Sometimes, the future gets so close you can taste it on your tongue before it goes a few inches higher and pops you squarely in the forehead. At least that’s what it did to me. I went and thought I would have a nice last couple weeks to get the final exams written and graded but I got humbled greatly on Tuesday this week.
As is the nature of a for-profit/break-even enterprise, the language center where I work quoted a price and the price was met. The quote included the infamous ‘native speaker.’ Guess who? The price also included a start date of the next day. This is how it went so quickly. I found out around 3p on Tuesday that I would be teaching three hours the next morning. Screwed. I’ve been teaching around four years and I’ve yet to have the ability to roll out of bed and compose the day’s activities on my way to work. I was in an ornery mode. Ordinarily, I would have taken 2-3 of the classes while the other American took the remainder. However, he’s in Singapore getting arthroscopic surgery on his knee. I’m the workhorse this week.
I’m also trying to figure out my return date, or ballpark return date, because I’ve made appointments for LASIK surgery. It appears that I chose to wait too long because the surgery appointment would be the last Friday of July, and I would need to have a month-after check-up. I’m hoping that I can get them to do the surgery and check me up the day before I have to leave. Anyhow, it looks like I’ll be coming back to Indonesia either the third or fourth week of August. Luck be a lady, please.
Yesterday, I was summoned by my boss to accompany her to the hills north of here to assist her in an orientation of Americans to Manado/North Sulawesi. This group is a varied selection of college students, college grads, Fulbright scholars. All have had a fair amount of Indonesian language study and are all probably better than me. Apparently, this influx happens every year where I work.
Jenny talked for about 15 minutes shedding her experiences of living in Canada and the culture shock that she experienced and noting some glaring differences between the two. I had heard these stories before except one. A new story this week came from the home of the Swiss gentleman and his Indonesian wife.
Once upon a time, a church decided to try to raise some money for some reason. The audio-thon began at a crisp 5am. The Swiss gentleman let it be known that it was too early for anyone to be listening to anyone operating a loudspeaker on the Lord’s behalf, let alone for the asking of money. In addition to being irate, he sent a letter to the church telling them that anyone conducting such acts so early in the morning must be a sadist. The church council was infuriated and arrived at the Swiss gentleman’s house. A shouting match ensued. His Indonesian wife doesn’t think this is all so good and sends him off to Jakarta to cool down. Meanwhile, she invites the church council to dinner and conversation regarding the altercation. The results are, as of yet, unknown.
After the stories came out, I pulled a piece of paper that I jotted some interesting things about Manado that I’ve noticed over the last year. I’ve since tossed the paper, so I can’t share but I got a few good laughs over the whole thing. I love captive audiences that understand my jokes.