La Nausée

5 PM: Struck by a sudden wave of nausea. I try lying down to counteract it, and spend the next hour staring at the mildew pattern on my ceiling.

6 PM: Realizing I hadn't really eaten anything all day, and connecting the dots between nausea and an empty stomach, I head out to the dining room and forced myself to eat some chicken soup.

6.30 PM: With the nausea increasing, I decide to take a nap.

7 PM: One of the maids interrupts my sleep to tell me to eat something. I told her I had already eaten, so we had the perpetual argument--"You didn't eat enough!" "Yes, I did; I think at 22 years old I know how much I want to eat."--which ended only when I, still groggy from my thirty minutes of sleep, told her I was sick and would eat more when I woke up from a nap.

9 PM: I wake up abruptly from my "nap," only to realize that I don't really have the energy to change into pajamas or brush my teeth. I roll over to try to go back to sleep.

9.30 PM: Not successful at sleeping, I finally drag myself out of bed to put on pajamas and brush my teeth. After turning on a quiet CD, I fell asleep again.

10.30 PM: Still nauseated, this time I wake up to realize that I have to throw up. Now. Dash to the bathroom to clear my body of everything I have eaten in the last 24 hours.

11.00 PM: Wake up next to the toilet, not wearing any pants. Stumble back to my bed, still without pants.

11.30 PM: Trash around my bed trying to find a cool spot in the sheets. Wonder what is making me so sick.

12.00 AM: Throw up again. Still nauseated, the thought strikes me: this must be what morning sickness feels like.

12.30 AM: Throw up again. Begin pondering ways I could possibly be pregnant.

12.31 AM: What if there was a little drop of semen on the motorcycle I rode yesterday and it leaked through my underwear and made me pregnant?

12.32 AM: That's ridiculous. I wouldn't be feeling morning sickness nearly that quickly.

12.33 AM: Bathtubs! Isn't there some urban legend about a bathtub?

12.34 AM: Or toilet seats!

12.35 AM: Realize I don't even have a bathtub. Or, for that matter, a toilet seat. Fall back asleep.

12.47 AM: Rape! Rohypnol! I could have drunk something at a party...

12.48 AM: I don't drink. Or go to parties. And wouldn't I remember waking up in some strange place? Fall back asleep.

1.01 AM: Virgin birth!

1.03 AM: My school's not going to be happy about this. They'll never believe it's a virgin birth. Try to think of how to say "virgin birth" in Indonesian, in case my principal asks.

1.04 AM: Kelahiran perawanan? Kelahiran dari perawan?

1.36 AM: Throw up again, this time with diarrhea too.

2.04 AM: Toss about in bed shouting something that I now don't remember. Someone was misunderstanding me, I think, or maybe they just wanted me to lie quietly in place, but they were wrong, wrong, wrong! How could they think such a thing?

2.37 AM: Throw up again. Decide to call in sick for school the next day.

3.17 AM: More random shouting. More tossing. More throwing up. Consider finding a bowl to throw up in from bed, and realize that I don't know where the bowls are. Curse God, and hope to die.

6.01 AM: One of the maids pops her head in, wondering if I'm going to school. I stare at her blankly, trying to find the Indonesian words for "Are you kidding me? I just expelled my intestines through my mouth and you expect me to stand in front a bunch of 17 year olds all day and lecture about debate?" Settle for "No, because I'm sick."

6.18 AM: Call my school principal to tell him I'm not coming in today.

So now I've got the day off, which I'm mostly using to lie around in bed reading Virginia Woolf's "Orlando," with the exception of a brief excursion to the internet cafe, where the cigarette of the person sitting next to me is doing nothing to help my nausea. I think I'm going to use my afternoon by returning home, climbing back into bed, watching a movie, and maybe falling asleep. A night like last night justifies a little daylight decadence, don't you think?

Touchée

Indonesians are a touchy people. Not in the easily-offended sense--there might be some of that, although given the generally non-confrontational nature of Javanese culture, I'd never know about it--but more in the sense of "keep your hands to yourself, lady, or I'll show you the meaning of easily offended!" Touch happens between same-sex friends--in a conservative Muslim culture, public displays of affection between the sexes are right out--and it's all very casual and natural. While conversing, Indonesian friends stand close and occasionally pat one another on the arm, or, if sitting, tap the knee for emphasis. In my classrooms, "go back to your seats" has taken on the meaning of "sit down in the same chair as your best friend," and I've even seen a group of three boys in one chair, arms casually slung across each other's shoulders or around each other's waist, nonchalantly chatting.

Having recently grown much more friendly with the other teachers, due to greatly improved Indonesian skills, I am not exempt from this behavior. The other teachers think nothing of greeting me every morning with hugs and hearty kisses on both cheeks, and when we're just sitting around talking, I usually have someone leaning on me or reaching across me or just holding on to my arm, as if for comfort. The school bus I ride across the city every morning and afternoon also does a lot to inure me to this feature of the culture: as the bus gets more and more crowded, I end my ride every morning with one of the chemistry teachers sitting, quite literally, on my lap.

Those of you who know me should know my feelings about this. I was a baby who leaned away from the person holding me, and a BYU student who absolutely never touched a boy's elbow in trying to flirt. I'm the sort of person who used to flinch when anyone tried to hug her; having since been broken of that habit by an irate mother, I am still the sort of person who tenses up at any unexpected physical contact. I've been trying my best to hide my consternation at all this touching, and have managed to control my flinching reflex, since, I must concede, it is rather rude, but today I was found out.

After school, I caught a ride to a school event on the back of the motorcycle of one of the other teachers. When we arrived, everyone instantly started teasing me for the strange way I ride a motorcycle: leaning back ever so slightly, holding on to the handles in back, instead of conforming to the proper Indonesian style by putting my arms around the waist of the driver and snuggling up.

I tried to explain to them that rules of touch are different in America: people stand further apart, and they touch less. Even very close friends tend not to sit with their legs crossed over each other. Oh, and that whole "hands on the hips of the motorcycle driver" thing? Or the way the sociology teacher held my hand during our conversation about the recent elections yesterday? That's boyfriend behavior, thank you very much, and so you'd better be ready to commit.

They all stared at me blankly. The teacher sitting next to me turned, and, placing her hand more than halfway up my thigh, said, "Really? That's very interesting! What other sorts of touch would you restrict to a boyfriend?"

That's when I gave up. Go ahead, touchy-feely people, bring it on. I can take it. Be warned, though, all my dear readers: if I come back next summer and automatically put my arm around your waist before talking to you, try not to flinch. It's rude.

Trick or Treat

As discovered in last week's lessons about Halloween,

Vocabulary Words My Students Knew Without Me Telling Them

corsair
eye patch
peg leg
hook
coffin
pale
vampire
fangs
zombie
cutlass

This from kids who can't put together a complete and correct sentence about what they did over their holiday. I don't get it.

I (Almost) Ate Bugs!

So, as I'm sure you're all dying to hear the details of the last few days of my vacation--my recent blogging silence has been due to out-of-town guests, not rabies or motorcycle accidents or floods--I'll share at least one funny story, mostly because it's too surreal to be kept secret.

After recovering from my mysterious illness with even more mysterious drugs--does anybody know what "Floksid" is? Google doesn't--I went out to some random village near Salatiga with a friend and her entire extended family. Seeing the traditional old Javanese house where her traditional old Javanese grandparents live was a good time, but the fact of the matter is that hanging out with other people's families is, for the most part, boring. They're wonderful people and they were very kind and friendly to me, for which I'm very grateful, but holidays consist mostly of sitting around chatting, which I don't understand, or reviving old family memories, which I don't share.

Anyway. This introduction is nice and all, but is it germane? I do have a story to tell, after all. After coming home from a Lebaran party, which consisted entirely of sitting in chairs and staring at the other guests, we found my friend's uncle entirely absorbed in what is, apparently, one of his favorite hobbies: collecting bugs for dinner.

I'll let you all absorb that for a minute. It certainly took me some time to believe that was really what he was doing. ("Am I understanding this correctly? Did he really just say he was going to fry them?") This was especially stunning because her uncle is no village hick; he's a surgeon who owns a very successful practice in Semarang, the fifth-largest city in Indonesia. A surgeon, for heaven's sake. In the medical profession. People trust this man with their health.

It blows my mind. He claims that these bugs are the reason he had the energy for med school: they're full of protein, he told me, and they will make me smart. Luckily for me, I didn't stick around long enough to find out; my ride back to Semarang left before dinner that night, so I didn't have to be subjected to pressure to eat insects. (I would have done it, too, if only to title this blog entry with a panicked, "I Ate Bugs!") I did, however, spend a good three hours squatting near the swarm, watching various members of the family using a toothpick and/or fingers to collect the biggest, juiciest specimens they could. Good times.

And as for what kind of bugs they are, I'm not exactly sure. At first I thought they were ants, but upon closer inspection, they were bigger and not quite shaped the same. They were certainly swarming out of a crack in the floor like ants, and the large winged ones, the kind the surgeon fries and eats, remind me of the large winged ants we used to get in Virginia. Perhaps someone with a gift for entomology can look at the photos and take a guess? Me, I'll just be quietly sitting in a corner somewhere, trying to figure out what path my life has taken to bring me to this point. That, and waiting for more of those supposedly delicious, protein-rich insects.

Land of the Free

Recent questions from the other teachers at my school, translated from the original Indonesian:

Why don't Americans believe in God?

What sort of child-rearing methods do Americans use to instill such a sense of independence in their children?

Can bison be domesticated?

It's no wonder that I'm constantly confused in the teacher's room.

Dear Abby (Indonesian 10th Grade Edition)

Dear Abby,

I have a problem. I am destroy my neighbour house. What should I do?

Sincerely,

Worried

Dear Worried,

You should reborn the house. You shouldn't kill your neighbour, because you will get caught by the police.

Sincerely,

Abby

****

Dear Abby,

I have a problem. I have friends. He angry with me. What to I do? Before he is my best friend. After we got quarreling, we close we other. What to I do?

Sincerely,

John

Dear John,

You should kill your friend and your life will be beautiful. But another alternative is you should say sorry to your friend.

Sincerely,

Abby

****

Dear Abby,

I have a problem. My dog always bites a peson who laughed near it, and screamed like a wolf after did that. What should I do?

Sincerely,

Dog Lover

Dear Dog Lover,

You should teach your dog. If your patient runs out you can kill your pet!

Sincerely,

Abby

****

Dear Abby,

I think I have a confusing problem. My friend follow the Antichrist. And he said that I must follow his religion or he an all of his friend will make me as a victim offering. What should I do?

Sincerely,

ZZZZZZ

Dear ZZZZZZ,

You should pray to your friend. You shouldn't don't have a friend like that. You should ask to your friend to go to the church. If he is not agree you should kill him.

Sincerely,

Abbbbbby

Born to Be Wild

Things I Am Now Comfortable Enough to Do While Riding On the Back of a Motorcycle

• Open my eyes


• Breathe


• Put my hand out to indicate turning direction, like a good passenger


• Put my hand out to ward off oncoming buses


• Talk with the driver


• Let my legs dangle off the sides


• Ride sidesaddle in a skirt


• Not hold on


• Send and read text messages


• Send and read text messages from the driver's phone


• Think of blog entries like this one

Not My Week

So, with the help of some pretty serious third-world drugs (not, fortunately, the kind that gets you into some pretty serious third-world trouble), I was back on my feet by Tuesday morning, albeit a little bit shaky in stomach and legs. (I sound like a sailor in this description.) My friend called me at 5.40 AM, ready and waiting to pick me up. I put on some cute clothes and a happy face, and set out for her house, ready to enjoy my days of holiday festivities at all costs. I arrived, put down my bag, got the grand tour of her beautiful place...and was straightaway bitten by her dog.

So now I've got a perfect set of angry red teeth marks, overlaid on a giant, swollen, blue and purple bruise about the size of, well, a dog's mouth. The worst part is that the bruise is on the outside of my upper thigh, in a place impossible to show anyone without completely taking off my pants. So I've finally got a decent wound, and I am denied the pleasure of displaying it. What a cruel, cruel, mad, cruel world.

11.5 Things to Do While Travelling Solo

1. Pay $3/night for a hotel with a Western toilet, shower, and fan, but without a trash can or electrical outlet.

2. Go to a wayang orang show. Get adopted by a very chatty old woman, and a man who she claimed was her husband but looked more like her son. Go backstage to see the performers in various stages of dress/undress. Practice a meagre amount of Javanese. ("Yes." "No." "Please." "Thank you.")

3. Walk everywhere, just to kill time.

4. Spend an afternoon exploring the environs of the city with a total stranger. (He offered me a motorcycle tour of erotic Hindu temples. How could I say no to that?)

5. Go to a movie, all in Indonesian, and understand most of it.

6. See missionaries on a public bus, and randomly hop on to say "Hi, Elders!" and ride with them wherever they're going. (I think they were far more confused than I was.)

7. Eat pineapple pancakes.

8. Visit old Javanese palaces. Marvel at items in the Sultan's collection, such as traditional Javanese gold dance accessories, ancient medicines, Belgian crystal, French statues, and Italian swords. (Apparently, the Sultan had connections.)

9. Get sick. Long for death. (I guess that's really two things. Or maybe one and a half.)

10. Read Tom Jones.

11. Think of blog entries like this one.

Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying

Or, How to Lose Five Pounds in Two Days

It's actually quite easy, and takes very little self-control; rather, a good deal of the opposite is the issue. (Ha, ha.) All that's required is picking up a very nasty case of something, Allah only knows what, that necessitates frequent trips to the bathroom for diarrhea and/or vomiting.

I'm four days into my vacation, and two days into being incredibly sick. I'm quite impressed with myself, actually, as I'd say this is about the sickest I've ever been. It's getting a little better now, but Saturday night was one of the low points of my existence, and I include the time I threw up on the ground of a train platform in Cairo with 300 Egyptians looking on. After coming home from the day's activities around 4.30 PM, I climbed straight into bed, and spend the next 16 hours throwing up--loudly, to what I'm sure was the regret of my neighbors in a hotel with paper thin walls--shaking with fever, and sleeping only intermittently due to frequent trips to the toilet to "buang air besar," or "throw out big water," if you catch my drift.

It's been a little over 48 hours now, and, surprisingly, I'm not better. With food poisoning, these things usually come and go, and one night of expelling everything I've ever put into my body is usually enough to solve the problem. Not so this time. Sunday morning I felt just as awful, and it took all I had to drag myself out of bed and into a taxi to try to get to district conference; I ended up missing it entirely, which is a pity, since that's the main reason I went to Solo. I arrived at the church just in time to ride the bus to Salatiga, my next destination; I had originally planned to stay with a friend in Salatiga, but as I was too sick to be fit for human company, I found a hotel and collapsed upon my bed there. I essentially spent all Sunday alternating between my bed and the bathroom, hoping that, with enough rest, I could defeat this thing.

And yet. I had to cancel my plans for today, going out to my friend's village to celebrate the holiday with her and her parents and her grandparents and whatever other random people might come along, in favor of lying in bed and moaning, with occasional sprints to the toilet. I also mustered up the energy to let my friend drive me to the hospital--okay, so it didn't require that much energy--where, for a mere 75 cents, a doctor listened to my stomach with a stethoscope, asked me if I had thrown up, and prescribed some medication. I'm taking the meds, but I'm not sure if I trust them--with all the numerous things that can cause diarrhea, how on earth can he know what I've got with only a 2 minute consultation? At least I didn't pay much.

In any case, I'm miserable and I want sympathy. I haven't even anything in more than 48 hours (57, to be precise), because I know I won't keep it down. (Also, I'm not hungry.) I have to be near a bathroom, because I have to, as they say, "paraphrase Bloom" roughly every half hour. I'm exhausted, despite all the rest I'm getting. My head hurts. I'm vaguely nauseated. Oh, and, worst of all, I can barely walk because my calf muscles are so cramped from dehydration. I'm valiantly trying to replace my fluid loss by drinking water, soda, Pocari Sweat, and oral rehydration salts, but since I can't keep anything down, it's not doing me much good.

What a way to spend a vacation. At least this illness has managed to undo some of the maids's efforts to fatten me up. Only two days, and my hipbones are more obvious than ever before. If this continues for much longer, I could start acting as a spokesperson for some grand new diet: totally easy! totally effective! totally free! All it takes is a small sacrifice of time, energy, and any shred of dignity you still possess.

Going Solo

Idul Fitri, the major Muslim holiday better known as Eid al-Fitr, is next week, and my vacation begins tomorrow. (Or, more properly, today at 12, since school ended early.) Thus, I'm off for a week or so of adventuring around Java, beginning with an early-morning bus ride to and three-day stay in Solo, completely alone.

The possibilities for puns are endless. I'll let you all console yourselves in my absence by making them.

Something Old, Something New

As part of our morning activity at the marina, I asked one of my twelfth grade students to tell me something funny. He thought for a minute, and then his face lit up with an idea.

A: Miss Hannah, can I ask you something? It's a little personal, so you can choose not to answer.
Miss Hannah: Go for it.
A: Are you still a virgin?
Miss Hannah: [Silence. Do I say yes and dispel the stereotype of whorish Americans, thus fulfilling my role as a "cultural ambassador" and blah blah blah, or do I keep quiet, thus maintaining the appropriate teacher-student social distance?] Ummmm....
The other students: Whoa! I don’t think you should ask her that!
Miss Hannah: Well, I’m not married yet, so yes, I am.
A: Okay, cool. Did you know that Alex here—pointing to one of his friends—is not?
Miss Hannah: Ummmm….
The other students: Whoa! I don’t think you should tell her that!

Yeah, I guess that's something funny, I'm just not sure why that's the first idea that sprang* to mind.






*Suggestive word choice edited because, come on, people! My grandma reads this blog!

Erratum

Remember how I mentioned I had a student who answers to the name of Christ? I take it back. He's named Christ, but that's his first name. He actually answers to his middle name: Conan.

That's right. Christ Conan. I asked if I could call him "The Barbarian." I don't think he got it.

One Yell Is Not Enough

My "teaching" job was pretty much a joke this week. One of the physics teachers was taking the students on a mini field trip to the Marina, for a morning of games and activities, and he invited me along as one of the supervising teachers. This means that instead of sitting in a classroom desperately trying to speak slowly enough for the students to understand, I sat on a bench by the Java Sea and desperately tried to speak slowly enough for the students to understand.

The activity was that each group had to invent a group cheer of some kind--coordinated cheer routines, or "yel-yel," being a popular pastime among the students and teachers both, for some strange reason--and then I had to give them a task to complete, in English.

The physics teacher wanted me to force the students to be creative and funny, so I simply told them to make me laugh. There was only one rule, I said: they had to speak English. (Upon hearing this, one of the boys' eyes lit up. "So we can tickle you?" he asked. I quickly added another rule.)

I have a healthy sense of humor, so the students were mostly successful at their task. I heard some Indonesian jokes, translated into broken English with my help, I saw some funny dances, and I even watched a silent skit. (This, in my mind, violated the "must speak English" rule, but since these poor girls took about 30 minutes to invent the skit, I decided not to mention it. The fact that it wasn't at all funny was another problem I overlooked on that basis.)

In any case, the best part of the morning was definitely watching the students perform their cheer routine. I don't know about you, but, in the past, when I've been assigned to create any sort of creative cheer expressing esprit-de-corps, it has always ended badly. Either the best minds of my team could only invent something lame--"Go yellow group, go! Yay."--or, at best, one girl sang something cute and well thought-out, while the rest of us stood in the background and tried to clap rhythmically. (And, in my case, mostly failed.)

Not so with these students. Each group, including a group made up entirely of 17 year old boys, had long, involved routines—songs with different verses sucking up to each of the supervising teachers, including a stanza for me, in English, to the tune of James Brown's "I Feel Good"; lengthy chants that sound better in the original language, about how "physics is hard but we know that with time and patience we'll master it"; and intricate dance steps that were definitely more than just clapping rhythmically. Not only can I not imagine a group of American high school seniors performing, or even inventing, these routines with such creativity and good cheer, I definitely cannot imagine any American high school senior boy shimmying--shimmying! In broad daylight! Sober! In front of a teacher!--with a smile on his face.

My only regret is that I didn't have a camera.

At Least It's Not Crabs

My school principal recently taught me an Indonesian phrase, in reference to my stalker: ada udang di balik batu, or "there is a lobster behind the stone." It means that someone has hidden intentions: a wolf in sheep's clothing, as it were. I get the image, and I get the point, but what I don't get is this: who on earth thought of this phrase, and why? Who first saw someone with an unclear and possibly malicious motive, and said, "Hey, guys, I've got it! It's like a lobster, see, crouching behind a rock. How perfect!"

Hm. Maybe this is a question for the 100 Hour Board. How much would you hate me, Katya, if I asked?

Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles

I came home this afternoon, and lo and behold:


And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. They also wist not where it came from, but, frankly, they didn't really care. I mean, they may been silly enough to melt their jewelry for an idol, get lost in the Sinai for forty years, and tire of manna from heaven, but surely not even the children of Israel could look a gift doughnut in the mouth.

Here Comes the Sun

Indonesians get up early. By six in the morning, when I leave my house, the day is in full swing, the streets crowded with families of five commuting on motorbikes and becak drivers desperate for work. Many Muslims, exhorted that “prayer is better than sleep,” get up around four for the morning prayer and never go back to sleep. Most dedicated housewives, even the Christians, get up at four-thirty to begin a busy day of caring for the family. The “early to bed, early to rise” mentality clearly still prevails over this society.

So much so, actually, that Indonesians are shocked and appalled to learn that I sleep in until six-thirty, and sometimes even seven, on my days off. When they call or text message at five-thirty and wake me, which happens oh, just about every week, far from being apologetic, they mock me for still being asleep. Not being fully awake at five-thirty is shameful: that’s definitely sleeping longer than is needful. One of my friends, when she heard about my wasteful sleeping habits, eyed me reproachfully, and said, “Here in Indonesia we have a saying: a girl who sleeps longer than the sun will never find a husband.”

Let that be a lesson to me. So, for now, I wake up at precisely five the mornings I have school, in order to catch the school bus at six-fifteen. It’s relatively easy, because the sun is already up, but it still brings back memories of high school—dragging myself out of bed in the cold and the dark, only to go sit in early morning seminary and mentally chastise myself for mentally cursing my boring, uptight, and rude seminary teacher, all while mentally willing myself to stay awake. It was enough, most mornings, to drive me mental.

Here, once I throw off the covers, it’s a little easier: the marble floors are cool and soothing to the touch, the sunlight streams in through the bathroom window as I shower, and the birds chirp a cheery wake-up call. I don’t exactly like waking up so early, being more a nightingale than a lark, but I’m slowly starting to get used to it.

I will continue to sleep in on my days off, though: there’s no way I’m getting out of bed before six without a pretty darn solid reason, and “the sun is already up” is not--definitely not--that reason. And that’s why no man will ever love me.

My Topic Today is Globalization

[Originally written for The Collegiate Post]

Good morning, brothers and sisters. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Hannah, and I’m from Boston. When The Collegiate Post first called and asked me to write an article about globalization, I thought, “I don’t know anything about that!” But then I did a little reading and realized this is a really interesting topic, so I’m excited to share what I’ve learned with you all today. I just have a lot of scattered thoughts that I’ve strung together, so I hope it makes sense. I’m also really nervous about this, though, because I’m not a very good writer, and when I get nervous I write really fast, so you’ll have to bear with me.

When I started my talk I wasn't sure what "globalization" really means, so I went to the dictionary. First, I found out that the word comes from the Latin root globus, meaning a round body of mass. I think this is really cool to think about, because we’re taught that the Lord’s course is one eternal round; the Lord’s course, today, can include globalization! In fact, Elder Neal A. Maxwell said that “in time there will be globalization of the Church.” Isn’t that exciting?

Webster’s dictionary defines “globalization” as “to make global in scope or application.” This means, basically, that as our world gets smaller and more globally-oriented, we have to shift our scope from just our little neighborhood to the whole world. It also means that globalization isn’t just a fancy concept to think about sometimes; it’s something that has application in our daily lives. I for one haven’t been very good at noticing this in the past, but while preparing this article, I realized how important it is, so I have made a goal to be more aware of the effects of globalization in my life. I’d like to challenge you all to do the same; reading this article is a good start, but we can always try harder. I know we’ll all be so much happier if we are aware of current events and trends in the world, especially globalization

In closing, I’d like to relate a personal experience I had once with globalization. Due to its effects, I could break my Ramadan fast in Alexandria, Egypt by eating a McArabia at the local McDonald's.

I know beyond the shadow of a doubt, with every fiber of my being, that globalization is an important trend in our world today, and that it affects many aspects of our lives. Even though I wasn’t happy about it at first, I’m really grateful to The Collegiate Post for giving me the opportunity to write this article. I think it was probably more for me than for you, because I learned so much while preparing it. I just hope it hasn’t been too boring (girlish giggle). I’m also grateful for the chance to be at this university, which is definitely the Lord's University. Oh, yeah, one more thing: I love my roommates.

And how will your product help?

I opened my email this morning to see a spam message with this title: Your mother has always dreamed of beautiful kids but you can’t provide her with them.

This blows my mind. How on earth did they know?!?

That Means "No" Where I Come From

The last blog post represented a breaking point for me; the day after writing it, first thing in the morning, I marched into the teacher's lounge, threw my cell phone at Ibu Maya, my favorite teacher, and told her the whole, long, sordid story. I was a little worried she would regard this as semi-normal behavior, or laugh it off, but, as I told the story, and Ibu Maya translated for the benefit of the rest of the listening audience, all the teachers gasped and said, as one, "He's crazy!"

So Indonesians think it too. I was relieved. Moreover, they instantly took action to help me: Ibu Maya drafted, in "good and clear" Indonesian, a text message telling him that I do not, hate him due to differences of religion, but rather deplore his methods of trying to get close to me, and that this is absolutely, categorically, the last text message from me. The other teachers forbade me from leaving the house for the next week. (Yeah right.) The school principal, upon hearing the story, volunteered to pick me up and drop me off from school for the next few days, saving me the walk home through public areas. I think that's a tiny bit of an overreaction, but I do appreciate the gesture; plus, it means I don't have to ride the overcrowded and overheated school bus.

As for this crazy guy himself, he didn't give up quite so easily. The last barrage of messages has swung wildly between surrender and threats, hope and disappointment. In one message he claimed he couldn't sleep for thinking of me, in the next he asked what he could do to make me forgive him. "This is just a miscommunication," he said. "Let's start a new relationship." He messaged once that he was sorry, and regretted everything, and didn't mean to bother me, but five minutes later he claimed he loved me, even though I hated him, and that he needed me, and would never surrender. "Love is a gift from God, right?" he said. That's all well and good, but it didn't feel like love when, directly after that, he messaged that "If you don't respond to respond to my texts or see me again, I'm coming to your house. You are the one who started this whole mess. Why don't you understand my feelings?"

I don't understand your feelings, dear sir, because they're not the same from text to text. You're unstable, and I refuse to be bothered any longer. I told the story to the servants and told him never to let this man into the house, and as far as I know, he hasn't tried.

The last few texts ended, as they started, on a somewhat contradictory note: first, he wrote that, "maybe I misjudged you. I thought you were a communicative person, happy to be friends, because you're a language teacher, and, besides that, you're a foreigner. I guess I was wrong." Happy to let him think that, since that text contained a note of surrender and resignation, I was steadfast in my silence, and about an hour later received another message saying, "It's already been a week since I've seen you! How long will I wait for you?"

Funny: that's exactly what I was wondering. One would think that having sent dozens of messages and received precisely three in reply would act as a strong hint not to wait. Moreover, the icy and clearly refusing nature of the replies--and I quote, "I do not want to be friends with you"--should also lead one to conclude that waiting will not create a friendship.

So far, though, it seems that a week, plus several straightforward rejections, is the upper limit of his waiting. I have now gone two days without any text messages from him, besides a chain text promising money for President Suharto's birthday that I've already received from three other friends today. I've got my fingers crossed that this means he's given up. As my school principal commented, at this point he's only embarrassing himself, Islam, Indonesia, and all males everywhere.

As for me, I've learned several things from the experience. Every story needs a moral, right? First and foremost: lie. When I first told Ibu Maya the story, her spontaneous reaction was, "What? You told him your real name?!?!" Second, I work at a good school, where they care about protecting me. (Maybe a little too much, actually, but that's a story for another day.) Third, I have good friends, who give good advice. And fourth, if I hint that I'm in danger, my mom will offer to pay for Tolkien Boy to visit. Mom, have I ever told you about the time an Asian Mafia leader threatened to release hundreds of poisonous snakes, made hyper-aggressive by pheromones, onto the school bus I ride every morning?

Take My Stalker--Please!

Recently, I have, quite unwittingly, made a friend. While shopping at the mall, one of the salesmen decided that I was the coolest thing ever and that we should be bosom buddies from then on out. He eagerly asked me the full panoply of Indonesian getting-to-know-you questions: my full name, my religion, where I was going, and where I live. Without thinking too much, I responded to most of them truthfully.

Big mistake. One thing that can be said about the guy, he's resourceful. Oh, actually two things: resourceful and persistent. Since I told him the name of my neighborhood--not my street, not my house--he figured out where the house was and came over to visit, uninvited, several times. The first few times, I (luckily) wasn't home. The third time, he was waiting outside the door as I came home. He asked to be invited in; I made up some excuse about how I was going to bed. He asked when he could come over next; I made up some excuse about how busy I am. (Not true. Clearly not true.) He asked for my cell phone number; I made up some excuse about how it's only for emergencies. He saw through that one, and demanded again. I realized that if I didn't give him my cell phone number, he would continue to dog the house, embarrassing me in front of the maids. I gave him a fake number; he called it right away to check if it was real.

So now he knows my address and my real phone number. On the up side, he doesn't show up at the house anymore. On the down side, he makes good use of the number. I hate to think how much money he's wasted texting or calling me. I could probably count it, actually: in the course of a week since I gave my number, he has sent me roughly 7 text messages a day. (That's an average. Today the count so far is 21, and four of those were received in the time it took me to write this entry.) In the course of one night, between 10 PM and 6 AM, he called or texted me 16 times. (When does he think I sleep?)

Normally, I'm open to new friends, even ones I meet randomly in the mall. I am here, after all, partially to get to know Indonesian culture and language, which means getting to know Indonesians. This guy would ordinarily be prime language-practice time: I know he's willing to use Indonesian with me, even though he knows some English, and he's even willing to speak slowly. However, something about him just creeps me out. I don't get a good feeling from him, and I mistrust his intentions, no matter how many times his text messages say he just wants to "dialog" about "science."

I'm not sure what to do. I've told him several times that I don't want to be friends, and that I don't think this is appropriate. Semarang is a little more liberal than some places, but it's still not quite right, in this Muslim country, for a single man and woman to meet and go out alone. I think he knows that, and I think he thinks I don't. I'm trying to just ignore him, but the text messages are getting increasingly more desparate, as he tries everything he can think of, from "I miss your smile" to "your perspective is so broad and interesting" to, his latest attempt, "Jesus says love everyone; if Jesus was so open and loving, surely you as a Mormon should be open and loving."

Ouch. The guilt tactic. Maybe I should come back with, "Mohammed said when a man and woman are alone together, the third person in the room with them is Satan; if Mohammed was so strict and reticent about male/female interactions, surely you as a Muslim should be equally strict." I doubt it would work, but I have no idea what else will make this man give up. Blocking his number is an option, of course, but I'm afraid he'll start hanging around the house again. Restraining orders are not an option and neither, apparently, is simply telling him to stop texting me. Aside from going back in time and telling him off the very first time he ever tried to talk to me, I think I'm stuck. Ideas, anyone?

I've Prepared Charts and Graphs

So, for yesterday's 12th grade lesson (and tomorrow's 11th grade lesson, because I'm lazy), I took the students to the language lab for a listening exercise. They had been there the period before mine, listening to TOEFL practice tests, mostly simple conversations about the weather and how to get to the airport; they were also clearly bored out of their minds. So, to pep things up a bit, I brought in the Postal Service song "Nothing Better," and had them fill in the blanks on the lyrics sheet.

I left the classroom feeling like the coolest teacher ever. Not only did we get to review vocabulary, and then discuss who was right in this situation, both valid teaching techniques, the students loved the song. The first time through, a few of them bobbed their heads or quietly tapped their desks. The second time through, about half the class was stomping their feet or rapping their desk or clapping along; several students were even singing along, in that awkward I've-forgotten-I'm-wearing-headphones-and-so-shouldn't-be-singing sort of way.

These kids are seriously cute. And they like the Postal Service. Suddenly, being stuck in a room full of 17 year olds for the next eight months doesn't seem quite so bad.

(Just wait until next time, when I bring in Joanna Newsom.)

Because Optimistic Might Not See It Otherwise

Optimistic. said:

It's Q-36, isn't it?

Actually, I don't need clarification on that. It's Q-36. I'm quite positive.

--
Posted by Optimistic. to purplepetra at 10/03/2006 06:59:33

Wikipedia said:

Some people mistake the sound of "PU" for a "Q" and say "Q-36." However, the weapon's name is derived from the letters "PU" which coincidentally is the atomic symbol for Plutonium—named for the dwarf planet Pluto.

Never go in against a purple when...well, never go in against a purple.

You Naughty Earth Specimens

I have, in one of my tenth-grade classes, a boy whose voice sounds exactly like Marvin the Martian, minus the British accent. When he first talked today, I had to lean over to the real teacher and ask her if that's his real voice. It's fantastic, but it's also rather hard to resist the urge to giggle and teach him phrases like "Oh goody! My Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator."

(Surely there must be some situation that phrase could come in handy...)

Key Decisions

My local Internet cafe is playing "The Final Countdown," while someone is throwing up very loudly in the bathroom. Flashes of GOB, anyone?

I'm going home. Too bad I can't watch Arrested Development there; maybe I'll convince the maids to watch a pirated version of Snakes On a Plane with me instead.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Purple

Operating in a foreign culture and language, or at the very least a slowed-up, watered-down, turned-around version of my own language, means that I very often find myself losing hold on certain parts of my personality. It's hard, for instance, to be sarcastic when one's conversational partner isn't sure what is being said in the first place. It's hard to convey a picture of a relaxed, liberal Mormon, relative to the norm, when no one has any idea of the actual norm. It's hard to seem smart with the vocabulary and grammatical capacity of a nine year old suffering from Broca's aphasia.

One of the most disconcerting examples of this personality loss, at least for a generally level-headed person like myself, is the wild mood swings. On a daily basis, Indonesia offers unique new experiences and opportunities for curiosity and wonder and personal growth and all that tourist-brochure jazz; on that same daily basis, though, it offers unlimited petty frustrations and irritations. Caught between these poles, I sometimes feel like I'm catapulted back to the age of 15, subject to the slings and arrows of all manner of new, startling hormones. (The major case of acne I've developed since being here does little to alleviate that feeling.)

For the most part, I'm happy here, but most of the time that "happy" is not quiet contentedness but an average between ecstasy and misery, with the scales tipped in a positive direction. Last Saturday, for instance, I began the day feeling euphoric, watching a parade of small children randomly banging drums to celebrate the beginning of Ramadan, but quickly swung into exhaustion and depression, mostly based on the fact that the weather was hot and I was thirsty. (What can I say? My needs are simple.) Throughout the rest of the day, I experienced everything from the transcendent (much as I hate Thoreau and Emerson and everything associated with them, the Javanese trance dance I watched requires the word) to the downright annoying (trying to make my way through the mall mostly just left me thinking, "Go ahead, move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me.").

Perhaps what I'm trying to say is better symbolized by my train of thought while riding through traffic on the back of my friend's motorcyle: one second all I can do is grin widely and think "Wheeeeee!", but the very next second that grin is a grimace, and I'm trying to remind myself to breathe, while thinking, in a panic, "Holy shit, woman, that bus was two inches away! Did you even look???"

Emotions that roller coaster like this leave me breathless, tired, and not a little peeved at myself. I'm not used to it, after all. My feelings can typically be handily tucked away into a pocket somewhere, or easily suppressed by reading Boethius or doing a math problem. Here, half a world away from my copy of "The Consolation of Philosophy," I have to take other emergency measures: first, purchase and consume every chocolate bar for sale in the local grocery store (this, luckily, for my future case of type 2 diabetes, is not that much chocolate); second, turn on Radiohead, Okkervil River, or Sufjan Stevens; third, spend several hours memorizing vocabulary lists. It doesn't get much more soothing than that.

Let's Study English Using Our Respective Idiolects

The above is a title of a "teach yourself English" type of book I found once at a bookstore here. I was rather bothered by this title: first, it's not exactly the catchiest of phrases, and one rather wonders what less-than-savvy marketer let it get past (I mean, it's not as if LSEUORI even makes a memorable acronym!), and second, do we really want everyone studying English using their respective idiolects? I think not. What would English be like if we just, willy-nilly, continued to let me egregiously mispronounce "caricature"? What if no one stopped Alea from misinterpreting basic English syntax? Just imagine the chaos!

In any case, I've seen plenty of examples of English around here that put the "idio" in "idiolect." This is to be expected in a non English-speaking country; Egypt had some great examples, such as my personal favorite, a T-shirt that read "I'M NOT GOING TO PROCLAIM VICTORY OVER THE GREAT SATA SIMLPLY BECAUSE MY GEEK CORPS MANAGED TO MADOC THE NASDAQ SYSTEM." (Yes, those capital letters were on the T-shirt.) So far I've been amused by such gems as misspelled dirty words on supposed "hardcore" T-shirts and bumper stickers, strange phrases on notebooks ("I Love Pig"), and trendy little teen lit novels called "I'm Not Bitch!" and "Vagina's Dilemma." (This last, upon further investigation, turned out to be a nickname for the novel's heroine, Varah Ghita Nabila.)

Yesterday, though, took the cake (so far). Wednesday is my day off, and yesterday I spent it lazing about the house of an Indonesian friend. She picked me up early in the morning and drove me to her house, where we then chatted, ate food, watched her young nephew run crazily around the house, ate some more food, and...well, you get the picture. To combat the real heat of the day, we spread pillows on the floor and collapsed to watch a movie. The film du jour, apparently, was a pirated version of "The Da Vinci Code," with a dark, fuzzy picture, poor quality sound, and terrible English subtitles. I couldn't really understand what the characters were saying, and couldn't even rely on the subtitles to fill me in. They included such dubious renderings as "shoot go!" for "fire away" and "so correct your liver" for "your heart is true," and, even more bizarrely, "I in shoot, and I is soybean cake bleed" for "I have been shot, and I am bleeding." I don't know what English word sounded like "soybean cake" to that poor subtitler, but I have to admit it certainly spiced up the film.

(I'm sorry, Ron Howard, but that's a sad commentary on your film. Not even Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, and Paul Bettany, some of my favorites, could salvage it. I think you would have been better off just sticking with "And now the story of a mysterious family that lost everything, and the one professor that had no choice but to put it all soybean cake together.*")



*Props, as always, to Misaneroth.

Take That, Everyone Over 30

From a recent twelfth grade student presentation: "Aging is the process of becoming not useful."

I think she meant "youthful," but I kind of like it better this way.

Foreign or Just Stupid? Act II

In a warung, or food stall by the side of the road, my host mother handed me a plate of food. "This is called nasi ruwet," she said, in English. "That means 'complicated rice' in Javanese. We call it 'complicated' because there are so many ingredients."

"Interesting," I said, "but I didn't quite catch that word you used to describe the rice. It's a word I've never heard before, after all. Can you repeat it slowly so I can remember it?"

My host mother leaned forward to make sure I could see her lips, and said, very carefully enunciating each syllable, "Com....pli....ca....ted."

Who Like Many Indonesians Only Has One Name

Nearly any newspaper article about Indonesia will, at some point, include the phrase "who like any Indonesians only has one name," or, in some variations, "who like many Indonesians only uses one name." (Try me on this and see. I guarantee it.) I'm not sure why this is the accepted phraseology--perhaps Reuters releases it every so often, just to remind reporters never to stray from the formula--but you can try me on this and you'll see. I guarantee it.

It's true that many Javanese do only use one name. My school, though, being a Christian school, is attended mostly by ethnic Chinese students. (The ethnic Chinese minority tends to be Christian and rich, while the ethnic Javanese majoirty tends to be Muslim and poor. You can see why there's a lot of resentment.) In any case, the Chinese students usually have plenty of names: three, or four, or even five. The amusing thing is the type of name, though; as I've worked this week on memorizing the names of my students, or, at the very least, on forcing them to wear nametags, I've noticed some basic groupings of names, which, since I'm obsessed with onomastic and assume that everyone else is equally interested, I'll share with you.

1. The traditional (Javanese) names. We do have a few ethnic Javanese students, with a few ethnic Javanese names. Thus, we have a Dewi and a Sri, a Hendra and a Nugroho. I've also encountered a wide variety of nicknames that sound like nonsense syllables to me: Dede and Jojo and Bowo. With these kids, I peek at their nametags.

2. The traditional (Biblical) names. It's a Christian school, so one should expect Christian names. My classes are filled with Andrews, Stephens, Davids, Esthers, and Marthas. They pronounce them a little differently, but the kids don't seem to mind if I don't roll the "r" in Andrew.

3. The traditional (American) names. I'm curious about these ones--why, exactly, do they have these names?--but I'm always happy to see them, as it's much easier for me to pronounce and remember names like Jane and Melissa and Edward.

4. The traditional (Russian) names. These ones confuse me. Why on earth, in Semarang, Java, Indonesia, do I have students named Ivan, Alexei, Sonia, and Natalya? Is this some sort of crazy Russia-China-Indonesia Axis of Generally Disagreeable, or were their parents just reading too much Dostoevsky?

4. The nontraditional (Biblical) names. These Christians tend to be a little more adventurous in selecting Biblical and saints' names; I have an Obed and a Nehemiah, a Bonifacius and a Bernard, a Yehezkia and an Abednego. I dig these kids; I mean, who can't like someone named Abednego? What's more, I even have, in one eleventh grade class, a certain tall and solemn boy, always seated near the back of the classroom, who answers to the name "Christ."

5. The nontraditional (American) names. Everyone's heard stories about Chinese foreign exchange students in the States who adopt bizarre English names, thinking they're normal. (I have, at least, and so I will assume, once again, that everyone shares my experiences.) Kaneeneenie, for instance, had a roommate who went by "Phyllis." Alea has a friend of a friend (FOAF) who chose "Mitzie." My school has its fair share of that type as well, and I'm finding that it's hard to keep a straight face meeting students named "Vienna," "Antartika," and "Queenina." (She goes by "Queenie." Is she a Berenstein Bear?)

The prize so far, though, goes to a pair of tenth grade boys in one of my classes, who sit next to each other and are clearly best friends: Hans and Franz. Now, if, like my students, you've never seen the old SNL sketches, you won't appreciate the self-control it took for me not to laugh and instantly call them "girlie men." It was tough, but I succeeded. I think congratulations are in order.

(I did not, however, successfully resist the temptation of laughing and instantly saying, "I'm going to PUMP [clap] you up." I think the students were confused. Then again, they don't really speak English, so confusion is pretty much the default in the classroom.)

Sexier Than Television

I've always felt a bit like a local celebrity here: people frequently turn and stare as I walk down the street, surprised by this blond white giant in their midst, and the teachers at my school always know what I've been doing in my spare time, based solely on the local gossip. ("Hey, my aunt's friend's maid said she saw you in the grocery store yesterday, buying shampoo. Why were you buying shampoo?")

Now, though, that status is somewhat deserved: I was on TV!

I'll give you a second to digest this new info before I admit that it really wasn't cool enough to warrant that exclamation point. There's a channel here, run by one of the local universities, that has a weekly program highlighting a local high school. Last Friday was my high school's turn, so of course they brought me along, mostly to show off: they have a native speaker of English(!), and one from America at that(!) And look! She's tall! And blond! And obviously foreign!

(If I'm not careful here, I'll get a swelled head. What can I say? I'm a hot commodity.)

This was an hour-long program, in which we mostly sat and advertised the school to the announcer, a very perky Indonesian Kelly Ripa. I managed, in that awkward yet charming way of mine, to get half my face into the background shot while some tenth grade girls played the violin and sang at the opening of the program; I then managed, even more awkwardly, to look at the wrong camera at these moments, so that only the whites of my eyes showed. I'm sure the viewers at home were confused and repulsed, as I must have looked like some sort of Creature from the White Lagoon.

I also managed to wear the same color as the announcer, so that by sitting next to each other we seemed to blend into one giant mass of pink. (This fact is not as surprising as it sounds, since roughly half the clothes, bags, and shoes sold in any stores here are that particular color. Coral: it's so hot right now!) What's more, I look even whiter than normal, since the glare of the cameras washed me out. Everyone else got to wear makeup to counteract this effect, but they didn't have any makeup that was white enough to even approximate my natural color. (This, too, is not surprising, as my skin tone is known in the business as "extra ivory." I'm serious.)

Mostly, though, the program was dull. I answered a few questions about the school and my role within it, but since both the questions and responses were in English, I suspect I could have said nearly anything I wanted without much ado. The announcer clearly didn't understand what I was saying; as I talked, very slowly and clearly, she got that glazed "it's all Greek to me" look in her eyes, and several times, as I talked, she attempted to cut me off in the middle of a sentence. (One would think that intonation would be enough. Or perhaps, say, pausing? Not for Ms. Perky Smile, though.)

So that's my grand debut. I think the other teachers at my school were much more excited about the whole thing than I was; on Monday after the program, I was mobbed in the teacher's lounge, and beset with comments like, "My friend's sister's boyfriend saw you on TV! Why were you on TV?" I guess I'd better just get used to fame.

(PS: Five points to the first person who can, without using Google, name the song referened in the title.)

Attention, Please!

[Live Nobly Or Die a Martyr]

I would like to take this opportunity to encourage all the residents of Semarang to live nobly. Thank you.

Note to Self

Do not (NOT!) eat very spicy and possibly dirty food before embarking on a three hour car ride. Any toilet found in gas stations in central Java is bound to be squat, dark, dirty, and definitely without toilet paper. The experience will be unpleasant, from begging your host parents to ask the driver to pull over, no, not in fifteen minutes, not when we get to a more convenient place, but NOW! to having eucalyptus oil rubbed all over your back and stomach by an assiduous fifteen year old maid. Never, ever, ever again.

Welcome Aboard the U.S.S. Skin Cancer

Mom, you're going to hate me for this. In fact, it might be better if you just stopped reading here. I'm serious. Stop.









For the rest of you still paying attention, you can hear my confession: I have a blister. It's red and slightly swollen, it's about the size of a quarter, and it's right where my neck meets my collarbone. In looking at it, I am reminded of the time one of my roommates stayed out with a boy until 4 A.M. and then claimed that the red mark on her neck was a burn from her curling iron. (I sure hope my mom has followed instructions and skipped this post.)

To obtain this blister, though, I didn't have to get near either curling irons or boys. All I had to do was stay out in the sun. That's right: I'm blistered from a sunburn. Although this isn't the first time this has happened, and probably won't be the last, this is definitely the biggest and most painful sunburn blister of all time. (Since my mom isn't reading, she can't counter with the time she was burned so badly her eyes swelled shut.) Even worse, nearly every shirt I own brushes this spot, just so that I can never, ever forget this sunburn.

That's actually all I've got on this topic. I mostly wanted to complain and get a little pity. Indonesians, for the most part, are too confused by the entire concept of a sunburn to really be sympathetic. If you need any more reason to pity me, I got sunburned through my shirt a few weeks ago, and another time I got sunburned despite having applied SPF 45 three separate times. So come on, people, let's feel the love. Pity the fair-skinned fool, please.

Fun with H., My Favorite of the Maids

One of the features of having servants is that I don't get to do anything by myself; in fact, I think they deliberately hide things (such as the toaster) in order to prevent me from doing mundane kitchen tasks (such as toasting bread) by myself. If I even so much as start serving myself rice, a maid, or sometimes two, comes running into the dining room to do it for me. No! Heaven forbid I be forced to do something for myself!

The other day, the task at hand was cutting an apple. My attempt to do this alone stymied by the fact that knives are among those kitchen implements conveniently hidden from view. Admitting defeat, I wandered into the servant's kitchen to ask for a knife, only to realize that I couldn't remember the Indonesian word for knife. The ensuing conversation went something like this:

Hannah: Um, excuse me...do you have something here for cutting an apple?
H.: Yes! Of course! Here.
Hannah: What is this called?
H.: (very slowly) This...is...called..."pisau."
Hannah: Thanks. Oh, and is there another one? My friend needs one too.
H.: (nods, gets another knife.) This...is...also...called..."pisau."

Sometimes I think people around here get "foreign" and "stupid" mixed up. In any case, I'll never again forget the word for knife.

(This is not nearly the funniest story I've heard about language mixups and knives; a former roommate once, while praying in Arabic, forgot the word for "atonement." Deciding to substitute a random word instead, she ended up thanking God for Jesus' knife. It's a good thing the Lord looketh upon the heart.)

The Javanese Way

Java has one of the world's highest population densities (according to Wikipedia, if Java were an independent nation, it would be the eighth most densely populated nation in the world, at 863 people per square kilometer), so it's no wonder that Javanese culture values togetherness and cooperation. This means that doing things alone here is impossible, or, at the least, strange. If I sit in my room alone for too long, one of the maids knocks on my door to come hang out with me, or at the very least offer me strange desserts. If I want to exit or enter the house, one of the maids asks where I'm going, and one of the random boy servants opens the gate for me. If I walk around the city by myself (see previous post), at least 27 people ask me, in total shock, "kok sendirian?" or "why are you by yourself?" and offer me a ride.

This aspect of Javanese culture was brought home to me in painful force this morning. I wanted to go to a nearby bookstore, and I wanted to ride a becak. However, I didn't know how much was reasonable to pay for the distance I wanted to go, so I asked S., one of the maids. She didn't know, so she asked A., one of the drivers. A. told me a price (about fifty cents), and unlocked the gate for me. Since there was no becak waiting outside the gate, a rare occurance, A. and I waited for a few minutes. After no becaks approached, A. asked one of the random men sitting outside the door if they could find us a becak. (I don't know who these men are or what they do--at the very least, they're another byproduct of Java's overpopulation.) Random Man #1 called across the street to a group of becak drivers there. One young driver made motions as if he were going to bring his becak around, but then ended up shouting back across the street to some of the becak drivers sitting about a block down from the house. One old man then dragged his becak, against the flow of traffic, back to the house.

Let's take a look at that again. I asked S., S. asked A., A. asked Random Man #1, Random Man #1 asked Young Driver, and Young Driver asked Old Driver to come back and pick me up. It's like a giant game of Six Degrees from a Becak Driver.

Semarang On Foot

It's lucky, I think, that Semarang has a nice personality, because physically it has little to offer. Most of its architecture follows the always-in-vogue "decrepit modern" style, meaning that Semarang could probably make a fortune by selling itself to moviemakers as "Generic Southeast Asian City #22" and appearing in hundreds of films as Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, or Hanoi. Although Semarang is the capital of the province of Central Java, it is mainly a commercial and administrative city, and is in no way the capital of Javanese culture. It boasts few real tourist attractions; the Lonely Planet Indonesia devotes two pages to Semarang, in contrast to its 12 pages about Yogyakarta or 10 pages about Solo, a city one-third Semarang's size. (More embarassing still, a good half a page of those two is devoted to detailing how to get to Yogyakarta or Solo from Semarang.) Moreover, the tourist guidebooks published by Semarang's regional government itself fail to elaborate on Lonely Planet's assessment; one pamphlet I saw today listed five tourist attractions, two of which were shopping centers and two of which were government buildings. The final pages of the pamphlet then listed the prices of trains, buses, and airplanes out of the city. (This seems like an admission of defeat to me; perhaps, if the city officials were so inclined, they could change the city motto to "From Here You Can Go Anywhere (In Central Java)!")

Today, though, determined to use my Wednesdays off in a productive manner (I get Wednesday off. Wednesdays. Fridays would be one thing, or maybe Monday, but what on earth can I do with Wednesday off?), I set off to be a tourist in Semarang. Armed with my Lonely Planet knowledge (too lazy to carry such a big book for only two pages, I simply memorized the info), I started walking. I could have accepted any number of a thousand and one offers to ride a becak, but I figured, what else would I do with my time but walk? I had, after all, an entire day to fill, and only about twenty minutes of actual tourist activity with which to fill it. So thus, like a mad dog or Englishman, I spent the hottest hours of the day, from about ten to three, slowly strolling down the city's biggest streets.

I had another reason for walking, of course. I hoped that, if I only moved slowly enough, I would see hidden depths and charms in this place, Yogyakarta's ugly (Chinese) stepsister. I might happen upon a tiny alley filled with cultural wonders, or maybe luck into an old traditional building of some kind, or maybe even find some hidden spot that Lonely Planet missed.

Well, there's luck and then there's luck. In my five hour excursion, I found, as Lonely Planet predicted, mostly shops and government buildings. I saw a few statues; Semarang, like Jakarta, boasts a rockin' collection of Communist era statues to heroes and battles. I stumbled into a public library, where a handsome young librarian in a pseudo-military uniform gave me water to drink and urged me to return again anytime. I wandered through the city's largest traditional market, terrified the whole time, as my host father told me a long story last night about being robbed at knife point there. (I escaped with camera, money, and life intact.) I fended off a thousand shouts of "hello Mister" and "I love you beautiful!" (Interestingly, I get fewer shouts and stares in Semarang than Jakarta. I'm not sure why.) All in all, no hidden gems, but a thoroughly enjoyable, if overheated, sort of day.

If you're good with counting, though, you may have noticed that Semarang has five tourist attractions, and only four are shopping centers or government buildings. The fifth puts those mundane sights to shame. In the colonial era, Semarang was also a provincial capital for the Dutch, who tried hard to build it up to rival Batavia (now Jakarta). Unlike in Jakarta, however, a lot of the old architecture still exists in an area of Semarang still known by the Dutch name, "Oudstad," or "old city." (The Dutch name, though common, is also commonly misspelled; it appears as outstadt, oudstad, outstad, and nearly any other variation you can think of.)

This old city, unlike the rest of Semarang, is really quite beautiful. It is bordered by a canal, slow and dirty, and crossing the bridge over the canal is like entering another world: the streets are wide and still paved with cobbles, the buildings are white and decorated with balconies and arches, and small white lampposts line the roads. The entire area looks, not surprisingly, like a faded tropical ghost of Amsterdam. The traffic slows a little in this neighborhood, so everything's a little quieter, and it's not hard to imagine this area two hundred years ago, with Dutch administrators and their wives riding the becaks, instead of sweating American tourists. I almost felt, passing the area's famous Gereja Blenduk, a Dutch church built in 1753, that I ought to be wearing white linen and carrying a parasol.

I'll save that for next time, I suppose. For now, though, I'm just pleased to know that Semarang can offer at least one decent tourist attraction for all those out there who need a reason to come visit me. (If for some strange reason you need another, I can guarantee that it's easy to find a train, bus, or airplane to Yogyakarta or Solo.)

Master of My (Semantic) Domain

Sample questions I understood at church today:

• Sister Hannah, would you mind sharing us with us your testimony of the importance of genealogical work, especially how it pertains to temple attendance?


• Can you please play the opening song for us? We'd like to sing "Families Can Be Together Forever."


• Who, truly, can doubt the Lord when he says that he will do nothing except he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets?

Sample questions I misunderstood at church today:

• What is your full name?


• How long will you be in Semarang?


• What month were you born?

No prizes for guessing where I currently get most of my Indonesian language practice.

What the Other Half Thinks

In skimming through one of the English language textbooks at my high school, I found this lovely little piece about American culture, written as an introduction for Indonesian students studying there. Without further ado, "Tips For Newcomers to the U.S.A.":

• Americans are very friendly and helpful.


• They don't make you feel like a foreigner (though you feel!!!)


• It's very easy to adjust with them. But they don't like people getting inquisitive or trying to get too personal in the initial phase of the acquaintance.


• They dress casually and nobody bothers which dress you wear, etc.


• They are fun-loving creatures and enjoy their free time. They look forward to weekends and plan their weekend activities in advance.


• They are frank about their opinions.


• They respect individual views and allow everyone to speak their own ideas on a subject.


• They have a lot of patience. Especially when standing in line or while driving, nobody will try to jump before you in line. Most of them are very disciplined drivers. However this differs from State to State.


• If they happen to come in your way or you happen to come in theirs, you will promptly hear an "Excuse me."


• They need a lot of feedback while talking. You have to acknowledge/nod continuously. Otherwise they feel you are not interested in listening or are confused.


• They gesure a lot and shoot some funny (or so it seems initially) phrases at you. It's a matter of "getting used to it."


• They are very "proud" of their country. For them the universe is the United States. So never ever make fun or speak lightly about them or tell them they do not have any social/cultural background. You will not make more American friends that way.


• Rhode Island is neither a road nor an island.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Sources of Endless Fascination to L., the Youngest of the Maids

1. How white my skin is.

(Indonesians pay good money for whitening creams and powders and don't seem to understand that I don't like my white skin. Sunburns are clearly so a foreign concept.)

2. How my arms that are braceleted and white and bare are in the lamplight downed with light brown hair.

(Okay, maybe not in so many words, but the intent was there.)

3. How my legs are also covered with the same blondish hair.

(Slightly awkward follow-up question: "Is your hair that same color everywhere?" Um, excuse me? Did you just ask what I think you asked?)

4. How my face turns red at certain questions.

(With questions like "does the carpet match the drapes," I should think it's no surprise that I'm blushing!)

5. How big my feet are.

(As if, in a country where the largest shoes are two sizes too small, I needed reminding!)

6. How new "red freckles" keep appearing on my face--yesterday there was one on the right cheek, and today there's one on the left! Are those mosquito bites, or what?

(Yeah, kid, I'm 22 years old and still fighting pimples. Thanks for bringing that up.)

Hannah the Homewrecker

Everyone here is into text-messaging, since it's cheaper than calling, and so I too, I'm ashamed to admit, have fallen victim to this plague. Convenient as it may be, though, it offers many an opportunity for hilarity and confusion; the most recent came as a result of a text message from a friend from church. It was from an unfamiliar number, but I figured that since he had just gotten his phone repaired, either he had changed his number and was using someone else's. I texted him back just to say goodbye before I left Jakarta and that he should come visit me in Semarang if he ever had the chance. In reply, though, instead of hearing from my friend, I got this:

Sori ry g ad hp d tgal dri:istriny

This is extremely abbreviated Indonesian which, as far as I can tell, says (roughly) "sorry, you have a handphone that was left behind. This is from his wife."

I was confused; my church friend isn't married. I didn't respond for a minute or two, wondering what was going on. By way of explanation, I got this:

Knp g bls smsny tlg g usah sms sua mi sy klu g ad yg perlu tsk utk pengertiany y hannah ok

This, to my guess, means "Why did you respond to my text? Please don't text my husband. If you don't have what you need, ask for understanding, okay, Hannah?"

I was doubly confused now: who was this person? How did they know my name? I responded with a simple, "I'm confused," and a few seconds later received this next text:

Knp bingung g usa buang2 pls sms k hp suamisy ry bkan ljang dia ud menikah tlg jgn ggu r. tga sy okay sudah y

This means, more or less, "Why are you confused? You've already thrown around texts to the handphone of my husband. He's not single! He's already married! Please do not disturb my home! Okay? Enough, yeah?"

Wow. I realized at this point exactly what was going on--my friend must have borrowed someone's phone to text me, and I included my name in my original text, so this clearly wasn't someone I knew. I texted back that I was really sorry and that I must have had the wrong number, but still felt vaguely guilty, since that's exactly what I would have said if I were actually having a text-message affair with her husband. This poor husband is going to have a wife constantly suspicious of any trips to Semarang.

Oh well, though. I just hope that my texting Indonesian was poor enough that she could figure out that it was a genuine mistake.

Things I Never Thought I Would Do, Part 1

Sing "I'm a Little Teapot" to a classroom of 15 year olds.

(To be continued...)

I Know the Church Is True

True, and sometimes funny or strange. A few choice moments from this week's services:

• The Indonesian translation of the "render unto Caesar" passage in the New Testament, as far as I could tell, leaves something to be desired. It says, as far as I could tell, "Give to Caesar the things you should give to Caesar, and give to God the things you should give to God." Um, I'm sorry, Jesus, but that's not exactly helpful. I much prefer the smart-alecky, and yet also insightful, English version.
  
  (Note: my Indonesian is poor. Maybe I just read it wrong.)
  
  
• The Indonesian translation of hymns is also interesting, and all my relatives who have visited can back me up on this. Indonesian words tend to be longer, in terms of syllable count, than English ones. (In fact, it's a feature of many Austronesian languages that native root words are always two syllables.) This poses no problems for ordinary translation, but it certainly does for hymns, where the syllable count actually matters. Essentially, this means that Indonesian hymns say a lot less than their English counterparts. Don't worry: the editing usually happens at the expense of flowery language, not doctrine, but it does make the hymns rather prosaic if back-translated into English. For example, this morning we sang "Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel." The chorus in English, as most of you know, is "Put your shoulder to the wheel/Push along/Do your duty with a heart full of song/We all have work/Let no one shirk/Put your shoulder to the wheel." The equivalent chorus in Indonesian is "Let us all work together, doing tasks with happiness." The translated name of the song is "The World Needs People Who Want to Work," which seems a tad stodgy to me.
  
  (I have not yet, unfortunately, discovered the Indonesian translation of "the world has no need for a drone," but I guess that's irrelevant post-1985.)
  
  
• In my Sunday School lesson in Jakarta a few weeks ago, I looked around the room and noticed this scene:
  
  1. The branch president, former mission president, and second counselor in the branch presidency sitting in the front row and making longwinded comments
  
  2. a gaggle of old women sitting behind me and talking, quite obviously ignoring the lesson
  
  3. the guy next to me doing something on his PDA.
  
  If you needed proof that the Church is fundamentally the same everywhere, there you have it.
  
  
• Not that differences don't exist, of course. A little old lady stood up in Relief Society this morning to bear her testimony. It was mostly pretty standard--"I know the Church is true, I know Jesus lives, I know God lives, I have a testimony of the living prophet today...[long pause]...wait, what's his name again?" A couple of the other old ladies tittered, and someone finally supplied the name. I'm pretty sure that's something that wouldn't happen at BYU.
  
  (I mean, not recognizing pictures of Brigham Young might happen at BYU, sure, but not knowing the name of the prophet? Even I'm not that bad.)

I guess none of this beats backflips in church, or even the sternum story, but hey, I understood them! (That's always a noteworthy vistory, in my mind.)

The Honeymoon Phase

(For all those who don't care what's going on in my life, and only want clever little quips and stories, please skip this entry. I'm about to do an information overload, and, what's worse, it will be information unbound by a formal narrative. I can't promise I'll be clever; all I can guarantee is that it will be verbose.)

I arrived in Semarang from Jakarta two days ago on a tiny little Garuda Indonesia flight. The weight limit, according to my ticket, was 30 kilos for everything, meaning both of my suitcases and my carry-on. My suitcases were roughly 28 k each, and my carry-on was easily another 10. When I checked everything in, the guy at the desk said something about paying an overweight fee, at which point I smiled sweetly, crossed my fingers, and pulled out a letter from the government that the office gave me. Our program director told us to try using it to avoid the fees; she said it may or may not work, but would be worth a shot. I gave the man a slightly nervous spiel (in Indonesian) about how I'm in the country at the special request of the office of the president, and how therefore I'm exempt from such pedestrian requirements as overweight baggage fees. To my great surprise and pleasure, it worked. You'd better believe I'm holding on to that letter, and maybe even making some extra photocopies.

After being picked up at the airport by some of my school's incredibly nice teachers, we went out to eat, where I had my first experience trying to eat rice with my hands. It was messy but strangely satisfying; I worried mostly about an open sore on my thumb, which stung like nobody's business as I ate spicy dishes.

(When it comes to hygeine around here, it's often best to just close your eyes and think of the empire. Rest assured that I did wash my hands.)

Speaking of food, that's an issue here. If I come back next summer weighing twice as much, don't be surprised: everybody wants to feed me, and it's hard to constantly resist. I haven't paid for a single piece of food since I arrived, and at every turn I've been offered sweet syrupy drinks, strangely textured desserts, spring rolls, cap cay, spicy vegetables, sweet vegetables, cantaloupe drinks, fried noodles, fried chicken, spicy fish, sweet fish, salted fish, otak-otak, oranges, apples, mangoes, papaya, snake fruit, jackfruit, keropok, bread with chocolate, pastries, various other unidentified dishes, and, of course, white rice, brown rice, yellow rice, fried rice, and coconut rice. It's all--with the possible exception of cassava--completely and utterly delicious, so how can I refuse?

I'm less likely to even think about refusing other aspects of my school's hospitality. They were supposed to arrange housing for me--housing which I don't even have to pay for--and, I must say, they did a smashing job. They found a teacher at the school who had a spare room and, let me tell you, this woman is loaded. I'm living in a bedroom larger than most of my Provo living rooms, and it comes complete with a king bed and a twin spare, marble floors, an air-conditioning unit, a Western toilet and shower, and a giant wardrobe for storing many more possessions than I actually own. The rest of the house is equally stunning: it's spacious and light, with a charming little porch in front, and another in back which looks into a tropical garden. I intend to eat breakfast there in the morning, listening to the bird calls.

As for breakfast, I don't even have to prepare it myself. All my meals are prepared by one of this household's seven servants. (They may have others that I haven't seen; to be honest, I'm not quite sure.) There are at least three maids, constantly hanging around to do my laundry, tidy my books and papers, make my bed, and urge more meals on me. There are two drivers, one for each car, and finally there are at least two extra people, who perform basic services such as opening the gate.

(I'm sure after at least a week all these extraneous presences in the house will grate on me, in particular the fact that I can't come and go on my own without asking someone else to open the door for me, but for now it's still a thrill. Hence, the honeymoon phase.)

Plus, and this is where I really feel blessed, the house is quite near the center of town, which means I can walk to an internet cafe which provides broadband internet for 30 cents an hour, or, if my cravings for Western comforts overcome my reluctance to spend money, to a Dunkin' Donuts or McDonald's. What's more, I'm within walking distance of the Mormon church, so I don't have to worry about transportation on Sundays, even if I do feel a bit like an Orthodox Jew, eschewing all forms of work.

Being near the center of town is also an advantage on Sunday mornings, such as today, because Sunday morning is prime recreation time for this town. When this morning I arrived at church at 8 AM only to find that it actually began at 9, I wandered through the market, and stumbled upon such interesting gems as a street performance of traditional Javanese dance, a man selling fat crickets to be fried and eaten, horse-drawn carriages taking people around the traffic circle, and a pirated DVD stand selling, of all things, a copy of "The Legend of Johnny Lingo."

Semarang, or what I've seen of it so far, is a beautiful town. (I suspect that's probably not true, and instead I'm just wearing "Jakarta goggles," through which nearly every other city looks peaceful, quiet, and clean.) Everyone's dire warnings of the heat here were, as it turns out, perfectly true, and so I'm being careful to keep a water bottle with me at all times. (The maids think it's strange that all I want to drink is water. Mostly I'm trying to avoid being offered more strawberry syrup.) Semarang was a major capital in the Dutch era, and many old Dutch buildings, including a fabulous old church, are still standing. It's also a heavily Chinese city, and its Chinatown is, in addition to being full of good food, thriving. It also features a section of town up on a hill, which offers great views of the city stretching out over its bay. The school where I'll be teaching is a five minute walk from the sea, which sounds a lot more interesting than it actually is. There's no beach to speak of, and the water so close to the city looks, well, less than appealing. On the plus side, it's the Java Sea, which hasn't had any drastic tsunamis so far and, as far as I know, isn't likely to get them. Knock on wood.

(As my dad pointed out, though, the fact that the U.S. Government is worried enough about my security to buy me my own cell phone is not exactly heartening. It's not just tsunamis, of course, but also bird flu, earthquakes, and terrorism. Semarang is, according to a nice FBI agent I talked to a few weeks ago, a "real hotbed of terrorist activity nowadays." At his urging, I'll be keeping a low profile, as far as that's possible for a blond-haired, blue-eyed, 5 foot 9 inch American female in Southeast Asia.)

Let's not end it on that note: Semarang is great so far, and I feel ridiculously lucky to have ended up in my situation. Starting bright and early tomorrow--I have to leave the house by 6.30 at the latest every day--I'll be at my school, first observing and getting fitted for a uniform, and later teaching myself. I can sense a variety of emotions stewing below the surface--anxiety about standing up in front of 15 year olds all day, frustration with not speaking the language and constantly feeling like a retarded child, homesickness for my family and friends and even, occasionally, the mountains--but for the most part all I feel is excited. Wish me luck.

Groundbreaking New Research from the Field

The Top 5 Worst Places to Have a Mosquito Bite

5. The middle of the back. (Itchy and impossible to scratch.)
4. The groin. (Itchy and socially unacceptable to scratch.)
3. The face. (Itchy and disfiguring.)
2. The soles of the foot. (Itchy, with that itch constantly renewed through any contact with shoes or the ground.)
1. Any place where the mosquito can give you Japanese encephalitis, malaria, dengue fever, or yellow fever. (Any place such as, say, Indonesia.)

(You can trust me on this, people: since I currently have a bite in each of these places, I've spent some quality time thinking about the issue. A few more weeks, and I'll start considering myself a real expert in this matter. I wonder if there's any way to go pro with my newfound knowledge.)

Say What?

Lately, I've been trying things in Indonesian. That means attending church, showing up at Young Single Adult activities, and chatting with taxi drivers. My Bahasa Indonesia is passable, meaning that I can (mostly) follow the gist of a conversation if a)it's one-on-one, b) it's face-to-face, and c) the person speaks loudly and slowly. My vocabulary's also pretty limited right now, which means I, and whoever I'm talking to (not to whomever I'm talking, please note) have to do some guessing.

So the other night I was trying to explain my view on Indonesian desserts to Brother Sam, one of my favorite Church members here. Indonesian food is fantastic, but I am always disappointed with the post-meal offerings; they're not chocolate, they're not very sweet, and they're always vaguely mushy or slimy. I was trying to tell Brother Sam about this, but I didn't know the word "texture." The discussion that followed went something like this:

Hannah: I like the taste of Indonesian desserts, but I don't like the....(pauses to ponder)
Brother Sam: The...?
Hannah: ...the "texture"? Do you know the word "texture"?
Brother Sam: "Texture"?
Hannah: Okay, how to explain...um, like, if I touch something, it feels...(demonstrates touching)
Brother Sam: You stroke your food?
Hannah: No, no, like, for anything. Everything has a "texture." Like, if I touch this desk, it feels...(pats the desk for a minute, then realizes she doesn't know the word for "smooth." Or "rough." Or any texture-related words. Sighs in despair.)
Brother Sam: (stares blankly)
Hannah: (thinking of things with interesting textures) Okay, I'll try again. It's the feeling of something. Like a snake...or like fur...or like oil.
Brother Sam: You think Indonesian desserts taste like snakes?
Hannah: (Searches for a way to explain "mushy." Decides it isn't worth it.)
Brother Sam: (Pulls out an electronic dictionary, looks up "mushy.") Oh, "like pudding"!
Hannah: Yes, like pudding! (Thinks, "I can't believe I just went through all that for the translation "like pudding." Screw circumlocution; I'm buying an electronic dictionary.")

Things Remembered, Things Forgotten

Selamat all times of day from the wilds of Indonesia. To get things started right, I think we need a list, perhaps of things I had remembered and things I had forgotten.

1. That the water is not potable
a. because the canals are so clogged with trash they can barely move
b. and because the water from the tap is vaguely greenish. (Don't take baths.)

2. The thick, almost overly sweet-smelling air of the tropics
a. with an acrid overlay of pure pollution
b. and sometimes the stench of rotting garbage.

3. The call of the mosques echoing through the (relatively) cool twilight
a. and the constant roar of motorcyles, buses, cars, trucks, and bajaj
b. and never forget the tinny Indopop blaring from every radio.

4. That Indonesians are kind, gentle, polite, and friendly
a. and will always smile in exchange for a smile
b. and will never, ever, ever leave a person alone.

5. That crossing the street is like a giant and deadly game of Frogger
a. but it's not as scary as, say, Cairo
b. and sometimes, if you're lucky, a friendly member of the Indonesian Special Forces will step in the road and stop three lanes of traffic for your crossing.

I'll be in culture shock mode in a month or two, I'm sure, but for now I'm still in the honeymoon phase. Jakarta is overcrowded, dirty, smelly, and noisy, but every so often in the midst of the hubbub I am struck, in the spirit of Proust's madeleines, by a tiny thing--a word, a smile, a smell, an "Allahu Akbar" over the loudspeaker--that reminds me of my years here and makes me think: this is coming home.

May all my homecomings be this way!

iFAQ

And now, by special request, a blog post in which I answer some of the questions that have been submitted as comments, and maybe even a few more. Ta-da! A veritable "infrequently asked questions" page. This one goes out to you, bawb.

1. Uh, did he propose?

No, Anonymous, no gossip fodder here. And were there gossip fodder, trust me, I would tell you myself. If, that is, I knew who you are.

The panic was about my imminent departure for Indonesia, land of volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and human-to-human transmitted Avian Flu. Eight days now!

2. Is your mom available?

No. She's still happily married to my father, who is even crazier than she is. You should see him lose his swimsuit while tubing. It's a skill.

3. You see what kind of friends you have?

Yes. Oh, I'm sorry--did you want me to describe the kinds of friends I have?

4. Can you please describe what kinds of friends you have?

All kinds: crazy, smart, crazy smart, pretty, funny, pretty funny...you get the picture.

5. How do you say "thank you" or such good words in Indian?

See Board Question 21859.

6. So, which of the books did you enjoy most?

Either Speak, Memory, because I love Nabokov, or Adverbs, because Daniel Handler is seriously funny, and also maturing nicely as a serious author.

7. Why isn't your blog purple?

Because, I, um, couldn't figure out how to make it so. Can you help me?

8. Did you say "Massachusetts?"

Funny you should ask! Yes. Yes, I did.

9. What is your favorite English bound morpheme?

Oh, this one's easy: meta-. Phrases like "global metalect" give me positive chills of pretensiousness.

10. Why do fools fall in love?

Forty-two.

Panic.

The title says it all, actually: full-fledged, deer-in-the-headlights, agoraphobic-at-a-World-Cup-game panic. Yikes.

Your Mom. No, Wait, Mine.

Those who know me, but not my mom, in real life probably have a very skewed picture on what it means to be Petra's Mother. They've probably heard detailed stories about her sex life like "how she celebrated graduation from BYU ¹," "why Mormon men get addicted to pornography ²," and "my grandmother's sex advice³." If they've heard other stories, they probably have formed a mental image of my mother as a sex-crazed, Valium-abusing, ditzy redhead oozing excess maternal energy towards not only her small, white, yappy, fluffy dog but also towards all the stray animals in Delhi, from dogs to donkeys.

They'd be wrong in this vision, of course. Her appearances in my personal narrative repetoire aside, my mother is actually brilliant and capable--enough, in fact, to earn one BA, one MA, and one Ph.D. and then, on top of all that, to face returning to school at 40 to earn yet another BA.

That's not funny, though, so I hide the stories about, you know, the time she earned a Ph.D. despite having two kids and tell the stories about, say, the time she multiplied 5 by 6 and got 80.

In any case, the border between these two sides of her character seems to grow thinner and thinner as I age, and this thin line of transition constantly startles me. Once, in a high school seminary class, we watched a video about evil, or sin, or pride, or extra piercings, or, I don't know, one of those other things we should avoid. The video featured a man lecturing sternly about how rock music is of the devil--specifically, he claimed that Mick Jagger was the devil incarnate. He had all sorts of evidence: he hired Hell's Angels (coincidence? I think not!), claimed the devil inspired their music (it's true!) and even openly sympathized with the devil (you can look it up!).

This might have affected teenagers in 1968, but for a much more jaded 2001 crowd, it was laughable. I regaled all my non-Mormon friends at school that day with that paticular piece of seminary craziness, and when I got home I was eager to share the laughs with my mom. I told her all about the video, playing up this man's complete craziness--honestly, where do people get such strange ideas?

"That is silly," she said, chuckling. "Mick Jagger as the devil? I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my whole life." She stopped laughing suddenly and looked directly at me. "Clearly, it's Keith Richards."

Here's to my mom, a character I don't even have to exaggerate.



¹Sex in the SWKT bathroom.
²Their wives aren't adventurous enough in bed. "Dress up! Take pictures!"
³Practice the butterfly stroke.

How I Spend My Time

What I read in the course of 13 days of vacation:

Adverbs, Daniel Handler
You Remind Me of Me, Dan Chaon
Word Freak, Stefan Fatsis
The Truth, Terry Pratchett
A Basque History of the World, Mark Kurlansky
Pompeii, Richard Harris
The Grass Harp, Truman Capote
The Best American Essays (College Edition), ed. Robert Atwan
The Broker, John Grisham
44 Scotland St., Alexander McCall Smith
Letters to a Young Mathematician, Ian Stewart
Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov
Rhinoceros and other plays, Eugene Ionesco
Why Girls Can't Throw, Mitchell Symons
A House in Sicily, Daphne Phelps
Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey

What else did I do? I played countless games of capitalism, poker, solitaire, sudoku, and the perfect card game. Spare time? Yeah, I've got that.

(Oh, right, and I toured Italy.)