Everybody blog now

Look at me, I'm a bloggin' fool! One thing I've learned about living here in Indonesia (because in three weeks, I'm such an expert) is that it's the little things that set off homesickness. Today we went into Jakarta with the Hanson clan. Our first stop was Ratu Plaza, a nice-ish mall where almost the entire top floor is devoted to selling DVDs. Of course, these DVDs aren't exactly, uh, non-pirated copies. As morally opposed to that as I am or at least should be, that's the only kind you can get here-even from actual department stores. Basically you decide whether you want to pay the DVD pirates the full $15 or around $1.20. So that's how I rationalize buying them for about a buck apiece at Ratu-I'm actually contributing less.

Anyway, we now own the first three seasons of CSI (HOORAY!), the first two seasons of Alias, a season of the Simpsons and about a dozen other movies. It's kind of entertaining how big CSI is here...and I was afraid I'd miss out on it! Anyway, since I've digressed...homesickness. We went to TGIFriday's for dinner (really!) and as we were sitting there, a TV near us was tuned to ESPN and it was showing a golf tournament taking place in St. Louis. I about bawled into my ginormous mudslide. It was weird-I was sitting in an extremely American restaurant where yes, the waiters wear flair, drinking a huge American-invented Kahlua-based drink, watching ESPN and none of those things got to me. But the sight of green grass and rolling hills and TREES THAT DON'T GROW WEIRD FRUIT about sent me over the edge. It's always the little things. Katie said she had a pine-scented conditioner that made her miss home so much it hurt.

I'm also definitely missing fresh air. Jakarta is polluted to the point where I can't wear contacts if we're going to be there for more than an afternoon. Even Bogor is bad enough-if we go into either city, the water turns almost black when I wash my face at night. It's sad that the government is doing nothing to preserve the environment, but I guess it has bigger problems-like the fact that most people here are desperately below the poverty level.

I had my first genuinely happy to be here moment Friday night. We were at a barbecue at Murray and Astrida's home (he's the Headmaster of sorts) with all the other expat teachers. Murray, an Australian in his late 50s, is a phenominal storyteller. We were all sitting around on their gorgeous back porch ("verandah," as Astrida calls it), drinking red wine or Bintang (which is Indonesan for assy beer), and Murray was just telling one hilarious story after another. The more Bintang Murray has had, the more Australian he becomes. He actually said "fair dinkum." Anyhow, the whole atmosphere was so happy and everyone was having such a fantastic time. I just sort of stepped back for a second and thought about what a great memories we're making. We've met people from all over. We now have friends from Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Indonesia. Very cool. I'm glad we're here. I really am, despite what I may think most of the time so far.

The whole teaching thing is pretty scary still. Trying not to think about it too much, actually. SEVENTH GRADERS. Not only that, seventh grade humanities. Yeah, I'm such a history scholar. Ack. Despite the fact that I begin teaching Monday, I still haven't signed a contract. The school's stellar HR department (or, as we've taken to calling it, the Seventh Circle of Hell) completely screwed everything up for me so it may be a few weeks before I'm actually a real school employee. Everything's fixed now, so that's good.

Well, my first blog has turned into more of a babble. Everyone keep us in your prayers! Drink a glass of skim milk for me! (Milk here tastes like...words my mother shouldn't know I sometimes say.)