First Days: Special Moments in LOCamp

Now for the best moments of my first days here and in chronological order too. So on my fourth day in Indonesia and the third day of actually doing orientation activites the American exchange students got a special treat. We got to go to the American embassy's ambassador's house for dinner. So we put on vaguely fancy clothes (by this time all my clothes were wrinkled or too cough cough short for fanciness so that's why it's vaguely fancy) and took a drive to the very swauve centre of Jakarta. We got there in good time except parking was a drag because the president drove by! Weird but cool the president was so close. There were no cameras allowed in the ambassadors house, but of course it was beautiful. And this was not just a tiny dinner; this was a party with lots of people (I don't remember why) including a few leftover Indonesian exchange students who were going to America the next day. So I spent my time with them.  After of course talking to a few official people in charge of student type things. Very nice and interesting. Good job embassy!

US YES Abroaders with the ambassador! Ooer

    So back to the exchange students I was talking too. They were supposed to have left days ago but something was holding them up. None of them had families yet so they didn't even know where in the us they would be. Of course they wanted california (what can I say that's how we do). The night was really interesting. We broke the fast of course because it was Ramadan and they had a live prayer/singer there which I'd never seen. The food was really good. Wow it was so long ago I don't even remember what it was but it was good. And after a few pictures (with the ambassador and the exchange students) we left. I wish those fellow exchange students good luck. Maybe we'll meet again at the end of our year. The whole night was a bit surreal. It was in such a metropolitan area of Jakarta that all the lights were on and we would pass parks with trees larger than anything and there were fountains going and I wanted to take pictures of everything. Then Kak Heidy was like Ankhet you live here and I swooned a bit because it was true. I'm the only exchange student in Jakarta Jakarta. I live in this awesome city and sure not every place looks like that but it's still all mine I guess.
      After that we were all dead tired and fell asleep in the traffic home. But guess what it was mini Olympic time and everyone had waited for us. At first we were going to refuse and go to sleep but after some peer pressure we agreed to participate. And I'm so glad. It was so fun. We were separated into teams named after food and we were competing in different games.
    My team was made of Belgian Simon (there are two), Kak Stoky, Kak ___, and Mana (Japan). We were nasi goreng and our cheer (part of the competition) went nasi goring pasti manag nasi goreng something something yang lion krepang krepang with dance moves. It meant  "We are the best, the others are skinny, so they'll lose." You know team stuff. So there were competitions for each of us. Simon won the hold a spoon with a marble in it in your mouth and then hop quickly back race. Mana came in third in the transport beans with chopsticks across the field. (This race was particularly funny because every team made their Japanese student compete.) I had to blindfolded hit a bag full of water with only Bahasa Indonesia directions. I did pretty good but my bag never fully broke. Kak Stoky nearly won the eat krepik with only your mouth competition and Kak ___ was the same with the put a nail into a bottle with only your butt and some squatting skills. Then we crowned all the winners. They made medals out of fruit so everywhere you saw people breaking open the bags and trying new fruits. Then we had 2 huge games of tug of war Indonesian kakak-kakak vs exchange students. First the girls went then the boys and each time the exchange students won. They made the boys go over again because they won so quickly (most of the guys here are remarkably tall, seriously tall). Then prizes for us and fireworks time. Yea they pulled out sparklers and even a big shooty thing. Crazy. Crazy. And pictures too of course. How awesome a day was this. 

First Days: Taman Mini LOCamp

My first days in Indonesia were spent in a language orientation camp headed by Indonesian AFS with the rest of the 20 exchangees. The loc was held in taman mini which is vaguely amusement parkish vaguely hotelish vaguely I probably should have figured out what exactly it was because I was there for nearly a week. We stayed in like a cabin one for boys one for girls. The place was actually pretty beautiful with all the trees and flora and a huge pond (lake i don't know) with a bridge and koi! in it. It was hot but most of the time we were in rooms doing sessions with air conditioning so it wasn't bad. And at night I would be freezing because the ac would be on so high. I didn't take a picture of the bathrooms but it was cabin style except for the added squat toilet.

   So what'd we do there? Orientation stuff of course! This includes:

• Bahasa Indonesia lessons 
• Just numbers, and ask how much things are, days of the week, what you'd learn in kindergarten. You know the useful stuff.         
•  Daily life lessons 
• How to bathe and use the bathrooms. Note: I'm so good at squatting. What Indonesians call squatting anime ppl (not me) call looking like Elle or at least that's what Steph told me when I took to siting like that a year ago.              
• How we might have maids and what our own responsibilities might be            
• How curfew might be earlier for us and we might have less autonomy (as long as you live in the house you're still a child in Indonesia)            
•  Communication style in Indonesia 
• Indirect always smiling, no privacy between family members not even for things like journals or diaries          
•  Recreation and games 
• In the mornings before doing anything we would go out and exercise. There was some stretching and some leaping over ropes and some untangling a group of people tied to a knot. My favourite was the one where we had to basically run through a human foosball setup like thing and guess what I actually got through. (For some reason in Indonesia I'm not my usual winning self I can't count how many times I've lost at games and people know I very very rarely lose games) Then we played Indonesian traditional games too; a mandala like game, a game like jacks, and a spinning top game. Yay exercise I'm actully missing it now.   

   Everyone at the orientation was nice from the heads of the orientation to the actualy exchangers. There were 5 from Japan, 3 from Belgium, 2 from Germany, and 5 from the wellworts program. The wellworts program seems really interesting. They also come from Germany but instead of being here to go to school they've come to volunteer in schools or other places. Cool, Germany. There were a lot of people watching us maybe 20 and they were all previous exchangers to different places. We called them kakak which means older brother/sister in Indonesian because that's what the are. They were cool 20 somethings.  And this was how I spent my first four days in Indonesia. Of course there were some special moments that I have to mention in another blog post. Special moments called visit to the American embassy, the mini Olympics, and the farewell party (aka talent show O_O)for the loc. So be prepared. I'll post them soon because I want to be caught up on all my time here. Much love.

 Note* I wrote this days ago but had to wait until I got wifi to post. I wanted to add pictures but its really complicated so pictures will have to arrive separately later. Love again though.

Just FYI

Woah hey guys. Weird, I'm here in Indonesia. Weird because it's felt like forever when really it's only been 6 days. I don't have the time or battery power to do like a real real in depth summery of what I've been doing because I actually leave for my host family's house today.
    I've been at camp (or I call it camp it's actually a hotel Desa Wisata in this place called Taman Mini Indonesia or at least that's what I think)for all my days here so far. we've had an orientation with games and Bahasa Indonesia lessons and excercising. Now that it's over "the journey begins". I quote that because 1. I really don't think I would say something like that and 2. That was the theme of our welcoming party.


Ok well now Im going to go. I have pictures to take. I lowkey feel like a celebrity here. Seriously I'm going to come back with the hugest ego.
Finger kisses.

Less than ____

On my tumblr I wrote what 13 days feels like.
    Well now I have 5 more days and of course I feel totally different. I am so chill right now. Honestly it's surreal. It doesn't feel like it at all. Now at night when I have nothing to do I don't get panicked and freaked. I don't even think of exchange really. It's weird. Maybe I'm in a state of denial, or maybe I'm repressing all those freaked out feelings. I don't know. All I know is I'm cool.
So my last days. I count all my last things, my summer accomplishments though it's seemed so short and by no way am I through - I still have 4 full days left!

•  I finished my puzzle. Here is what it looks like. This is the internet's, not my own. I hope it says in my living room for a long time. Until I get back even.
• I ate all my favorite foods.
• Ethiopian - best food 
• Regular cooking by my dad
• Chipotle (Not my favorite so much as my mom's but whatever I'm up for it.)
• Scoops - best ice cream place. I had 2 scoops: Earle Gray Tea and Brown Bread
• Earlez Grill - best vegetarian place for like burgers
• I've had pseudo - goodbye parties/hang out sessions.
• The first was just my family. We swam, ate. It was usual family hanging outness.
• Then my friends from my old school and I went to see a movie.
• Then another old friend came over with her family for general hanging out/talking/wow our parents are really funny time.
• Last Shakespeare in the Park play. It was Hamlet. It was awesome. I'm going to miss the play that happens at our school each year though.

• My friend's threw me a surprise-ish (some people aren't good at keeping secrets) going away scavenger hunt. We all went to Santa Monica and just ... were being weird. Talking in accents, sneaking in pictures with babies, messing with strangers. Scavenger hunt stuff. What an awesome idea. I have major love for them all <3. 

• Finish my box that's going to hold all my letters. (Didn't actually finish this :( Oh well)
• I hung out downtown. The library, the shops. I love downtown. And I finished all my books in time.
• I bought my host family gifts. Which called for a trip to Venice Beach.

I've packed and I'm off I guess.

Oh and good news I got my visa :D

Guess my special visa skills paid off.

Alright I'm sorry for the tense difference here. I wrote this days ago and didn't fell like changing it all. But I did all this stuff and these are my last hours. And next time I post I'll be in Indonesia or New York. Wish me luck :)

How to Get a Visa: ANKHET Style

1. Have a passport.
• EASIEST STEP if you already have one. If you don't sucks for you. Sorry, no actually just go get one. Super quick.
2. Have a Driver's License or State ID. 
• I don't have one of these because guess what, I don't drive and guess what, I'm still a minor and don't need fancy pieces of identification. So everyone was harassing me for one. Ok really just the police department who didn't realize I was a minor and needed to go to the juvenile courthouse.
• I ended up copying the envelope my passport came in. I don't know what they thought when they saw that.
3. Fill out form.
• You'd think this would be the easiest part but No, alas it's not. 
4. Be patient because getting authorization numbers from Jakarta will take a long time. In fact the whole visa plan will change because it won't come in time. You will find yourself having to mail everything to New York instead. And you will spend a bunch on shipping.
5. Have your awesome school send you a transcript the day you are sending all this stuff to New York. Just have an awesome. Thank you school <3.
6. Print out other stuff. 
7. Forget to mail your cover letter with the package and send an email at 2 am to AFS with it attached. Why 2am? Because you're afraid that you won't wake up early enough for them to get it on time. New York is 3 hours ahead of LA.
• In fact just live on the east coast. The rest of your life won't be as awesome but getting a visa will probably be easier. 
8. And the MOST Important Step: Wait until the last minute to do everything. Because then you will be all in a frenzy. Unless of course you don't like worrying your brains out and spending half the night making lists of how you can get what you need and fast.

Weirdly Getting a Visa Ankhet Style is not as fun as you would think.

My Family & Stupidity (Of My Own)

My family is amazing. Or should I start with bad news first. Yes, so you can have a good taste in your mouth at the end of this whole story I'll begin with bad news.
    So I am kind of stupid. I totally forgot that there was a conference call scheduled for today (August 2 because it might not be today anymore when I post this). I only remembered around 8 o clock which would have been ok if I lived on the East Coast. But I don't so I missed an important conference call about Indonesia with my fellow Indonesia YES Abroaders. I got to listen to a recording so I heard what was said but I still felt pretty embarrassed at the silence that happened whenever my name was called, or when they waited for me to arrive
    Good news. I am talking to my family. My host mom to be more precise, on facebook. Never have I loved facebook so much. I've seen a picture of her and my two new sisters! My two new sisters aaah I love that. I'm going to go to school with Caca whose the younger of the two I believe. They're both really close to my age. 15 and 16. It's going to be pretty different from the family I have now. I have a sister but she's a lot younger and my brother... is a boy... obviously. I'm excited. I like having talked to them because it makes me feel less of an outsider. My mom said the same thing when they sent us a picture. With 10 days (Yeah it's August 7 now) left I'm all stressed and harried from my visa but it's nice to talk to my host mom and know that once I get to Indonesia I'll be in such an awesome family.

Truth

My decision to have an exchange blog wasn't so I could just put my thoughts out into the world. I didn't even do it so my family or friends would have some way of knowing what I'm doing. That definitely became part of it but still, having a blog was because my decision to go on an exchange was helped along by all the exchange blogs I read. Blogs from past exchangers became the closest way I could see the feelings and activities that occur during exchange. And my favorite blogs were the ones that were truthful.  The exchangers wouldn't just blog about the parties, and how they got to ride an elephant and the amazing food and people and so on. They would say when they were having hard times or difficult feelings. And that's what I want this blog to be. A way for people get as close as they can to my exchange.  And the very real things that I'll be going through. Yet I still am not going to be an extremely angsty or angry or mopey blogger. Some things the internet world doesn't need to know :).
    So I'm going to tell you that with um 16 more days left I'm as nervous as who knows what. During the day I'm cool. I'm all, Yea 15 more days no big deal. I have to start packing, no problem. My last meal. It's fine. But somehow when it's 1 am in the morning and you're just lying in the dark it all seems like so much. Because I honestly have no idea what to expect. People can say whatever. They can tell me how Indonesia was for them but actually being there will be something totally different. No matter what I'll still be stepping into a totally foreign country. And as much as I'll have people backing me up and supporting me it'll still be me who has to adjust and make a life in Indonesia. Relying on myself. 
And that's why I'll think I'll be ok because I'm going to work hard to make it ok, to make it amazing.