Life's a Beach....
...and I live near one!! I figured I'd take the time to write my first blog entry in a while on what Erin & I did this past weekend. We had a three day weekend because there was no school on Monday since it was election day. So while all Indonesians over the age of 17 were off being good citizens, Erin, me, Kale, Katie, and 10 other expatriates and their families booked some cottages at the Ocean Queen Resort in Pelabuhan Ratu, a bay in South Java.
Pelabuhan Ratu literally means Queen of the Harbor, a folk tale character I learned all about from my students. "Oh, Mr. Travis, you can't wear green or yellow because those are Nyi Roro Kidul's (that's her name) favorite colors and she will be jealous!" Hmm. Well, this poses a problem since I own two pairs of swimming shorts; one yellow, one green. Oh well. I wore them and I survived! Although I did get my butt kicked by the ocean a couple of times. Pelabuhan Ratu isn't known for calm waters. The ocean can be a bit rough and while you're trying to swim in it, it's trying to kick you out. By the third day I did finally get the hang of it, so the final score for the weekend was Ocean 2, Travis 1.
Basically though, I spent the majority of the weekend hanging out in our cabana on the beach, swimming in the pool, napping in the cabana, getting a massage in the cabana, swimming in the pool, drinking some wine, and hanging out on the beach. All in all, it was a pretty stressful weekend. The cabins were really cool. They had walls that were woven out of some sort of reeds, a porch made of bamboo, bamboo furniture, a wall of doors that could be opened up facing the beach, and a house guy who came around to do shopping for us and grilled us some steak and fresh lobster and fish that were caught earlier that day. Erin & I really enjoyed it. Our only complaint was that the rooms weren't air conditioned. They had ceiling fans, so it didn't get terribly hot at night, but the mozzies were terrible (that's mosquitos by the way..). We both had so many bug bites by the end of the weekend it was crazy.
We're really looking forward to our first trip to Bali, coming up in less than two weeks. It turns out there's a place very similar to the Ocean Queen, only the rooms are a little nicer and air conditioned, and the ocean's much calmer. We can't wait.
The quarter's nearing an end and I'm learning the fun of entering a Satisfactory/Non-Satisfactory grade for my students. All 200-some of them. It really doesn't make me look forward to the end of the semester when I have to do report cards for all of them, and make comments on each one! One thing that's kind of cool is that this is all done on computer. The student's report cards are all saved in the school's network and we just have to log on and enter grades in each student's file, once they're all finished, they just print them out and send them home. I have no idea if that's how it's done other places, but I thought it was kinda cool.
So that's where things are for me right now. I'm sorry I haven't been updating as often as Erin has been, and hopefully I can start getting better about that. It's cool to see all the comments and stuff people have left on the blog, and to see how many people have looked at it, over 300! Anyway, I've got a little more planning to do for class tomorrow, so I suppose I'd better get my butt in gear, I've wasted enough time! :)
Pelabuhan Ratu literally means Queen of the Harbor, a folk tale character I learned all about from my students. "Oh, Mr. Travis, you can't wear green or yellow because those are Nyi Roro Kidul's (that's her name) favorite colors and she will be jealous!" Hmm. Well, this poses a problem since I own two pairs of swimming shorts; one yellow, one green. Oh well. I wore them and I survived! Although I did get my butt kicked by the ocean a couple of times. Pelabuhan Ratu isn't known for calm waters. The ocean can be a bit rough and while you're trying to swim in it, it's trying to kick you out. By the third day I did finally get the hang of it, so the final score for the weekend was Ocean 2, Travis 1.
Basically though, I spent the majority of the weekend hanging out in our cabana on the beach, swimming in the pool, napping in the cabana, getting a massage in the cabana, swimming in the pool, drinking some wine, and hanging out on the beach. All in all, it was a pretty stressful weekend. The cabins were really cool. They had walls that were woven out of some sort of reeds, a porch made of bamboo, bamboo furniture, a wall of doors that could be opened up facing the beach, and a house guy who came around to do shopping for us and grilled us some steak and fresh lobster and fish that were caught earlier that day. Erin & I really enjoyed it. Our only complaint was that the rooms weren't air conditioned. They had ceiling fans, so it didn't get terribly hot at night, but the mozzies were terrible (that's mosquitos by the way..). We both had so many bug bites by the end of the weekend it was crazy.
We're really looking forward to our first trip to Bali, coming up in less than two weeks. It turns out there's a place very similar to the Ocean Queen, only the rooms are a little nicer and air conditioned, and the ocean's much calmer. We can't wait.
The quarter's nearing an end and I'm learning the fun of entering a Satisfactory/Non-Satisfactory grade for my students. All 200-some of them. It really doesn't make me look forward to the end of the semester when I have to do report cards for all of them, and make comments on each one! One thing that's kind of cool is that this is all done on computer. The student's report cards are all saved in the school's network and we just have to log on and enter grades in each student's file, once they're all finished, they just print them out and send them home. I have no idea if that's how it's done other places, but I thought it was kinda cool.
So that's where things are for me right now. I'm sorry I haven't been updating as often as Erin has been, and hopefully I can start getting better about that. It's cool to see all the comments and stuff people have left on the blog, and to see how many people have looked at it, over 300! Anyway, I've got a little more planning to do for class tomorrow, so I suppose I'd better get my butt in gear, I've wasted enough time! :)
posted by Travis @ 7:51 AM
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