Things that grow out of the soil...: A Rat, Class Ends, Class Dinner, Etc

Earlier this month, I was walking to the place where I call my taxis, on my way to school. It was the final day of oral exams for the students in my big American Studies intro course. As I was walking through the neighborhood, I saw a rat in a live catch trap along the side of the road. I didn't stop because I didn't think I had my camera, but then I remember that I did, because I was bringing it to take pictures of my class. So I went back to take a picture of the scene.

The rat seemed so pathetic in its cage. But as I approached with the camera, it lunged at me repeatedly and actually managed to move the cage across the pavement by 8 inches or so. I parted ways with the rat after a few seconds.

Here are my students, so happy before their final exam.

This group was particularly enthusiastic

During the course of the semester, the students were divided into presentation groups. Now, the students got back into their presentation groups for their group oral exams. On day one, I met with six groups and my co-teacher met with six groups. And on day two, I met with the other six groups while my co-teacher met with the groups I had met with on day one. On the first day, I asked them a variety of basic questions, based on the curriculum here, among them, "What is the American Dream?" The question is supposed to be answered with the traditional nose-to-the-grindstone up-by-your-boot-straps Benjamin Franklinesque rags to riches narrative. But my students consistently gave answers like: "To remain the most powerful country in the world" and "To control everything." (No one--no one--got mentioned anything about the traditional narrative.) The funny thing was, they weren't being insurgent in answering like this, and they weren't trying to be clever. They were trying to get the answer right. This was an exam, after all. Unsurprisingly, I didn't mark anyone off for their answers on this question. But, for as much as I don't see the point of having "the American Dream" be part of the curriculum at my home institution, I felt obligated to explain to them what the ideal (if not the practice) has been.

Later that night, we went out to eat at a restaurant with my upperlevel American Studies students. There were only about six students in the upperlevel course, as opposed to 60 in the introduction to Am St. As we walked out the neighborhood toward our church, which is where we usually catch our taxis, we saw that the moon was deep red.

Here we are at the restaurant/rumah makan.

We had some really good carp and tempe and sambal.

My co-teacher Rini is on the left and Nia is on the right. Nia is another professor here who frequently attended my upperlevel Am St course.

It was no Kiddy Playland, but the restaurant had an area for my kids and students to play.

N noticed a cool frog in the restaurant.

W immediately recognized Tri from the blog as the number-one taker of selfies. So he requested one of his own.

Or two of his own.

While most of the students and our kids played on the merry-go-round, N and I talked with my co-teacher and colleague and my Indonesian tutor, Halimi.

At some point after that evening (I can't keep track of when), S came home from some friends' house with a KFC meal. She had never eaten KFC before, so she was excited to try it. (Indonesia has really broadened our outlooks, made us more willing to try new foods, even if they at first seem unappealing to us.) She wanted a picture of herself with her first KFC.

The next day we went on a walk in our neighboring kampung. S was so surprised to see how many faces this head has.

Once the man across the street saw us admiring the first statue, he invited us into the side yard to look at a Buddha statue. I asked him if he was Buddhist. He said no, that he was only keeping the statues for a friend.