Sekolah: Hari Satu.

Okay. I feel like I should just begin with the hard truths: I have taken four cold showers today. I am still so sweaty. It's objectively not even that hot now. I'm just melting. Please, Department of State, send us to Stockholm. Or Oslo. Or Halifax. You get the point.

At one point, when I arrived home from school, the homestay dude was like, "oh, are you ready to move your new room?" to which, I thought, "oh yeah, but I haven't packed it up. Also, I think, I hope that they can't tell how sweaty I am. I feel disgusting." Then I headed up to my room and was horrified, but can't honestly say surprised, that when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I realized that there are zero people in the world who wouldn't have looked at me and not noticed my now-see-through shirt and wet hair and wet-spotted shorts. There was a brief moment where I thought, "oh this is so bad that I feel like someone other than me ought to experience it, so I should take a picture," but then I was grossed out at the thought of being like, "and all I did was walk!" Because it's true. And, also: ew.

Needless to say, I'm now sitting on my balcony basically not wearing clothes. It's called adjusting. And I'm crushing it.

Anyway. Yesterday after my first foray into the city in an attempt to orient myself, I came back and spent some time playing "what fun things should I do with myself?!" and stumbled upon a nature walk in the middle of the city, so basically I shut my computer and headed there immediately. It was pretty great and relatively secluded given its trailhead (I'm not sure that term is accurately applied in this instance) is in the middle of a very busy intersection in the middle of town. It was also surprising that mere minutes into being on it, you could mostly no longer hear the traffic of the busy street and the environs felt totally different.

 I don't know if you can see or not, but those dots are a small flock of Petulu Herons, which are everywhere and really beautiful. Also, apparently, you can walk or bike ride to a place 4-5K from here where they migrate daily at sunset and there are thousands of them. Pretty sure that's on my agenda tomorrow. Or later this week. Nonetheless. This is certainly not the last time I'll talk about Petulu Herons.

Oh, right! My classes started today. My teacher (for this week), Okta, is really great. Also, I am so very glad that I did so much babbel prior to coming, without which, I am sure that today and the thought of doing this for the next four weeks would surely be daunting, to say the very least. In fairness, it still sort of is, but despite the fact that today in five hours, I learned more than I had in the fifteen-twenty hours I've been taking internet lessons, I don't think that it will ultimately be unmanageable. I think that it will be really, really hard--but not impossible, which is better than I had expected. Here are some things I learned how to say today: 

Kilian bicara tentang politik presiden Amerika* (We talk about American presidential politics--Jane, TG, had just texted me clips of Hillary crushing Bernie in the debate). 

Dia mau tinggal di Prancis untuk belajar bahasa Prancis (She wants to live in France to learn French--do you, Elaina? Idk. I feel like you wouldn't hate it. I had to come up with examples of people and things all day, so Okta knows a lot about your real and fake biographical information based on my limited vocabulary. Samesies Sarah and Betsy.)

Saya bekerja sebagai pengacara di New York State tapi saya mau tinggal di Washington, DC, untuk bekerja di State Department (just putting in all on the table, tbh). 

We also did all of the prepositions and pronouns. Suffice it to say, five hours in a one-on-one session yields a substantial amount of information. 

*The inclusion of "talking politics" came as a result of Okta writing an example about Mexicans and then stopped herself to say, "what is going on in America? Are you having an election? Are you going to elect that awful man?" Eye roll, eye roll, god I hope not. Enter my explanation of the primary process and fascination with the tallying of delegates and decisively asserting that the likely nominee is Hillary Clinton, while the other party is really a wild card. Okta is in college. Okta is surprised to hear my conclusive Hillary speak. Okta thinks "that old crazy guy" seems cool. I die a little bit inside. What's wrong with Hillary she wants to know? Not in a "no, she's okay, what's wrong with her" sort of way, in a "no, I need to know why she's broken" sort of way. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. 

Anyway. After class, I treated myself first to wandering the grounds of the Lotus Temple (my attire wasn't appropriate for wandering inside the temple), which is easy to find because it's "behind the only Starbucks in Ubud." It was beautiful. Perhaps when I'm wearing proper clothes I'll venture inside. 

Then I decided I should walk to the Monkey Sanctuary Forest. Partially because I wondered how far of a walk it is from school (very) and partially because I wondered if I could see any monkeys without going inside (it's a large park and by the time I got there, I only would have had an hour, which didn't seem worth paying--BUT if I take a taxi from school to the entrance, I can have TWO or more hours! Perf.) to show Sabs/the world.

AND, what luck. Monkeys are everywhere:

Monkey park entrance. Look. A monkey on the sidewalk.

Monkey park fence--wait for it . . . with monkeys.

Why did the monkey cross the road? To fuck with the white people trying to get into the monkey park.

Okay. Finally. The last part of my day. I came home, as aforementioned, to move rooms. Though the room itself is certainly larger (behold):

The real benefit to this room is the balcony. And its exterior doors. 

 This is not a great pano because it looks a little more fun-house-esque than it is in real life, but, it's incredibly nice, there are great views, and it's totally shaded. Plus, there are lights so that I can sit on it at night and read, study, or do more of this.

This is the door to my room, which makes me feel like a queen. It opens in the middle and is locked by a golden locket because of course. 

And, last but not least, this is a picture painting of my host family on a structure from the 1850s (?) and they held the pose until the sun was perfectly shining in the exact spot as shown. For hours, apparently. It's hanging on the interior wall on the balcony because that's where all paintings of you and your spouse go. Duuuuh.

 After re-settling, I put on clean (read: dry) clothes and makeup to counteract my feeling horribly unattractive all day and went to a restaurant down the street, whose proceeds go entirely to supporting a medical clinic in Bali for the impoverished population. And now I am here. And now I am going to bed. Byeeeeeee.