Wed. 11/11/09 - Make a wish. Ok, So im not saying that I did that, but thats pretty cool lol x) Around 3:00, I was faced with texting. Cole was telling me that he was out getting his copy of the game at midnight. lol. 3 hr difference remember? anyways.. talked to him periodically, in and out of sleep every so often, until I just gave up and went to bed. =P Blahhh! ITS WEDNESSDAYY! D: this week has been wayyyyyyyyyyyy to long. Thanks to gramps, I got a ride to school... at 7:15 in the moring... I woke up sooo damn early, it was rediculus... So... I just sat around school in various locations, trying/trying not to sleep. I was sooo tired.. it was rediculous. lol, I love talking about issues in physics haha. Omfg hahahahaa I love the class xD "Whats one thing that we might think the next generation is going to thing'what the hell were they thinking'?" One said "Gay marrages". Another said "Abortion". I said after a 2 minute period of thinking, when the class was finnishing with their examples and said, "Crocs..." lol. I started an off topic discussion about crocs after that xDDD saw a bit of Trading Places in econ. Dude, I didn't know jamie lee curtis was hot in the 80s. lol xP Got back some quizzes I took before in FST, and saw that I got an avg. C on both... It kinda ticked me off, Especially cause most of the things I got wrong were those little stupid things that I should have gotten right. Then those short answer questions that I DID get right, but they weren't "exactly like how the book said it was supposed to be"... whatever.. I don't really like the class anyways.. lol. Had lunch with the juniors. Catherine wasn't there like she sometimes is, but then again its wednesday. It was kinda quiet. I asked Katharine about house and what I've been missing and such. Man. I wish I had time to see that stuff... lol. Worked on my poster and some lessons in visual imaging. did some discussions in english. Finally in the classroom again lol. Did a lab in physics today. It was pretty easy lol. I mean, really easy. Worked with Larry. He seems like a guy I might need to get to know. Met Brant or Brend or something... and Grant. lol. Talked about the release of COD modern warfare 2. They said it was amazing/epic. I really would love to play it haha. Hello torrents! :D Did my 1st drives today. Drove in a pontiac bonneville. It was an easy hour drive. Just riding in the back of car with another beginning driver was a bit scary. I was talking about it with dom after 6 or so. lol. did good on my 1st try, OH and made a friend at Lathrup haha :D just talked to this guy jason who was in their dr-ed program. Missour was doing something with the instructor there. I had fun haha. on my second try with the other instructor, Coleson, I drove 1st from sunset to dark. Long drives. A black ford GT pulled up next to me while I was in gridlock, and I was all like "Dude! Ford GT! Freaken beauty" lol Coleson agreed and said they were magnificent. Connor in the back didn't care I guess. So during both of my 2 - 1 hour drives, I got to know a bit about the instructors and about the partners. It was the best part of Drivers ed lol. Got home, and did more facebook than anything haha.. Well, I did manage to complete half of my 3rd prop. I believe my essays going to be good lol.

This along with 'where are you staying?', 'where are you from?' and 'maybe tomorrow?' seems to sum up basic conversational English for the Balinese. Actually, many Balinese have good English skills and we found out they start learning it in school at 7 years old. The 'programme' they are referring to are the activities for the day, many times including a 'tour' where you'll embark on a road trip with your driver for the day taking in all the cultural highlights in the vicinity. For about $25 USD the driver will wait for you at every stop, point out landscape highlights, answer all your questions about Bali culture and also let you in on island gossip. (fyi. - the owner of one of the bungalows had 4 wives, Balinese in the first round, then back to back Japanese, then Balinese again. The most he knew of was 11 wives in Bali. ) One day's 'programme' started for us with a trip to Tenganan village, a traditional village of about 600 people where everyone always lives in the village (you can only leave for education or trading). Think like Balinese Amish, but replace bonnets with sarongs and butter churning with cockfighting. They practice many of traditional Balinese arts and our known for their one of a kind weaving called 'double ikat' where a scarf sizes weaving can take 1 year of work. Kim found a great one to bring home with us for a wall hanging. The married men meet monthly to discuss the business of the town and it is very democratic, no Caste system and decisions made by simple majority. When i told our guide that in the US, if we have a 51% to 49% vote, the 49% typically won't support what got decided. He looked dumbfounded. 'The people all contribute to what decided here'. As we worked our way through the village he said hello to everyone we passed adult or child alike. It really struck me how real that saying 'politics is local' is. The community is incredibly tight knit. Later we went to an old palace of east Bali. The regional monarchies that had ruled Bali were stripped of power when they moved to a central democracy and a strange thing happened. Since the monarchy no longer had income from taxes, they went bankrupt and now the royal palace just became rooms for rent. As we toured the palace, you'd open a door and see a family watching tv or see kids in the palace grounds coming back from school. It was quite a juxtaposition. The highlight was Tirta Gangga (in this picture) which was a water palace inspired by the magnitude of the Ganges river. It has 2 bathing pools (think Balinese Barton Springs and about as cold) that were perfectly refreshing after the days trekking. Best part about a tour is you can nap on your drive back. And then the day always ends the same way, 'you have programme for tomorrow?'