Crocodiles, Pythons and Bintang! Oh My!

Well, it's been a while.  Mama Youngman has already voiced her displeasure about the lack of blog posts, so here we are. Stuff has been crazy in these parts ever since coming back to Jakarta in January. It's still relatively early in the rainy season, but we've already had the worst flood since 2007 blow into town.  Neck high water, crocodiles swimming around and pythons being pulled out of the flood water with half-disgusted people in their bellies. Fantastic stuff. School was cancelled for two days leading up to the weekend, so the teachers in flooded areas were pretty much on lock-down for four days. We found ways to have fun without the luxuries:  girl chat, morse code with flash lights, etc.

Fortunately enough, I was outside Jakarta when the floods happened. I got roped into supervising the JC1 (equivalent to juniors) camp, which was still relatively awful. It didn't flood, but it was impossible to walk because of the mud. Couple that mosquitoes devouring my legs and you get the reasons why I hate camping. I came back right before the water levels started to rise to an apartment full of instant noodles and a small amount of water. We had to survive on beer mostly. Worst couple days of my life....psyche! It was awesome. On a more serious note, thoughts be with the families that lost loved ones. At least 20 people died in this flood.

Anyone who's been teaching more than six weeks will just only respond one way when asked (100 times by other folks) how classes are going:  meh, they're goin.  My 9th and 11th grade classes continue with normal lessons.  My 10th graders (who are in a major testing year) have been in revision mode since the beginning of the term in preparations for their tests in May.  Yes, you heard that correctly.  The entire 3rd term (10 weeks) is completely dedicated to revision for this one exam and they do this in all academic classes. Craziness.


I've got my flights booked to come back in June, though I'll only be there for a couple weeks.  Shout out to the future Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Willard, as they roped me into coming back.  Could have gone to Australia....but no, I had to answer Tree Beard's call. I hope to supervise a Sociology trip to Bali between Term 3 and 4. If not, hop over to Malaysia and check that out.