Halo... Apakabar

Hey All,

So I have been working as a teacher for one month now, which has flown by. It’s crazy how quick life goes here, surprisingly quicker than London, but of course the quality of life is very much different.

So what have I achieved after one month!?

• To confidently (well sometimes) ride a bike on the roads of Jogja.
• To drive a scooter
• Lots of new words in Indonesian
• Confidently teach a class full of 7,8,9 year olds and 17,18,19 year olds.

I love it over here, but of course there is that old problem of loneliness that creeps into my life sometimes, as I don’t speak the lingo yet, it’s sometimes a little hard to immerse myself into the whole culture here, and my lack of confidence when I speak Indonesian hinders me somewhat, I am scared that people are going to hear me speak Indonesia and laugh in my face, at my pronunciations of the words, so here comes the Indonesian lessons…. My friend Eric has kindly volunteered to spend sometime with me to teach me the lingo, and my lovely boyfriend has also upped the ante on the lessons- So maybe in 3 months I will be sounding a little better.. Of course there is also the problem of transport, now if you have been to Indonesia, you will know that you need transport, buses simply do not exist (well they do, but with no structure or timetable) so to get around you need either a scooter or car, my bike is only for getting to work, I simply cannot cycle everywhere its not possible, for me anyway.

So right now if my boyfriend or my friends are not with me I am stranded in my house… Although I do love my house I don’t really want to be there all the time.

So the solution to this little loneliness problem is………… speak Indonesian and get a scooter- my two things to work on for the next few months, hopefully this will allow me to make friends.

So my boyfriend has just joined this new band, it’s a Brit pop band stylee, and they have asked me to be a singer in the band, now I have always harboured an ambition to sing in a band, even dreamt about having a sell out tour and people chanting my name everywhere I go. So yeah I would like to do it, but my boyfriends having none of it, doesn’t want me there cramping his style, as the band is his thing- in his words “ You are too good for this band” HA HA….. so in revenge I am making my own band… anyone want to join, I have spaces for guitarist, bass player, drummer, that’s basically the whole band…. Oh Dear it’s not going to work, my dreams of been a rock and roll star are over. Although I do still have a piece in this band, as they are currently in the studio rocking out to my song that I wrote (my boyfriend did try to pass it off as his own song), it’s a song about Fate. It sounds pretty cool, so from now on just call me “ The songwriter”

The men in Indonesia, can be a little in your face here, I get so much attention, I should charge people 1000Rupiah every time they look at me. Now this is NOT because I am a beautiful goddess, it’s because I am female and white. Which is problematic, as I can’t stop being white or a female. It’s ok when I walk down the street if people want to stare or make lewd comments I can somehow take it, but when I am already wobbling on my bike, to have a scooter honk and drive right by me, or even start speaking to me is a little distracting to say the least. Not just distracting though, it’s potentially dangerous for me as I am no award winning bike rider so I could easily fall off my bike or worse still hit the offending scooter. So I have been thinking of ways to make myself look less “British and Womanly”

• Eat 40 doughnuts a day, get really fat and look so hideously unattractive, causing pain to the eyes if you look at me.
• Wear a full helmet and facemask when riding the bike, or even when walking down the street.
• Paint my body neon orange; making me so bright people can’t see me.
• Paint my body brown everyday and shave all my hair off which will make me look like a man.
• Go into Hibernation in the day and only come out at night.

I am opting for the 40 doughnut a day one, they do the most amazing doughnuts here in a place called J.co… yummy…

I just want to show off my Indonesian learning( which is minimal)

Well enough ranting,miss everyone.

xx