I always tend to count by "the day after"s and "tomorrow"s.
For example.. "Tomorrow I can say that tomorrow is Christmas eve!!" Anything to put tomorrow and Christmas in the same sentence. Makes time so much shorter.
Back to the point.. It is officially week 6 and day 49 of life in Indonesia and I can say that I am ready-o to start living "for real" in Kudus. And in 5 days I'll be doing just that. If things go as planned. Ahaha.
My first week in Indo was spent in Kudus and was for observation purposes. So I knew what kind of life I needed to prepare for and the importance of language learning.
So the following 6 weeks have been language learning/ cultural learning. Really, you can't have one without the other and the day trips and non-classroom conversations have been just as beneficial as the words on the board and the flash cards.
No I am NOT fluent, but I can joke around, order and give directions, learn someone's story and share my own in Bahasa Indonesia. The rest will come with time. Or not at all. I'm not under the illusion that I will leave here writing books in Baha Indo. Or read books for that matter. But I will be able to speak without thinking about the content in English, and not hesitate after every few words when I speak.
This past week consisted of language learning Monday through Wednesday, and then a trip to Yogyakarta (spoken Joe-g-juh-car-tuh or just Jogja) till Friday for some cultural learning, some bus figuring-out, and some away from Salatiga time before we run through the next week. I think something interesting happened on Monday or Tuesday but I can't remember what. Probably just the insanity of our classes which feel like a daily event consisting of ridiculous conversations, joke telling that takes 10 times the amount of time to tell in Baha Indo, juice and pre-lunch trips, music parody writing, mega often "istirihat"s (breaks) where people make coffee, throw ant-filled sugar containers on the floor, relieve themselves of the tummy conflict the coffee from the previous break caused, and eating what ever delish snacks one of our families sent with one of us. Much laughing, much groaning, much "What the heck, I can't even understand you in English..". Much of everything.
Next week= Last language lesson and class bash, Thanksgiving dinner which we are all attempting to cook for (Green bean casserole without cream of mushroom soup will be interesting), a ton of goodbyes, then off to Kudus!
One thing, while I'm anxious for Kudus, there is something about having weekly (and almost daily) activities of a diverse nature that makes time go by faster and in Kudus, as much as I love having normalcy and a schedule, I bet it will get a little harder to pass time. Less distractions, a little more seriousness. I'm interested in knowing what I'll be writing about in the next 9 months. What my writing will look like, how it will look different than my language-learning weeks posts...
Hmmmm.........
"It's business, it's business time!"
But first, a few days of part-ay are in order!!
No comments:
Post a Comment