Mis-fit

 

A classic from my childhood that is proving useful once again.

As a toddler I had one of these toys. The ball pulls apart and all the pieces fall out.  There is a square, a triangle, an oval, a star, etc.  They only fit through the hole of the same shape. It's interesting to watch children play with these.  Many of the shapes they'll find the holes and push them through.  Occasionally there is a piece that the child is convinced that say, a star shape goes in a the triangle hole.  They push and bang on, trying to get the star in there. After carrying on for a few minutes the child realizes they are faced with a decision.  Carry on as they have been, find a different hole for their star piece, find a different piece for the triangle hole or go find an entirely different toy.  

I don't care what you say, loads of the pieces look the same!

I never had much patience for jigsaw puzzles.  Invariably there would be a piece or two that I swore fit and it didn't.  It would end up slightly smashed and I wouldn't notice it for a half and hour.  Between looking at the little pieces and not finding many that fit, I usually give up somewhere between the half hour and the hour mark.  These are both examples of things that don't fit.  A mis-fit if you will.  In the English language a misfit is a person who is not suited or is unable to adjust to the circumstances of his or her particular situation. 

 

When things in life don't fit it's not always immediately obvious.  Sometimes we carry on, banging things about, trying to adjust them so they will fit. A little grease, a little effort, no problem. One big difference with real life is that there are more than two parts to the equation.  Right man + wrong time = misfit. Wrong man + right time= misfit. It reminds me of the old proverb about being at the right place at the right time.  In my life there are no less than fifteen ingredients that make up the yes-fit or mis-fit equation.

Things have ended with BoT.  There were insurmountable odds what we were working against.  Bad schedules, miscommunications, work stress, friend's dramatic spillover, etc, etc. My inner optimist thought it would get better.  She had the crap beat out of her by his inner pessimist.  I know his version would be different.  He's entitled to that, but this isn't his blog.  After two weeks of ignorance (his word for when you ignore someone.  I've never used it that way until today) I knew it was coming. I've made peace with it and realize that all the parts of the equation weren't there.  I shed my tears for the good times that won't be had again.  For the butterflies I get when I see him.  For the possibility.  I shouted for the times he couldn't be asked to drop me a line.  To return the kindness and courtesy I'd shown him.  I drank because I cared about all of it more than he did, as he didn't care much at all. Best of all. . .  Now I go.  I'll be leaving in a week and a half for five weeks of vacation. I will submerse myself in new places and experiences. 

I hear the tailors in Vietnam are worth every penny.  I wonder if I can get a man tailored to fit me.  He doesn't have to be a perfect fit, but he should be close. Maybe with a little room in the shoulders.

 

Winding down

First semester ends in four days. Or after sixteen classes. Or in 34 hours. Or in 2,040 seconds (all assuming we don't get to leave early on the last day). Or not soon enough.

As a kid it never occurred to me that the teachers might be anxious for the break as well.  The teachers are probably more ready than the kids, especially Korean kids.  Most of them will spend most of their break in extra classes - violin, English, Mandarin, swimming, even math. I wouldn't look forward to break either if that was me.  A few will go back to South Korea.  There is a small group going to China, to visit another International Korean school, like an exchange program.  The vast majority will stay here, in their humdrum routine.

The kids have turned their brains off already.  The grade six students are the worst.  They had a big semester end test required for Korea - Achievement tests. Everything since then has been a struggle.  They know it's the end of term, they won't shut up or focus for even two minutes.  I go in to class in a good mood and it's fouled in about two minutes.  Coincidence? I think not.  We are permitted to show videos (educational or otherwise) but I can't, in good conscientious rationalize five sequential classes of videos.  I've shown two to two different classes so far this week and will have a couple next week as well.

It doesn't actually look this bad but sometimes it feels that way!

I've written before about the number of holidays we get and we had another one on Wednesday.  It was nice to break the week up but it meant that Monday and Tuesday we were all awaiting the day off. Today and tomorrow (Friday) we are awaiting the weekend.  It really is a pointless time of year.  The upside?  I'll have four hours free after my classes tomorrow with no correcting and no planning to do.  I'll read up on my holiday sites and blog away!

Friday sign off

It is now 1:37 on Friday and my overall reports are complete.  I did them by myself  (ok, in full disclosure, I did about 99% of the work). Linc taught me well last semester and it only took me two spreadsheets to finish the ridiculous totaling. (for more one those spreadsheets see http://strangelandsstrangelife.blogspot.com/2010/12/stress-of-year-end-at-school.html)  Last semester it was down to the wire, full on crunch time.  The official deadline for these isn't even until Monday!! I am convinced that Ben will have to add to some of his comments.  Mine are excellent and I proofed both of ours.  Big sigh of relief.  The rumor is that we won't have to do separate individual reports, all the information should be culled from the overall reports and automatically transferred.  I'll keep my fingers crossed but I won't hold my breath.


As a celebration, and in the spirit of taking new people to new places, I'll head to EP tonight with Carla and Jo and anyone else we can convince to go.  I deserve some free beer and shall procure it forsooth.

A couple of random notes before I launch into my regular weekend radio silence. I arrived at school on Monday to a full scale museum type set up in the hallways of the grade 1/2/4 hallway.  Most of the photos are something like this:

But there are a few (not one, a FEW) that look like these:

Those are dead bodies and what appear to be victims of a war/bombing. Appropriate for six year olds?? We need to teach kids about the true and ugly side of war, but in grade two? The opening was a big event, lots of dignitaries, a ribbon cutting, a TV camera and I have no idea what the significance is or why it's here, but as you know, that's the norm here.

I've been teaching as elective after school class twice a week called Reading Assistant.  It's a computer based program that reads to the kids then they record themselves reading.  The books/poems/songs get progressively more difficult and they get practice listening and speaking-the two tougher skills to work on in a foreign language. John is the co teacher for this.  There is on group of 22 students on Monday and Thursday; mostly grade three's with a few ones, two and fours thrown in.  The second group is Tuesday and Friday.  This group is only eight students.  They are a handful as they are all grades one and two. Most are low level and have a very short attention span. I have had moments with both classes when I was ready to bind a few select pupils to their chairs with duct tape.  I have also really enjoyed seeing them improve.  Their behavior, their attention, their navigation of the program and their English skills. I didn't know any of the grade ones, two or threes before this program and now I'm routinely greeted in the hall by kids I know from RA and from kids. One of the kids left this on the board yesterday.

Misspelled and in bad handwriting, but lovely.  3-2 refers to the students class.  Teachers are the biggest baddies until we are big pushovers.

Enjoy the weekend in every way possible!

Chuckling again

It's Thursday and I'm throwing caution to the wind.  My overall reports are going well.  I'm about 85-90% finished.  I say "I" and not "We" because my teaching partner is completely and utterly useless. Last semester the reports was much more difficult and complicated than any reports I've ever done.  I have streamlined my personal process and seem to be moving along swimmingly.  As my biggest complaint right now  (aside from my useless partner) is the recent uptick in mosquitoes buzzing around, I won't be complaining. To that end, I can squeeze another blog in today. It feels quite strange to be blogging from home though.


Here's the second installment of the chuckling slowly series.

I've been taking the bus at least once a week as you regular readers will know.  As I've started riding it more and more I have run into a few, um, nuances.  I am still the only one on the bus who ever has bare knees. Just mine.  On Tuesday I was waiting for a bus home from the radio show.  This is easily my least favorite ride of the week.  It's with the major of traffic going home at peak time.  This means waiting at least two buses to get on the third or fourth or fifth.  Two days ago my eyes were rolling and I found myself chuckling when two packed buses stopped to take on even more riders.  A third that wasn't even half full went flying by without even a thought to stop.  I finally smashed on to the fourth bus when everyone was smashed together.

The buses are more or less like this, but more Indonesian, and maybe slightly fuller.

There is lots of construction happening in Jakarta. On my route home there is what will be either a big office building or an apartment complex going up.  They've been working on it for months already and it's just a story above street level now.  A month or so ago the builders too a break from working on the foundation to construct a temporary, corrugated tin wall.  The funny part? They also look time to paint it in three wide horizontal bands, taking care to add flowers and spirals for decoration.
Last one for today. Jakarta is a developing country.  Many of the structures here are still shacks and lean to's along the sides of the road.  The "sidewalks" and I use the term loosely are paving stones at best, an assortment of concrete, gravel and dirt  in general.  That in mind, the people here spend a disordinate about of time sweeping.  On my way to work every morning I see no less than five people sweeping.  They sweep in front of their shops, homes, the street, etc. For a country that is perpetually dirty and polluted there is a lot of cleaning happening!

That bundle of grass she's holding? That's the broom that all the Indonesians on street level use.

Be a Sport!

Here's the detailed account of this years first Teacher's Sports Day!!!  Feel the saccharine tone in my voice?  That's because I was faking my sweet interest, and poorly at that.

On Friday the students left after fourth period, about 10:30 in the morning.  The teachers were to be finished about noon so that we could have TEACHERS SPORTS DAY!!! Da dada daaaaa!! It was a team building exercise involving ALL the teachers at JIKS.  Now even though the elementary, middle and high schools are all on the same campus, rarely the twain shall meet. I know a lot of the names of the secondary teachers form mentions about the office.  I've seen quite a few of them walking in or out of school but I think I'd only spoken to about two of them since I started last August.  This sports day was also going to include all the Korean teachers from the different schools AND the administrative office.  It had all the making of a disaster.

This was the notice we got about the days events:
* Sports Day Schedule

          Time                         Events   
  1      12:00 ~ 12:20          Warm up   
  2      12:20 ~ 12:40          Dodgeball( Female) (5분씩, 3Set)    
  3      12:40 ~ 13:40          Volleyball (Female+ Male, 3Set)   
  4      13:40 ~ 14:00          Volleyball for friendship (KT+Native, 1Set)   
  5      14:00 ~ 14:30          Table tennis ( F + M, 1Set)   
  6      14:30 ~ 15:00          Badminton (Male, Male + Female)   
  7      15:00 ~ 16:30          Dinner( Cafeteria)   

  1. Please, go to the gym by 11:50.
 2.Winners( team) will get the vouchers for leaving early and Karaoke Voucher( equivalent to 1,000,000).
   Go! Go!

I went into it in a foul mood.  Normally we'd get to leave early that Friday since the kids had testing.  I'd thrown a week long fit about the female only dodgeball (what, no bikini mud wrestling?). The other three sports to be included were volleyball, table tennis (henceforth to be referred to as ping pong :P ) and badminton.  I can understand volleyball.  It's a team sport and they wanted teams of nine.  I've been in Asia a year and a half, but I still can't get the fascination with the faux sports of badminton and ping pong.


It kicked off with toe touchy warm up to a pop 80's song.  Then lots of standing around waiting.  The schedule was almost immediately scrambled in favor of starting with volleyball for friendship. Next came something unexpected.  I started out in the Bule vs Korean volleyball match and had a good time.  I stayed in for part of the elementary vs secondary matches.  It was fun.   I was then completely mind boggled by the dodgeball.  I may try to use diagrams to explain that soon.  When the dodgeball wrapped up and the "non-sports" kicked in, I perked up with a cold Bintang.  I was starving when we entered the gym so I had some mildly sweet brown rice balls with raisins which were much nicer than I know they sound, and some watermelon. I talked with three guys from the secondary school and met two others.  It was great.


About 2/3 of the bule lot trouped up to the canteen/cafeteria for food.  They had quite the spread set out for us.  We all agreed it was better than the last school meal out at a Korean restaurant.  One big benefit of working at a Korean school is that they eat pork.  And the roast pork was excellent.  Add in veggies, life giving kimchi, noodles, etc, etc and it was a meal for a king.  There were beers around and bottle of soju (think Korean tequila) a plenty. By the time I begged off at 4:30, I had a touch of a beer buzz and a full belly. The conversation was entertaining for the most part and the day wrapped up well.


The last good news of the day?  The elementary school won Sports Day.  We earned one "early leave day" free pass for the staff, and we used it yesterday!  I'm often surprised here at JIKS, but to have a positive surprise hit me double.

Weekend plus

I'm breaking down the weekend into bits.  There will be another blog tomorrow to give more information on Friday's events.  I won't go into all the drama.  That seems to be the new norm lately.  I will lay out the broad strokes though.

Me with the headache

Friday afternoon from 12-5pm was Teacher's Sports Day at school.  It culminated in a meal together and I left at 4:30.  The ojek took me home, I changed, showered and napped for about ten minutes.  I then tried to spring from bed only to realize I have what I have affectionately termed, the railroad headache.  It's a headache I get sometime, well often enough to give it it's own name.  It's the railroad headache because it feels like someone has driven a railroad tie into one eye socket and straight out the back of my skull with the main pain points being in my eye and at the back of my head.  I struggled out and made it to dinner with Zoe anyway.  She and I caught up and she graciously let me beg off after to go home and rest.  An hour nap with an ice pack on my head in a cold room after taking tylenol (paracetamol or panadol, it's all the same active ingredient) and I had beaten the headache into submission. 

Me after nap, drugs and ice pack!

BoT and ridiculous roommate (his not mine) came straight from work to pick up Carla and I for a house party.  We all intrepidly trouped out.  We'd had lots of trouble finding this house last time.  The gods were on our side and we had the best taxi driver.  He got us there, no problems. The party was a blast.  Remember what I said about the bule world being small?  Turns out one of the secondary school teachers I met that afternoon was at the party that night.  And his girlfriend knows a woman I knew who left Jakarta last year.  We are all flies tangled in a small, tightly interlocking web.

The party was great.  The drama kicked in after.  It sort of revolved around group dynamics and taxis as was the case last weekend.  I don't have the patience or interest in regaling you with all the boring details.  I think part of it is that BoT and I rarely see each other during the week due to the fact that we have almost opposite schedules.  I'm up at 6:15 and home by 4.  He's into the office at 1 and off at 10 if there's no overtime.  It means that weekends become a pressure point of seeing each other but also having a ton of stuff to do.  Solutions pending.

How did I end up as an inhabitant of Total Drama Island?

After drama that bled into early Saturday morning, I slept fitfully and was a mess most of Saturday.  Carla was a doll and let me moan and was an optimistic beacon through the din.  We laid out at the pool and I recovered at least physically, if not finding any inner peace.

Sunday brought a few answers and a definite tan.  I started by day off with a meal of champions.  A brunch time meal of fried rice and cold Heineken.  Oh to be a bule in Jakarta!!  Carla's good friend Jo is in from NZ.  Accounting for jetlag, she'd planning an epic day of doing nothing by the pool.  I was obliged to join them as to be hospitable.  After five hours by the pool I was a nice shade of brown. I headed out in the evening to join BoT and IOMH for a couple beers.  The conversation was good and I needed to see BoT.  Not much had been sorted since the taxi thing of Friday night. I'm feeling better about it but there's work to be done. That will have to suffice.  I know there are a couple of you who are close enough to deserve an explanation.  It's on the way but with final grade reports due this week I'm not sure when I'll get the email out to y'all.

Best news? We had a surprise early release day today.  I nearly ran out the front gate at 12:30 after teaching five classes in a row.  I spent 100,000Rp and over and hour  and a half on three taxis rides but I got three errands out of the way that I'd spent weeks procrastinating on and was still home before dark (which is at 6:30 everyday, all year).  Worst news? Congestion and cough are back again.  Maybe they come with living on Drama Island.  Anyone have a cure?

I Heard it Through the Grapevine

Another song title as a blog title.  I've mentioned before that the bule world is pretty small, especially in contrast to this being the fifth largest city in the world.  Upon meeting a new bule we usually find a mutual acquaintance within ten minutes. A friend of a friend who is the other person's friend. I met some of BoT's teammates last week.  One of the guys and his girlfriend work at an EF (BSD) that is owned by the same owner who owns the one I worked for (Pluit).  There is a girl who works there, Emma, who I met on my first Singapore trip when we'd both just arrived.  Another example, is George*.  I work with George.  He's a Scotsman, teaches grade 2. BoT kept talking about Smith, a Scotsman on his footie team.  Guess what?  George is Smith.  Same guy, just first and last names. Like I said,  making those connections doesn't take long.

I swear we are all connected in a way that would best be illustrated like this.

This bule world often borders on incestuous as we all seem to know everything and talk about everything happening to everyone. Don't get me started on EF, that world is ten times smaller and more inter-involved. Add in blackberries with their bbm feature and you've now guaranteed that news travels faster than anything else.  It would put Mercury to shame.  If good news travels fast, then bad news moves at near lightning speeds.  I wonder why bad news is the faster of the two.  Do we want to commiserate?  Offer help? Enjoy a bit of schadenfreude?

My fingers have been flying on the little bb keyboard as news abounds this week. Fired friend has been involved in dramas.  There were repercussions from last weekends footie bbq.  I'm staying in touch with folks who are already in far-flung parts of the world. I'm trying to make plans to see others before they go.  Perhaps my bb is running in starts and stops out of exhaustion.

*Names changed to protect the less than innocent.

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