't see him for the rest of the vacation, thankfully.

Becky and Diane, getting massages in the cabana. On the beach. At sunset. For five bucks. Life doesn't get much more relaxing than that!

Julia and Cahaya, dancing on the beach.

Indonesia Day celebrations, part 2

As promised, here are the photos of how we celebrated Indonesia Day again. This time around, the students were divided by the various island regions of Indonesia and were going to present information about their islands that they'd learned in several classes.

They were supposed to dress in either traditional or modern Indonesian costumes, and teachers were, too. I rented a costume, which you can see later on here.

Check out the photos!

Here are my homeroom kids, waiting in line to get into the gym for the ceremony.

































This is the gong that we use annually for the indoor Indonesia Day celebration festivities. While incredibly cool-looking, it's definitely annoying to be around when your island booth is stationed RIGHT BESIDE IT...*ahem*

Here's Yulias, showing his traditional attire pride.

Meet Pak Todung.

This little man is one of my favorite teachers at SPH. He and I also teach 11th graders under the same national program, so he was one of my English mentors last year.

We both won the costume contest for best-dressed teachers, which I didn't even know we had. (I'm pretty sure he was cross-dressing, but I'm not sure why...I didn't ask...)

The prize was very non-Indonesian- Swiss chocolate! That was more than fine with me!

No school event is ever complete without a photo with Fera!

Something should be said about the purple belt. It matched the purple wrap/skirt that I was wearing, which didn't match my kabaya at all. I don't really understand why I had to wear the purple belt over the unmatching red kabaya, b/c it never stayed in one place on me. I look either ok or super fat in these photos. I would've gotten rid of the dumb belt, but the other teachers told me I should keep it on...odd...

Pretty teachers: Ibu Ita (vice principal), Tisa, Lisa, Detty, and Tiwi

With Lisa, Stela and Eric

Pretty girls!

Kendisha, Miss Lisa, Sienny, and Danila

With Mandy, my little homeroom comadre b/c of our name, and Ibu Kiky

Ibu Kiky is student teaching here from a Christian university. She's also volunteered to help me with the play this year. YAY! :-D

Some funny drama students of mine: Sara, Nadia, Darren, Julia, and Irene

Pretty girls

Maria and Tika

Showing off my pretty kabaya :)

Here's all of my headgear, before I took it off and was freed from the pain of it all...

(I had 2 things in my hair that looked gold, foily bird feathers. I'm not sure what they represent, but they're Balinese. They were on the end of these long, metal stick things that occasionally grazed my scalp throughout the day.)

Here were the Balinese earrings I wore. Yes, yes, they were very heavy and painful. And, yes, I would definitely count them as weapons!

Here's a close-up view of the edges of my kabaya and my skirt. The skirt was beautiful and handmade! It was also very heavy, hot, scratchy, and made me feel like I was wearing a rug. (A pretty rug.)