22 Months and a whole lotta words

Iza turned 22 months on November 30th. We had some friends over for crepes and we all sang her happy bday, and she was almost blushing!

This is what we've been able to compile of her words by now, in no particular order. The list began shortly after her 21st month bday, so words with an asterisk (*) are from the last few weeks... of which there've been several! Also, we've been teaching her sign language (ASL), so words marked with a dollar sign ($) are ones she signs, too. Perhaps I'll add a 'sign only' list, as there's still many she can't say but can sign (like frog, cat, etc.)

Enjoy!

mama
mommy *
dada ($ she could sign it 6 months ago but forgot/gave up on it since she could say it so easily)
daddy
water $
apple $
more $
please $
thank you $
out (side) $
gecko (they're everywhere here at night. She loves them!)
Buddha
baby $
dirty $
beep beep (as in a car horn/outta my way!)
juice
Iza
Bella (sometimes herself, sometimes a neighbors dog)
Izabella
eyes
teeth
bye $
moo *
meow *
no
up (sometimes $)
help
hello
down
La La (a 4 year old friend here, whom she adores)
blue
I did it!
I did that!
I want water! *
Uh-oh!
yes
ball
purple *
moon
pee *
poopy*
diaper *
ho ho (ho) * ('tis the season!)
boo boo *
tea * (she likes peppermint tea)
Wow! * (this is so damn cute the way she says it!)
Bali * (she's infatuated with Balinese dancers, we'll be sure to take her to another performance over xmas break)
Woah! *
beach *
peek-a-boo * (she says something more like 'peegboo')
do * (as in do this or do that)
two * (to be sure she meant the number, she asked me for another green bean so she could put 2 in her mouth at once, and she did it again and again. Amazing how much more they'll eat when they're having fun?!)
yellow *
red $ *
habis (Bahasa Indonesian for 'finished', which she's been able to sign for 8 or more months now) *$
cheese
happy
hi!
this
Avae (her closest aged friend, like the song, Ave Maria) *
Atty (Avae's caretaker) *
rrrrr (like a growling dog) ;-)
balloon *
Eeyore (yes, the Pooh donkey) *
tree $
jump
hoot hoot (like an owl)
push *
bees * (Iza has 2 or 3 bees outside her window making a new hive. We lie on her bed every other day and watch their committed work and progression... the eggs were laid 2 days ago!)

I'm going to Sing!

-apore!
Got news Friday evening that my work permit paperwork went through, so Wednesday I'm off for a solo jaunt to Singapore for 3 days to finalize the permit/visa/KITAS process. I think I'm staying at the same hotel we were at en route to here. That trip was so rushed and exhausting that we only got to see a grocery store and the botanical gardens (see cute pics of Iza and crazy flowers below/earlier). Not sure how much I'll sightsee as everyone's giving me shopping wish lists as Singapore has everything and more that the states have. Empty going there, maxin' out coming back. Though I am looking forward to trying every Indian restaurant I can find! Yum!

Hopefully Iza will survive without me. I will miss her, she's (once again) at a great stage and saying and doing new things nearly every day. Two days ago she said, "Purple" and yesterday she said, and repeats constantly, "Play!" (of which now is all she will say when we put her in her high chair for mealtime... and she points and points to her toys and puzzles and crayons in the living area... I wonder if we'll have to start hiding everything just so she can eat!)

Up soon, Iza's vocabulary list and sign language list...

Seattle's KEXP, John in the morning, and an amazing playlist

From one of the greatest radio stations on the planet, 90.3 FM KEXP, on the web at www.kexp.org

Give it a listen!

Wednesday, November 05, 2008 (LISTEN TO THIS SHOW)

Time	Artist	Song	Album	Label
6:04	Smashing Pumpkins	Today	Siamese Dream	Virgin
6:07	Sugar	Changes	Copper Blue	Rykodisc
6:12	Sufjan Stevens	Chicago	Illinois	Asthmatic Kitty
6:16	U2	Beautiful Day	All That You Can't Leave Behind	Interscope
6:21	Talking Heads	Once in a Lifetime	Remain in Light	Sire
---- air break ----
6:25	Yeasayer	2080	All Hour Cymbals	We Are Free
	DJ Comments: Playing November 20 at Neumo's, and December 5 and 6 at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.
6:29	The Wrens	Happy	The Meadowlands	Absolutely Kosher
6:35	Dogs	End of an Era	London Bridge	Universal International
---- air break ----
6:41	The The	Perfect	Soul Mining	Epic
6:46	The Soup Dragons	I'm Free	Lovegod	Big Life
---- air break ----
6:49	Stevie Wonder	Higher Ground	Innervisions	Motown
6:53	Primal Scream	Movin' On Up	Screamadelica	Sire
6:57	Blur	To the End	Parklife	Food/SBK
---- air break ----
7:04	The Helio Sequence	Keep Your Eyes Ahead	Keep Your Eyes Ahead	Sub Pop
	DJ Comments: Playing Friday night at Neumo's.
7:08	Tokyo Police Club	Citizens of Tomorrow	A Lesson in Crime	Paper Bag
7:10	R.E.M.	Superman	Lifes Rich Pageant	IRS
---- air break ----
7:13	Elbow	Leaders of the Free World	Leaders of the Free World	V2
7:18	The National	Lit Up	Lit Up	Beggars Banquet
	DJ Comments: Playing the Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin this Saturday.
7:22	Le Tigre	Get Off the Internet	From the Desk of Mr. Lady	Mr. Lady
---- air break ----
7:25	David Bowie	Changes	Hunky Dory	Virgin
7:27	The Flaming Lips	Suddenly Everything Has Changed	The Soft Bulletin	Warner Bros.
7:31	Moby	We Are All Made of Stars	18	V2
7:36	The Go! Team	We Just Won't Be Defeated	Thunder, Lightning, Strike	Columbia
---- air break ----
7:40	Public Enemy	Brothers Gonna Work It Out	Fear of a Black Planet	Def Jam
7:45	Cornershop	Funky Days Are Back Again	When I Was Born for the 7th Time	Luaka Bop/Warner Bros.
7:49	The Tough Alliance	A New Chance	A New Chance	Modular
7:53	Stereo MC's	Connected	Connected	Island
---- air break ----
8:00	Japanese Motors	Single Fins & Safety Pins	Japanese Motors	Vice
	DJ Comments: KEXP in-studio today at noon!
8:04	The Smiths	A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours	Strangeways, Here We Come	Sire
8:07	Radiohead	Optimistic	Kid A	Capitol
8:11	Snow Patrol	Wow	Final Straw	Interscope
8:15	Prince	Let's Go Crazy	Purple Rain	Warner Bros.
8:20	Iggy Pop	Lust for Life	Lust for Life	Virgin
8:25	The Replacements	Can't Hardly Wait (Tim Version)	Nothing for All	A&M
---- air break ----
8:31	The Hold Steady	Stay Positive	Stay Positive	Vagrant
	DJ Comments: Playing tomorrow and Friday at Terminal 5, and November 20 and 21 at the Showbox.
8:33	The Pogues	The Sunny Side of the Street	Hell's Ditch	Island
8:36	Bob Dylan	Like a Rolling Stone	Highway 61 Revisited	Columbia
8:42	Bruce Springsteen	Reason to Believe	Nebraska	Columbia
8:46	Johnny Cash	I've Been Everywhere	Unchained	American
8:49	Dusty Springfield	Son of a Preacher Man	Dusty in Memphis	Mercury
8:51	The Velvet Underground	Beginning to See the Light	The Velvet Underground	Verve
8:55	The Long Winters	Sky Is Open	Putting the Days to Bed	Barsuk
	DJ Comments: Playing Town Hall Seattle tomorrow night.
---- air break ----
9:00	James Brown	Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)	All Time Greatest Hits	Polydor
9:03	Spearhead	People in tha Middle	Home	Capitol
	DJ Comments: Playing November 28 and 29 at the Fillmore in Denver.
9:07	Jim Noir	Don't You Worry	Jim Noir	Barsuk
---- air break ----
9:12	Nina Simone	Feeling Good (Joe Claussell Remix)	Verve Remixed	Verve
9:15	The Chemical Brothers	Life Is Sweet	Exit Planet Dust	Astralwerks
9:20	Spank Rock	Top Billin' From Far Left	YoYoYoYoYo	Big Dada
9:24	The Perceptionists	People 4 Prez	The Perceptionists	Definitive Jux
9:26	Superchunk	Hyper Enough	Here's Where the Strings Come In	Merge
9:29	Supergrass	Alright	I Should Coco	Parlophone/EMI
---- air break ----
9:36	The Walkmen	In the New Year	You & Me	Gigantic
	DJ Comments: Playing Sunday night at Cornell University.
9:39	White Rabbits	While We Go Dancing	Fort Nightly	Say Hey
	DJ Comments: Working on their next record.
9:44	PJ Harvey	Good Fortune	Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea	Island
9:47	Sonic Youth	Teen Age Riot	Daydream Nation	DGC
---- air break ----
9:55	Yo La Tengo	Big Day Coming	Painful	Matador

The Big O!

Could the Seattle Stranger say it in any better words? (click on title for link)

Even Iza stayed up well beyond her nap time to witness the election results unfold and watch the Senators give their speeches.

Crossing our collective fingers for today/tomorrow

We've just received confirmation that our ballots from us and other teachers here were mailed out successfully, and in time, by a visiting Republican dad who flew back to Texas on Sunday night.

a) We hope our ballots were really mailed and postmarked accurately
b) We hope our ballots won't need to be counted
c) If Palin-McCain miraculously win, we will not return to live in the states for at least four more years. Sorry folks and fam.

We're well ahead of you all, in the future, a good dozen or more hours ahead of NYC et al. So we will be hosting a Hopefully Happy Hour here at our still not decorated flat Wednesday after school gets out.

Wishing our friends well

Thanks to the US's attack within Syrian borders on a supposed high-ranking al-Qaida target, the American school in Damascus has been 'asked' by the Syrian government to shut down ASAP.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081103/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_syria_us

We have several friends from our Warsaw school who just started up there this year, and the teacher whom Jill replaced here at our new Indonesian school also began this August. We wish them well with their job search for the 2009-10 school year and beyond and that everyone has a safe return to their respective homes.

I'm jealous of all the guitar practice time you'll get now, Annie! ;-)

Ridin' 'round, Bali-K-style (pics just added!)

Hi all,
We just got back from Bali, and we all got a case of the dreaded "Bali Belly" :(
Oddly, I got it first, then Jill, then Iza... thankfully hers kicked in on the last half day and was mostly sick at home, and she's recovering much more quickly than we are.
I'll add more on that trip soon, but wanted to add some pics of what the riding has been like around here, both urban and on the outskirts of town.

Oanh, Holly 'n me, out on a Thursday 'Ladies' ride'
(which needs to be renamed, 'Stay-at-homers' ride'
;-)

Fairly typical downhill, on a variety of textures of concrete, sometimes fracturing off into oblivion as large chunks break off after the intense rains and gravity erodes another road, path or house, or village

One of the cruxes, linking 2 'hoods together through a singeltrack sandtrap, but first you need to duck the fence post w/o getting knocked off.
I've made it once, so far.

Us again, in the jungle stretch

The Saturday rides are usually on the edge or out of town. Cap'n Arbain (see below) emails where to start and finish and we either ride to the 'start' from the ridge doing a fast, hard, hilly 'pre-ride' or we load up a van with the bikes at the official starting point

We often start in 'urban' or village areas
Notice we ride on the 'wrong' side of the road
This is Brent in front of me.
His triceps are the size of tennis balls.


A few of the trails take us through some beautiful grassy areas, with lots of rolling hills and views off east to the ocean and west to some hills I'd like to explore some day

This is Paul wiping mud from his tires with a stick. This is a common sight on our weekend rides. A few rides later we had so much mud to contend with that my bike could no longer move forward, as there was so much mud jammed in my brakes and fork. It really helped for everyone else to have disc brakes in this situation! Paul is our Anglo human GPS, and, sadly, is leaving us in December for another post. He and his wife ride every single group ride, at least two times a week, for the past 6 years. We'll miss them and wish them well at their next assignment.

This is Arbain (rhymes with carbine), he truly is a human GPS! This is our true, fearless leader who knows every single twist and turn in the entire ridable region, urban and countryside. He is also a monster on the hills, never super fast, but always solid and rarely falters on even the roughest or slickest slopes.

All of these pics were made from my first group ride after arriving here. It was the only one I brought the camera on because, a) the camera got very dirty and no longer works so well and, b) just after sunset I fell (again, about the 14th time) onto a rock and broke a rib on my right side. Ouch. So, by now I'm mostly healed but have refrained form bringing the camera again. Perhaps I'll learn how to keep the camera cleaner so I can show off some of the prettier rides, or the uniqueness of the urban rides!)

Sampai jumpa lagi!
(See you later!)

Polish feels easy

Greetings, Earthlings,

Just over two months down here now, and still no formal language classes being offered up here on 'the ridge', yet. So I've been piecing together my own studies from several language books, many passed on to me from my dad when he had worked in Jakarta several years ago with Lucent, and from a 'Learning Indonesian' podcast. And learning a bit here and there from our pembantu, the drivers and one or two other expats who know a decent amount of Indonesian.

Now, Polish is considered by the CIA to be in the top ten of the most difficult languages for a native English speaking person to master. The sounds are difficult for us to make, with their three different z's and multiple a's, e's, c's, strange dipthongs, etc. Fortunately, at least the intonation was similar to ours, with questions rising at the end, etc.. After four years of living in Polska I had a decent 'tourist/resident' vocabulary. I could understand a good amount and could communicate my needs in town, while traveling, in a store and in a bar or restaurant. I could listen to some guy's (sad and/or funny) story in a bar but I couldn't fully talk back (gesturing is key!). So, I was fully at the level of what couchsurfing.com would consider 'Intermediate."

Here, however, the language is officially known as 'Bahasa Indonesia,' which translates to 'the language of Indonesia.' There really is no one language, there's over 300. The bahasa Indonesia (BH) is a generic trade language created over the centuries and fine tuned by the Dutch a 100+ years ago and re-taught officially in the schools. You don't say, 'I speak English'. You say, "I can speak the language of/from England'.

Before coming here, everyone I knew whom had lived here a few years kept saying how easy the language is here to learn, but I'm not finding that so. Yes, there are, supposedly, no tenses, the alphabet is mostly the same as ours (though the pronunciation of individual letters is closer to Polish than English, i.e. the letter 'a' sounds like 'ah', 'i' sounds like English 'e', so at least the Indonesians can pronounce Iza's name correctly ;-) But what is really tripping me up so much, so far, is the damned syllables!

Example:
If you want to say in Polish, "I don't speak Polish." it translates to, "Nie, mowie po Polsku."
The English syllable count for the phrase is: 5 (with the contraction on don't).
The Polish count is: 7 (almost 6 if you keep 'nie' down to one stretched out syllable and combine the i and e in mowie (pronounced move-e-yeah/n).

Now, the same simple phrase in bahasa Indonesia is this mouthful:
"Saya tidak bisa bicara bahasa Indonesia." (!)
Phonetically we can Anglosize that to: SIGH-uh TEE-dock BEE-suh bee-CHAR-uh buh-HAAS-suh een-doh-NEEs-yah

This syllable count amounts to: 16 syllables!
Yikes! So that is more than double the count of Enlish or Polish. So, as you can see, it takes a non-native speaker a long, long time to utter such a simple, necessary phrase.

The fact that I can now say such a phrase to the locals, though, makes them smile and say, 'Yes, you can speak bahasa Indonesia! And, very well!'

;-)

We never really learn languages until we have to use them. I 'learned' French so long ago in high school, and never had to really use it until the summer we climbed Mont Blanc (see way, way below, 2004 or 5?), and the French hated my French, anyway. They would have none of it, except for 'Merci' and 'Au revoir' when I was leaving their presence.

Now that I'm having to shift gears to a completely new language, my brain automatically processes its trained and engrained Polish before bahasa Indonesian. Even today, after more than two months in our new country, in a two minute conversation-out of my mouth came, "Dzien dobry panu. Tak. Dzieki. Nie, and almost the Polish mouthful, "Przepraszam"!
I recovered partially, and I should have been saying, "Selamat pagi, pak. Ya. Terima kasih. Tidak." And I did say, "Maaf" (MA-aaf), correctly, after all my slip ups.

Thankfully the Indonesians are very forgiving,
and always smiling.


So back to the BI books I go...



Fall break is coming up quickly... we're going to Bali, so stay tuned!