There's a light at the end of the tunnel
Let's just hope it's not that of an oncoming train! Two weeks left of school! I'm excited for a myriad of reasons. One, that means I completed my first semester of teaching and am still holding on to my sanity...bare threads of it, but it's there! Two, it means we get to come home-even if it is for three short weeks, it doesn't matter. It's home. Family, friends, dog, the list goes on and on. (Trust me, it does-the list is currently two pages, front and back, of one of my old reporter's notebooks.) Three, after two weeks, we get three weeks off! Teachers like vacations more than students.
This past week went so fast, and the weekend is speeding along as well. We spent all day today in Jakarta at these two huge malls that are side by side. Ratu Plaza is the mall we frequent the most. Ratu means queen, and though Ratu Plaza's beauty has long since faded, she's still a stately lady whose upper floor boasts the biggest DVD selection in Java and whose ground level features an Outback Steakhouse. (I should write brochures for a living.) Yay, Ranch dressing! It's fun to take Australians there and watch them get annoyed by insipid signs on the wall proclaiming "Good Tucker!" and the like.
Right next to Ratu is Plaza Senayan which is, for lack of a better term, fancy-schmancy. The top level has a big food court with a Wendy's and a Raffle's (Indonesian Arby's, the same thing sans ham) and a nice movie theatre. The ground floor has stores I'd have to sell kidneys to shop in, like Prada, Burberry, Cartier and Bulgari. Nice. It's fun to wander into those stores, though, because people here assume that white=wealthy, so salespeople think I can actually afford the $500 pair of Manolos I'm drooling over. Right...uh, does Payless carry these in a 9? Answer: no, Indonesians laugh when I look at shoes here because compared to most Indonesian women, my feet are canoes. Anyway.
The middle levels of Senayan have some nice music and book stores, however, so we had a good time. I found U2's new CD, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, so I was pleased. I'm listening to it right now, and I can say already that I agree with Rolling Stone's review-four out of four stars.
Senayan also has a huge department store, Sogo, that has about six levels and is somewhere between a Dillard's and Bloomingdale's. It also has a Starbucks, so I can't complain. One thing I'm really going to miss here when we leave is the malls. I think it's an Asian big city thing, to have a lot of massive, massive malls everywhere. Our fellow expats with broader travel experience say Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur are the same way. We hope to find out for ourselves before we leave here for good.
Anyhow, we finished up all of our Christmas shopping today, bought some books and some magazines for our plane trip home (all 30ish hours of it) and ate some good food. Mom-I found the issue of People I wanted so don't worry about looking for one for me! Terry-we weren't able to get you any PlayStation games, because Kale said games from here won't play on American PlayStations. DVDs will work, though, as will CDs!
Speaking of DVDs, Travis and I have become absolute TV series DVD junkies. We'll probably just not be able to handle it when we get home and have to watch television with commercials. We don't have cable here yet, we keep forgetting to get around to filling out the form, so we buy TV shows on DVD and watch those. So far we've gone through all four seasons of my personal favorite, CSI, all six seasons of Sex and the City, three seasons of Alias, three seasons of the Sopranos, a few seasons of The Simpsons and are just now working our way through the fourth season of our new obsession, West Wing. If you've never watched that show, you SHOULD. It's such a great show.
Anyway, sorry we've been bad about blogging often. This is an exceedingly busy time of year. Grades are due next week, and then we expats get to do the fun job of proofreading all of the report cards. Whee! The last week of school is mostly dinking around, from what I gather, and then we're off! For those of you who might want to see us (even if it's just to see if we brought you a present) we'll be in Norfolk from Dec. 19 to Dec. 25, in the Lincoln/Seward area Dec. 25 to Jan. 3, and back in Norfolk again from Jan. 3 to Jan. 6. Pray for nice weather on the 19th!!!! Our travel itinerary has us in nice warmish places until we get to Omaha, so pray that it isn't stormy and snowy there until AFTER we land. Email us or something if you want to see us while we're home! Chances are, if you're reading this, we want to see you! See you VERY soon!!! (See how excited I am?! I'm ending all of my sentences with lots of exclamation points!!! Just like my students do!!! Hooray!!!)
This past week went so fast, and the weekend is speeding along as well. We spent all day today in Jakarta at these two huge malls that are side by side. Ratu Plaza is the mall we frequent the most. Ratu means queen, and though Ratu Plaza's beauty has long since faded, she's still a stately lady whose upper floor boasts the biggest DVD selection in Java and whose ground level features an Outback Steakhouse. (I should write brochures for a living.) Yay, Ranch dressing! It's fun to take Australians there and watch them get annoyed by insipid signs on the wall proclaiming "Good Tucker!" and the like.
Right next to Ratu is Plaza Senayan which is, for lack of a better term, fancy-schmancy. The top level has a big food court with a Wendy's and a Raffle's (Indonesian Arby's, the same thing sans ham) and a nice movie theatre. The ground floor has stores I'd have to sell kidneys to shop in, like Prada, Burberry, Cartier and Bulgari. Nice. It's fun to wander into those stores, though, because people here assume that white=wealthy, so salespeople think I can actually afford the $500 pair of Manolos I'm drooling over. Right...uh, does Payless carry these in a 9? Answer: no, Indonesians laugh when I look at shoes here because compared to most Indonesian women, my feet are canoes. Anyway.
The middle levels of Senayan have some nice music and book stores, however, so we had a good time. I found U2's new CD, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, so I was pleased. I'm listening to it right now, and I can say already that I agree with Rolling Stone's review-four out of four stars.
Senayan also has a huge department store, Sogo, that has about six levels and is somewhere between a Dillard's and Bloomingdale's. It also has a Starbucks, so I can't complain. One thing I'm really going to miss here when we leave is the malls. I think it's an Asian big city thing, to have a lot of massive, massive malls everywhere. Our fellow expats with broader travel experience say Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur are the same way. We hope to find out for ourselves before we leave here for good.
Anyhow, we finished up all of our Christmas shopping today, bought some books and some magazines for our plane trip home (all 30ish hours of it) and ate some good food. Mom-I found the issue of People I wanted so don't worry about looking for one for me! Terry-we weren't able to get you any PlayStation games, because Kale said games from here won't play on American PlayStations. DVDs will work, though, as will CDs!
Speaking of DVDs, Travis and I have become absolute TV series DVD junkies. We'll probably just not be able to handle it when we get home and have to watch television with commercials. We don't have cable here yet, we keep forgetting to get around to filling out the form, so we buy TV shows on DVD and watch those. So far we've gone through all four seasons of my personal favorite, CSI, all six seasons of Sex and the City, three seasons of Alias, three seasons of the Sopranos, a few seasons of The Simpsons and are just now working our way through the fourth season of our new obsession, West Wing. If you've never watched that show, you SHOULD. It's such a great show.
Anyway, sorry we've been bad about blogging often. This is an exceedingly busy time of year. Grades are due next week, and then we expats get to do the fun job of proofreading all of the report cards. Whee! The last week of school is mostly dinking around, from what I gather, and then we're off! For those of you who might want to see us (even if it's just to see if we brought you a present) we'll be in Norfolk from Dec. 19 to Dec. 25, in the Lincoln/Seward area Dec. 25 to Jan. 3, and back in Norfolk again from Jan. 3 to Jan. 6. Pray for nice weather on the 19th!!!! Our travel itinerary has us in nice warmish places until we get to Omaha, so pray that it isn't stormy and snowy there until AFTER we land. Email us or something if you want to see us while we're home! Chances are, if you're reading this, we want to see you! See you VERY soon!!! (See how excited I am?! I'm ending all of my sentences with lots of exclamation points!!! Just like my students do!!! Hooray!!!)
posted by Erin @ 9:13 AM
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