Ironed undies and all that jazz

I don't know that I'll ever get used to having a maid. I know, I know. That sounds ridiculous. But it's true. Our maid, Rini, is very nice-or at least she seems to be. We haven't talked much, mostly because she gets here right before we leave in the morning and leaves right when we get back. Oh yeah, and we speak different languages. But it's odd to think that there's someone in my house all day long while I'm not there, a stranger we have to trust pretty much all of our belongings to.

It is nice, I will admit that. We just leave the dishes we used to make dinner. Pots and pans...no worries. Our stuff is always picked up and neatly put away...and being married to Travis, that's a good thing. :) Also, our laundry is done every day. Every day we come home to find a stack of neatly pressed clothes and linens. Notice I said neatly pressed. It is. All of it. Socks are ironed. Underwear-underwear!-is ironed. Travis's boxer shorts have a nice crease ironed into the legs, because we all know how socially unacceptable it is to go about with unironed boxers. Even our towels, I believe, are ironed. I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that someone, other than myself, spends enough time with my underwear to actually iron them. Hmmm.

Anyway, things are fine-ish. It's Thursday afternoon, which means tomorrow is (TA-DAA!) Friday, and then it's the weekend. Until this week, I never realized that teachers probably actually like weekends and holidays better than students. Or, for that matter, that teachers are sometimes just as anxious for class to get over as students are. Funny.

So Monday, my first day in the classroom, was HORRIBLE. I'm not even kidding. I managed to neither cry nor vomit, however, at least until I got home. Well, I never got sick, but I did come home and cry for approximately three hours straight. I wrote a pathetic email to a few people, cried some more, took some Tylenol PM and fell into a drug-induced sleep.

Tuesday, the alarm went of and I burst into tears. Looking back, I'm surprised I even got out of bed. The day wasn't too awful, though, and I managed to make it through. Wednesday was actually OK. I didn't cry at all, except for when Travis and I got a copy of Concordia's Broadcaster in the mail. I was fine until I opened it and saw a post-it note Nate Domsch wrote on, telling us hi and stuff. Waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.....homesick city. But I was OK. Today, Thursday, I HAD A GOOD DAY. I seriously did. I gave out two detentions! Homeroom classes meet for 10 minutes in the morning and then five minutes after the last class of the day. Two of the little darlings didn't show up for Wednesday's shorter homeroom. Thus, detentions. I'm pretty sure the class thinks I'm mean, but I've managed to prove to them I won't take their crap. It feels pretty good, and the kids I gave detentions to were respectful to me afterward. Strange!

So far, my favorite classes are the ones with my seventh graders (I know, I know, crazy) and my 10th grade English class. I love 'em. Here, the seventh graders are so wonderful. They're all so tiny and cute. They're very sweet kids. The students here, even the little crapheads, say thank you as they leave the room. They don't even move from their desks until I open the door and say they can go. Some of them, mostly the newer students, won't even come into the room until I tell them to. They'll just stand near the doorway and look at me, and even if I'm standing at the door talking to them, they won't come in unless I say to. Very interesting.

OK, enough blogging for now. I'm off to Rudi Salon, the fabulous place here in Sentul where you can get an hour-long massage for 20,000 rupiah...approximately US$2.25. Come visit me! The thousand-some dollar plane ticket is well worth the spa prices, right?! Plus, as an added bonus, if you stay with us, you'll get your underwear ironed for free.