yes, i'm still here

sorry, so long between posts! i've been busy busy busy!
things i've done since last time: went to a small town called salatiga for an environmental festival, about 3 hours from here. really nice, in the mountains, not humid like jogja. i listened to drumming bands, thrash metal, made political t-shirts with radical punk musicians, ate strawberry icecream, all in really nice green fields, with hundreds of locals and my australian posse. 13 of us went for a ride in the back of a ute (including aforementioned punk activists), flying down the highway to cool springs on the edge of the forest near the town.

after that i had my first exams (mid-semester), that was interesting! until studying for those, i had little clue of what one subject was about, so that was definately useful. apparently i didn't fail, but i don't know the marks yet. i think i should just be given good marks for understanding thee questions and being able to write 5 essyas in indonesian in an hour!

after the exams, practicals started for one of my classes, and these are veeeery difficult. the lecturer prefers to give as little information as possible regarding what we actually have to do for the report each week. i spent all last week making maps, according to what my friend told me to do, and then according to the lecturer this week, it's wrong and needs to be redone... excellent.

last weekend i went on an 'extracurricular activity' through uni, where you spend the weekend in a village, with a family. this village was about half an hour away, in the foothills of merapi, the local volcano. it was really cool there (maybe 20-25 degrees... so low for me!) and i was shivering in bed. then i woke up at midnight, i was so hot and dehydrated, and for the next day i was completely weak in bed, i couldnt eat, but the family kept bringing me rice, bread, porridge, tea, milk, even though i couldn't eat it. while i wasn't sleeping i was staring at a kids poster of the arabic alphabet... exciting times! i woke up the next day and could move, so i did the activities with my uni friends. first we helped make a traditional snack, made from ground, wet cassava, mixed with spices, then flattened into little strips and deep fried... it had a bit of a strange flavour, but ok. then walked to another house, opposite an adventure playground with games made from motorbike tyres, a flying fox and a balancing rope over a pool of water. a guy decided that we should follow him to walk up a river (??), so we went down to the bridge, and it was pouring with rain by then, so i decided to walk back with a friend because we were both not feeling too well... i'm so grateful for umbrellas here! the others got in the rushing river, it was probably only knee deep, but fast, and with heavy rain. they came back half an hour later looking as wet as ever possible! they all went on the flying fox then, which was actually quite high and short. after that we all just went back to our homestay houses to wait for people to pick us up and bring us back to jogja.

....which updates us to this week! i'm currently having a hell of a time ploughing through centrelinks online appllication system. tomorrow i'm meeting with an english speaking club sponsored by the american embassy, saturday morning going to a wedding, some of my kosmates are the organisers, saturday afternoon going camping (i think) with australian/and/or indonesian friends, and going rafting on sunday morning.
whew!

reply reply reply! thanks