It was the annual Fireman’s Ball last Saturday night. It’s actually called the Doctors’ Children’s Fund Ball, now I think – but I am not sure where the apostrophes go in that mouthful! This was my third one. Ball that is. Several of the alpha females that live here bandy together and arrange what is supposed to be the social event of the year for us here in the jungle. A theme is always chosen and months of planning, preparation go into making the evening special. So the women who plan it think anyway. This year was the enchanted forest – lots of fairies and butterflies. I described it to my colleague who went also, as very poofy and pastel. You get the picture. Everyone scrubs up and arrives looking resplendent in their chosen finery. (I hate to think how many metres of tulle and taffeta died to make that dress!) People sit at pre-booked tables and are served food whilst there are silent auctions to raise money. Back in the old days it was called the Fireman’s Ball because fireman’s hats from cities in America were auctioned and it was a chance for the big bananas of the company I work for to show how big their wallets were (or compensate for the size of their penis.) 
The kids I teach on a Friday afternoon for art keep saying, “That’s random.” I am fascinated. They are quite astute actually and I understand what they mean. Everything really is random and nothing will convince me otherwise. Yes, they have art on a Friday afternoon like back in the good old days. When I was at school I secretly looked forward to the craft activity that was done on Friday afternoon. It was always so soul satisfying being able to create something. It wasn’t really considered very important but I knew back then it was. That is why I loved it so much. We are becoming people who don’t create or fashion materials anymore and just push buttons or react to things. Bad move.
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.
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. 
Time for another list: My 30 Favourite Foods. I could of kept going but 30 is enough. 
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.
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!
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?"
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……. 
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?”
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........
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!!
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:
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.
Go the people of Burma! The fact that this time the revered monks in Burma started the protests will hopefully ensure something actually changes. Lots of blood will be shed in the process no doubt. Sitting here in Jakarta, watching snippets on television in the comfort of a luxurious air-conditioned apartment, I wish there was something I could do. Short of marching on the streets and getting shot, there’s nothing probably. The same old question keeps arising in the minds of people who really have no power to change anything. How can we keep living the way we do when so many people in the world have nothing and not even simple rights such as access to safe drinking water? We ordinary and insignificant people living in comfort are pathetic really, but it’s the people who do hold the power and have the influence and the money who are far worse. They could actually make a difference - but they don’t. They don’t even have a mindset, which considers or comprehends what it must mean to live in such a place and deal with the repressive, violent regime that controls the lives of people in Burma. They may pretend to care and pay lip service to what needs to be done, but when it comes to action, nothing will be done. It’s been a strange time in Jakarta this time for me. The visa application has not been done in the five days it took last time. I had a strange phone call on Wednesday about it with lots of questions from the woman at the Australian embassy. She seemed to be suggesting that a multiple entry visa was going to be more applicable to my needs but with them who knows what is going on. From past experience I have usually found from them that no news is usually bad news. Monday I will check the website again and see. Had two diamond rings stolen from me on Friday night but given what I’ve said above - it’s so unimportant that I should let it go. But I won’t. It deserves a separate blog sometime more appropriate.
Yay! In Jakarta again for a two week holiday. Being here is like an adventure. I love Jakarta but hate it too. Left home at 6 am on Saturday and was in Jakarta at 10 am this time. Was quite a quick trip as we got an earlier flight than the one we were booked on originally. Am staying in the same apartment as last time. It’s very central and was quite a bit cheaper this time too. Found a duty free shop that has thousands of wines and cask wine - so stocked up on some good bottles and a few casks. On Monday I did Oliver's visa application for our trip to Tasmania at Christmas time. It should be quite straightforward this time as he has been granted a visa once before. Am doing lots of big city stuff. Cruising bookshops, looking for CD's, drinking coffee in malls and people watching. I plan to do lots of walking to take pictures in parts of the city I haven’t been to, take lots of faces for my Faces Of Indonesian blog, (http://facesofindonesia.blogspot.com/) read lots, meet some of the guys I have contacted for casual sex, swim and use the gym in the apartment complex and eat sushi! Jakarta seems quite stinky and polluted this time. When we arrived there was a distinct sulphurous haze of smog. The traffic is always bad and I am always flummoxed by how the very rich can live the way they do right next to the slums that pepper every corner of this, the fourth largest city in the world.
I have experienced revenge before. My present partner and I have an agreement where we can both have sex with other people. There are some rules, which I agreed to but didn’t actually devise. He has for more than a year chosen not to exercise his right to have casual sex. I have exercised my right and I have broken some of the rules. He knows that. Last Thursday he chose to have a threesome with two Australian guys and I am really upset by it. I shouldn’t be. I have done the same thing. I think what upset me about it that he has said for a year he didn’t want or need to. Then suddenly out of the blue he does. When I ask him why he has changed his mind he goes on about how I have broken the rules. I then say to him that it sounds like he is paying me back for what he perceives I have done to him. I know maybe I should not have behaved as I did but I didn’t do anything to him really. The things I have done don’t change the way I feel about him. I have given him my heart and no one else will get that. Why doesn’t he understand that? I can’t explain why it bothered me so much though. It’s because he has decided to do this for revenge. He said yes he had when I kept pressing the issue. He feels I have hurt him by what I have done. It has nothing to do with him. I am fulfilling a basic drive. I don’t even really like the people I have had sex with. Back to revenge though. I do know about it. Michael, took the ultimate revenge on me by hanging himself. He left a note to make sure I knew that’s what he was doing. This month is the 11th anniversary of his death and I know as he intended what he did that Sunday night in our garage will never ever go from me. My thoughts are for all the families who lost loved ones on this day in the USA too. This blog is a bit of a rant………….maybe on later re-reading I need to delete it.
Another week has whizzed past. Two more weeks and I will be on holiday. I can't wait. Oliver and I will spend the two weeks in Jakarta. I will apply for another visa to take him to Australia again for Christmas. My partner also wants to visit Tasmania for Christmas too. So we will try and get his visa in the second week. I am right into my exercise program and I feel great. I love it when you actually get into the habit and it's like a drug - you get high on the adrenaline rush or something from when your body is exercised and you have to do it. I am swimming three times a week and doing the gym twice. I want to do some sort of aerobic workout but there seems to nothing on. That's ok. I have taken to dancing and doing step routines I can remember from my days in Tasmania when I used to religiously go to classes three times a week. I leap about to the music I have on my iPod and headphones, while I do the weights in the small gym next to the school. There is no one else there so I don't care what I look like. It's nice to swim too. I am up to fourteen laps of the pool. It must only be fifteen metres long though, but you have to start somewhere! It feels good to be getting fit.
I have tried to blog regularly but it's so hard. I have kept up my promise to upload photographs of Indonesian faces for my other blog http://facesofindonesia.blogspot.com and it has become an obsession which I actually enjoy feeding. I must have a bank of photographs so I don't suddenly one day see there are none to upload. I enjoy taking and adding to the pile I have already taken. To date I have 288 faces! The key to blogging everyday or regularly is to just type in your thoughts that day - like one would in a diary. Pity it has taken me so long to figure that out. I was trying to write about things from too far back - and who cares anyway. No one reads this. So I can say what I like. I will make a resolution again and now to blog every few days and just let the thoughts pour out. I am exercising again and I feel great. At the moment I am having lots of casual sex too. I have a little army of men who I can call on now at almost anytime. They come late in the evening and we do it and then they go. I pay some of them........ that's cool. They have not much and I can afford to. Life is very good at the moment.
