It's the time of the season for SURPRISES. :)
Spontaneously, and somewhat impulsively, I purchased a one-way ticket back to the states just two weeks ago. Alas, I'm writing from home right now in frigid and dry New Hampshire! I can barely believe how much traveling I've done since Wednesday when I left Bali. I left a beautiful and sunny Bali for a bitter cold New England, but weather isn't the only thing that's different around here. Here's a list of some changes that I've noticed right off the bat...
1) Speed limits! I can't believe how slow everyone drives around here. I've gotten so used to cruising through the back roads of Bali, weaving in and out of cars on the motorbike. There's not a speed limit sign to be found in Bali, so there's a kind of go at your own risk attitude. Not to say this is the safest way to drive, but the 50 mph regulations on Rt. 9 for example (open, paved road where you can see hundreds of yards ahead of you) feel a little extreme.
2) Driving in general. I've been driving on the left-hand side of the road for the past few months- it's been a little confusing to turn right with such ease!
3) Big, Big, and BIGGER! Everything's bigger in the states! And I mean, everything. From the over-sized SUVs to the super-sized croissants, it all feels a little unnecessary. I mean honestly, road conditions throughout most of the states are far, far better than anything you'll come across throughout the back roads in Bali. So why all the extra horsepower and size? Seems like we could get by with much smaller, more manageable vehicles.
And about the croissants: that initial observation was one I discovered at the airport in Washington D.C. In search of a snack to consume during my layover to Hartford, I found a bakery that served all sorts of delicious pastry items. But the sizes were so enormous! The croissants were nearly 3x the size of any I had seen at bakeries in Ubud.
4)Paper products. I got used to carrying around a pack of tissues wherever I would go in preparation of none available at restaurants and bathrooms. In the U.S., though, there seems to be no shortage of paper products everywhere I go! And there's a particular paper product for each different thing: paper towels for wiping counters, toilet paper (for the obvious), paper napkins for wiping your mouth after dinner...the list goes on! I wonder if one paper product could be used for all of these things?
So yeah, while I could go on and on about the changes from Bali to life here in New England, I've chosen to select just a few.
Overall, it's been really nice relaxing the past couple days at home, building fires to keep myself warm and thinking my dogs look so healthy and clean! The number of stray dogs in Bali has gotten pretty out of control, far outnumbering the amount of dogs as domesticated "pets." The dogs left abandoned on the streets are about as gangly (word?) as they get, and absolutely filthy. Don't suppose they can help it though, their diet consists of what they find in the trash cans and leftover food scraps. - The dog situation is attempting to improve, though, with organizations like Bali Dogs established to encourage people to adopt strays.
These three weeks in New England are going to fly by- I can tell already. I leave just after Christmas on December 29th. I'll be flying out of JFK airport in NYC to Chennai on Etihad Airlines. Don't know much about the airline, but if any of you who read this have flown this Middle Eastern airline carrier before, let me know! They offered a much cheaper ticket than any other airline I saw so I had to choose it...just hoping the economy cabin is pleasant enough for a 15 or so hour flight.
I'll try to put more pics up soon from Thanksgiving, and more of final travels through Bali.
Take it easy :)
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Field trips, In and Out
Uci and Oliver playing with the monkeySo once again, a lot has happened since the last time I wrote. After reading a few friends' blogs online, though, I'm feeling inspired to update you all on recent news. It's been a crazy and busy time for me these past couple weeks, with my last working day at Green School this past Thursday! Weird, huh? Hard to believe it's that time already. It's strange to think of myself arriving in Bali on August 1st for day one of teacher workshops and training. Everything was so fresh and new at that time, and the faculty so inspired and psyched to get rolling with all that was Green School!
August now seems like an eternity ago. Really, so much has changed since then! Many of the original faculty have since left, leaving what feels like a constantly evolving school structure. It's easy at this point in time for me to say that I'm no longer working at the school- that decision feels right for me. What's much harder, and hasn't really sunk in, is that I'm going to be saying goodbye to all of my colleagues, many of whom are now close friends of mine. Aside from the school's politics, GS has got a great team of people supporting the students in the classroom.
A lot went on last week at Green School. One interesting note, CNN came to visit the campus! Supposedly the Green School episode will air in a couple weeks- I'll let you all know so you can take a look! While the marketing team triumphs yet again, I couldn't help but feel like Jim Carey in the Truman Show. All the teachers got an email saying that the cows needed to be on standby, kids in 3rd grade in garden on standby, vortex up and running, etc etc. Made me feel like the whole year thus far amounted to one, five minute CNN broadcast. Cynical, I know ;)
As good timing would have it, I visited the Monkey Forest in Ubud on my very last day at school! Finally...I can't believe I never made it there last year! Monkey Forest is on the "tourist to-do list" of those who wish to check out Ubud, as it's renowned for the large, shady banyan trees and hundreds of monkeys, some of which are adorable, others quite naughty. Note: don't bring a bit of food into the forest if you're not planning on sharing it with the monkeys! Anyhow, the kids absolutely loved it (except for one, who was terrified), and it was a nice way to finish off the term.
Spent all weekend basking, basking, basking in the sun! I swear, the coast feels like a different world entirely than being up here in Sibang. I was very graciously invited to stay at the home of one of my students before I leave Bali. When I was told that a spare bungalow was available, just ten minutes or so away from the beach, I could hardly refuse! Turns out this spare bungalow was part of their villa compound, a 4 bedroom posh villa, complete with infinity pool overlooking the rice paddies, imported Javanese antique furniture, and beautiful outdoor bathrooms. Not to mention satellite television! Luxury living. Not that I need such comfort, but I must say, it was quite a treat.
I've posted some pictures of the villa, as well as pics from Thanksgiving. Oh yea! Celebrated a lovely (and quite warm) Thanksgiving and my friends' house in Ubud. My dear friend Hilary was the main caterer of the night, who cooked up nearly a dozen homemade specialties. She's an incredible cook! Some of the favorites were her pumpkin soup, banana/carrot bread, and from-scratch apple pie. Yum!
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Pics from class in reverse order, start at the bottom!
Heading back from our trip to the cows- everybody wave!
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Wes, Ni Luh and Uci, feeding the sapi (cow)
helping Holly feed the sapi our weeds from the garden
Shhhhh! Me reminding the kids to be very quiet as we approach the cows in case any of them are sleeping (if you look closely you can see Yuma enforcing this rule to the rest of the kids)
bringing the cows lunch from our garden!
weeding not only helps improve our garden but allows the cows to have lunch
what a beautiful work of art! the completed shark waste bin, hand painted by all the kids
Global Citizenship Summit, and other updates
Hi everyone! Wow- didn't realize it had been nearly a month since I last wrote! When time's not crawling around here, it flies. Sounds strange, but I think it's something about Bali, or living on an island in general, that makes time go by differently. With only two seasons a year (wet and dry), it's easy to feel confused!
So, where to start? Much has happened since the last time I updated the blog. I guess I'll begin with what's gone on most recently...this past weekend, Green School hosted the first ever "Global Citizenship Summit." Over 60 people were in attendance, most of which came from international schools from Asia, as well as all over the world. Those who weren't educators came from international development or humanitarian agencies. The purpose for the summit was to discuss Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship Education. While both these are relatively new terms, they are becoming increasingly important in international education curriculum. The summit was a nice place to brainstorm what these concepts actually mean, how they are relevant (and necessary) to today's education, and how we can translate these ideas into our curriculum through tangible lesson plans.
The summit was a success- a couple of the workshops/speakers that I found to be the most interesting included David Begbie's poverty simulation, which kicked off the night on Friday. David is the director at Crossroads Foundation, a humanitarian/aid agency based out of Hong Kong. David discussed a particular situation that he has come across in Nepal of families who make and sell paper bags to survive. They earn far below minimum wage, and must work as fast as they can to produce a certain number of bags a day. The simulation basically involved all the participants breaking off into groups of 6 or 7. These groups became our families, and we were allocated a 5 x 5 meter tarp to sit and work on- this represented our "slum." Every family was given several sheets of newspaper and told to make as many bags as possible in 3, 10 minute time periods. After completing 10 bags, one member of the family (usually me) would go and beg to a local shopkeeper to purchase the bags. Sometimes the shopkeeper would be forgiving and sympathetic to the family's situation, but more often than not, the money provided for the bags wasn't enough to buy food for a week.
Once the ten minutes of each simulation was up, we had to count our money in hopes that we could afford food and rent for the week. If we were really lucky, we also had the option of paying for sanitation and education (by the end of the whole simulation, only one family had saved enough for education because they sold a family member). Anyways...without going into too much detail, I found the simulation to be very interesting and thought-provoking. While I was cynical of the idea at first (how can anyone living the way I do begin to understand what it feels like to live in poverty?), it really was interesting the behavior and ideas that came out of the whole thing. For example, I surprised myself at just how competitive I got when I was begging to the shopkeeper. Several other participants would run to the keeper at the same time and all of us would be begging together, doing anything we could, offering whatever we could to the keeper in order for him/her to look at our bags first and pay us. I started yelling at people, accusing them of cheating, etc. My family also stole bags from another family because we couldn't afford to buy new ones.
Of course, all of this was acting and a simulation, but it really was an interesting glimpse at the pressures of living in such a situation. (* A note: perhaps what I found most interesting was the occasional development aid representative that was acting in the simulation as well...while working tirelessly to complete the bags, every once in a while an announcement would come on from some NGO person that would offer "free sewing lessons" or something else that was totally useless to me or the rest of my family at the moment- just kind of went to show how such organizations often don't benefit the needy at all)
Yesterday, I visited a couple other interesting workshops and speakers- one of which was a presentation by two teachers from United World College in Singapore. They spoke of their "global concerns" program, which is student driven and inspired and facilitated by faculty. While Green School lacks the funding that UWC does at this point in time, they gave good ideas about how to incorporate larger global issues into the curriculum.
I didn't realize I had so much to say about the summit! If anyone has any questions about some of the other workshops I attended, or is just curious about the summit in general, feel free to email me more specifics.
In other news, my last day working at Green School will be Thursday, Nov 27. This might come as a shock to some of you, and not to others, I have thought about this decision carefully for several weeks now. While I am an avid supporter of the mission and vision of Green School, I've decided that teaching kindergarten is really not right for me. This doesn't mean that I will give up teaching entirely- in the future, I wouldn't be suprised if I ended up teaching again, maybe at another international school, but to an older age group. I will remain in Bali/Indonesia for the first few weeks of December, and then am off to India. I was offered a job in Chennai (formerly known as Madras) in Southern India which starts at the beginning of January. I couldn't be more excited for the position! I will be joining up with RIN, Rural Innovations Network, an NGO in Chennai which was started by an Ashoka fellow (if you don't know about Ashoka- check out www.ashoka.org). The position is a 3 month long internship in which i will be conducting research on social entrepreneurship. RIN is collaborating with IIT-Madras (Indian Institue of Technology, a very prestigious and well-known university) to design a college course on social entrepreneurship. For those of you who aren't familiar with that term, SE basically refers to creating innovative solutions to some of society's problems. This is similar to "socially responsible business", etc. While most of the research I do will happen in Chennai, I will also be traveling throughout the state of Tamil Nadu, as well as possibly traveling further throughout India. I'm thrilled to go to India, as I have heard many a terrific, and could I say interesting? story about it..
It will truly be a period of transition, and perhaps not as smooth as would be ideal, but I feel ready to step up to a new challenge, which I feel the job in India will be for me on a professional as well as personal level.
I won't be there for another month, but as the date nears, I'll be sure to send out my address- I'm sure a care package or letter around the holidays would be greatly appreciated! :)
All for now- I had a lot to catch up on!
So, where to start? Much has happened since the last time I updated the blog. I guess I'll begin with what's gone on most recently...this past weekend, Green School hosted the first ever "Global Citizenship Summit." Over 60 people were in attendance, most of which came from international schools from Asia, as well as all over the world. Those who weren't educators came from international development or humanitarian agencies. The purpose for the summit was to discuss Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship Education. While both these are relatively new terms, they are becoming increasingly important in international education curriculum. The summit was a nice place to brainstorm what these concepts actually mean, how they are relevant (and necessary) to today's education, and how we can translate these ideas into our curriculum through tangible lesson plans.
The summit was a success- a couple of the workshops/speakers that I found to be the most interesting included David Begbie's poverty simulation, which kicked off the night on Friday. David is the director at Crossroads Foundation, a humanitarian/aid agency based out of Hong Kong. David discussed a particular situation that he has come across in Nepal of families who make and sell paper bags to survive. They earn far below minimum wage, and must work as fast as they can to produce a certain number of bags a day. The simulation basically involved all the participants breaking off into groups of 6 or 7. These groups became our families, and we were allocated a 5 x 5 meter tarp to sit and work on- this represented our "slum." Every family was given several sheets of newspaper and told to make as many bags as possible in 3, 10 minute time periods. After completing 10 bags, one member of the family (usually me) would go and beg to a local shopkeeper to purchase the bags. Sometimes the shopkeeper would be forgiving and sympathetic to the family's situation, but more often than not, the money provided for the bags wasn't enough to buy food for a week.
Once the ten minutes of each simulation was up, we had to count our money in hopes that we could afford food and rent for the week. If we were really lucky, we also had the option of paying for sanitation and education (by the end of the whole simulation, only one family had saved enough for education because they sold a family member). Anyways...without going into too much detail, I found the simulation to be very interesting and thought-provoking. While I was cynical of the idea at first (how can anyone living the way I do begin to understand what it feels like to live in poverty?), it really was interesting the behavior and ideas that came out of the whole thing. For example, I surprised myself at just how competitive I got when I was begging to the shopkeeper. Several other participants would run to the keeper at the same time and all of us would be begging together, doing anything we could, offering whatever we could to the keeper in order for him/her to look at our bags first and pay us. I started yelling at people, accusing them of cheating, etc. My family also stole bags from another family because we couldn't afford to buy new ones.
Of course, all of this was acting and a simulation, but it really was an interesting glimpse at the pressures of living in such a situation. (* A note: perhaps what I found most interesting was the occasional development aid representative that was acting in the simulation as well...while working tirelessly to complete the bags, every once in a while an announcement would come on from some NGO person that would offer "free sewing lessons" or something else that was totally useless to me or the rest of my family at the moment- just kind of went to show how such organizations often don't benefit the needy at all)
Yesterday, I visited a couple other interesting workshops and speakers- one of which was a presentation by two teachers from United World College in Singapore. They spoke of their "global concerns" program, which is student driven and inspired and facilitated by faculty. While Green School lacks the funding that UWC does at this point in time, they gave good ideas about how to incorporate larger global issues into the curriculum.
I didn't realize I had so much to say about the summit! If anyone has any questions about some of the other workshops I attended, or is just curious about the summit in general, feel free to email me more specifics.
In other news, my last day working at Green School will be Thursday, Nov 27. This might come as a shock to some of you, and not to others, I have thought about this decision carefully for several weeks now. While I am an avid supporter of the mission and vision of Green School, I've decided that teaching kindergarten is really not right for me. This doesn't mean that I will give up teaching entirely- in the future, I wouldn't be suprised if I ended up teaching again, maybe at another international school, but to an older age group. I will remain in Bali/Indonesia for the first few weeks of December, and then am off to India. I was offered a job in Chennai (formerly known as Madras) in Southern India which starts at the beginning of January. I couldn't be more excited for the position! I will be joining up with RIN, Rural Innovations Network, an NGO in Chennai which was started by an Ashoka fellow (if you don't know about Ashoka- check out www.ashoka.org). The position is a 3 month long internship in which i will be conducting research on social entrepreneurship. RIN is collaborating with IIT-Madras (Indian Institue of Technology, a very prestigious and well-known university) to design a college course on social entrepreneurship. For those of you who aren't familiar with that term, SE basically refers to creating innovative solutions to some of society's problems. This is similar to "socially responsible business", etc. While most of the research I do will happen in Chennai, I will also be traveling throughout the state of Tamil Nadu, as well as possibly traveling further throughout India. I'm thrilled to go to India, as I have heard many a terrific, and could I say interesting? story about it..
It will truly be a period of transition, and perhaps not as smooth as would be ideal, but I feel ready to step up to a new challenge, which I feel the job in India will be for me on a professional as well as personal level.
I won't be there for another month, but as the date nears, I'll be sure to send out my address- I'm sure a care package or letter around the holidays would be greatly appreciated! :)
All for now- I had a lot to catch up on!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
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