Operation “update my blog”: Stage 3.
Unlike my first several weeks of Indonesia, this last week has been a lot less full on. It has been nice to just spend some time at home relaxing, catching up with people and exploring my local area a little bit more.
There have been some interesting dining experiences in the last week, including a western style castle that sold seafood, an avocado and hazelnut drink at “Cinnamon” café, deceivingly super spicy salad, really yum ayam bakar from a lesehan (temporary food stall on the side of the road) and really yum mushrooms at my friend’s birthday party.
There were a couple of lowlights this week, taking my friend to the hospital to see a doctor (but she’s all a-ok now, so that’s good) and being stared at by a whole line of traffic as my inability to ride a bicycle was made super obvious.
However, the actual purchasing of, and practicing riding, my bike was definitely a highlight. It is yet to receive a name, as I have been informed that it will be a lot harder separating myself from my bike when I leave in five months, but I still think a name is important. Especially as it is the snazziest bike in yogya :)
Other highlights this week included playing billiards and getting my team’s last three balls and the 8 ball in all in a row to win the game, playing futsal again, having fun at karaoke, playing soccer barefoot on an iffy field with some local kiddies, tea parties at Teal's kos, skyping friends and family, getting the “special” cake at Wahyu’s birthday and chilling with friends.
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| It's a bit dark, but this is part of the castle restaurant we went to. |
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| My snaz as bike! |
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| Attempting to dink Joey on the back of my bike, as he attempts to be cool. |
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| (L-R) Mita, Dama, Wahyu, Eli, Tim and Dimas picking songs and having fun at karaoke. |
Probably the hardest thing in the last week was doing my enrolment yesterday. We had three hours to pick our subjects according to our skill level, interests and if it fitted ok into a timetable. In the end I was the last person, taking an extra hour to decided my subjects and fill in my forms. Yes, forms, plural. I’m going to be studying in three different faculties, so I needed a form for each one.
From FISIPOL (Fakultas Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik = Social Sciences and Politics Faculty) I will be studying Pluralisme Kesejahteraan (Peaceful Pluralism). I hadn’t intended on studying any FISIPOL subjects, but decided this might be a good and useful subject.
From Fakultas Kehutanan (Forestry Faculty) I will be studying Kehutanan Sosial (Social Forestry) and Pemuliaan Pohon Terapan (Applied Tree Propagation/Breeding). Social Forestry will hopefully be about how people look after and use the forest; which is exactly what I’m interested in, so hopefully that’s what it turns out to be. The other subject I picked simply because I was under pressure and it had the word ‘tree’ in the title. I didn’t know what the other words meant until I looked them up in my dictionary later.
In Fakultas Ilmu Budaya (FIB = Arts Faculty) I will be studying: Antropologi Ekologi (Ecological Anthropology), Sejarah Australia dan Pasifik (Australian and Pacific History), Linguistik Historis Komparatif (Comparative Historical Linguistics). Also within FIB I am doing one INCULS (Indonesian Language and Culture Learning Service) subject, Bahasa Indonesia untuk Riset (Indonesian for Research), which involves doing a mini research project/thesis.
It was difficult picking all of my subjects as there were no subject descriptions, just long and confusing lists of all the subjects available (from 1st, 2nd and 3rd year all jumbled together), organised differently according to each faculty. Fakultas Kehutanan organised their subjects by the day which they were on, FIB did it according to the type of study area and I just couldn’t figure out the pattern for FISIPOL. But that’s ok, I got there in the end. I actually have more subjects than I’m allowed to do, but as you can’t add subjects later it’s better to have more now then drop a couple before the deadline (which is only the 19th September) than to be stuck with subjects you don’t like and no flexibility of changing. So now I look forward to starting uni (finally!) on Monday. First up... Pluralisme Kesejahteraan.
Hooray! You’re now all up to date with what I’ve been up to. From now on, it should be less full on and I should be able to keep it up to date. I hope you’re going well.
Sampai jumpa,
Katrina
