31 days and counting...but who's counting?
Well, it’s been a while so I figured one of us had better blog again so people knew we were still alive. Yes! Hi! We’re alive and, by my count, have only 31 days until we’re home for almost three weeks. Hooray!
This past week has been extra nice. Monday and Tuesday were national holidays for Idul Fitri. It signified the end of Ramadan and the end of fasting for Muslims. We had last Friday and all this week off from school, which was absolutely great. Originally Travis and I had looked into going to Singapore or Bali for part of the holiday, but travel prices were almost double what they normally are because this is the HUGE travel holiday for everyone in Indonesia. Also, paying for two round-trip tickets from Jakarta to Nebraska tends to put a bit of a dent in one’s bank account, so we opted to save some money and hang out at home. Pretty much all the other expats did the same, so we’ve had plenty of company.
Monday we head back to school, where we have two days of classes before the entire middle and senior school heads off to Character Building Camp, where the students are supposed to spend two and a half days becoming better people, but actually spend two and a half days not attending classes and hanging out on the beach-at least this is my understanding. I can’t complain, though, there will be some cool stuff happening and I know there are plenty of kids who actually will get a lot out of camp. Plus, we’re staying at a massive four-star resort on the beach. Not too shabby. My only real complaint is that we’ll be there Wednesday through Friday-right over Thanksgiving. The entire menu for all of camp is Indonesian. Don’t get me wrong, I like Indonesian food-some of it I like quite a lot. I’m just not exactly thrilled that on my first Thanksgiving without my family, I’ll be eating rice. It’ll be OK, though, because that Saturday all of us American expats are having a Thanksgiving dinner together. I’m bringing mashed potatoes, and we even have a real Butterball turkey, which we found at this glorious grocery store in Jakarta…more on that later.
I’m finally getting around to doing some grading, which is always an adventure. My 11th and 12th grade English classes are especially fun, as the majority of the kids in them are extremely bitter about having to take an English class. They’re in the national program, the same program used in all of the public schools here, which means no fancy diploma and most of their other classes are taught in Indonesian. The 11th graders, a particularly fabulous (NO) group of individuals, are especially bitter and jaded about us mean bule (whitey) teachers who come and “hate their mother tongue” and try to make them speak our language. Yes, exactly, I moved all the way across the globe to pick on a bunch of 16-year-olds.
Anyway, getting most of them to put effort into their work in English class is like trying to, I don’t know, teach a slug to ballroom dance. This makes grading their short stories extra fun-especially considering that in most national schools, plagiarism is absolutely accepted and these kids have no idea what “in your own words” means. I’m looking forward to explaining to one especially bright young man why writing a shortened version of Jurassic Park is not his own work, even if he changes character names and adds a special plot twist where the Power Rangers save the day. Though, I admit, it did make for some entertaining reading.
My other classes make up for the national program English classes, though. I love my seventh graders and 10th graders dearly. I never thought I’d hear myself say such a thing (or see myself type it, rather) but they’re so much fun. The one class of seventh graders who are new to the school can be frustrating sometimes. They’re all wonderful kids-really cute and very sweet-but some of them can barely speak English. This is frustrating for me because I don’t really know how to get things across to them, and it’s frustrating for them because most of them who can’t speak much English are SUPER smart kids who would be blazing through this stuff, if only they could understand it. Still, we’re making it through one day at a time, and they are all good kids.
I just wish our school would provide them with a better ESL program. We currently have virtually no ESL program, except a few teachers who help out during some class periods. This, I think, is really unfair to the kids and their parents. I don’t think the current attitude of, “Let them come to the school, they’ll eventually get it,” is doing any of the kids any favors. It’s not fair to them when they get terrible grades simply because they don’t understand the language, and the school figures, “Oh well, they’ll probably eventually learn, right?” I don’t think there is currently an English standard for getting admitted to the school, and since from grades K through 10, and then in IB program 11 and 12, the kids have to take all classes except Indonesian in English, that’s not really fair to them when there’s no ESL program to help them adjust. We finally did switch around 10th grade English so there’s an ESL class. I teach it, and it’s a lot of fun. Whether it’ll work or not, we’ll see! I think the school is finally recognizing the need for an ESL program, it’s now just a matter of putting it into place and getting ESL teachers hired. This school really IS a great school-95% of the students here are absolutely fantastic. I think if I were to go back and teach in the States ever (which no, I don’t plan to!) I’d have a hard time adjusting, since I think we’re kind of spoiled at this school. It really is a great place to teach…or in my case, to learn HOW to teach!
Oh yes…the grocery store I mentioned earlier. Last Thursday night, Travis and I went into Jakarta with one of our friends and her daughter. We took their car, which we’ll be sharing with them starting sometime soon. It’s a nice SUV, a Toyota Kijang, and a really nice family of four to share it with, along with a part-time driver. Anyway, so the four of us and the driver went in to go to Ranch Market, this medium-sized, VERY westernized grocery store. It was surreal to get dropped off at the door by the driver and have some fancy-schmancy guy in a suit open the car and store doors for us.
It’s crazy what we take for granted when we’re at home-little things we can just run to the store to pick up for relatively little money-deli cold cuts, certain kinds of cheese, frozen stuff, etc. We miss that stuff here A LOT, and when we go to a store that carries these things, it’s like Christmas! I’m not even ashamed to admit I got misty-eyed standing in the chip aisle, looking at bags of Lays, Doritos AND Fritos. It was so beautiful! At the end of this embarrassingly expensive shopping trip, we had luxuries such as sour cream, cheddar cheese, nacho cheese Doritos, Fritos, black olives, dill pickles, real sliced deli turkey breast, French onion dip mix and Kool-Aid. These are things you can find in even the teensiest of U.S. grocery stores-and most things you could even find in a big convenience store! But here, they’re small wonders to find. I’ve never in my life been so excited about the fact that I had a turkey sandwich and Fritos for lunch. With a pickle on the side, no less! I never thought I’d almost cry with the sheer glee of finding a packet of Kool-Aid, but I have to admit, it’s kind of fun that the little stuff is such big stuff here. Needless to say, my list of things to eat while I’m at home is growing rapidly!
This past week has been extra nice. Monday and Tuesday were national holidays for Idul Fitri. It signified the end of Ramadan and the end of fasting for Muslims. We had last Friday and all this week off from school, which was absolutely great. Originally Travis and I had looked into going to Singapore or Bali for part of the holiday, but travel prices were almost double what they normally are because this is the HUGE travel holiday for everyone in Indonesia. Also, paying for two round-trip tickets from Jakarta to Nebraska tends to put a bit of a dent in one’s bank account, so we opted to save some money and hang out at home. Pretty much all the other expats did the same, so we’ve had plenty of company.
Monday we head back to school, where we have two days of classes before the entire middle and senior school heads off to Character Building Camp, where the students are supposed to spend two and a half days becoming better people, but actually spend two and a half days not attending classes and hanging out on the beach-at least this is my understanding. I can’t complain, though, there will be some cool stuff happening and I know there are plenty of kids who actually will get a lot out of camp. Plus, we’re staying at a massive four-star resort on the beach. Not too shabby. My only real complaint is that we’ll be there Wednesday through Friday-right over Thanksgiving. The entire menu for all of camp is Indonesian. Don’t get me wrong, I like Indonesian food-some of it I like quite a lot. I’m just not exactly thrilled that on my first Thanksgiving without my family, I’ll be eating rice. It’ll be OK, though, because that Saturday all of us American expats are having a Thanksgiving dinner together. I’m bringing mashed potatoes, and we even have a real Butterball turkey, which we found at this glorious grocery store in Jakarta…more on that later.
I’m finally getting around to doing some grading, which is always an adventure. My 11th and 12th grade English classes are especially fun, as the majority of the kids in them are extremely bitter about having to take an English class. They’re in the national program, the same program used in all of the public schools here, which means no fancy diploma and most of their other classes are taught in Indonesian. The 11th graders, a particularly fabulous (NO) group of individuals, are especially bitter and jaded about us mean bule (whitey) teachers who come and “hate their mother tongue” and try to make them speak our language. Yes, exactly, I moved all the way across the globe to pick on a bunch of 16-year-olds.
Anyway, getting most of them to put effort into their work in English class is like trying to, I don’t know, teach a slug to ballroom dance. This makes grading their short stories extra fun-especially considering that in most national schools, plagiarism is absolutely accepted and these kids have no idea what “in your own words” means. I’m looking forward to explaining to one especially bright young man why writing a shortened version of Jurassic Park is not his own work, even if he changes character names and adds a special plot twist where the Power Rangers save the day. Though, I admit, it did make for some entertaining reading.
My other classes make up for the national program English classes, though. I love my seventh graders and 10th graders dearly. I never thought I’d hear myself say such a thing (or see myself type it, rather) but they’re so much fun. The one class of seventh graders who are new to the school can be frustrating sometimes. They’re all wonderful kids-really cute and very sweet-but some of them can barely speak English. This is frustrating for me because I don’t really know how to get things across to them, and it’s frustrating for them because most of them who can’t speak much English are SUPER smart kids who would be blazing through this stuff, if only they could understand it. Still, we’re making it through one day at a time, and they are all good kids.
I just wish our school would provide them with a better ESL program. We currently have virtually no ESL program, except a few teachers who help out during some class periods. This, I think, is really unfair to the kids and their parents. I don’t think the current attitude of, “Let them come to the school, they’ll eventually get it,” is doing any of the kids any favors. It’s not fair to them when they get terrible grades simply because they don’t understand the language, and the school figures, “Oh well, they’ll probably eventually learn, right?” I don’t think there is currently an English standard for getting admitted to the school, and since from grades K through 10, and then in IB program 11 and 12, the kids have to take all classes except Indonesian in English, that’s not really fair to them when there’s no ESL program to help them adjust. We finally did switch around 10th grade English so there’s an ESL class. I teach it, and it’s a lot of fun. Whether it’ll work or not, we’ll see! I think the school is finally recognizing the need for an ESL program, it’s now just a matter of putting it into place and getting ESL teachers hired. This school really IS a great school-95% of the students here are absolutely fantastic. I think if I were to go back and teach in the States ever (which no, I don’t plan to!) I’d have a hard time adjusting, since I think we’re kind of spoiled at this school. It really is a great place to teach…or in my case, to learn HOW to teach!
Oh yes…the grocery store I mentioned earlier. Last Thursday night, Travis and I went into Jakarta with one of our friends and her daughter. We took their car, which we’ll be sharing with them starting sometime soon. It’s a nice SUV, a Toyota Kijang, and a really nice family of four to share it with, along with a part-time driver. Anyway, so the four of us and the driver went in to go to Ranch Market, this medium-sized, VERY westernized grocery store. It was surreal to get dropped off at the door by the driver and have some fancy-schmancy guy in a suit open the car and store doors for us.
It’s crazy what we take for granted when we’re at home-little things we can just run to the store to pick up for relatively little money-deli cold cuts, certain kinds of cheese, frozen stuff, etc. We miss that stuff here A LOT, and when we go to a store that carries these things, it’s like Christmas! I’m not even ashamed to admit I got misty-eyed standing in the chip aisle, looking at bags of Lays, Doritos AND Fritos. It was so beautiful! At the end of this embarrassingly expensive shopping trip, we had luxuries such as sour cream, cheddar cheese, nacho cheese Doritos, Fritos, black olives, dill pickles, real sliced deli turkey breast, French onion dip mix and Kool-Aid. These are things you can find in even the teensiest of U.S. grocery stores-and most things you could even find in a big convenience store! But here, they’re small wonders to find. I’ve never in my life been so excited about the fact that I had a turkey sandwich and Fritos for lunch. With a pickle on the side, no less! I never thought I’d almost cry with the sheer glee of finding a packet of Kool-Aid, but I have to admit, it’s kind of fun that the little stuff is such big stuff here. Needless to say, my list of things to eat while I’m at home is growing rapidly!
posted by Erin @ 11:30 PM
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