I am back now at St.Ursula and I am teaching conversational English there and again, I am in the Elementary school. It is an amazing school and the level of the kids English is often astounding, and after so many years it has been a really interesting way to see how children can develop even if I only see them once a week.
Children being children means that every time I am there, there is always something different and exciting to manage and watching the students switch on or switch off to my class depending on the age and activity always catches me out and I am sure that slowly but surely I am learning not to switch them off.
However, moving away from the morning classes back to the evening ones and my 'day job' is proving harder what with Jeremy and early morning wake up calls. The good things is that now 5am on a Monday does not seem too sinister or difficult to do and I am more than prepared for it. The same now for Wednesday but, Tuesday Thursday and Friday are more of a pain as those days I am also awake by 5.30 and up with Jeremy. Chasing him around the house is not really my strong point at that time of day. Interestingly enough the most interesting thing about this is, is that on Monday and Wednesday when I do have to wake early, Jeremy often does not, but on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday he does which leads me to think that he knows I am still asleep so it is his duty to wake me up, which he does and then keeps me awake.
We now have a house keeper and she has been here now for 3 weeks and I am still not tempting fate by saying anything about how long we will keep her but it does mean that in the morning I am now often with out Jeremy to look after and so I am left alone which after 6 months feels a bit weird thats for sure.
Moving away from sleep and work, there does seem to be a noticable change in the price of things and things are going up slowy.
Recently the electricity cost has risen and so for 100k rupiah you now get 85 whatevers instead of 93. Bottles of Aqua are now 15,000 per 19 litres and it has just been announced that the price of gas will also increase but over the coming months. The cost of water to the house remains a mystery. Last month we were hit with a massive 550k bill which was very unhelpful but this month it is only 260k. To me there is no ryhme or reason to the swings and none can be explained. Then there is fuel.
I use V power from Shell at 12650 a litre it is expensive but it does, so I am told, help look after the engine and give better performance. How this works in reality is another mystery because crawling along at 15kph just wastes fuel not make it go further. However, the price of Shell V power has remained the same price for a while now, which has helped but again for some unknown reason, the stations on the way home have been 'habis' or out of fuel for days with no sign out front telling anyone this, so you end up riding in and trying somewhere else. I ended up getting Pertamax for a little less in price for a litre and that seemed OK. The queue for subsidised fuel was as long as normal and convincing the pump attendants you want Pertamax and not the cheap fuel is always a battle but I got some. There is now talk of the subsidised fuel coming to an end which will be a good thing and a bad thing. It will not help the poorer people use their modes of transport and it will cause the price food and things to increase again whilst it will be good for the selfish greedy car owners here to actually pay out more for fuel and stop leeching off the government for a while. Still if that actually happens we will see,
Back to the world of teaching. I now have classes up to 9pm at night on the same days I have my school in the morning and this does not help my tiredness. But what it does help is the time it takes to get back home at night, which is currently around an hour and to get to work around 35 minutes. And when I leave work at 9pm I can be back home with a fair wind and godspeed in around 45 minuntes. With the building of the MRT as well on my journey home there are places I go which are hard to get through so finishing later means I can skip these and get home quicker. Riding back home is not for the faint hearted. If it rains then floods. If I leave too early too much traffic. If I leave around 7 lots of traffic. If there is a y in the day. Traffic. So it is always unpleasant especially the last part of the trip where the traffic is at its worse and that is around Mampang area where I work.
Children being children means that every time I am there, there is always something different and exciting to manage and watching the students switch on or switch off to my class depending on the age and activity always catches me out and I am sure that slowly but surely I am learning not to switch them off.
However, moving away from the morning classes back to the evening ones and my 'day job' is proving harder what with Jeremy and early morning wake up calls. The good things is that now 5am on a Monday does not seem too sinister or difficult to do and I am more than prepared for it. The same now for Wednesday but, Tuesday Thursday and Friday are more of a pain as those days I am also awake by 5.30 and up with Jeremy. Chasing him around the house is not really my strong point at that time of day. Interestingly enough the most interesting thing about this is, is that on Monday and Wednesday when I do have to wake early, Jeremy often does not, but on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday he does which leads me to think that he knows I am still asleep so it is his duty to wake me up, which he does and then keeps me awake.
 |
| Mr Active |
Moving away from sleep and work, there does seem to be a noticable change in the price of things and things are going up slowy.
Recently the electricity cost has risen and so for 100k rupiah you now get 85 whatevers instead of 93. Bottles of Aqua are now 15,000 per 19 litres and it has just been announced that the price of gas will also increase but over the coming months. The cost of water to the house remains a mystery. Last month we were hit with a massive 550k bill which was very unhelpful but this month it is only 260k. To me there is no ryhme or reason to the swings and none can be explained. Then there is fuel.
I use V power from Shell at 12650 a litre it is expensive but it does, so I am told, help look after the engine and give better performance. How this works in reality is another mystery because crawling along at 15kph just wastes fuel not make it go further. However, the price of Shell V power has remained the same price for a while now, which has helped but again for some unknown reason, the stations on the way home have been 'habis' or out of fuel for days with no sign out front telling anyone this, so you end up riding in and trying somewhere else. I ended up getting Pertamax for a little less in price for a litre and that seemed OK. The queue for subsidised fuel was as long as normal and convincing the pump attendants you want Pertamax and not the cheap fuel is always a battle but I got some. There is now talk of the subsidised fuel coming to an end which will be a good thing and a bad thing. It will not help the poorer people use their modes of transport and it will cause the price food and things to increase again whilst it will be good for the selfish greedy car owners here to actually pay out more for fuel and stop leeching off the government for a while. Still if that actually happens we will see,
 |
| Bunting and flags at Shell, still no queues and no fuss |
Back to the world of teaching. I now have classes up to 9pm at night on the same days I have my school in the morning and this does not help my tiredness. But what it does help is the time it takes to get back home at night, which is currently around an hour and to get to work around 35 minutes. And when I leave work at 9pm I can be back home with a fair wind and godspeed in around 45 minuntes. With the building of the MRT as well on my journey home there are places I go which are hard to get through so finishing later means I can skip these and get home quicker. Riding back home is not for the faint hearted. If it rains then floods. If I leave too early too much traffic. If I leave around 7 lots of traffic. If there is a y in the day. Traffic. So it is always unpleasant especially the last part of the trip where the traffic is at its worse and that is around Mampang area where I work.
The photo above, however badly taken reflects part of my journey every night as it was taken the evening I wrote this and it is not far from my home. Ah the joys of commuting through the city.
 |
| The Bike after a wash |
Still I cant grumble too much as I have been doing it long enough and I know what to expect every time I get to Permata Hijau and onward. It is never pleasant though.
Still enough of this, it is that time again to get on the bike ride home so go I must.
No comments:
Post a Comment