Pomplamoose - If You Think You Need Some Lovin (My favorite song right now)

Volunteering at a local, public school on Nov 16th, 2010

I decided to use my talents to help teach English to Indonesian children whose parents cannot afford a private school education. The Indonesian government passed a law 4-years ago requiring public schools to teach English as a foreign language to students beginning in 4th grade. Many teachers in public school are not fully prepared to teach English. As such, this organization's main purpose is to teach teachers how to teach English as a 2nd language. So, I signed up to co-teach 6th grade English once a week for an hour and half.

It's been an adventure! On my first day, I was greeted by a cow and 3 goats. I thought they were the school's mascots.

See the 3 goats in the back ground?!?!?!

I asked the teacher I will be working with why they had these animals in the court yard, and she explained that they were going to kill them for the Eid al-Adha Festival.

Immediately, when I got home I looked up more information. Here's what Wikipedia has to say...

Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى‎ ‘Īdu l-’Aḍḥā) or "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Eid" is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Isma'il) as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a ram to sacrifice instead.^[1] The meat is divided into three parts to be distributed to others. The family retains one third of the share, another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors, and the other third is given to the poor & needy.


So, what's the moral of the story?!?!?! Dont get attached to goats and cows before Eid al-Adha.

Early mornings from now on...

So, Matt and I decided to start getting up at 5:15 am every morning from now on, AND let me tell you that it's not difficult to do that here in Jakarta. The sun starts rising at 5:00 am and by 5:30 am our room is so bright, you have to fight with your body to make it sleep in. At the end you give up and realize that you just wasted an hour of your time.


This is the brightness of our room early in the morning.

With curtains closed...

With curtains open...

What's the point of sleeping in, right?!?!?!

So our weekdays will begin at 5:15 am. Mmm... And I thought I had weened myself off coffee.

Breakfast in Indonesia

I love rice, but I would stop liking it if I had to eat it for breakfast as well. Thankfully, a cereal called "Sanitarium" has come to the rescue. It's made in Australia, and it contains all the goodness in life in one long box.

But more than goodness in a box, we love what the company stands for. The following is an excerpt of the company's mission statement on the back of the box.

"On the outside, we may seem like just another food company. But on the inside, we're a lot more than that. We're a group of people who believe passionately in the potential of every Australian. The potential to be healthy, physically, mentally and emotionally. The potential to be happy. The potential to live with purpose.

And we believe this journey all begins with good nutrition. Because what you feed your body, and your mind, changes the way you feel."

Heck, yeah! The temple of the Holy Spirit needs to be clean and orderly so that it can do its full work in me!

Decide today to eat healthier! If not for you, for those who depend on your relationship with the Holy Spirit to know God better.

Traffic in Jakarta...

... is horrible! I've never lived in a city where the traffic is so bad. But I do have to admit it make for an interesting ride.

Look at how a one lane road is turned into a two lane one. Watch your mirrors!

These little roads are what add several minutes to your already long commute.

Motorcycles also add several minutes to your commute. They sound like bees as they swarm around cars. If you ask me, they are annoying, but people need a way to get around this over-populated city.

Tight quarters!!!

And this is my facial expression most of the time when in traffic.