Chu Seok Festival

Our school has a large Korean population. The Korean parent association put on a Chu Seok Festival at the school this past Friday and invited the teachers to come and take part. It was a blast getting to experience Korean culture, try Korean food, and play some traditional Korean games.

Visit this link to see some pictures of the event: http://picasaweb.google.com/emilyinbandung/ChuSeokKoreanFestival

Cicak cicak

This is a house lizard- or rather a cicak in Indonesian.

This is Cicak man. A new movie coming out at the local movie theatre.

And this is a cicak on the wall in my bedroom. Last night I was wondering why the cicak in my bathroom wasn't moving. This morning I found him dead. We've been experiencing more dead and gross clear looking cicaks around lately.

Rumah Saya (My House)

I finally got up some pictures of my house here in Bandung. It was much easier to put them all onto Picasa than to load them onto my blog. Check out this link to view them or paste the following into your web browser. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/emilyinbandung/RumahSayaMyHouse

Ups and Downs

I lost a student this week. Her parents pulled her out of our school after just four weeks. They moved here from the States a couple months ago and for various reasons decided it was not working out for their daughter to be at our school. They are going to go back to homeschooling her. This was a pretty tough thing for me as much time and energy was spent helping her adjust to school and successfully transition academically. At the same time I will be getting a new student on Monday. Our school recently hired a new business manager. Him and his family just arrived late Wednesday night and I got a chance to meet them yesterday. His oldest son is in seventh grade and will start at our school on Monday. I just began thinking after talking with them a little yesterday that I need to get things ready for having this new student join us. I need to get a book out of the store room, a syllabus and info sheet ready for him, and figure out where he'll sit in my seating chart. Along with these things my seventh graders are taking chapter 2 test on Monday so I need to figure out what he'll do during this time and how to catch him up to the rest of the class as he's coming in two chapters behind. But then I am reminded that these are the ups and downs that come with teaching at an international school like BAIS. Students are going to come and go throughout the year, these are just the first of many more to come. Many of my students have moved a lot throughout their lives. Some families are already planning on moving at the end of the semester. I already have a list of students who will be joining us in January for second semester. The challenge is to embrace this flux and not loath it. If I do then the students will follow. Although perhaps my students know how to do this better than I do because many of them have done it their entire lives. Perhaps I have a lot to learn from them.

Selamat Ramadan

Last Thursday began the month of Ramadan in the Islamic calendar. Muslims have a totally different yearly calendar from what we are used to (and even are in a different year according to how they decide time). During the month of Ramadan Muslims are required to fast from sunrise to sunset. I was sort of having a conversation with my helper on Saturday, between my little Indonesian and her little English, I learned that she woke up at 2 am that morning to start her day. During Ramadan she will wake up really early to get up, get ready for the day, and cook her family a big meal. They have to finish eating before the morning Call to Prayer starts around 4:30 am. Then they will go all day without eating until the sunsets at 6 pm, when they break fast. They will do this all month (28 days), with an emphasis on prayer and petitioning God for his blessing and favor.


As is tradition we gave our helper some gifts at the start of Ramadan (seen above). Mostly practical things that she can use to cook with throughout the month. As well as extra money in addition to her monthly salary. It's tradition that a helper would get a whole extra months salary at the start of Ramadan. She was so thankful for all of this.

A New Way to View Pictures

Because it is hard to upload large amounts of photos onto my blog I have started using Picasa Web albums. So far I only have 3 up: one of our trip to Jakarta, one of the fruit party we had, and one of the Independence Day celebration (with added pictures from what I put on my blog). I'll let you know if I put up any more. And of course I will still put some on my blog from time to time. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/emilyinbandung/

A Day of Adventure

Last weekend me and two of the other new staff members decided to take the train to Jakarta for the day. It was very fun to get away, eat some Western food, and learn to get around on our own a little. I really enjoyed the train ride and seeing how beautiful this country is. It was so green... the pictures don't do it justice. I've started a Picasa web album for posting pictures. This will make it much easier and quicker for me to get pictures online for you to view. Please visit this link to see pictures and read comments about our adventure:

http://picasaweb.google.com/emilyinbandung/ADayInJakarta

Everythings alright...

In case you haven't heard there was a pretty big earthquake off the coast of the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. I believe there was actually a couple, one being as big as 8.5. This put the country of Indonesia into a tsunami alert, along with many other countries who also decided to go into tsunami alert including Singapore, Malaysia, India, and others. From the little I've heard there was a little tsunami that didn't really cause any damage but various places are experiencing damage from the quake and even some have died. I didn't actually feel the earthquake here in Bandung, although I turned on the news for a few minutes and they were reporting that people felt it in Jakarta which isn't that far from here. It seems that earthquakes are quite common here, but after the natural disaster of just a few years ago many people panicked (for good reason). Just wanted to let you know all is ok with me here. I appreciate those of you who thought of me and emailed.

Some Yummy Food- all for under $5

A night of eating out at a nearby restaurant! Sometimes it is so nice to get out and enjoy my surroundings in this new place. Here Emma, Aaaron, and I went to eat at Tomadaci, a nice restaurant in town. Each of us paid less than $5 for drinks, lots of food, plus dessert.

Something green with tiny tapioca balls. The waiter tried to explain in broken English that they were some sort of seeds soaked in water (I forget what he called them).

My Dinner! Delicious!

Emma posing to show off her yummy food.

Dessert... unfortunately it looks better than it tasted.It just wasn't the same as cheese cake in the states.

My Students

God has been breaking my heart for my students. Each one has a story of why they are here, what crazy things their parents are up to, and how they feel about Indonesia. The more I learn, the more I am burdened for them and their struggles. Let's just take for example my Eighth grade class. They are the most well behaved of all my classes and overall quite bright. The are easy to manage and teach, and yet I've only skimmed the surface of getting to know them. Two of my students had a live in helper who attacked her and her family the weekend before school started. One of my eighth graders and her brother came to school the first day all bandaged up and very shook up. I gave the eighth graders their first test on Friday and the last question asked them to tell me about themselves in at least 10 sentences. One said she studied all summer like all Koreans. She finished Algebra 1 but still has to take it this year. (I'll have to find ways to challenge her because she is already quite bored.) Another who is brand new to Bandung told me she is not a big fan of school and even openly listed some of her faults. Another mentioned his dad is a pastor at a Korean church in Bandung. One who has only been here for 8 months said that one day she is going to go back to Korea and meet up with her best friend. Another told me her sister is in China doing High School. One mentioned that if I ever have bug trouble or want to know something about Indonesian wildlife he's my man. They are so diverse, not just in ethnicity but in personality and interests as well. Two of my students' family invited all their current and past teachers over last night for a barbeque. It was delicious and fun to be in the home of a family.

Third floor... my classroom is the one down at the end.

All the high school lockers are on the third floor.

Students roaming the halls during break.

Second floor... all of the middle school lockers are down here. All of the lockers have keys that open them not combinations. Students get pretty creative with what they do with their keys so they don't loose them. Some carry their key around along with a dozen or so key chains. One student even hangs his key from his glasses.

Hot Springs and Corn on the Side of the Road

The Saturday before school started a group of about 15 of our staff took the evening to get away. We drove out of the city about an hour, up the volcano that we live at the base of, to some natural hot springs. It was a gorgeous night to make the drive as we left before the sun set and got there after it was dark. It only costs about $2.00 to get into the hot springs, including a free drink, and you could stay for as long as you wanted. We soaked for a while... it felt so nice to relax after a busy week of getting ready for school to start. Then on the trip home we stopped at a road side stand selling delicious roasted corn. We had the choice of regular, spicy, garlic, or sweet corn. It made their day to have a group of 15 come through their little stand. And it was good!

On the road in Bandung: the drive there in a taxi.

Enjoying the hot springs!

Corn on the side of the road: this was one of many stands we saw on the drive home.

Not sure if you could call that a barbeque, but the corn was delicious.

Inside the stand where we could sit and eat.