SuraBYEya and SuraHIya

“I began to feel that the country was one giant Bad Boyfriend. It tickles the senses and elasticates the thinking. It prompts laughter, produces the warm fuzzy feeling that goes with familiarity and slightly embarrassing shared intimacies. Then it forgets the important anniversaries, insults friends and tells endless low-grade lies. Just when you think you are really getting to know it, it reveals some hidden secret or reinvents itself completely. With Bad Boyfriends you know full well it will all end in tears, and yet you keep coming back for more.”

-Elizabeth Pisani “Indonesia Etc.”

Well, I left my Bad Boyfriend (kind of).

a goodbye party is pretty serious right?

Late last year, in the middle of crippling anxiety and coping with PTSD (which is a story for another time) I started to blame Indonesia. After one too many issues, I made a decision. After five years of ups and downs, I broke it off with my Bad Boyfriend.

gifts and love from my beloved students made it even sadder

I sold my motorbike, gave away the majority of my possessions, cried for weeks, permanently tattooed my company’s mascot into my skin (as you do), had a goodbye party and got on the one-way flight towards “moving on with my life” and “doing something new”. It was all on track.

Even the tattoo artist laughed at this.

I didn’t think I could. I didn’t think it was possible. I’ve booked so many one way flights only to book one way flights back. From the day I told my boss I was quitting through to the day I left, I thought something would change my mind and I’d stay.

But, I didn’t. I left my bad boyfriend and it sucked.

when you ask your student for a "goodbye selfie" but he tickles you as you take the photo 

I know what you’re gonna say: it doesn’t count as leaving when you go running back. But it does. I had no intention of going back. When I said goodbye to Tria at the airport crying like a baby (while everyone stared at me) I thought it was the end. But somehow I still got on that plane. 

this "welcome home" hug from my cousins was pretty great though

And I kept it up. I spent hours looking for jobs in Hong Kong. I dressed up in (non-khaki-coloured) office attire and sat in my room nervously answering job interview questions, in the awkwardness that is Skype interviews. I tried really hard, determined to move on from my Bad Boyfriend.

But the interviews didn’t impress me. I’m passionate about teaching and was looking for an opportunity to improve. Being told by one interviewer that I could “make my lesson fun by playing a board game at the end” and that “kindergartners can’t make full sentences in English” made me question my choices. I explained to the interviewer that I believed the end of the lesson should be reserved for the most important, freer practice activities and that I had successfully taught three year olds to make short sentences in English within a few meetings. I went on to ask a million questions about their teaching methodology and opportunities for career development which the interviewer was unable to answer.

no khaki allowed

I realised later that I was being kind of condescending. 
This took me back to a time in Surabaya when a foreigner with "tidak abadi" tattooed on his arm accused me of being condescending (though I’m still not sure which of the two times I spoke to him was the condescending one- the time I explained my lesson plan or the time I helped him order a Gojek) but I saw for the first time that maybe he was right about me. 
When I still got offered the job after being the condescending interviewee, I was even more worried about the quality of the school.

Other than interviewing for ridiculous jobs, I was contending with the part of me that always fights for Indonesia. I forgot that that voice inside my existed but from the first time I visited Indonesia in 2011 that voice started screaming at me. Immediately after returning from Yogya, I came home to find him screaming at me “you need to go back to Indonesia!” with urgency and determination that I was unable to silence. The only cure, a flight back to Indonesia a year later. I gave him a five week holiday in Indonesia but immediately back in Australia, he started screaming again. 

I hadn’t heard from him in about five years, because even when I came back from Indonesia between work contracts, I had a flight back to Surabaya booked so he never said anything. But when I arrived home in February he was back immediately, louder than ever.

I tried to ignore him for as long as I could but slowly my thoughts switched to “as soon as I have holiday in Hong Kong, I’ll go to Surabaya”. Then “I wonder if I can fly to Hong Kong via Surabaya?” (because that's such a reasonable flight route) and finally, “If I don’t get a job in Hong Kong soon maybe I can work in Surabaya for a few months so I don’t run out of money”.

Yes, I’m weak. I emailed my boss in Surabaya a massive 3 weeks after I had left.

In the meantime, I had more job interviews for Hong Kong. I hadn’t given up. I ate Indonesian food increasingly regularly. I sent regular ridiculous postcards to my old office. I cried in the middle of a food court when I got a copy of a job description that seemed promising but wouldn’t give me enough holiday to visit Indonesia.

I was gone 2 months (and that's not even all of them)

It was adding up to one thing. So I booked yet another one way flight to Indonesia 

I don’t know how this makes me look, I might seem like one of those super-clingy ex-girlfriends who can’t move on.

looking thrilled to be back in khaki

But I don’t mind. Me and my Bad Boyfriend have something good going on over here. I know he can be super confusing and annoying and sometimes I really have no idea how to understand him. I’ve let him hurt me more times than I can count and there are things I really hate about him. He isn't perfect.

But, I love him and I always will. He’s made me a better person, helped me to grow up, to be kinder, more patient and more understanding. He takes me on adventures that would be impossible without him. He surprises me, challenges me and inspires me almost everyday. 

So no, I’m not really ready to let him go for now and maybe I never will be.

When shit goes wrong

Hi guys, apologies again for the looooong break.

I’ve wanted to update this blog for a while but there was one thing stopping me (well, to be honest, it was stopping me from June to July. Since July it's just been sheer laziness on my part... sorry). But don't worry, it’s definitely not any indication that weird stuff has stopped happening in this country (if that happened I’d be on the first plane out of here). So here’s a little post that kind of explains my absence and I'm hoping now I can get back to blogging every Friday. So, I hope you enjoy.

You’ve probably guessed that Indonesia isn’t the easiest place to get stuff done. I guess considering it’s still a developing country, it’s doing okay overall but some things still don’t quite work efficiently.  And, that may be an understatement because sometimes I find it so frustrating when something goes wrong that I feel like giving up and fleeing the country is a better option than say- working out how to solve the problem. I know that's very dramatic, but  seriously this country is crazy sometimes and I don't even know what's going on...

If you've ever read this blog before, you've probably noticed from the earlier entries that bad things sometimes happen in this country (obviously bad things happen everywhere but somehow it's easier when you're at home). Mostly though, things will be going well for a while and then for some reason everything seems to fall apart at the same time.

For example, earlier this year, both our satellite TV and our internet were broken at the same time. This basically meant that we had absolutely nothing to do (we're a house of people whose weekends revolve around watching football on TV and considering we didn't have internet we couldn't even stream the games). We called both the companies and asked them to send technicians to fix it. Coincidentally, both technicians arrived on the same morning. The internet technician spent 5 minutes fiddling around with something, then claimed he was done. I checked and there was still no connection and told him to try again. He said he had to go somewhere else to check on something and proceeded to spend about 2 hours messing around without really doing a lot. Sometime in the middle of all that, the satellite TV man arrived. As I let him in the gate, he stood there kind of awkwardly (because I’m a foreigner I’m guessing). After a few seconds he finally asked: “So, where is the TV?”

Where is the TV? Where do you think the TV is? It’s not in the front yard.

“Ahh…inside?” I replied.

So we went inside and the satellite TV man actually worked quite well and had the satellite functioning within a few minutes which was great. He commented that it was likely that a cat knocked over the satellite and knocked over the satellite and that was the cause of the problem. My housemate Ika said “Yeah, actually there’s a lot of cats around” and our housekeeper Parmi added: “Meow meow!” Another useful contribution from Parmi.

But this post isn’t really about useless technicians. The real story happened at the end of May I believe when despite the fact that it was supposed to be dry season, Surabaya rained enough to flood my house and kill my laptop (a shopping mall and a hospital also flooded).

That morning I had packed up for a trip to Thailand, flown out of Surabaya locking my bedroom door behind me. When I arrived in Thailand and I checked Facebook I saw that my housemate Adam had posted pictures of a flood in my house, which is just excellent because I'd left my laptop on the floor. What can you even do when your house floods and you’re in a foreign country? I guess the best I could do was be grateful that I didn’t have to clean up the dirty, flooded house. I decided not to get stressed about it.

picture by Adam

picture by one of my housemates but I don't know who

If I'm being honest, I probably shouldn’t have left my laptop on the floor but you hardly expect your bedroom to flood. I mean, I could have really expected it because our house already flooded once before but who knew it would happen again? Especially considering it was the end of May.

pretty cool right?

 So, I came back from Thailand to find the full extent of the damage. The laptop was off being repaired by someone at work. I also found my teaching certificate floating in folder full of water which my housekeeper must have missed when cleaning up my room. My first reaction was “well I don't have a TEFL certificate anymore so I guess I’m staying at EF Surabaya forever now” and I accepted that and felt fine about it. Then, I realised that if I went in to a job interview and showed them what remains of my certificate and said “So, one time I was teaching English in Indonesia for 4 years and my house flooded, so this is my certificate now…” it would probably be quite memorable for the interviewer. I decided it was actually a good thing. A few other things were quite broken such as my banking security device but mostly everything was fine.

The next day I had to go to the bank to get a new security device. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with Indonesian banks, going to the bank is definitely not an enjoyable thing. Actually I hate it more than I hate most things. I try to only go there once a year, to transfer money back to my Australian account when I go home. So I forced myself to go to the bank but I didn’t realise that you needed your passport and your bank book (yes bank book, we still use bank books here afdkfdfkff) to get a new machine and the bank couldn't do anything to help me.

So, the next day I was back at the bank, this time bringing everything I needed. Ugh, my 3^rd visit to the bank in 2016. It took about half an hour to get my new machine- half an hour of filing in random paper work, them taking photos of things with their webcam (including pictures of me, my bank book, irrelevant pages of my passport etc.) and snacking on the free candy the bank provides. 

While I was waiting in the bank I messaged my mum to tell her that whenever things like this go wrong it makes me wish I never moved to this country. She reminded me that things go wrong in Australia too but I still think blaming your problems on Indonesia is better than accepting that everyone has problems in their life, no matter which country you live in.

And the last step of recovering from the flood was replacing my laptop which couldn't be saved unfortunately (the laptop was about to die anyway and was probably going to need to be replaced this year plus I had backed it up about a month before so it wasn't a really big deal). I felt like buying a laptop was also one of those too hard things as it involved a trip to HI-TECH Mall. HI-TECH Mall is possibly the lowest tech mall in the city or even the world but it is surely the place to go when you find yourself in need of a new laptop. I'd never actually been to HI-TECH Mall but based on what I'd seen when I'd driven by I imagined it being like a dirty market, full of people staring at me. I tried to get the IT guy at work to help me but he seemed too busy to help. I considered asking him on a date and suggesting we go to HI-TECH Mall, but using someone for their laptop expertise doesn't really seem nice to me.

So I went alone.

I had envisioned HI-TECH Mall as an awful place. You might think I was being dramatic (and I was) but actually being negative worked well because when I got there it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I went straight to the Lenovo dealer and picked up this laptop. As soon as I’d paid, the lady in the shop advised me to go “tukar hadiah” ("exchange gift"?) which I had no idea what she was talking about, she walked me outside the shop and pointed at a desk with a sign that said “redemption” and told me to “Just go there”.

So I did. And then the most amazing thing happened. They made a mug. With my face on it. I take back all the bad things I’ve said about HI-TECH Mall. It’s clearly the greatest mall ever. Buy a laptop, get a free photo mug.

I made a collage of my visit to Hi-tech Mall to send to my Dad

So now I have a mug with my face on it, I spend my classes talking to my students about how beautiful the mug is. It's an amazing conversation starter really ("My brother has that mug too" "Your brother has a mug with my photo on it? That's weird" "Miss! No!"). Actually the mug went missing for a few days and I freaked out and thought I must have an office secret admirer who took it home but then it turned out that the cleaning staff just put it somewhere else and I got it back. The secret admirer option would have been more interesting though super weird. But -probably more importantly- I now have a laptop and can continue this blog (I know it seems like I'm more excited about the mug).

So, I apologise for the long delay, hopefully I'm back on track now. Thank you for continuing to support this blog.
See you next Friday!

The most complicated pros and cons list you've probably ever seen

This year so far has been extra amazing.

I don't know why exactly but somehow it has. Somehow, I have found myself learning a lot and working to improve myself and have started to figure out what kind of person I want to be. I've gotten into a really cool rhythm and have actually found myself feeling happier than I've ever been in my life.

I had every intention of getting my shit together, going back to Australia next year and getting my Masters degree. Actually, I wasn't even supposed to be in Indonesia right now, but I seem to take every opportunity to put off leaving here (because it will probably be the hardest thing I ever have to do). Every time I think about leaving, I want to cry. I don't know why but for the longest time I have felt like that.

This was supposed to be my last year. In my mind there was no doubt that I was leaving. Of course I was devastated by the prospect but I was going to do it.

Then, a few months ago a friend of mine said something along the lines of "don't leave, you love Indonesia, you should just stay". No one had told me to stay before and after it was suggested to me my brain became fixated on the idea of staying. I tried to push that thought to the back of my mind but failed.

Of course it made me feel bad, like I'd been making empty promises about returning. I have an overwhelming fear that eventually my family will give up on me. I have another fear that eventually I won't have any friends left in Australia. But I sat down and for the third time in my life wrote a pros and cons list on staying or leaving (I really should have just kept the last two, it would have saved time).

So, I want to share this list with you.I decided that not everything on the list was equal so I decided to use a colour-coding system to reflect that. I also may have missed a few things.
The items listed in blue are worth 3 points, those in purple are 2 points and the ones listed in pink are worth 1 point each. The points from the cons were subtracted from the points from the pros.

Stay in Surabaya

PROS

Blue

• I'm happy- This is obviously the number 1 most important factor in it for me.

• Can travel more- Being located in Asia and having a lot of annual leave makes this a reality.

• Love my job- I think I'm part of the minority of people who drive to work with a smile on their face everyday. None of this "I hate Mondays" for me.

• More free time- Due to really reasoable working hours and not having to do any housework I guess.

Purple 

• More fun- I'm not 100% sure on this one but I feel like theres a lot more serious stuff that has to be done in Australia. Plus going out for meals, karaoke, concerts etc. is so cheap here that it is easy to have a lot of fun.

• Amazing friends- Obviously and I seem to keep finding more amazing people around somehow.

• Lots of holidays- 4 weeks annual leave, 1 week off at Idul Fitri, 1-2 weeks off at Christmas, approx. 15 public holidays a year and the opporunity to take up to 6 weeks off (unpaid) between contracts. I don't know many jobs that give you so many holiday days.

• Easier lifestyle- Things are just easy here, people are chilled out, there's no rush to do anything etc.

• Nice house- Yea, having a big bedroom and a house full of nice people to come home to is awesome. :)

• Gojek/motorbikes- I miss my motorbike even when I'm away for a few weeks. And gojek just makes my life so convenient- hung over? Order a burger on Gojek... problem solved.

• My laundry lady- I hate doing laundry. Having your clothes washed and ironed for you for $3 a week? Amazing.

• More unpredictable- I love the idea that anything can happen at any time. Even after four years here I still feel like I can't predict what's coming up next.

Pink

• Good routine- Eating well, gym, social life- I could probably have this in Australia too but I'm scared that I won't
• Improve my Indonesian- I haven't made any effort towards doing this in a long time but I really want to.

CONS

Blue

• Feel like I'm not really achieving anything- I'm not really a career-focused person but I also don't want to achieve nothing or do the same thing for my whole life. Getting a Master degree would allow more options

Purple

• Not a good place to be if sick- Yea, it really isn't. Ask anyone who has been sick here. Hospitals are businesses, doctors have no idea and even seeing a doctor is stressful.

• Hard to find solutions to problems- When things go wrong you're gonna have to work hard to sort it out.

• I feel like a terrible daughter- Yea I do. Sometimes I feel like I'm being really selfish.

• Stressful because people always leave- Yea, not all my friends love it as much as I do, so I've outlasted a lot of people. Saying goodbye sucks. Every time.

• Being stared at/annoyed by random people- An ungoing issue. No one stares at me in Australia which is really nice.

• Khaki trousers- This is in reference to my uniform by the way. A valid problem for sure.

Pink

• No relationship prospects- Yea, don't see myself meeting someone here due to the cultural differences (and being extremely picky) but to be honest not my greatest concern/ priority at the moment.

• Never really going to have any money- I spend it all on traveling and never seem to get ahead. Could be exactly the same in Australia though.

TOTAL= 13 points
   

Go back to Australia

PROS

Blue

• Family- Yes I really do miss my friends and family. And when things go wrong I really want to be there for my family. It's extremely hard to stay in contact and maintain good relationships too.

• Better for the future- More options, more financial security. These are all great things.

Purple

• Healthier- Eating well is easier in Australia. Plus I'd be more likely to say- go for a walk or spend time outside there.

• Beach/more to do- Lots of fun events, lots of natural stuff. Stuff to do outside a shopping mall. Stuff to do that doesn't cost money. These are beautiful things.

• It's a good challenge- I do have things very easy here. It would be really good for me to grow up a bit and try something else.

• Less traffic/ pollution- Both of these are getting worse and worse.

Pink

• Get masters- Would be a cool piece of paper to have.

• Easier place to live- In terms of when things go wrong. I mean knowing what to expect and how to fix problems would actually be quite nice.  
• Better food (kind of)- I mean most food you can find here and Indonesian food is pretty good anyway, but I really do love Australian food... Especially the snacks.

• Good coffee- Yea there's coffee everywhere, but the coffee in Melbourne is the best!

CONS

Blue

• Maybe will be miserable- Reverse culture shock could destroy me.

Purple

• So cold- I haven't experienced winter since 2012 so I don't know If I can survive it. :(

• Studying is boring/possibly not what I want to do- I think if something isn't 100% what you want, you'll have a hard time doing it properly and obviously a masters degree requires a great deal of focus and hard work. Also, I have never liked being a student.

• Expensive- I feel like I can't even afford to have fun. I mean Melbourne is super fun when you have money but when you can't go out for dinner or go to a cafe to chill because you're a poor uni kid, it's pretty sad.

• Some people I can't even imagine saying goodbye to- Leaving here would require weeks of sad goodbyes and crying and feeling like crap. Am I ready to do this?

• No traveling- Poor uni student problems again....

• Will be poor for 2 years (even poorer than in Indonesia)- And I'm used to being able to buy pretty much everything I want. So good luck with that...

• So difficult- It seems like it'll be a struggle both financially and emotionally. And again I've had it pretty good for four years so am I strong enough?

TOTAL=0 points (Sorry, Australia)

- 

A few weeks ago I made a decision. In the end, I decided to stay in Indonesia indefinitely. My decision was made slightly easier when I was offered a promotion at work which will give me new challenges (I am really excited about this). 

But, I'm still really sorry to all my friends and family in Australia that were expecting me to come back. I do feel really bad for my indecisiveness. I really hope I haven't let anyone down. I also want to apologise to my friends here and the people of Surabaya because I'm still going to be here annoying you. So sorry guys.

The thing that motivates me the most to stay here is that I'm happy. I'm not saying I couldn't be happy someplace else but I feel like happiness isn't guaranteed and if you have it you should hold onto it. I hope that my friends and family are able to find this kind of happiness too, doing whatever it is that makes you happy.

Thank you all so much for your ongoing support and for staying with me through my indecision and all the craziness of my life.  

Normal post to follow on Friday. :)

How to win at life (awful advice from me)

I don't know why anyone would want my advice but if you want my advice, here it is. But, I'm not responsible for any weird or awkward situations that occur due to taking this advice because probably the only result you might get is your life ending up like mine. I know a lot of this advice is 'What not to do' but I'm better at knowing what not to do than I am at knowing what to do and if you can avoid making the same mistakes that I have, you'll be better off for it.

1. How to get a boys/girls phone number 

This has been tried and tested* and I know it will work almost all of the time. This is how to get anyone's phone number.

Step 1: Take a photo of/ with the person whose number you want.
Step 2: Say "what a great photo" and try to get them interested in the photo.
Step 3: Say "I can send you this photo" then look down at your phone and say "Oh damn, I don't have your number."
Step 4: They'll give you their number.
Step 5: Win at life.

I actually have a version of this written on a piece of paper somewhere because my friends and I came up with this and I actually thought it was solid advice and worth trying. So please try this and let me know if it really works.

This is the photo I took to test this theory. 

*Tried this on one friend, who probably would have given me his number if I just asked the normal way.

2. How to communicate with your more successful friends

Sometimes other people are just more successful than you and they get their shit together faster than you do but that's okay. That's called reality and you have to accept that. The best thing you can do is handle the matter with optimism and dignity.

I was in this very situation several months ago when a friend from high school messaged me to tell me that she'd gotten her dream job and was in a good relationship and that she was pregnant. Of course I was really happy for her (really, really) but when she asked how my life was going I was faced with a dilemma because how do you compete with dream job, great partner AND baby on the way when you have none of those things?

My reply was basically "I'm doing the same thing I've been doing for 3 years and I've been single for almost 2 years hahaha" which really is a bit of a buzzkill because actually I could have gone along with it and said something positive but I went with that... I sent that message November 24th and still no reply so I'm guessing I said the wrong thing. 

3. How to deal with rude/annoying/incompetent Indonesians

The answer is simple- sarcasm. Most Indonesians (those I've met here in Surabaya especially) don't understand sarcasm and you can use this to your advantage. For example, this guy I work with literally stuffed everything up that he was supposed to do for my class ahead of their parent teacher meeting and then spoke to me quite rudely. So at the end of the day I just said a simple "Thank you for everything today, I couldn't have done it without you" and it was actually comforting to say those words because in my mind I was being really rude and aggressive. But no damage was done because to him I was being unprecedentedly nice. I saw a smile spread across his face and I think we both left work that day feeling good.

It kind of backfired yesterday though because it was my first day back after three and a half weeks in Melbourne and I saw a girl I work with and immediately she said "Ohhh! You've gotten so fat!" (which by the way is a totally acceptable thing to say here and not considered rude). And I was thinking "kind of true, probably should get to the swimming pool tomorrow" (And also "damn you hipster Melbourne burger bars and Easter and Iced Coffee BIG M's") but I guess I was a little upset by it. I just replied with a very sarcastic "Oh thanks for that, I'm really happy to hear that". She obviously didn't notice/understand the sarcasm in my voice and just smiled, nodded and said "so so fat". Great self-esteem boost right there. :)

4. How to lose friends and alienate people 

I actually forgot about for a long time (I probably buried it under the countless memories of awkward things I've done since) but this came back to me about a month ago. Although this is something I'm actually quite embarrassed of, I'll share it with you so you can avoid making the same mistake.

This happened to me in mid 2014 when I was working at Jember (a small town in East Java) for a week. Jember is quite conservative especially compared to trashy Surabaya. I went to Jember during the first week of Ramadan and it is definitely Muslim majority and almost everyone was fasting. No one forced me to fast of course and I'm sure everyone would be really understanding had I not fasted, but I already felt like the only Westerner in town and enough of an outsider that I decided to follow the crowd and fast. 

I thought it would be easy considering I'd already fasted the year before. But I guess I forgot how hard fasting was because you have to get up at 3AM for sahur which basically means shoveling as much food and drink into your system when you're not even hungry and barely even awake so that you can get through to 5:30PM. And I actually only realised I was addicted to coffee when I started having withdrawal symptoms. The teachers at Jember were all like "If you have a headache you don't need to fast" but I was like "I've already starved myself for 10 hours, I'm finishing this!" And when it got to time to break the fast each day, I would break the fast with Panadol rather than food. 

Throughout that week I got hangrier and hangrier and I missed coffee so much. I managed to hide it from the teachers at Jember and instead texted my boyfriend at the time, Frans (still a fake name). I also got so frustrated with the lack of variety in the food there (noodles, rice, noodles, rice, repeat)  and had a mini breakdown over Whatsapp messages about it. Frans got so worried about me that he actually tried calling Pizza Hut in Jember to save me! It got that serious!

By Friday, I was so relieved that the week was over and I had no intention of fasting again after that. On Friday night the teachers all went for after work drinks. Well, I guess it was the Jember equivalent of  that. Instead of beer, we got some STMJ (a drink made of milk, egg, honey and ginger). This was the last thing I had to do in Jember before heading back to Surabaya the next day and remember that I had been on my best behavior all week and despite being starving I still acted like a reasonable human.

Then I fucked up. I don't know why but I made a joke about wanting to marry this random teacher. I really really don't know why because I'd barely noticed him and I don't even remember his name but I just said that.
"He's already married" someone said.
And then I said the stupidest thing possible:
"It's okay, he's Muslim, he can have more than one wife". 
I think I'd completely forgotten that these people barely knew me and didn't know my sense of humor. It also wasn't even remotely funny so I guess I can't blame them for not laughing. But honestly at my office in Surabaya everyone already knows I'm never serious and people would actually laugh (maybe just out of awkwardness... but still)! 
But not in Jember. I was met with a long awkward silence. 
Finally, one of the female teachers broke the silence with three simple words "Polygamy is bad". 

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks that they didn't know I was joking. What do you say to that anyway? Because that girl was right and I didn't want to argue and make it seem like I thought polygamy was good. I sat there in stunned silence realizing what I'd just done. But by then, the conversation had moved on and I didn't want to interrupt reasonable conversation to steer it back to my embarrassing comment. So I left Jember on that note. 
(But seriously all the teachers in Jember were so lovely so I hope they forgot this ever happened too)

Back in Surabaya I headed straight to McDonald's to talk it over with Frans. But, not before he made the sign of the cross so that the McDonald's customers would think he was Catholic and he wouldn't have to feel bad about not fasting (even though we were in the middle of McDonald's and the other customers were also not fasting).

So my advice on this matter is: don't do what I did. Act like a reasonable human while you're around a place where people don't get your stupid sense of humor.


If you guys have any matters that you need advice on, feel free to submit them to the comment box below... and I'll get back to you with some advice, because I'm really good at giving advice as you can see above. Thank you for reading guys, hope you learnt something :).