My exotic life in Indonesia

In case you were curious, my life here in Yogya is very exciting.

Here is my (approx) daily schedule

7:30 breakfast. My homestay has kindly provided me with things that they think comprise a western breakfast. The thought is very cute, though the result sometimes hilarious. There are often new (and random) items set out for me such as a wedge of "cheddar cheese" (that was actually some sort of highly processed very salty cheese product item, but hey beggars can't be choosers). As I mentioned previously, no one here eats fruit in the morning, however it is one of my favorite things, so I have taken to cutting up a mango every morning and eating part of it in my oatmeal. Suprisingly successful.

7:45 malaria alarm goes off and I realize that I yet again forgot to bring my pill to breakfast. drat.

8:05 am 5 minutes late for class. sorry! then 2 hours of one-on-one instruction.

10 am. break. then 2 more hours of class with another teacher. Much of class is actually just conversation with someone who will take the time to speak SLOWLY and simply and correct me/wait the 5 minutes it takes for me to put together a sentence. I like this method because it means that I get to practice speaking a lot and also learn interesting tidbits about Indonesian culture. The frustrating part is when I have so many things to say and so few words at my disposal!

12 lunchtime. I had been going everyday to this place called gado-gado (I think) that serves gado-gado (shocking) and lotek which are two kinds of indonesian "salads." They are both delcious and involve peanut sauce and tofu, though (as far as I can tell) gado-gado has egg and lotek has spinach and is more mixed. I also enjoy this place because there is always a duo singing American acousitc hits (ie Jack Johnson) which, for whatever reason, I find especially entertaining with the accent. They have apparently been there every day at lunch for the last 6 years. Today, after much internal debate I decided I should branch out, mostly because every afternoon guru Elia (my third teacher) asks me "makan apa siang ini?" or "what did you eat this afternoon" and I was begining to feel a little lame about always going back to the same place. So I went next door. Soja (the place next door) specializes in soy products, go figure. Not bad, though it was no gado-gado.

1 pm. Kelas tiga (class three). sama-sama.

3 pm. general exhaustion. My brain hurts. so many words!

6 or 7 pm: The dinner expedition. This is always interesting. The lunch places aren't open for dinner so I've been trying to sample a variety of little places, though I'm usually mentally very tired by this point and really just want to go someplace familiar. I still haven't mastered the menu language, so unfortunately I have no idea what most things on the menu at the less expensive places are, resulting in mixed success. It's kind of sad actually, I seem to forget all the relevant indonesian words I know the moment I walk into a restaurant. So it goes.

Good times. Very exciting.

In general the Bahasa Indonesia is coming along. Honestly, I don't think I could have chosen an easier language to try and learn, though that doesn't mean it's easy. The grammar is simple (no verb conjugations) which is nice. In many ways, it's just a big memorization task. The problem is that by the afternoon/evening I'm so tired from class that I lack the heart to really throw myself into memorizing huge lists of words. Sometimes I'm amazed at how much I've learned in 4 days, while others I'm incredibly frustrated and find myself forgetting even the most simple words.