One Week to Prepare for School!

     Sorry that is has been so long since I have posted, but you can probably understand why I haven't when you look at the title of this post.  They only gave us one week to get ready for school!! We have been so busy with meetings and the conference that we haven't had time to work in our classrooms until this week. We finally got our final lesson plan template that we have to use for each subject. For primary it is kind of nice, because our principal is making it super easy for us to turn in lesson plans each week. He gave us an electronic template with drop down boxes. SOOO nice! :) The only part we really have to fill in ourselves is the procedure part of the lesson plan (aka, what am I going to do with the students during that lesson).
     I worked at school trying to get things ready from Monday through today! Who goes to school on Saturdays?! Haha, teachers do :) The school has a lot of practical supplies, but nothing that we can buy to put up in our rooms. We have to make everything by hand! There are no teacher supply stores around here where you can buy posters or anything like that. At least we haven't found any. My roommate and I have looked a couple of different malls now. 
     I cannot believe that school starts on Monday (My birthday)!! Happy Birthday to me. I hope the day goes well. I know that my room isn't prepared completely, but oh well. No one has their room completed. I will probably have the students help me with it this week. I can't believe they only gave us a week to work in our rooms. That is definitely not enough time for the new teachers that have to seek out all of their materials and make a bunch of things (posters, signs, etc.) by hand. 
     On the 4th of July, the school actually took all of the Americans + 1 Canadian out to Chili's for dinner. That was very nice of them. It was a very good meal, but I think switching back and forth between Indonesian food and American food is starting to get to me. I will have to remind myself to ease back into American food when I go home. Haha. I think I am getting used to the small portions here, because I get full so fast! They have super small portions, and they think that our American portions are quite ridiculous. Now that I have been here, I really think they are. We get way too much food when we go out to eat. 
     On Thursday, I bought my plane tickets to Bali!! I am super excited about going there in August. There are about six guys and six girls that are going. I think it's going to be a good time. I have heard it's beautiful there, so I'm looking forward to checking it out for myself. I will definitely take a lot of pictures, so be ready for those. If I don't post them on here, they will be on Facebook for sure. 
     Last night (Friday), I went to the mall near our apartment for dinner with my friend Terence. It's called Emporium Pluit. Terence has been here for a year already, so he kind of knows his way around more than we do. We went to a restaurant that served pasta, pancakes, sandwiches, etc. I ended up getting seafood spaghetti. It was really good, and I even tired squid!! It's a good thing that I asked Terence what it was after I had already tried it. I actually liked it :)
     After dinner we met up with a bunch of our other friends, and we all went to see the movie, "The Amazing Spiderman" at the movie house (as they call it). The 3D movie was so awesome. I think it was better than the 3D that we have in the states, or maybe it's just me? Haha. My roommate thinks so too. The best part is that it was in English, AND it was only about $5 US to see it in 3D. We pay over $8 in the US just to see a 2D movie. How crazy! There were Bahasa Indonesian subtitles, so it was kind of nice to read them and try to figure out some words. 

Movie Time!

     Speaking of Bahasa Indonesia, I really need to learn this language. It would be so much easier to get around when we are out and about in the city. The taxi drivers don't understand us, and we don't understand them. That is never good. When we get in, we just tell them the name where we want to go, and we hope that they take us to the right place. That's all we can do. Haha. 
     The taxi drivers (along with any other driver in this city) are crazy!! Tonight (Saturday) after being at school from 8:30 am - 4:00 pm, we decided to go to the Grand Indonesia Shopping Mall. We left around 7:00 pm, which was definitely a mistake. The traffic was horrible!! What would normally be a $3 US taxi ride ended up being about $6-7 US! There were eight lanes going in one direction, and they just made up the lanes. There are lanes on the street, but they don't use them. You try to squeeze in between cars as much as you can. The motorbikes own the road. They squeeze in wherever they can. I feel like it may be quite a bit faster to get around on one of those. I don't think I would ever be brave enough to get on one. The driving here is so crazy, I would be afraid of getting killed on it. But anyway, our taxi driver was getting angry with the bad traffic. I thought we were going to die a few times. We would almost get hit by other cars. I have just learned to close my eyes or not pay attention when riding in the taxis. This was the worst the traffic has ever been though. It took us like an hour to get there! Right outside of the building there is a fountain, and you are supposed to be able to circle around it. Of course, we couldn't, because they had it blocked off with cones. We had to circle back around another way. No wonder our taxi ride was so expensive. Amber paid for the taxi ride, and she made sure to give him a good tip after all of that. 
     Grand Indonesia is HUGE! I had never been to this mall before. We were looking for a bookstore so that Amber could buy some children's books for her classroom. They told us that the kids would bring some books for the library in our room, so I am just going to see how things go before I start buying any books. It was a pretty nice bookstore that had a bunch of books in English. Those are kind of hard to find around here, I guess. We also ate at this restaurant called Marche. Terence suggested it to us. We were so confused when we got there how it worked. You get a card, and you walk around to different food stations and order what you want on the card. Kind of like in college I guess. We ordered some potato soup, garlic bread, and some fresh squeezed juice. It was delicious! It was a little on the expensive side, but it was well worth it. It was a neat little place, and I would definitely go back there again. 
     Thank goodness the taxi ride home was much better. Only cost us about $3 US, which is pretty good for that distance. The mall is located in Central Jakarta. The traffic was much better. It was actually moving. Haha. I am still having a really hard time counting the money here. $1 US = about 10 000 Indonesian Rupiahs. I guess I need to learn to count higher?? I am figuring it out, but it's just different (along with just about everything else around here). 
     Well, after this week I am exhausted. I should go to bed since it's 1:00 am. No rest for the wicked; tomorrow is another work day. I have lesson plans left to finish, and things to make for my classroom. At least I am going to stay at home to work. I am going to sleep in first, and I may get a massage. We'll see how things go. 
     Oh! I slept in my bed for the first time last night. We haven't seen hardly any cockroaches (or any other bugs) in the last 5 or so days. Yay!! :) I slept so well too. No more sleeping on the futon in the guys' apartment. I can't wait to crawl in tonight. Now, only if my air conditioner would work in my room. Haha. Oh well!