Mrs. Euphegenia Doubtfire

So tomorrow marks three weeks here. After my first 3 days here I’m a bit surprised I made it this far, and kinda impressed with myself as well. Baby steps I guess. Week 1 and 2 were really great. I started to get into a rhythm and met some new people, I felt like I was accomplishing things. This week has been a bit tougher. I started my student-teaching sessions (more on that later) and those are nice. But they are part of the reason for things getting harder as well. The first two weeks I had class all day followed by about 2 hours at the internet cafe, dinner, and bed. Not a terribly large amount of free time. Now with the student-teaching I am usually busy from 8am to 10 or 11am. I go to the internet cafe and do my lesson plans, but I’m done around 2 or 3. Lots of free time with not a lot of fillers. Free time is a killer here. I don’t really know my way around, nor do I know how to drive a motor-bike, so my options are pretty limited. Also not a lot of people to interact with during that time. Because of all this I have gotten a little down recently. I’m very much ready to finish this course, get a job, and move into a teacher’s house with a few other people. I know that things will pick back up once I have full days of classes to teach and people to spend my evenings with, so I’m trying to keep my head up during this.

Part of this feeling came from a simple facebook post as well. So thank you Matt Giffhorn for referencing Mrs Doubtfire. The mere mentioning of that movie made me more sentimental/home-sick than anything else here. For those of you who don’t know this little fun fact, my roommate Matt and I watched Mrs. Doubtfire AT LEAST once a month. I could do a one-man Broadway adaptation of that film. But anyway, I started to see some similarities to my own situation and that of Mrs. Euphegenia Doubtfire. Robin Williams is forced to realize that his life is not where he wanted. He never grew up and it caught up to him in the form of a divorce. As for myself, I hadn’t grown up enough to accept what post-collegiate life had in store and it was catching up to me in the form of a fair amount of self-loathing (forgive my self-indulgent pity-party right there). He deals with this by dressing as a woman to see his kids, and ends up doing all of the adult things he never wanted to be a part of (cooking, cleaning, homework with the kids, etc) and grows up because of it. Its a mid-life-crisis “coming of age” story, I suppose. I am dealing with it by putting myself in an equally challenging situation, except instead of living life as an elderly woman, I decided to go live life as a teacher on the other side of the world. This comparison is a bit of a stretch, I realize, but there is one line in the movie that really kinda stuck out to me in relation to this situation: When Robin William’s wife begins hinting at a divorce she says “We can’t just take a vacation, our problems will be waiting for us when we return” and he responds “Well we can move when we get back, maybe they won’t find us there”. You can’t actually run away from problems. I left some in the states and ran head first into some of the same ones I left as well as some new ones. And the only thing I can do is face them and try to grow from it. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up living in San Francisco hosting a children’s show in drag after this as well.

[Side note]: Mrs Doubtfire always reminded me of Grandma, I mean I always thought that Mrs Doubtfire looked a lot like Grandma in that movie as well as his inappropriate elderly humor that she shares as well. To those of you in Dallas who may read this, please don’t tell her that).

I guess what I am trying to say is that I do already feel like I’m growing from my short experience so far, and I am looking forward to more of it. The hard times and the good ones. I have already been forced to do some things that I feel uncomfortable doing, or that I know are going to be hard. Just doing these student-practice teaching exercises is a small example. They are hard. I am scared I’ll fail in front of the class each day. Its the kind of fear-of-failure thing I would have given into in the very recent past. In the past I probably would have taken the “when life gives you lemons, just say the fuck the lemons and bail” mentality and not actually gotten anywhere. Here I am forced to do these little things that I feel are starting to add up. I just feel more confident and ready to take on whatever is next both here in Indonesia and whatever is going to come after this as well. But as they say in rehab, its one day at a time, so I’m done with the over-arching positive thoughts on the future; back to the present.

Anyway, some good news, I have had a few interviews that went well. I think I will be offered a job at EF Surabaya hopefully by the time I finish my course a week from tomorrow. Also an International School in Solo is very interested in my services as well, but I am not sure how I feel about that one. I’ve also had a few other interviews with schools in Bogor and Cirebron (I think thats where it is anyways) that went well. Its looking very good on the job front.

But anyway, to the Student-Teaching. Its pretty interesting. Preparing to teach and actually doing it are two incredibly different things. I feel I am doing a good job though, and my instructor seems to always have good things to say after my lessons. My first class was 2nd graders (about 7 or 8 years old). There are only two words to describe children of that age: Noise and Chaos. Now, as much as I may try to make it seem that I revel in those two things (and after a few drinks, maybe I actually do) they actually drive me up a wall. The kids are all good, they are just loud. And one instant of free-time or the smallest thing that is remotely humorous to them sends them into fits that I can only imagine adults can only find by stacking speed and Crystal-Meth. I know that I’ll be teaching all age ranges once I get a job, so I am working on how to deal with handling the lessons for small children. A few pre-class Xanax was my first idea, but I feel that may actually be a bit counter-productive.

My other classes have been 4th or 5th graders. Those kids are much better. Once kids hit about 10 they seem to calm down quite a bit. They still get riled up pretty easily, but its easier to bring them back under control. I like working with kids that age. I knew all this going into it though. Working at camp this summer I thoroughly enjoyed the 3 weeks that we had older than about 4th or 5th grade, and was in shambles after 5 days with the third graders. Like I said, I learned all of this at camp this summer; I know what each of these age ranges is going to be life. Once they are a bit older they understand the concept of self control a little better. And once they are older they can carry on conversations that don’t involve dinosaurs, their pets, and how much they FUCKING LOVE CANDY! I understand why so many people do drugs once they get older. You develop a tolerance to sugar. Thats it; a tolerance to Sugar. That is the first drug we get. These kids absolutely tweak out over a snickers. They are high out of their minds bouncing off the walls, and eventually the come-down arrives. You watch them start to drag, looking out the window at the kids in the hallways eating their sugar-filled snacks. Probably thinking, “man, look at that candy. I wonder if he’s holding. Maybe I can trade him my lunch for one bite. I don’t need my backpack, maybe he will take that for an air-head or a lolli-pop.” Its clearly a slippery slope from sugar to heroin.

I don’t want all of this sound as negative as it probably does. I really do enjoy teaching. I have a lot of fun at the front of that classroom. It feels pretty natural up there actually. Also, I am very much content to be teaching some little kid classes as well. I will learn a lot from it, I just also know that when I take a teaching job back in the states it will be in a middle school or high school. I can handle the awkwardness of middle school kids. I think I’m still as awkward as a 14 year old boy half the time anyway.

Anyway, thats all I’ve got for now. Not a whole lot of new things in life here. I wish I had some wild stories to regale you with, but its a pretty slow lifestyle out here. I should have some more stories in the next few weeks once I get a job and get settled, but until then I’ll continue to try and make some mundane details of my life here and the occasional self-indulgent positive or negative thoughts into reading material that some of you may (hopefully) find entertaining.

Not too much new news. But no news is good news, right?

So I am starting to get used to the food here. I liked it immediately, but I am now starting to find some dishes that I really like and starting to grasp some of the eating etiquette that surrounds the food here. Everything is fried in some fashion. I will probably be the only person to move to a third world country and NOT loose weight. Now that I have found some dishes I know and like, my adventurousness in trying new things has subsided a bit. I also have a few restaurants that I am starting to become something of a regular at. Nasi Goreng and Mie Ayam are my two favorite things here. They are pretty simple, Nasi Goreng is basically friend rice with some sort of meats or sea food in it. Mie Ayam is noodles with chicken. The other day I was at Achung (I believe its called) right up the street from my apartment and got a little adventurous. I asked the man what he suggested and the next thing I know there is a plate of rice and a bowl of soup-like consistency next to me. This soup had more seafood in it than the damn Atlantic Ocean. I recognized some of the basics: shrimp, octopus, etc, but the rest of the seafoods were a total mystery. Something that looked very fatty and dark, something that had the texture/consistency of edible foam (the material, not whats on top of a cappuchino), and little fried things that looked like chicken nuggets but on the inside had the consistency of either really soft fish or a stiffer cheese: I’m not sure which it was). Now, from my almost Doctoral level of knowledge of East Asian fishing practices from my never-ending viewings of the Whale Wars series and The Cove (a terrifying doc about dolphin meat consumption and the terribly inhumane ways these animals are caught and killed in Japan), I must make the conclusion that I ate some combination of Shamu, Flipper, and Jaws that afternoon.

Sorry Captain Paul Watkins and the rest of the Whale Wars crew, but apparently The Bob Barker and The Steve Irwin need to step up their anti-whaling piracy tactics.

Anyway, even the mystery foods I eat are made palatable by this magical sauce that they put on everything after already having cooked it in said sauce. It is like a very thick, darker, sweeter Soy Sauce, and it is AMAZING. I cover everything in this sauce. They also have jars of chili sauce for everything, or if you get it to go they put the chili sauce in little baggies for you. This stuff is hot as all get-out, but really really good as well.

Another food I really like here is the Sate (or Satay). Its basically the same as back home: chicken, duck, beef, or dove (although I havn’t seen any dove, so I assume the Dove Sate is actually whatever birds they caught in their backyard...maybe Mockingbird or Cardinal Sate) on a stick, basted in that soy-type sauce I mentioned earlier and then cooked over charcoal. They then pour some chili sauce, more of the soy-type sauce, and peanut sauce in a newspaper page and wrap your chicken up in it. Its really great stuff, but the other day my teacher was saying that there is a rumor going around that one of the warungs is using some human meat/fat with the chicken to give it more flavor. Apparently this place has pieces of fat, almost like bacon (which it couldn’t be because of the Muslim aversion to pork) between the pieces of chicken. When he asked one of his Indonesian neighbors about it, he very non-chalantly said it was probably human. As disgusted as I was by this, the next day all I could think of was sate and walked to the nearest stand to buy some for lunch. How screwed up is that thought process?

After all of this wild, spicy food I still haven’t really gotten the “traveler’s diarrhea” I was warned about. By the way, “traveler’s diarrhea” is probably my favorite disease name. It is so straight forward, no complicated medical names; just a simple cause (traveling) and effect (diarrhea). Simplicity of cause and effect in disease naming really should the way most other diseases are named. I feel it has the potential to really scare more people away from things like STD. Imagine is the cause and effect naming method were applied to Syphilis or Herpes: Sex Sores. Sounds a hell of a lot more scary than Syphilis. I think Trojan should have a new add campaign based on that type of naming.

About the closest I have come to Travelers Diarrhea happened the day after going out and drinking beers all night, but I’m convinced that was more beer-shits than anything else.

I’d really like to have a post that doesn’t involve bathroom humor, but apparently that level of maturity has somehow managed to evade me all of these years; sorry Mom, I’m sure it has nothing to do with your parenting style. Probably the results of having a beer-man for a father more than anything and spending my formative years in an all-male school. So thank Scott Turner, Mr. D, and Mr Gioia for stunting the maturity of your son at 13.

On a more serious note: I am starting to get a few job offers. None from Bali yet, in fact all of the schools I’ve sent applications to are currently filled until around January at the earliest. I have interest from two schools here in Surabaya, one in Solo, and one in Bogor. Solo is a smaller town, about half a million, but an artistic and cultural hub in Java. Bogor is more of a suburb of Jakarta, but about an hour outside the city. And Surabaya is Surabaya. I am starting to like Surabaya a lot more each and every day though. There are actually some really nice parts of the city, some greener areas, etc. And there are more expats here than anywhere but Jakarta (everyone seems to hate Jakarta; they say it is TOO big and full of awful New York-esque traffic. I have no desire to sit in 3 hours of traffic on a motorbike on the way to work each morning). The school in Solo is a private language school but only has about 7 expat teachers and from what I have gathered they are all significantly older than me. The school in Bogor is an EF (English First) school, but again, I don’t know that I really wanna do Jakarta. The two schools in Surabaya are an EF School and the school where I am currently taking my classes. I am kind of torn between the two right now, the EF School won’t pay nearly as well as the other, but I will be with more expats and possibly even in a shared house with other expats. That sounds really great right about now. But anyway, as of now I am pretty content (and borderline excited) to stay in Surabaya and trying to decide between more money or a bit more societal comfort and easier social-life immersion. No matter where I go, I still won’t have hot water for my showers in the morning. My teacher said he has been here for 4 years and that no, I will never get used to that. The cold showers are pretty rough each morning. They aren’t so bad if you take one in the afternoon after walking home from school when its hot as hell out, but waking up knowing how cold the shower will be makes it a struggle to actually take one. I’m looking forward to a vaca in Bali or in a hotel somewhere that offers hot water. All I want for christmas this year is a hot shower.

First Update from Surabaya (its a long one).

For those of you looking for some quick reading, this might not be the entry for you. This entry is gonna be quite long as it contains bits and pieces from the first week here...and quite a lot has happened in one week.

I should preface this by saying if any of you find bathroom-humor offensive or sophomoric, I suggest you skip this first part of the entry because it is almost entirely about my first bathroom experience here.

Well I’m about 4 hours into my trip as of right now, but I have only been in my apartment for about 45mins. You know the saying “truth is stranger than fiction,” well I have a strong feeling most of my trip is going to be much stranger than any fiction I could possibly come up with. I’m just not this creative. First off I would like to tell you about my room. About half the size of a dorm room: this I am okay with, in fact I expected something about this size. However, much to my shock and amazement I walk in to see that the bed has a pink Cinderella mattress cover (no sheets, but it does include a matching Disney Princess pillow. I shit you not, I will be sleeping on top of a beautiful 2-Dimensional Disney Princess for the next month, using my towel as a blanket. Hopefully the sheets dont already have crabs, cause I think getting an STD from a Disney Princess might ruin my childhood opinions about Mr Walt Disney and his now possibly slutty princesses. All of this is acceptable though. I know that I’m not staying in a 5 start resort or anything. That part of the room is fine with me. The bathroom however is a different story. Adryan, my “guide” from the school drops me off in my room and before I can get a look around to ask a few questions he is gone. So I turn from the bathroom, with more questions than a first grader attempting to learn calculus, to see that no one is there to answer them. What kind of questions, you may ask. Well, you really must see this toilet to grasp (and I will post pictures as soon as I get some and find an internet cafe). First off, there is no seat on the toilet; not just the top seat that covers the whole thing, but no seat to sit on, just the bowl. Second, there is no flushing mechanism anywhere to be seen. Third, there is a bucket right next to the toilet. A fucking bucket! Like a bed-pan type of bucket with a smaller bucket inside of it. So at this point my worries about wiping with my hand become miniscule to the fear that I’m gonna have to shit into a bucket and then do God knows what with it. I can only assume that the non flushing toilet is for number ones, and the bucket is for number twos. But I know to never assume because it can make an ass out of you and me, and this time I would have been an ass with a bucket full of his own shit in his room. I would have felt better knowing there was a designated area out back to dig a hole in and do my business there.

But anyway, feeling quite stressed I decide to walk across the street from my apartment to the mini mart that Adryan showed me for a much needed cigarette to calm myself (I’ll get to these cigarettes in a minute). Thank God Adryan is in there doing the same thing, so I throw all inhibitions to the wind and ask him in line at the mini mart if he can come back and explain my bathroom to me. Upon his arrival he informs me that I can, in fact, shit in the toilet, and the bucket is to fill with water and then pour on top of my feces. This water and any floaters/sinkers in it will be pulled down by wonderful Gravity!

You cannot imagine the amount of relief I felt upon finding this out. Certainly the biggest bathroom related weight to have ever been lifted off my shoulders.

So after Adryan left again, this time having answered my queries, I went outside to smoke the Marlboro Menthol Black cigarettes they gave me. Let me say two things about these cigarettes: first, they must be called Blacks because your lungs turn that color after one drag. Second, I think by menthol they meant anti-freeze or maybe even freon. It was like someone had placed an air conditioner in my throat. I like menthols when I decide to smoke, but these were something entirely different. Blowing Mr. Freeze from Batman would have less of a cooling effect.

Bathrom Humor is now done with, for those of you with weak stomachs, pick up reading here.

Wow, 2 days in Indonesia and I’ve already swung from any emotion available to its polar opposite with stops at all the emotions in between. I know that I came into this with an idealistic vision of the place and job, just as I do everything else. My greatest weakness is probably my idealism (but I hope that is a greater strength than weakness, but so far I haven’t found the drive/perseverance to make it so). Surabaya is a strange city. It is certainly a city in which Western consumerism has taken hold and attempts to flourish, but the socioeconomic means of its citizens hasn’t entirely allowed it to. The rich and poor dynamic is amazing. I drove past Mansions that out sized (and out classed) any hollywood star home. But 90% of this city seems incredibly poor. The kind of poor that is hidden in section 8 housing and tent cities back in the States. America does a wonderful job of hiding its poor. Here it is everywhere. I was informed today that 60% of the economy here is tobacco. I certainly believe it after seeing everyone and their mother smoking cigarettes. Also, the man who owns Djarum, makers of the wonderfully delicious clove cigarettes, is from Surabaya and owns what is probably the most beautiful home I have ever seen. The other 40% of the economy must be food. There are family owned food stands that are put up each morning and taken down each evening stretching the sides of every road in the city. I ate at one today and the food was wonderful, but these stalls are on the sides of the road next to ditches where the excess food and wash water is thrown (and I certainly hope the wash water is not the same as the ditch water). There is garbage everywhere, some of these piles being burnt this afternoon. The city doesn’t smell bad, it looks like it would smell bad, but it really does not. It looked like what I imagine most of India to look, and very much like what parts of Slum Dog Millionaire looked like (yes, I realize how American my views are of India to be by basing it on a movie, but thats all I have for perspective.)

In all honesty, I don’t particularly find this city appealing. There is no park. It is all garbage and construction and road side stands and ditches. Literally. Oh, and some malls that are pretty nice because that is weekend entertainment, going to the mall. I’m not 14; I’m over the mall. I understand that I am doing this to get a job and my weekend activities should not by my first priority, but I really don’t think I like this city. THEY DON’T HAVE A PARK! I’m not looking for night life. I’m over nightlife. But if I’m going to live on an island with perfect weather, I want to be able to enjoy the outdoors. Maybe go for a swim too on my saturdays. I want some natural beauty. I feel like the poverty of this city would slowly suffocate me. I know that sounds horribly elitist, but I don’t mean the poor people, but the dilapidation that is a result of this poverty. Also, there is no communication with the outside world for a city the size of Chicago population-wise. I have emailed my parents once and I hope they got it just to know I am alive.

I want to be in Bali is what I think I’m saying. It would certainly be easier. More English speakers, more connection to the outside world because it is a tourist destination, and natural beauty. Even if I were inland a bit and not in the touristy area, I would be a taxi ride away from a cold beer and a beach.

Things Are Looking Up.

I am recovering slowly but surely from yesterday and friday’s troubles. I am trying to talk to people more. It is helping. I am upset still about the lack of communication, my dad had to call the school to find out that I am alive. I guess that means all is well with them. I met “Dan” a 37 year old man who is from Jakarta and whose twins are 2 or 3 years old and wife are still there. He splits time working between Surabaya and Jakarta. I also met other women in my building, both of whom are very attractive. One is probably a little too old for me. Also, the woman who owns the building introduced me to her two daughters. I was invited to a trip to the mountains with them next week. Meeting cousins in Bali or day tripping with two beautiful girls? For some reason I feel the answer to that question may be pretty easy to figure out. It was actually a funny scene meeting these girls. Their mother and the two maids here (who may or may not be family) were standing behind the girls as they gave me a gift and chatted. It was like a first date, or first school dance, with anxious parents and some giggling between the two girls. I felt all giddy like a school girl as well. Its funny how the further away from “society” I get, the more similarities I see in everyone’s shared experience that is Life.

The more people I meet, the more welcome I feel and more comfortable. I will for sure finish the month long class and hope to find a job in Bali, but if not, I hope the one offered to me earlier is still available. I was just overwhelmed as I think anyone without ties to their comforts of home would be while some 10,000 miles away. I still really really need to find a consistent source of communication though. But I feel really really upbeat about this trip for the first time since landing. God is speaking to me I believe. Ask and you shall receive. Well, I have done nothing but ask of Him recently, in fact it has been quite incessant actually, but he has done nothing but respond. Little smiles, signs, and miracles. Including the miracle I saw today: my apartment’s name is Miracle Hotel. I know some people dismiss all things as coincidence, but I follow in Einstein’ sentiment that either everything is a miracle or nothing is. Life is better when it is full of miracles whether they come as “coincidence” or something larger. The breads here are awesome by the way. The Dutch really left some solid bakers here.

“We Want to be Whiter”

Some interesting notes. At lunch the other day Adryan asked why Americans want to get tan, because in Indonesia everyone tries to get whiter. I found this to be a funny little comment and thought no more of it than to tell him that tan is attractive in the states. Well, today while watching copious amounts of Indonesian T.V. (most of which was the Inbox Awards, something I can only describe as a more wholesome and simple MTV Awards) I noticed that there were tons of lotion commercials that advertised whitening skin. They were just like our self-tanner or any other lotion product commercials, but with the “whitening chart” used in toothpaste commercials applied to skin! These are not bleaches or anything, just lotions, but I found it funny that Adryan REALLY meant that they want to get whiter. Perhaps Michael Jackson is a status symbol here, who knows.

“Welcome To The Third World”

“Welcome to the Third World.” Those were the words Adryan said to me today after finally getting in touch with my family. My dad called the school multiple times today (and perhaps yesterday as well) trying to get in touch with me after my one email when I landed was clearly not sufficient. Which it most certainly was not. As I wrote earlier, I have had a lot of communication problems. “What we have here is a failure to communicate” could easily have been the theme of my first almost week here in Indonesia. Wifi (or internet at all) is hard to come by, and even harder is International phone service. Due to Adryan’s being out of town this weekend and my phone not working I was unable to communicate with ANYONE at all, Indonesian or American. This clearly caused some issues, especially back home. Finally getting in touch with Home was good though. I feel much better about the whole situation here. And for any of you readers that may have casually worried about me....Thank you, and yes I am safe.

I feel a lot more confident in my situation here. I still don’t really want to work in Surabaya, even my teacher for TEFL said that it is a boring city. It really does seem to be so. I hope I can get a job in Bali. For any readers out there, please pray for me to get a position in Bali. Man, just having communication with the outside world makes this whole experience that much easier. I cannot imagine the difficulties of someone like Rudyard Kipling being away from his family splitting time in India and England and having to write letters back in the days of yore. Even now the postal system here is supposed to be incredibly slow.

Class is really great. It is kind of nice being one of only two students because things are easier. Although, I wish I had some other classmates to befriend. Everyone I have met in my building is very nice though.

I feel like my Indonesian is coming along pretty well for only having been studying it for such a short time. Its really my only time consumer, so hopefully I’ll pick it up quite quickly. Adyran complemented me today on multiple occasions asking if this really was my first time in Indonesia. Also, fun little fact: this is gonna be hard to break this habit: looking into someone’s eyes while talking to them is very impolite here. Too bad “making eye contact” was so drilled into my head.

The other man in my class, an older guy from Bali, is an artist. he showed me some of his works on his phone today. Super cool stuff. Very traditional Balinese stuff. He is very funny. He talked about teaching in an all girls school where “the girls all sat like men.” He also talked about his drug and alcohol use, the first of either of these things I have heard in Surabaya, a majority Muslim city. Very funny man though. I guess that is all I really have for today.