Capping off my first year of teaching

Just to say I tried it

After returning from a Bali trip in March with a few of my best friends, and a quick 4-day week of teaching, I wasted no time getting back into the adventurous spirit. I would like to consider my travelling style as always looking for a unique experience. As looking for an authentic, cultural experience to really see how other cultures live. Most of the time I try to avoid the activities that are directly targeted to tourists and don't reflect the culture of that country at all. But, sometimes there are things you try just to say you did it. I am about to share with you the most stomach-churning thing I have ever tried eating. For those with a weak stomach, you've been warned. .

Since the first time we met Kyle has wanted to take me to an area of Jakarta called Mangga basar, but better known as "Snake street". As Kyle and his wife Cassandra are leaving Indonesia this year to teach in Northern Alberta (Congrats guys!) there was a sense of urgency to make this trip to Jakarta happen. We went to a restaurant called King Cobra. I now understand the phrase "hole in the wall" to describe a restaurant.

It is no wonder it was a difficult place to find

 The restaurant was literally a hallway. I ordered a Bintang and the waiter walked across the street to a convenience store to complete my order

For dinner we had some universally typical appetizers. These included alligator, python and turtle. These were the warmup to prepare our stomachs for the main event.

I am not sure which one is which. Alligator and Python tasted similar to chicken but the turtle had an interesting taste.

For the main event we had to head outside, and find one of several stalls that had live cobras. We selected a cobra. . 

To be chopped. . .

To be skinned . . .

 And to be cooked into satay. . .

The satay was delicious!

But we weren't finished with this little guy yet. 

The man behind the snake stall drained the blood into two cups. . .

Kyle and I prepared ourselves. . . 

And it was bottoms up. 

Although the cobra satay was excellent, the cobra blood was really gross (surprising I know!). Not only was the taste bad, but the thick consistency was very unappealing. The worst part though was that the snake man had added several organs (my biology knowledge is not quite able to identify which snake organs they were) which made the already awful drink chunky. That was almost two months ago but I can still remember the texture and taste quite vividly. 

I guess at least now I can say I did it, or perhaps I'll have to keep the tradition alive and bring one of next year's new teachers there for their right of passage. 

I invite you to keep reading, I promise the rest of this post will bring only smiles, no more heebie jeebies!

Bina Bangsa School friendship debate games

Some of you may have watched the highlights on Sports Centre but here is the recap from my perspective. 

Again with Mr. Kyle, and again to Jakarta, 4 students and the two of us travelled to one of the Jakarta campuses to compete in the BBS friendship debate games. The Jakarta campus has a debate club and one of the purposes was to try to spark interest in debate for our campus, and give a few students some experience so we could possibly start a debate club at our campus next year. I would say our students did quite well considering they had never once participated in a formal debate before. 

The topic for the first round was "Should schools provide free lunch for their students?". Teams of two from each campus were matched up and randomly drawn for if they would be the government (for the position) or the opposition. They were then given 30 minutes to discuss strategy and prepare their arguments. 

Two of our grade 11s preparing their arguments for why schools should not provide free lunch 

Our grade 9s preparing their arguments for why schools should provide free lunch

Our grade 9 team in action

Both of our teams were victorious in round 1 :)

The question for round two was "Should the government limit the number of private cars allowed on the road in Jakarta?". Our grade 11 team immediately identified themselves in round one as the team to be feared. I was watching our other team in round one, but watched the grade 11s in the second round. I couldn't handle the one-sidedness of the debate and had to leave the room. I could stomach the cobra blood, but not this. I think our team could have convinced the President of Indonesia that the number of private cars should be restricted in Jakarta. Although to their credit, after the debate a lot of sportsmanship was shown. 

One of our teams finished in 3rd place, and our other team (Which Kyle had nicknamed team cutthroat) advanced to the finals. 

The final topic was "Should teachers be paid based on the performance of their students?". I couldn't help but picture this question being asked at a Canadian teacher's college and all of the teacher candidates erupting with protest. One of my students joked that "Sir, you would be lucky because you teach me."

Somehow I must have really impressed someone with my audience skills as I was asked to judge the finals. Kyle was asked to be a judge as well but responded with "That's not a good idea, I am way too biased". 

 The most difficult part of judging was basing it on the strength of the students' arguments, and not just choosing the side of the question that you agree with. 

It was a very well fought final but our team walked away as champions. And fortunately teachers are not going to be paid based on the results of their students. It is a scary thought as a teacher to know that your students are very skilled in the art of arguing!



Alice's birthday

Alice is the lone Australian teacher at our campus. Her favourite pass time is baking. My favourite pass time is eating. We are very, very good friends. Alice is another teacher who will be leaving Indonesia next year. She has accepted a job in Peru! I know very little about Peru but it sounds very exotic. I wish you all the best next year Alice!

Australians, just like Canadians have birthdays. Alice's is on April 13th and we celebrated by going to a very nice restaurant with a bunch of the teachers.

Alice! Trying to fly 

Living in a city that has so many mountains, valleys and rice fields I can see views this almost every day

 Our Mathematics department: Willy, Alice, Pitchai and Handoko

A birthday wouldn't be the same if the game Bang! wasn't played

Over the Easter long weekend it was back to Bali for me. I have a University friend Rachael from Canada who is working as an au pair in Australia. In University we lived a perfectly straight line across the street from each other. She had a few weeks off from work and was visiting Indonesia. As this was the first time we were on the same continent in about a year there was no excuse not to meet up with her in Bali. Not that I needed another reason to go to Bali, but it also happened to be Rachael's birthday! We were joined by another one of our University friends Maggie, as well as Lucas (see previous post) and his brother Jon who has lived in Bali for almost two years. 

The extreme amount of relaxation translated into not very many photos. One of the coolest things we did was in Uluwata. First we rented motorcycles. I use "we" generously here. I rented a bike and had Maggie (eyes closed the whole time out of fear) on the back, and Rachael rented a bike and did her best to give Maggie and I a heart attack. She did quite well though with only one fall, a very graceful one I must say. When the five of us needed to bike together Lucas hoped on the back of mine and in typical Indonesian style, Maggie AND Rachael hoped on the back of Jon's. With limbs sticking out everywhere it looked like an octopus was riding the scooter. 

With these bikes, Mag, Rachael and I went and saw a "Kecek" dance. A more descriptive name would be a sunset fire dance. I didn't fully understand the meaning but basically you sit high up on the cliffs of Uluwata, listening to the waves crashing on the beach, and watch the sunset. While you are in this beautiful oasis there is a performance put on by locals. The meaning behind the dance is that it is telling the story of a noble King and him fending off an evil King and his army of monkeys. I think there is a part about rescuing a princess, but I am fluent in neither bahasa Indonesian nor fire dancing so I cannot be certain. Additionally the dance is meant to communicate with deities, using the dancers as a medium. 

The "Kecek" dance is named because the dancers repeat the word "Kecek, kecek, kecek, kecek" repeatedly throughout the dancing. 

We were the only three people who did not bring an umbrella, but despite the rain, and cloudiness causing a lack of visible sunset, the performance was really, really cool!

Myself with Rachael and Maggie

Ensemble

I believe I have mentioned several times how musically talented our students are, and Indonesia as a whole. Just a reminder that all of our students choose an instrument to master throughout their time at our school. Most students master 3 or 4. 

This semester our school's Ensemble performed for the school and parents at "A Wonderful Night of Music". I felt so untalented afterwards and was so motivated that when I got home I dusted off my guitar and gave it my best shot. I was also able to persuade our music teacher to give me some lessons. 

I can't even name all those instruments although I am reasonably confident one of them is a flute 

Shout out to Mr. Agung who was a fantastic conductor, and prepared the kids all year long for this wonderful night of music

Sometimes when you are teaching, an opportunity to teach something of importance comes up that is just too important to pass up, even at the expense of the curriculum. This happened in April when I found out my students don't have Easter egg hunts. This was one of my favourite holiday traditions both as a kid, and as an adult, and this was close to being the first year of my life that I didn't participate in one. 

One Friday after assigning my students some seat work as a distraction I slipped out of the classroom and frantically hid candy (Indonesia doesn't have chocolate Easter eggs) outside. I returned to the classroom ready to explain the tradition of an Easter egg hunt but I was huffing and puffing from hiding eggs so frantically. All I could manage was "Hey guys I just saw a giant bunny outside hiding something!". To which one of my students responded "Sir, are you the Easter bunny?". "No, I wish I was the Easter bunny. Who wants to go outside and find some candy?".

This was a record for warmest outdoor temperature during an Easter egg hunt in Trevor Easter egg hunt history

Unfortunately while they were searching one student found a bird that by my estimate had died several days ago and decided the most logical course of action was to show everyone. Amongst accusations of "Sir, did you hide this here?" I reminded them that an Easter egg hunt is a competition and there is no room for such distractions.  

Some of my students showing off their haul! Although most students picked up the skills of Easter egg hunting quite quickly, one student only managed to find one candy (I hid about 150). Fortunately for her the other students shared with her, a rule my mom would always enforce at Easter but I never bought into.  

It seems like the school is organizing an event almost every weekend. One weekend early in term 4 the event was "Run for life". Not to be confused with "Run for your life". 

Most of the students, quite a few parents, and a few teachers participated in the big 5km (I demand a more accurate measurement of this distance) race. 

Having legs that are longer than some students are tall I took off to a very sizeable early lead. 

The rest of the recap of this event requires a quick back story. When I was about 12 years old, my Aunt Mina (in her 50s or so) challenged me to a race. In her mind she was thinking "there is no way this child is faster than me". In my mind I was thinking "what are you, like 100 years old? Piece of cake". It wasn't a close race at all. I held back so that she wouldn't feel so bad but I beat her very easily. I remember seeing the look on her face of "wow, when did I get so out of shape?" and thinking I hope I never have that feeling (foreshadowing). 

Despite my early lead I hadn't seen the course before and foolishly overestimated my athletic prowess. The first kilometer was fairly smooth except for the pot holes and speed bumps (which I smugly thought to myself couldn't slow me down). The next two kilometers were merciless and entirely uphill. I became completely exhausted, lost all my speed, and resorted to walking in the longest strides possible in order to conserve energy. I was passed by several students. Upon reaching the top of the hill, it was time to turn around and run for 2 kilometers straight down hill. It felt like I was slowly falling forward for 10 minutes. Running downhill is very awkward. I ended up finishing in second place, but the knowledge that a 12 year old student beat me (wasn't even close, he beat me by over a minute) reminded me of how my Aunt Mina must have felt 12 years ago. At least she was in her 50s when children started beating her in races. 

I guess maybe my running technique is wrong?
This student finished 2nd in the 14-40 category, one spot behind me. He approached me after the race and asked "Sir, you are in the 40 and older category right?". . .  It was a very humbling day

After the run for life we hosted a friendly basketball game. We had played this school once already this year so I believe that makes them our rivals. The difference was that this time our team (and coach) had just ran a 5km race in the morning. 

The game turned out to be a shoot out, a real barn burner. After 3 quarters the crowd had been treated to a 20-14 lead for our team. . . 

Our team held on for a victory despite two technicals (I was not impressed) thanks to strong defence and taking care of the ball on offence. 

Our boys team (back row) with our flashy new jerseys. Yes I coached in flip flops

The last time our girls' team played against this school the other team raced (literally sprinting up and down the floor) out to a 20-0 lead. Our girls had 4 more months of practice since then and this time around was a different story. Holding on to a 3 point lead in the final seconds of the 4th quarter the other team hit a 3 to tie it and send the game to overtime. In overtime our girls trailed by 2 with 30 seconds left but hit a clutch shot to tie the game and send it to double overtime. In double overtime we lost, but considering the result last time these teams played it helped everyone to appreciate the growth throughout this season. 

Our girls team (front row) after the match

A great shot of one of our players going up for a layup in traffic at a game we played a few months ago. 

Kidney donors

In the grade 9 curriculum our final unit was the excretion unit, a process that would not be possible to perform without our kidneys. When teaching about kidney failure I discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the two major treatment options including dialysis, or a kidney transplant. One important point was the lack of kidney donors. I decided to ask the students to raise their hands if they would donate one of their two working kidneys to one of their classmates if they had kidney failure. Not a single hand was raised. . . 

Feeling that this lack of generosity and sharing was unacceptable I decided to stress the importance of organ donation and make it a bonus question on their final unit test. The question read "Name one person (if there is one) in this classroom who you would donate one of you two healthy kidneys to if they had kidney failure."

I had some very honest responses . . .

Some very kind responses . . . 

One very stressed student. . . 

And some very clever responses from students trying to earn bonus marks. . .

Birthday number 24!

On June 9th I celebrated the completion of my 24th year on Earth. When it comes to Canada compared to Indonesia birthdays are celebrated quite differently. I would make a t-table or a venn diagram to compare but I don't know how to do that (heck, I've been posting blogs for almost a year and I still have a white background). The two major differences are:

In Canada - your birthday consists of the day of your birth, and the closest weekend. You are free to celebrate for three days. 

In Indonesia, and Asian culture in general, celebrating your birthday in advance, or wishing someone a happy birthday too early in the day is like wishing for them to have a shorter life. In fact, Asia is quite superstitious when it comes to things that lead to longevity. One of my students wished me a happy birthday and said be sure to eat noodles today. I said thank you, but why should I eat noodles? She explained to me (in a bit of frustration because isn't it obvious?) that eating noodles on your birthday will help you to have a longer life. The biological link between eating noodles on your birthday and living a long life is still not 100% understood. She also mentioned that eating fish and oranges would help me to live long too. Perhaps what she means is eating all your vitamins and nutrients will keep you healthy? Regardless, I raced down to the cafeteria and ordered the noodle, fish, orange special. . . No thanks, I've already eaten too many gross things this semester.

The second difference.

In Canada - all your buddies take you out for your birthday and you don't pay for a thing.

In Indonesia - on your birthday you need to pay for everyone else. This does explain why all Indonesians are very secretive about their birthdays. I thought maybe it was just a cultural thing that no one had a birthday. I quickly realized my mistake that I had invited people out for dinner and told them it was for my birthday. 

Overall I had a great day. Lots of smiles, warm wishes, and some singing from the students. When I walked into the teacher's room at 7 in the morning this is what my desk looked like.

Many thanks to Alice, Cass and Kyle! (Cass in particular who blew up every balloon)

Later in the day when I walked into the teacher's room my desk now looked like this.

Feeling a little ridiculous that I was looking for a desk, I ventured around the school until I found it.

I eventually found the culprits, 4 of my grade ten students (my home room class)

Abraham, Keven, Aldi and Ervan

I later found out the prank had been in the planning stages for months. They had organized an admin to pretend I was needed in the finance office to give them time to move my desk. 

However, apparently the heavy lifting of my belongings was not finished yet. 

My VIP birthday parking spot

Graduation

In the Cambridge curriculum that my school offers there is a graduation of the IGCSE program after grade 10, and a graduation after the A-levels are completed in grade 12. Along with Kyle, I had the honour of being an MC at this year's graduation ceremony. I couldn't be more proud of my students for all of their hard work this year, and their role in making my first year of teaching arguably the most amazing year of my life.

 Our grade 12 grads

Top in academic rank in grade 11. Just months ago he told me "Sir, I do not like biology. No matter how much I study I do poorly." He scored an 87 in Bio this year 

Our grade 12 Valedictorian, flashing his top in class Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Math awards 

Our handsome MCs during the singing of the school song. Giggling over the fact that neither of us know all the lyrics to the school song, and we hope we remembered to switch the microphone off before we started to sing  

 Some of our grade 9s being silly

My home room class!  

Our grade 10 Valedictorian

The hat toss by my grade 10 graduating class 

From the catastrophic start to the my first year of teaching (being sick with E. coli for two weeks), the year certainly finished off in remarkable fashion. Gonna be tough to top this year next year but I am excited and ready to give it a shot. 

Indonesia and I celebrate our one year anniversary on June 27th. However on this day I will be in either Thailand or Laos, both of which I plan to visit over the next three weeks. 

Stay tuned for stories of my Thai and Laotian adventures!

To old friends and new friends

There are very few things that are more rewarding to me than making someone smile. Sometimes it’s the more important the person is to me, the more rewarding making them smile is. Other times it’s the less they saw it coming that makes it more rewarding. Or the greater the effect it had on uplifting their mood. Or my personal favourite is when I can think of a way to make someone smile that only myself and the other person would understand, and that moment will always be unique to us.

One of the things that is more rewarding to me is when someone shows you that they recognize and appreciate something that you do for them, and they completely catch you off guard with it. One such moment happened in January on Teacher’s appreciation day.

The day started off like any regular Friday morning; pacing the assembly hall reminding students to tuck in their uniform, wishing others luck on the test they are cramming for last minute. And of course, just before the bell rings to begin the school day you have a few students baseball slide into line in order to avoid being late and receiving an after-school detention. As the Toronto Blue Jays have just kicked off their season I think they could take some pointers from my students about sliding into home plate.

But that was about all that was ordinary about that morning. After the announcements finished some music began and students began running to different positions in the gym and collecting all of the teachers and bringing us to the centre of the gym. What followed was a heavily practiced, entirely student organized, very well choreographed dance in a circle around us. To say that it wasn’t at least a little bit awkward at first would be a lie, but when the fear that we might be under attack subsided it was very enjoyable and touching. At one point there were two circles of students around us and the inner circle ran clockwise while the outer circle ran counterclockwise. I felt like I was in a centrifuge but fought the motion sickness so I wouldn’t have to look away from the dance the students had worked so hard to prepare for. At the end of the music the students presented all of the teachers with roses and one of the students said a few words of appreciation followed by a ground shaking round of applause from all the students. We left the assembly hall feeling very happy.

But the most thoughtful part was waiting on our desks for us when we arrived back in the teacher’s room.

15 months ago (wow time flies) when I was interviewing for international teaching jobs I was asked many times what I was like as a teacher and what my classroom would be like. I would make claims like I was extremely patient, caring and understanding. I was humourous and would make ever day a little bit more fun. And most of all that I would have an excellent rapport with my students. The only problem was I had never taught my own class before, I was just describing the teacher that I hoped to be.

Sitting down in my desk on teacher’s appreciation day and reading my card, it was the most incredible feeling that what stood out the most about me to my students was everything that I had hoped I would become as a teacher.

And hey, if none of those qualities are noticed by a few students, at least they can appreciate a nice slam-dunk when they see one. 

Another Winter Olympics, another pair of Canada hockey gold medals

Normally the Olympics are something I follow very closely and with extreme enthusiasm. Indonesia doesn’t quite share my passion for the Winter Olympics. Example, one of my students thought the Olympics were in Korea this year. I suppose Sochi could conceivably be the name of a city in Korea. But another student thought the Winter Olympics were in Myanmar, to which I cannot think of a reasonable defence for this confusion.

Indonesian television shares a similar disinterest for the Olympics but when Canada is in the gold medal game, all true Canadians will find a way to support their team. Fortunately for me my sister’s boyfriend was willing to Skype me during the game, and face the computer to the TV, so I could feel like I was watching the game on Canadian soil. 

A screen shot of how I watched Canada shut out the Swedes for the Gold

Physical Education and Health week

One week in early February marked physical activity and health week. Mostly this consisted of inter-grade sporting competitions, and a morning of aero kickboxing. But the highlight of the week was the healthy food competition. Students submitted their best efforts of a healthy food item that was easy to make, and one of the most important judging criteria was taste. This was an inter-house competition and as the housemaster of red house I was deemed to be in too biased a position to be on the judging panel. I disagree. I tried so hard to persuade, sweet talk, argue, more sweet talk and finally to beg my way onto the judging panel to no avail. Fortunately there was plenty of food for all and I got to experience first hand the masterpieces of all of the talented chefs that I teach.

Yellow house with their healthy shake, and last minute effort at a sandwich only a mother could love

Green house (the eventual champions of the competition) with their diverse array of submissions 

Red house (my house) with the winning dish for the individual challenge

A feast fit for a king! 

This food competition has revolutionized the way I assess my student’s knowledge of biology. Here is a glimpse at my unit plans for the next few chapters:

Unit: digestion

Topics: The alimentary canal, macromolecules, mechanical and chemical digestion

Final assessment: Make a delicious food item for Mr. Trevor and write a two page report explaining the steps involved in digestion when he eats it.

Unit: Infectious disease and immunity

Topics: prevention and control of infection disease, the immune system

Final assessment: Make a delicious food item for Mr. Trevor and write a one page report on how the safe food handling and cooking methods you used to make it for him will help to prevent the spread of harmful bacteria.

You get the gist, I will be eating very well until I retire from teaching.

Camp Rock, the musical

My school year is divided into four terms of 10 weeks and term three is by far the busiest. This is in large part due to the fact that close to 50% of our students are involved in the annual musical that our school puts on. Two years ago the school performed Mulan. I confess that this was one of the first things that caught my eye about Bina Bangsa School back at the job fair oh so long ago. Last year was the 10^th anniversary of the school so they wrote their own musical called “This is our story”. This year they decided on Camp Rock. I think it’s a Jonas brother’s movie. To give an example of how legitimate these shows are the school actually purchased the rights to perform the show from a Broadway company in New York.

It would be an understatement to say that I was blown away by the acting, singing and performance the kids put on. It was incredible.

This is one of my wonderful secretary friends Cynthia and I in our Camp Rock Swag

 Did I mention every song in the musical was performed live by our band?

At one point in the musical the actors were asked to point to their favourite teacher. . . 

Now you know where my seat was :P

A very, very relieved cast after the show

 Our male and female leads speaking to the media

Grade 10 and 12 pre-exam camp

The school system I teach in is very exam intensive. It is difficult to count but I think the grade 10s will write 22 exams in May and June. Which means they will also write all of these preliminary exams in April, and have been taking all of these practice exams throughout March. The grade 12 students don’t have it any easier. One thing that our school does right before the term break is put on an overnight camp for the grade 10s and 12s. The goal is for the students to have some fun, bond with each other and their teachers, and hopefully if all goes well they will leave the camp motivated to study hard for their upcoming exams and believing that together we can succeed.

A strange thing happened in the week leading up to the camp. About 50% of our teachers, including our principal, and about 40% of our students got sick. Some sort of bug causing a nasty cough and fever was going around. I was a little worried they were all being turned into zombies. Since when teachers are absent other teachers who aren’t sick cover their classes, I estimated we were about 2 or 3 teachers away from having to cancel school for a few days. I had a very good reason not to get sick so through shear determination and a daily dose of about 6000% of my daily recommended vitamin C I was able to escape the zombie plague unaffected.

As a consequence of being one of the few healthy teachers remaining I was able to make all of the decisions about the itinerary of the camp. And as a result there was evidence throughout the camp that I was the decision maker . . .

For the biology portion of the camp we made homemade ice cream

 Students got creative with ways to shake the bag without getting their hands too cold

Some of the girls were able to trick the boys into shaking their bags for them so their hands wouldn't get cold at all. 

It seems I have a few things I still need to teach these boys

For the movie portion we watched my favourite movie

For dinner we had an awesome BBQ

And in the evening we played my favourite game.

I think everyone had a great time?

Now, on to the reason I was able to will away the Zombie disease that was infecting the school.

Since November I had flights booked to Thailand on March 22^nd to visit a couple of my best friends for the weeklong term break. On a side note, if you are under the impression that best friend is a person that is incorrect. Best friend is a tier and my use of the plural is correct. Many things in life don’t always go as planned, and in Indonesia, things never go as planned. Due to visa issues I was told I was unable to leave the country at this time. Despite my best attempts at it, sulking and complaining wasn’t helping my situation so I finally sucked it up and emailed my friends to inform them I would be unable to join them in Thailand. Within 30 minutes of sending the email I was on Skype with one of my friends, and by the next day all flights had been redirected to Indonesia. That is why these guys belong on that best friend tier I talked about.

Meet Lucas, my partner in crime. 

Everyone has that one friend or sibling with whom they can finish each other’s thoughts. Lucas and I have an eerie ability to read each other and think what the other person is thinking with such subtlety that most people wouldn’t notice the exchange of information that has taken place. At one point on this Bali trip (at Soma Soma, the Reggae bar I mentioned back in August) Lucas and I intuitively and instinctively did an improv synchronized dance routine. Not only did we both spontaneously decide we would do this, but I’d like to believe we put on a pretty good performance. Although, in fairness it may have been absolutely awful from an outside observer, but I am basing its quality on how much fun we had doing it.

Meet Cole, my partner in travel. 

Cole and I have visited a whopping seven countries together (I’ve only been to nine) including Canada, US, Dominican, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and now Indonesia. Eight countries if you count Montreal. Cole and I have shared a number of cultural/language barrier experiences that are so confusing that we could never begin to explain them to someone else. Most memorable was our 36-hour transit by boat, bus, car, minivan, and more boats from Belize, through Guatemala and onto Honduras, through three currencies of unknown value to us, and almost entirely in Spanish and the universal language of charades. At one point we accidentally crossed the Guatemalan border without going through customs, and it wasn’t until we got on the bus on the other side when someone overheard us saying “I thought we would have needed to talk to customs or get our passport stamped” before we realized we needed to run back and enter Guatemala the much more legal (and slower) way of entering a country.

These are my best friends. There are 3 more of them out there currently in Toronto, British Columbia, and Colombia (real Colombia). Lucas and Cole are in Australia and Calgary respectively so we are nice and spread out across 3 provinces and 4 continents. But I’ve learned that the strength of a friendship is not determined by proximity, and our current living situations gives us all a reason to travel the world.

I can’t share too much about my Bali trip because 1) None of us took any photos and 2) Let’s just say my students and grandparents read this.

This photo should give a reasonable picture of how great a time we had

The highly fashionable, paten pending shirt hat 

Cole and Lucas both had one of their friends from high school join us for our trip. Both girls and both had so much to bring to the table. Both also had cameras, which serves as the only evidence that any of us were even in Bali.

The blonde with the shades on is Ali from Calgary. Ali made the excellent life decision of getting her scuba certification while in Bali. She also performed one of the least graceful back roll entries off a boat in the history of diving. She has permanently left her legacy on Gili Trawangan by breaking the girl’s record for a challenge that one of the bars had. For comparison I scored 3^rd for the boys and she shattered my time.

Directly on my right is Kaitlyn from New York. Like Ali, a very cool girl, with impressive sports knowledge and a strong passion for travel and culture. She’s been living in Australia since November and is currently travelling through much of Asia. Its always interesting for me to find out what motivates other people to travel and Kaitlyn and I spent lots of time sharing travel stories of our favourite countries, where you can find the most beautiful sunsets, the best food and what our dream destination is. Not bad considering she’s American.

I think I would like to share in every blog post what my current top next destination is. After October I was certain I would visit Canada in June and Australia in August or visa versa. In November I was without a doubt going to India and the Maldives in August. After December I was eagerly awaiting my trip to Thailand in March (visa issues *shaking fist). Currently in 2014 I plan to visit Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos. The only part that seems uncertain to me is who I will be able to convince to join me. (Direct shout out to Adonis - See you in Thailand in June)