End Of Story

I have just had a lightening bolt revelation! I was having a very satisfying shit and it suddenly hit me - I am too verbose. I will be more succinct and to the point from now on.
You are all wrong – life is short and you only get one shot. There is no afterlife, reincarnation, eternal reward. We are a collection of cells here by circumstance. We live a life. We die. Our cells return to the elements of the cosmos. End of story. Get used to the idea. Then maybe the grandiose plans that harm so many people while they are actually living will cease to cause so much suffering. I like my legs. I have nice legs.

Australian Embassy Jakarta

I have had many dealings with the staff of both the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and the Consulate in Bali - most of them, quite unpleasant, negative and frustrating. I now have another to add to the list. My partner applied for a visitor visa to travel to Australia at Christmas time this year. It has been refused. The reasons – he doesn’t have enough money in his bank account and, as was stated when I spoke to someone on the phone – “there is no incentive for him to return to Indonesia.” What bullshit. Actually ringing the embassy is a task in patience and endurance in itself. They have a stupid rule of only accepting phone calls between 2 pm and 4 pm. If you actually get to speak to a person and not a recording between these times it becomes even more frustrating if you start asking for explanations. You will be cut off, passed onto another answering machine or just left on the line waiting till you decide to hang-up. Five attempts it took me to actually talk to someone who was prepared to tell me what the outcome of the visa application was. The fact that I had supplied a sponsorship letter and my bank accounts to show I was providing financial support for his visit were not considered in the application. I hear stories of other Indonesians who have applied and been refused for the same reasons.
It’s a sad state of affairs, I believe, in that I rang the embassy to verify that I knew the person applying for the visa, that they would in fact be travelling with me, would reside at my parent’s house and travel back to Indonesia after only ten days. Many Australians are quite xenophobic and despite our façade of cultural tolerance, still quite racist, I believe. We are so paranoid about people coming into our country. When I say people, I mean actually, people from Asia. Many of the Indonesians I talk to will express concern about how they would be treated if they went to Australia. That’s a worry. The longer I live in Asia the more I realise how insular and paranoid Australians are. It’s one reason why I have no desire to live there again.

Food

Time for another list: My 30 Favourite Foods. I could of kept going but 30 is enough.
1. Sushi/Sashimi
2. Smoked Salmon
3. Rare Eye Fillet Steak
4. Apricots
5. Strawberries
6. King Island Brie
7. Croissant and Jam
8. Danish Pastries
9. Eggs & Bacon, Toast and Coffee
10. Lasagne
11. Spanakopitta
12. Baklava
13. Bread and Butter Pudding
14. Olives
15. Artichoke Hearts
16. Salad Nicoise
17. Chocolate
18. Roast Lamb and Baked Vegetables
19. Hummus
20. Tzatziki
21. French Bread
22. Pasta
23. Cheesecake
24. Éclairs
25. Lemon Tart
26. Oysters
27. Stilton Cheese
28. Pork Chops
29. Potato Salad
30. Moussaka

Safety Training

I am sick puppy…. this morning I was sitting in my compulsory safety training session which I had to be at by 7.30 am, scanning the men in the room, thinking who I would have sex with. There were a few actually surprisingly. That occupied about five minutes. This was my seventh, annual torture session. It gets even more boring and mundane each year. This year I came well prepared and armed with lots of things to keep me busy and pass the time quickly. I handwrote in a notebook with pen and paper, this and several other blog entries. I had a book of poems by W. H. Auden, that I have been meaning to read more carefully for ages. A novel by James Riordan titled, The Prisoner. Half a baguette with roast lamb, Swiss cheese and horseradish, also nestled in my bag in case hunger struck. I considered bringing my laptop and headphones but that probably would have been too obvious a clue that I wasn’t paying a scrap of attention for the whole four hours. As an educator, the whole session is a waste of time. I know safety is important but the teaching staff do not have access to any of the areas that the training is about. Second, no one can sit in one place for that length of time and listen to a lecture session, even with a few digital videos thrown in. Non-native English speakers have gradually replaced the presenters and it’s even harder to listen, because their command of the language albeit admirable, is not easy to listen to. But I made it through this year. I quite enjoyed the time because I was quite productive. There was a test at the end of it all and that was a cinch – most of the responses were D. A colleague who attended the week before told us that.

Boredom

Am a bit bored lately. I need a weekend away. Silly really - it's only two weeks since I was on holiday. I haven't been to Bali for so long so I am thinking maybe I need a weekend there. Last term I didn't actually spend a night off the island. I drove to Lombok and came back the same night. Am back into my exercise program again of swimming and gym work. I had the best of intentions of following the program while I was in Jakarta but didn't. I am enjoying my days at school and am trying to make each day interesting for the kids and do lots of hands-on stuff. Our science work lends itself to cooking. We have already made some butter and I was surprised none of them had ever done it before. We will make bread. Everything else at the school is in limbo as we await the community decision on the merging of the two schools. So it's a funny sort of time. This Saturday I have to attend an annual safety training session. We are forced to go. It starts at 7.30 in the morning and will go for four hours. It's completely irrelevant to my area of work and is always more boring than watching rocks grow. With pen and paper, I intend to use the time to write as many blogs as I can!

Wild Tigers I Have Known

A few things on my mind this weekend. My partner has applied for a visa from the Australian government to visit Tasmania with Oliver and I at Christmas time. It went in on Thursday last week. I sponsored him. We are eagerly awaiting an outcome. I hope he gets it. It rained heaps last night, which was fantastic as we haven’t had rain for months. Watched a film this afternoon that was stunning and confronting at the same time. Wild Tigers I Have Known by Cam Archer. Gus Van Sant was the executive producer so I knew it would probably be a bit out of the box. My Own Private Idaho - for those not familiar with his films. The opening scene in Wild Tigers I Have Known, is of a thirteen year old boy masturbating (under the covers, thank goodness) to a wrestling show on the television. I was a little shocked and that is saying something for me, but as the film progressed it clearly highlighted the uncertain and scary world of growing up knowing you are not like other boys. Logan, the focus of the film, is a lonely gay teenager who is beginning to discover who he is. He goes through several experiences that I am sure all men growing up gay will have had. I know I did. It is a lyric, poetic and visually interesting film and despite having no real plot captivated me. Logan chats with a counsellor and she asks him, "Do you feel different to everybody else?" That typifies my childhood. I always felt different and constantly asked myself, "Why aren't I like them?"
I can’t help but think that schools all over the world all have gay students. What are they doing to make their journey any less traumatic than it was for me forty years ago?

Reading

My son can read. He is learning because he is ready and he wants and he sees a need to. He didn’t start school when he was two years old. I did not push to enrol him at three. At four, he still wasn’t at “school.” He didn’t go to play group. He hasn’t really done kindergarten either. I have let him play. Play – that’s a foreign concept to many parents. It actually means letting your child create, explore and discover at their leisure without any interference at all. From the ages of two to five, I really and honestly believe they don’t need any other child around to do this. In fact from my observations of children and knowledge of their development, and observing my own son, I believe that it is counterproductive to force them to socialise with others of the same age. Later they are ready and it is important. You can give them materials and expose them to lots of things but never ever try to “teach” them anything. At seven or beyond it is appropriate. But never at three – especially for boys! Look into why some Scandinavian countries have such late starting ages for children. I am proud of the fact that I have done this. He is nearly seven. He is amazing. He attends formal schooling in the local village here in Indonesia and has done for the past year so he learns to speak his native tongue. He speaks English like a young Australian boy and can speak Indonesian as well. He reads too. The other day he was working on the computer in the living room and I happened to hear him reading labels on the folders. “Oliver’s Sumbawan Costumes” was the title of one of them…….
Go Oliver!

White Trash

School is a strange place at the moment. We are in a state of limbo now. The past few months have been a frenzy of trying to join the two schools together that exist in one small community - the International School (parent base mostly xenophobic white trash with money working to better themselves by living in a foreign country and will return one day to where they came from and bore everyone shitless with how cosmopolitan they were and how "interesting" living in Indonesian was), and the National school (parent base mostly upwardly mobile middle class Indonesians, who want for their children what most Indonesian only dream about). Before the holiday the teaching staff were informed that the actions of one parent had put the whole process in jeopardy. At the beginning of the amalgamation, the community agreed to proceed with the process. One individual has halted the whole process. Everything is on hold until the community votes. The instigator has supporters - typified by a comment that I will never forget at a public meeting by one parent of questionable intelligence, when she stated in front of everyone, “What about my blue eyed, blonde hair child, who is alone in a class of Indonesian children?” Need I say more? As a teacher and rationally autonomous thinker, I see the joining of the two schools as ethically and morally the only thing that should happen. I have always thought this. From the moment I arrived to work for this company: I asked why are there two schools - one for Indonesians and one for the “expatriates?”

Lasgane

Back home in Sumbawa. It was so nice to get back to my little patch of paradise. It was a funny holiday. My vision of this holiday ended up being so different to what it was actually like. Oliver got a visa so it doesn't really matter and one cool thing I bought is a wireless router for my internet connection here and it means that Oliver can use the eMac on the internet at the same time as me and I can use my laptop anywhere in the house. Maybe I can sit out on the road near my house and use my laptop. I haven't tested how far yet. But I will. The lasagne I made tonight is huge and it's bubbling over into the oven - shit - smoke is filling the house - gotta go........

Visa Woes With Great Outcome Though

The last time I applied for an Australian visa for Oliver, the passport went in on Monday and I had a visa on Friday. I was not even expecting to be granted one. This time I put the application in on the Monday and still hadn't heard anything till the next week on Wednesday. Seven days I waited and my gut feeling told me there was a problem. The Australian embassy is a fortress in more ways than one. Even contacting them by phone is extremely difficult. Through a friend in Jakarta I managed to obtain the phone number of someone there with authority. He told me he would follow it up and find out what the problem was. Late on Wednesday my whole world came crashing down when I received a phone call from one of the chief migration officers informing me that had he seen the previous application a visa would not have been granted based on the evidence of permission from Oliver's mother that I had supplied. The permission was done through a lawyer in Lombok and Oliver's mother over the phone as she resides in Bali. It was not actually signed by her. She is now married to an Australian and is paranoid about him finding out about Oliver or the fact that she was married to me as well. The Australian embassy insisted that to grant a visa they needed a signed consent from Oliver's mother. I gave them her contact numbers, not knowing whether they were still current or not. I also tried to ring her and explained that someone from the embassy was going to ring her and ask her permission and that she would have to go to the consulate in Bali to sign a permission letter, so I could get the visa. I was completely at her mercy. If she said no there was not much I could do. She had let me down once before when she was phoned by the consulate in Bali and said the wrong thing, which resulted in Oliver's citizenship being revoked. So I was not hopeful of her actually going through with what she needed to do. Given that she was paranoid about her new husband knowing anything about either of us and currently being eight months pregnant as well! I added to the incentive by telling her I would transfer a few million rupiah to her account for her trouble. To cut to the quick - she actually messaged me she was on her way to the consulate, told me when she got there and actually called me when she had done the permission. I was a bit shocked. Her heart is in the right place and I now truly believe that, as she has said before, she does want what is best for Oliver. This morning the Australian embassy phoned me. Considering their lack of feedback every time I have had dealings with them this was amazing. Oliver has been granted a multiple entry visa for twelve months. For the first time in my life I felt like having a party at 9.30 in the morning!!

Diamond Rings

I promised you the story - so here it is. I had stolen from me last Friday night, two diamond rings. One was a ring I'd bought in Australia that had nine reasonable sized diamonds in a gold band. The other one was a white gold ring with a baguette shaped diamond, that there are a pair of. One is on my partner’s finger and the other one is god knows where now. It was on my finger until last week. It has been a strange time in Jakarta this holiday, which I will elaborate on another time. My partner and I have been more open with each other about our sexual needs while I have been here this time and he talked a lot about having a threesome with someone else. I think mainly because he thought that it would be better if I did it with him there too, instead of meeting other people. So last Friday night we did it. Arranged a threesome. It was a fucking disaster in more ways than one. The nominated candidate arrived and seemed very shy, but quite nice. Hah! – appearances can be very deceptive. My partner went out onto the balcony to have a cigarette and through the shut, glass door, gave me the thumbs up signal. In the bedroom he was a bit of a non-event. I don’t need to go into details but it was not what we were expecting. After the non-event I stupidly left him alone in the bedroom. Both my rings were on the bedside table. Before he left he made a point of asking for taxi money and took all the small notes on the table. Little did I know that he also had a couple of thousand dollars worth of jewellery in his pocket as well. Yes I know – I am stupid for lots of reasons:
1. Being a slut.
2. Inviting a stranger to my room.
3. Leaving him alone in the room so he could steal.
4. Not searching him before he left……….yeah the list could go on.

Beer Does Not Contain Alcohol

Jakarta is dry during Ramadan - well of spirits and wine that is. It is funny to me that you can still buy truckloads of beer but wine and anything stronger is not served in restaurants and bars. Even nightclubs close down too! A few months back supermarkets discreetly stocked wine and some of the more upmarket ones displayed quite a good range. That all changed and they are only allowed to sell beer now. I thought the whole point was alcohol - so are we assuming beer doesn’t contain alcohol? I had dinner the other night at a swanky establishment called Rustique Wine and Grill. I knew what the response was going to be as soon as I asked for the wine list. "Maaf, we are not serving wine because of Ramadan." I felt like ripping the sign off the door or suggesting they change their name to Rustique Grill. Being a soak these days I opted for the only alcohol that was being served - beer. It came in a large white mug that one would have coffee in. What a laugh! To make matters worse the steaks this establishment purported to specialise in, were the most expensive and worst I have ever eaten.