my trip to blitar.. among other things

so ive been told that i need to update my blog.. which is true.. so

the last month or so hasnt been too exciting.. ive been busy with school and its amazing how fast september went by. it felt like august took ages to end but this month.. man.. its amazing sometimes how fast that time can go..

anyways the last exciting thing i did was to go visit my friend at her site in blitar. i took the train to her site and got chatted up by one of the conductors. I think im just going to play ignorant next time i travel alone. whenever people find out i know some indonesian they just don’t leave me alone. i know thats part of the reason im here, to show how ordinary americans are, but after awhile it just gets old. i think the worst thing is the personal questions/ statements that they. are you married? do you live alone? how old are you? you’re fat. what’s that on your face? ugh.. i dont think anyone likes people pointing out their faults, but to have strangers do it? yeahhhhhh

so anyways, i get to blitar and find brianna and start the walk to her house. she lives in a city so its easy to walk everywhere. it was nice to walk around because i dont do that that much at my site. we got some es buah (fruit n stuff) and then we went to her house.  after settling down and talking for a little bit, we went to the warnet and looked up some stuff on imdb. its always fun to get together with brianna because we always get into these discussions about movie and music. its awesome. afterwards we went back to her house and had some grilled cheese, which was amazing. we then stayed, watched part of a movie and some other videos. it was a good night. the next day, brianna made some potatoes for breakfast. those were also really good (see photos). aftwards we went out and walked around blitar. we went to the alun-alun and then went to the first president of indonesia’s grave. it was interesting. its kinda cool how much they love their president. don’t see that in the states, but then again. indonesia is only 67 years old..

 brianna cooking some breakfast.. yumm

 just some onions..

 deliberately getting in the way of my shot..

 sorry for the angle.. but look at those potatoes!

 the first presidents grave

awesome batik helmet.. of course had to get a photo

so yeah then i went home by bus which was thankfully uneventful. and now.. just sitting around.. starting to make flashcards of vocab for the GRE. yay! also only have 18 more days till i leave for south korea, which i am super pumped about! I also just got tickets to australia so ill be spending christmas and new years with my friend adam in and around sydney so that should be a blast. maybe ill actually have a fun new years! its been a couple years since i had a memorable new years so i think something fun is deserved.

 looking cool in his awesome shirt..

 yaaaaaaa hometown pride!

 all the english teachers..

 amount of words i have to write definitions for..

 amount finished :(

 my dirrrrtyyy room

it's a mess :(
*since writing this entry I have cleaned my room.. it is now clean and beautiful!

so yeah.. thats my exciting life. here in indonesia.. teaching annoying children and thinking about the future. 8 more months till i come home.. seems unreal..

where, oh where has the time gone?

stay cool my friends :)

love you all :)

Boring.. But It's an Update

So I am getting really bad at updating this.. I wish my life was more exciting and I could update my adventures every week, but alas.. its not so. I have class 4 days a week.. Which is nice I guess. I’d rather just have Saturday’s off like a normal school week in the States. I am sure once school starts again I’ll be happy to have a break.. But thats neither here nor there..

The last month has been Ramadhan. So that means that there has been a lot of time off. School ends around 12:30 instead of 2, the kids are more annoying because they are hungry and irritable.. I’ve been off school since August 10th.. That’s two and a half weeks! (As I’m writing this I still have a week off left.. yippeeee) Earlier this week I was able to go to Surabaya for a few nights. It was only supposed to be one night, to welcome Erin back. She had just gone home to the states for a few weeks. It was nice to see people that I hadn’t seen in a month. Some days it seems like time is going by so fast and other times oh man.. Felt like it was 5 months since I’d seen everyone for MST.

So we all just walked around a lot.. Ate some food, had some ice cream (which was delicious..) and procrastinated when it was time to go back to site. As it was, a few of us decided, fairly late in the day, that we were going to stay another night and heck go see the new batman movie (AWESOME) It was nice having a few days not having to worry about what we were going to do to keep us busy at site. The batman movie was totally worth spending an extra night in Surabaya for. I think it was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. It was also only 3 dollars.. I think that’s one thing I am going to miss here is how the prices are still so low.  Going to a movie at home costs at least 10 dollars.. Bleh.. so that’s one nice thing about coming into the city.

And now.. sitting here.. watching a tv show and listening to the fireworks that seem to be going off everywhere tonight. Almost like the crickets that must be sounding as you are reading this horrible entry.

:( Sorry my life can’t be more exciting.. October though.. October will be exciting. I just bought tickets to go to South Korea for a week.. So wait around for that entry please!

Love you all :)

Going Home is Always an Adventure

so

trying to write an entry after weeeeeekkkkkssss of not writing. difficult. not quite sure what to talk about.

so the school year ended right before i left for home. one year down. it was amazing. to think that i came so far when there were numerous times i was sure i was done.

then home. home was good. i got to see pretty much everyone that i wanted to see. i was afraid that seeing some friends would be weird since its been so long. luckily, it was like things fell into place. it was like i never left. i had some amazing times with my friends and i cannot wait to come back and see them all again. in this case, distance i think has really helped some of my relationships.

ive stolen these photos from danielle :)

 the four before the many!

 all of us at the wine tasting..

 love this girl so much!

one of my favorite pictures

the one thing that brought me down was two days before i left, we had to put down my dog karmen. thinking about it now, it was like closing a chapter in my life. she was one of the best dogs ever. i know people say that about their pets, but there was something about her. i think, in the end, she knew what was happening. she was never a very touchy dog. she could stand a few minutes and then she would bolt.. but when i was home she would paw you if you stopped petting her. its sad, thinking that she knew when we were trying to deny it.

enough of the sadness.

so i came back to indonesia on the 7th. but it seems like i never left. im back at site and it feels like ive been here the whole time. its weird. time is so fluid. it just keeps moving and its moving so fast that i feel like tomorrow i am going to turn around i will be at home again and this whole thing will be over. i have a date finally. june 1st. i have ten and a half months left. 10 AND A HALF MONTHS! this little tunnel is getting wider and brighter and scarier. this has been my life for the past 15 months. what am i going to do? gah!

right now i should probably concentrate on this school year and doing all the things that i didnt last year. i only have 10 months. i want to be an awesome teacher, i want to see more in my community, i want to figure out what im going to be doing.

so to end this here are some photos taken in and around my home town of Chardon, Ohio.

some photos of my fam. photo one is my favorite dad face :)

 

oma telling hannah to leave her alone!

 

ohhhh hannah!

 my mom and her sister

 hannah being all legal.. sob..

 the glaesel family

 the courthouse in chardon

 chardon high school

 the gazebo in the town square

 just a neat looking house right outside of chardon

 'merica!

 horse and buggy!

 i love clothes hanging on a line

 large fields..

 these boys were cute

 cowwwwwss!!

cheers to a new school year and as always,

love you all :)

Playing Catch-up

So it’s been awhile.. Mostly because I’m lazy and a little bit because I’ve had quite a bit going on..

So May was full of stuff.. Had some of my last classes for the year and then my birthday! I actually had a good time this year. I went into school, not really expecting all that much. One of the religion teachers came up to me and wished me a happy birthday with lots of success, long life and all the other happy wishes they give you on your birthday. I ended up going to my one class by myself and when I walked in all the kids said happy birthday and then they sang to me.. Which was awesome.. We watched a movie and then after class when I walked out the door, the English Club caught me and sang happy birthday and gave me some gifts which was surprising.. I felt bad because I haven’t seen them at all this semester yet they remembered by birthday! Love those kids. Then I went into the office to wait around until my next class. Got to chat with a friend and finally my counterpart came in and then we went to my last class. They also sang happy birthday to me and it was nice. Lots of birthday singing.. I think my smile hurt by the end of the day..

 From my English Club :)

 Gifts some one of my classes :)

 Little friend that I had in my room for almost a week..

Later that night my cps came over and they all gave me some gifts. I got some batik, a shirt and then this awesome photo of all of us that my counterpart framed and added some extra stuff to it. It was a good birthday in Indonesia.. Two down, one more to go!

That next Monday was the site visit from the new trainees. I cannot believe that time flew that much. It feels like yesterday that I went on my own site visit. Of course, they got lost, which is kinda my fault but also the hazard of traveling in Indonesia. Thankfully there was 3 of them so getting lost in a group isn’t as bad as being sendiri (alone). So they got here, we got something to eat and then ventured to my house where we spent the day just chatting and letting them wind down after their first travel experience. It was a good time. The next day we went to school, they got to meet a whole bunch of people and got chatted at by my principal. The best thing, maybe not for them but totally for me, was when they got to walk around and meet my students. I was so proud of some of my students. They were asking questions and trying and while some of them were REALLY nervous, they got up the nerve to talk. It was almost like that ahah! moment. I knew that I had made the best decision to stay here because look at my students! They were talking! It’s always the little things eh?

So after that we went to class, suffered through some Jeopardy review which was a little dry and then after school we went out and got some pecel, got some ice cream and then went back to just chill out. I felt bad that there wasn’t much to see or do around me but they said it was nice to have a little break since they are pretty much busy allllll day during training. Wednesday morning they left and I had the city back to myself again.. It was kind of lonely but at the same time it was nice. It’s nice having other people here but at the same time.. Kinda nice to be alone (at timesssss..) Plus I only had to last out 3 days until I got to go to Surabaya to say goodbye to some people and to get passport paperwork filled out.

So yeah that weekend, went to Surabaya, met up with Maryellen and went to the office to see all the ID4 people who were in town to finish up and ship out. It was sad saying goodbye to some people. One girl, Miss Samantha, is going to be studying in Bowling Green for the next two years, so she will be a nice resource when I finally come home..

The weekend was fun except for Monday when we had to spend 5+ hours at the immigration office. The server had gone down so all of our paperwork and all the stuff they needed us to do couldn’t be done.. The only nice thing was that there was a few of us there so we didn’t have to go through the waiting process alone. Luckily we got to spend another night in the city so I had some time to unwind from that lovely experience before returning to site. I ended up seeing the Avengers, which was pretty awesome. I’m not really one for the superhero movies but the movie was totally worth the 4 dollars I spent to see it (yeaahhh totally going to miss cheap movies..)

Finally back to site. That week, which was, oh man, two weeks ago now, was pretty much a waste of school time. Monday and Tuesday were the last days of class. I managed to get in to school in enough time on Tuesday to give the classes thank you cards before they left for the day. The next day, Wednesday was our school anniversary. I wish I could say that I got some awesome photos from that event, yet tragically I was sick and had to go home. It seemed like it would have been a pretty cool event. They had a stage where students could perform, they had some dancing and then speeches (which are by far my favorite.. hah) Maybe I will still be in town for the celebration next year and can actually enjoy what’s going on around me.. The next day was graduation, another event that I had to miss because I was sick.. Then on Friday I went in with my camera and got some photos with some of my students and the English Club.. It was a good day and pretty much the last day of normal ‘school’. This past week was full of testing and what not and that will end on Tuesday. Just in time for me to peace out!

 my thank you cards front in Javanese

 inside in english!

 one of my grade 10 classes

 the only photo I got from the anniversary celebration

English Club!

 some of my favorite students

 This is one of my favorite classes.. they are all awesome kids

 oh boys.. love them!

 grade 10 class again..

my principal and I

The last big thing that’s been going on is the workbook that I am creating. It’s finally finished! By the time this is up and posted I will hopefully be getting the first copy of the book to check over and make sure everything is perfect. Its been a long road and I am SO happy it is finished. Of course there will be improvements over the next year but! my first book ever is now completed! It’s an awesome feeling.

 One of the covers and the artist

 An inside cover

 This girl, Winda, is awesome. She is so creative and really really sweet..

 This is Luthfi from grade 10.. He is pretty darn creative as well..

And now I’m looking at the calendar, counting down the days until the 14th (4.5 as im writing this) I can’t wait to set foot on American soil. It’s crazy that it has been over a year since I left home and came here.. I can’t wait to see everyone and just relax before coming back to finish my last year.

So thanks for sticking around.. This entry was NOT entertaining, I apologize. I had a lot going on and I feel like this was a report hah.. at least there are pictures right?

love you all :)