iluminación orgánica

On Friday, I went to pick up my 2nd grade students from music class and while walking back to the classroom; my students saw a very large, very fuzzy, yellow caterpillar.  Now, when I was a kid I would have picked it up, petted it, and probably would have wanted to keep it as a pet.  Not these students.  First one of the boys screamed and three others followed suit.  Another braver boy jumped up and stomped on it, which created a rather disgusting gooey sound from the caterpillar’s insides exploding.  I was appalled!  The beautiful fluffy caterpillar that was minding his own business is now dead!  I proceeded to lecture my kids about not being able to control themselves around bugs, etc, etc...  It turns out that those fluffy caterpillars burn you when you touch them.  You get an extremely bad rash for about a week.  Who knew?

School started on Tuesday and was a blast, although a bit draining.  My students are great fun!  All but three of them have very outgoing personalities which makes for a lively classroom.  It also has sucked all the energy out of me by the end of each day.  After assigning every activity, I believe I get about 50 questions.  hehe.  Anyone who has ever taught would probably say that this is normal for the beginning of the year.  Luckily, there is such thing as coffee and tea which turns into instant energy.  hehe.  I really have enjoyed teaching each day this week!  The parents I have met also have seemed to be very supportive which is extremely encouraging.

After school today the elementary principal and my roommates went to Koinonia (an awesome coffee shop down the street - for you people from the burg, it reminds me of Java) and relaxed with our drinks.  It felt so great to take a break from school and start the long weekend.  Sunday is Indonesia's Independence Day so we don't have school on Monday.

For some of the family that knows me rather well they may be surprised to hear that I wake up about 6:30 every morning here (or earlier).  At first I thought it was jet lag, but after two weeks I highly doubt it.  It is surprisingly nice to be up before everyone else in the house (although when I step outside there is a bustle of activity going on everywhere).  I actually have come to enjoy my mornings.  They are extremely peaceful (I get the piano all to myself at the school!).  

Also, yesterday, Leah and I picked up our new roommate from the airport, Mari.  She's very petite and so sweet!  We ended up talking to her for a quite a while.   Hopefully, we didn't bother her too much since she was probably experiencing pretty strong jet lag, but someone had to help her stay awake so that she didn't go to bed at 3:00 in the afternoon.  hehe.

School starts in 2 days, and I think I'm about ready, although, it doesn't feel as though I am.  I will have 7 students 3 Indonesians, 3 Koreans, and 1 from the UK.  I can't wait to meet them!

Today, a group of teachers (me included) took a bus to Solo to visit an indoor waterpark.  It took about 2 hours to get there and the park was a blast, but on the way home I saw a bit of how the Indo government works.  We were stopped by a motorcycle policeman and told that the road we were taking (a four lane highway) did not allow buses anymore.  So we were fined (or gave money to the policeman) and we turned down a smaller street taking a different route.   I guess that in Indo it is quite normal to create rules in order to charge people breaking them who know nothing of these new rules.  This has not been the first episode of this I have observed either.  This week a man that works at the school went to renew his motorcycle license (motorcycle is the only way to get around in many places) and was told that foreigners were not allowed to have a motorcycle license anymore.  They also told him that this was a new rule for all of Indo.  The man then called people in Jakarta about this and they had never heard of such a rule, yet he is still unable to get a new license.  Many of those who work at Mountainview and the language school use motorcycle transportation, so as you can guess it is a bit frustrating that it is now illegal to drive their cycles.

If you want to see pictures, you can through my flickr account.  It takes too long to load them all to tabulas and facebook with the server I am using.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29081373@N03/