Many diets claim to work wonders but most are simply a fad diet and will almost certainly have little results. But let me tell you, if weight loss is your goal, and you don't mind a little diarrhea, the "Indonesian Ecoli Diet" is a must! Implications of the rapid weight loss include a severe reduction in alcohol tolerance as well as a decrease in the ability to keep yourself warm, as discovered when my swim quickly turned into a spastic bout of shivering. As alcohol in Indonesia is the one thing that is more expensive than back home, and this country can be ridiculously hot, my only question is why didn't I try this diet sooner?
Having completed my diet last Monday it was time to head to the classroom to try out this teaching gig. The number of policies and procedural differences compared to what I am use to in teaching back home was astounding. As a result I have never had such a busy few days of teaching in my life. Monday through Wednesday were between 11 and 12.5 hours from the time I left in the morning to the time I got home. It felt like the only thing I had less of in those 3 days than free time was guidance. Being the only Biology teacher at my school I felt like I had entered an impossible situation as a first year teacher and for the second time in the past 3 weeks I seriously started thinking out my action plan for how I was going to get out of my contract and get back to Canada. It was not that I felt that I wasn't up for the challenge of teaching four courses in an extremely different education system than I am use to, it was that everyone I talked to about the challenges of being a first year teacher with little guidance said things like "don't worry, it took me 6 months to figure out what was going on", or "in first semester most of my students did terribly on their mid year examinations, but I learned how the system worked and by the end of the year the students were doing well". As comforting as that is that other people have been in my position, i refuse to take 6 months to a year to learn how to be an effective teacher in this school system. My students don't have that time for me to learn and I wouldn't sleep well knowing that my students are being punished while I complete the long, slow learning process.
I sulked and ranted to just about anyone who would listen (there weren't too many) about how upsetting the situation was and finally for all my efforts I was able to set up a meeting with a department head at another campus who has taught biology at Bina Bangsa for 6 years. Meeting with him helped me gain a much clearer picture of how things work and what I can do to be effective as a teacher. I have set up an action plan with my principal including lesson observations, check ins and some professional development courses. I still have my strong disagreements with the test-driven education system that values test scores and university acceptance over almost anything else, but at least I finally feel confident teaching it. With this new understanding my teaching has already become more enjoyable and my high speed escape plans from Indonesia have been put on hold for now.
But its not all work and no play! In order to get my business visa processed to legally be allowed to teach in Indonesia the school flew me, along with 3 other first year teachers to Singapore for the day on Thursday. We flew in early in the morning, dropped our passports and visa papers at the Indonesian consulate, and had 8 hours to be tourists before it was time to pick up our passports and head back to Indo. Let me tell you, Singapore is a very beautiful place. Yes it is famous for fining. You can get fined in Singapore for some pretty bizarre things. As an up and coming blogger I feel like it might be good karma to help another blogger out. This one has 8 crazy laws in Singapore: http://www.hotelclub.com/blog/singapore-weird-laws/
One that they miss, and as our flight took off for Singapore a recording over the loud speaker informed us that "drugs are illegal in Singapore. Anyone caught trafficking will receive a mandatory death sentence".
But all these interesting laws have not deterred me in the slightest. Short of driving on a long, winding road through cottage country in Ontario I have never enjoyed the scenery of a highway drive as much as in Singapore:
This greenery persisted for the 20 km stretch of highway we drove on.
Randomly walking through a mall we found a nice little river where you could rent a little boat
We ended up going to the Marina Bay Sands, a hotel/casino/night club owned by a hotel/casino/night club owner from Las Vegas. . . Yeah, it was awesome. The first page of a google image search of Singapore is full of photos of this building, or the view from on top of this building. The 57th floor has a massive rooftop restaurant, bar and night club complete with a 150m infinity swimming pool. I recommend checking out Marina Bay Sands on wikipedia.
When we were finished balling out at maybe the nicest building I have ever been to or will ever go to in my life, we took the extremely efficient and affordable public transit system to little India. One of the teachers we were with was vegetarian (and very much to the rest of our amusement she was little and Indian) so we went to an Indian vegetarian restaurant for dinner. Not gonna lie, the mock butter chicken and naan was superb.
At the airport duty free we were able to get some free samples of some of the alcohols. For some reason the wouldn't let us try the $10, 000 bottle of King Louis xiii Cognac but we were able to try a $100 Hennessy.
Flying back from Singapore to Jakarta my flight got delayed for an hour and so I missed the last Cipiganti (basically a 7-10 seater mini van that acts as a bus service between major cities) back to Bandung and had to spend the night in Jakarta, and miss half of the school day on Friday. After two weeks of teaching my attendance is a respectable 35%. I was pleased to learn on the 26th (pay day) that I was not docked pay for any of my absences.
After travelling to Singapore and Jakarta on Thursday and back to Bandung Friday morning, I headed back to Jakarta Friday evening for the weekend. I stayed with Jeremy and Kasandra in their guest bedroom and was able to visit many other teacher friends at the much bigger Jakarta campus who I know from Queen's, or met during induction week. I was also able to meet with the Biology department head for several hours and get a better grasp of how to flourish as a teacher at BBS. On Saturday we went for drinks at a really cool seafood restaurant. They had tons of different fish and sea life swimming in tanks just waiting to be chosen by a customer to be a meal (where was this option at the Indian vegetarian restaurant??). Some of the more interesting options are shown below (see if you can spot Jeremy and Kasandra in the shark infested water!):
On Sunday we ended up going to an arcade. I had my doubts about Jeremy's choice of pass time but it turned out to be a blast. There was one game where you continuously throw plastic balls at a screen from about 5 feet away trying to hit mosquitos, or monsters, or anything else as they move around the screen. We cheated and played three player and were able to set the high score on every level we played. The funnest thing we did was cherokee and for those of you who have never heard me sing, picture a bear with its head stuck in a tuba growling and you've pretty much got the gist of it. Perhaps the bear can keep tune better than I can.
This week has started out to be and will be another very busy one while I am working, but the long, tiring days are very worth it when you balance it with lots of fun activities. This Friday there are no classes as it is inter-house competition sports day and the students will be participating in sports for half the day and get the other half of the day off. Then, it is the Lebaran break, also called Eid al-Fitr, which is the muslim celebration for breaking the fast. In addition to it being an interesting cultural experience for me, it also means a two week break from school. I will be heading to the island of Bali, a very popular tourist destination for diving, surfing, beaches, massages, great food and pretty much anything you could ask for in a vacation. While we are planning to be in Padang Padang there is a world surfing competition happening so my next blog should feature a picture of me with a surf board and a very large trophy.
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