goodbye bali . . . . .

I'm sitting here in my second to last class with one of my favorite groups of kids. I've been putting off the feelings of sadness that are going to come when I leave Bali. I'm not sure what the best method is, suppression or acceptance. Don't get me wrong. I'm really excited to see everyone at home. And I'm super stoked to move on to a new place. It's just difficult to get close to a group of people, be it students, teachers, coworkers, or friends, and have to leave them after just a year. That's the name of the game though. It's going to happen at least a few more times, so I have to deal with it. Leaving Korea was especially rough for many reasons. It was my first experience abroad. Also, I taught Kindergarteners who stole my heart (excuse the cheese fest). So when I was preparing to leave Korea, I just overdosed on really sad movies. Sophies Choice, The Notebook, Schindlers List, etc. I'm not sure if Tom would be down for that this time... In other news, we have begun the application process. We have interviewed with a school in Istanbul, and have another interview next Monday with a different school in Istanbul. We still haven't nailed down where we want to go, but we are particularly excited about a job opening in Casablanca. Keep your fingers crossed for that one. Granted, we have a long list of places we'd like to travel and there are lots of jobs out there. So we are very fortunate to be in the position we are in. A school in China actually emailed Tom and just offered us jobs, without so much as an interview. I told Tom the only way I'd consider staying in Southeast Asia again would be for lots and lots of money. Or for a seriously solid amount of money and a six-month contract. Korea has been mentioned... [villainous music plays] On another random note, I know I have been awful at posting pictures. Once I get home and get all of my technology tended to, I'm going to make a shutterfly or photobucket or whatever those photo pages are, so that everyone can browse through my escapades. We don't have any big plans for the remainder of our time here. I'm going to try and get my PADI SCUBA certification. Hopefully I can get that done before I leave here. I remember watching an Alvin and the Chipmunks movie when I was little and they scuba dived. I was so anxious and wanted to be able to breathe underwater. I'm getting excited just thinking about it! haha. This is a must-do. And finally, as you all know, America has re-elected Barry Obama to the presidency for four more years. I couldn't be more excited or happier about the future of our country. Here are just a few other things that massively changed history in our country on Tuesday: More women than ever have been elected to the Senate. The first openly gay woman was elected to Congress. The first practicing Hindu was elected to Congress. Marijuana was legalized in Colorado and Washington, and medical marijuana legalized in Connecticut and Massachusetts. If heavily taxed, this could do wonders for states on the individual level. These are huge steps forward to what I believe is a more accepting and open-minded nation, one where I may actually choose to raise a family. Not trying to get all political here, but hey, it is my blog. I've tried to avoid voicing my excitement about all this on spacebook, so this is my venue. Even if you aren't excited about Obama, be excited that all the political hubbub is over. And on that, I will say goodbye.

something clever...

Well hello hello hello. I have big news for the crowds of you keeping up with this loose idea of a blog. Tom and I have booked our tickets home, and will be en route to good ol' US of A on Novemeber 19. We are flying Qatar Airways, and it's supposed to be one of the best airlines in the world. That's exciting. It's always nice to hear good things about your airline when you have a 30 hour travel day ahead of you... I must say, the airlines in the States are absolutely abhorrent. They need to get with it. Transportation in the US is far behind the general transportaion technologies of the rest of the world. Sorry to rant, but if you've travelled outside the US, you know what I'm talking about. So we have about 6 weeks left and we've been narrowing down what different activities we want to do and places we want to see. I'm hoping to take advantage of one of those weekends to get my PADI open water certification. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I need to find somewhere cheap enough and conveniently located. Tom is already certified, so once I get certified, it will be much easier and cheaper for us to dive together. In terms of where we are going for our next job, we don't know quite yet. We've been scanning Dave's ESL Cafe for jobs all over. Right now, we're basically looking anywhere that seems interesting. We just want to "spread our seed" everywhere we possibly can and hopefully get several different options. Once it gets closer, we want to target Dubai, and possibly Chile, Poland or Hungary as backup options. Dear lord, I just want to get out of Asia! We also aren't against Central America. That way we'd be close enough to home for some visitors and still in a nice beach-friendly climate. As you can probably tell, I've been focused on the future a lot lately. I've been telling some of my high school classes that I'm leaving and they all seem appropriately concerned and deeply saddened. :) It's always nice, as a teacher, to be appreciated by your students. I feel like in general, I've been checked out for a week or so now at work. I'm extremely ready to get to the next place, however I really really enjoy Bali. If we had a better pay option, I would seriously consider arguing with Tom about staying. Haha! The language has been unexpectedly easy to learn. The people are the friendliest I've ever met. The culture is deep and interesting. And life is generally easy here. Unfortunately, we do want to save some money; thus we must move on. And there we are for now. I actually must move on myself right now, and head to class. What an easy Friday! I only have one class, and they are doing their speaking and writing exams today. Hooray! And happy Friday everyone. -Brenna currently reading: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer bahasa love: Aku mau ayam goreng saja. [I want only fried chicken.]

manic monday

I must say, Mondays are usually unpleasant. Not just in the normal way, but also most of my work friends have a Tues-Saturday shift. I'm left all alone in my corner of the office. Today was especially unpleasant because it was the first day back from vacation. Where do you go for vacation when you live in one of the most desirable tropical islands in the world? Another tropical island. Tom and I and some friends went to Gili Air. It is one of three small islands off the coast of Lombok, which is the next island to the east of Bali. We had travelled to Gili Trawangan before, and that was a riot. So we thought we'd try one of the smaller less populated islands this time. We basically had endless beach time. We sat on the beach, walked on the beach, ate at restaurants situated on the beach, snorkelled, and swam in the ocean. I must say, it was some of the most incredible snorkelling I have ever done. We saw sea turtles, thousands of fish, sea urchins and I was the lucky one to see a 4+ foot long eel. No sharks, unfortunately. We might make another trip to Padang Bai (a port city on Bali) and try to swim with sharks again there. Okay well it's time I got to teaching. Hope you enjoyed the mini-blog.

Earth-Shattering News

Well, yes there was an earthquake here last night. Probably not big enough to be covered on international news, but worth mentioning in the chronicles of my life... You can check out information about it here. It was in the middle of the night, so I just thought it was Tom's RLS acting up again. No, actually Tom woke me up with the grin of a 5-year-old on Christmas morning. "Do you feel that?" "Yes, stop shaking the bed,"....grrrr. "I'm not! I think it's an earthquake." In all honestly, it wasn't that scary. I guess being interrupted mid-sleep I wasn't thinking about the irreparable damage it could do, but was more focused on the cinematic features of my innner eyelids. It did seem quite long though. It seemed to go on for minutes. I thought earthquakes were only supposed to be like 40 seconds long. Again, that could also be because I was so desperate to just go back to sleep. There have been several earthquakes here since we arrived. That's the first one that I have felt. I've always been on the ground floor during the other quakes. Not mega-news, but I thought I'd share. Now let's do some voodoo/hexes/jinxes and get all of these natural disasters to friggin' leave us alone!

Anjing Biru Rosy

Here's Rosy doing her best George Rodrigue "Blue Dog" impression. She loves NOLA almost as much as I do. Too bad she can't visit.

The end is the beginning is the end

Well here we are again. My parents came and went in a flash. I wish they were here triple as long. I also wish I had unlimited vacation days. Alas, no world is perfect. We had a mind-blowing trip with them. Here's a brief list of things we did: drank luwak coffee (yea, the poop coffee from The Bucket List) amid a bevy of rice terraces in the one of the most picturesque places I've ever seen; had Japanese food at a restaurant overlooking rice terraces with a mountainous backdrop; visited a black sand beach, saw boobage, collected lava stones; took a road trip to Amed on the northeast coast, where we snorkeled a reef 20 feet from our villa door; had several great meals, most of which my mom actually enjoyed as well (this was a big victory); watched a traditional ceremony on the beach in Amed commemorating the start of Galungan; watched my all time favorite Kechak dance in Uluwatu; did a silver jewelry making session in Ubud; chilled at Tom's and my regular beach spot where mom and dad met our Indo buds; ate suckling pig several times; had an insane amount of massages (Dad even lost his massage v-card); and only one person fell victim to "Bali belly"...I won't mention any names, but it was someone who lives here... Aaaand it wasn't Tom. Oh, the sacrifices children make for their parents. So you can see we did boat loads of stuff. It truly was amazing. Tom and I have less than three months left here, so you guys better get to planning if you want to visit. Also worth mentioning, we now live in our own villa and have a futon for visitors to stay on. Come one, come all, to the super mega Bali ball. Our new place is super mega as well. We have a two-story villa that we share with our friends Tanya and Andy. Upstairs has a loft and our room and bathroom. Tanya and Andy are downstairs with the kitchen, living room, and kitchen-table-eating-space. Outside we have a massive porch, coi pond, our own pagoda hut, and a quite large yard for sweet Rosy to romp around in. Unfortunately, Rosy has been romping a little too much and has achieved full-fledged tick queen status. I woke up Tuesday morning to a bed full of ticks (Ro sleeps in the bed, they weren't from Tom). After some quick-fingered googling, the battle of Brenna v. Tick colony commenced. I, with my tweezers and Rosy, with her new found friends, battled it out for the next hour. I pulled about twenty or thirty ticks to their death. Apparently they hide in the paws, ears, and butthole. Yes, Butthole. After poor Rosy's initial torture session, we haven't found too many ticks on her, but we're getting some Frontline just in case. That's about all that's been going on here, in Bali. Obviously most of you are aware that Hurricane Isaac just hit Slidell, luckily everyone in my family fared well. No water, no trees. It is shocking for something like this to happen, but at least we can all say that we learned and were hopefully more prepared after the K-word. Things like this always are aweful, but always have a way of making people less selfish and more appreciative of life. Good luck to everyone recovering and returning home. You are in our thoughts. And on that note, I will bid you adieu. Happy Labor Day weekend, all you laborers! Happy Decadence Festival weekend! And Selamat hari raya Galungan dan Kuningan, to my Bali buds!

it's the news

Once again, my procrastination and laziness are the only things that are shared through my blog...(womp wommmmp)
But as we are now more than half way finished with our year in Indonesia, I thought maybe it's time to play catch-up. Also, I've had some complaints. Also, I'm conveniently in the computer lab with a class right now. Still lazy. Don't you worry.

Speaking of receiving complaints....right now, my parents are actually en route to Bali. This will be their second ever trip abroad, and I'm stoked to see how they react to locals and a foreign language among other things. It's already been a kiddy-sized roller coaster with the currency exchange alone. (The bank in Slidell gave my mom Indian Rupees instead of Indonesian Rupiahs...womp wommmmp. again. I know.) So here I sit, knowing that in a mere 5.5 hours I will be face to face with Mama and Daddy. How do I feel? meh. I've been super excited all week, well really the entire time since they booked the flight. But now I'm ... nervous? I don't know why. Obviously these are the last people I should be nervous to be around. I will reiterate a point that I made to Tom this morning. I'm sad that it's so close, because that means it's already closer to being over. (second sappy moment of the year)

In other news, Tom and I have acquired a dog. A puppy, to be more specific. Her name is Rosy, and she is a full bred Bali dog. What that means, is she is 100% mutt. Bali has a problem with street dogs overpopulating the island. I don't know a large amount about it, but it's a combination of lack of sterilization and people being lazy about keeping track of their dogs. Also, Bali has an epidemic of Rabies, so no dogs can be exported from the island. They're all stuck here. While veterinary help is available, it's not in abundance. Most families here live on approximately $100 a month and paying someone to spay or neuter your dog isn't really in the picture. SO, Tom and I saw a group of puppies that were underfed and neglected while at Balangan Beach. We asked the owner of the inn if we could take one home, and he let us. Rosy was getting her water source from the floor of the outdoor bathroom. So, I'm guessing this guy wasn't really in the position to take care of them anyway.

So Rosy is amazing, but she stirred up some negative energy in our apartment area. Our landlords went back and forth about being okay with her living there, and we got tired of it. We pay double what some people pay and our place is nice, but not that nice. It took them two weeks to fix the toilet in our room, and the internet hardly works. After going back and forth with them about Rosy and having them lie to us in the process, we finally decided to find another place to stay. We're moving in with another couple from the States. They're very nice and the place we're moving to is amaaaazing. We're paying less, but more is included. Tom and I are very excited. We will be moving the week after my parents leave. And Rosy will have a yard to run around in! I'm most excited about that. We had to be helicopter parents at our current place, because she can slip under the gate. Now, she'll have tons of space to let her energy out and hopefully end up gnawing on Tom and I less......

The last bit of biggish news is that I am now an official motorbike driver. It took me long enough, I know. I will say in my own defense, Tom was constantly trying to scare me. And Bali has been ranked as the #1 most dangerous place to drive; even more dangerous than Vietnam. But I've been driving for about a week now, and (knock on wood) no problems yet. I'll be sure to take a sweet pic of me, Tom, and Dad all on our motorbikes. Yes, my dad is getting a motorbike in Bali. I'm wondering if he sees that as a safer alternative to driving with someone else. Anyone who has had my dad in the car with them driving knows that he is the worst backseat driver. Well, maybe not the worst in the entire world. Definitely the worst I have encountered though. I'm convinced that he feels riding in a motorbike is a good alternative to riding in any car. Geeez.

Okay well, that's all the big news that's been going on. Sorry I haven't uploaded any pictures, but both Tom's and my laptops are broken so we haven't even been using our actual cameras lately. There are pictures on my facebook though, so you can check that out. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Happy Indonesian Independance Day! Happy Idol Fitri to the Muslims reading this! and I will see you guys in a couple weeks, maybe.