Language Training, the Hidden Perils of

Before coming to Jakarta, we lived in Yogyakarta for a few months so my husband could complete language training. Of course, I had high aspirations for myself, feeling I could build on the semester of Indonesian I had taken at university solely because my boyfriend was like, super dreamy. He remained hot but my foreign language retention skills did not. So when we arrived in Yogya six or so year later, I was all about the SHOUTmumble, which is when you make an unintentionally loud but respectable beginning noise to the word but then trail off into guttural nonsense, while nodding and bobbing one's head in a maniacal fashion, so much so that the other person has no choice but to bob their head in response - so two people just bob and grin at each other, each wishing they could die on the spot, wondering when the hell will end. 

FWP, Jakarta Style

I really actually detest the widespread acceptance and use of the terms first world and third world - the student of international development in me crrrrinnnnges. However, I am nothing if not a hypocrite so here are some FWP, jakarta expat style:

Mamma mia, here we go again

I had made a solemn vow to myself that I would stop hate-reading mamma mia, and it was going quite well until one of my favourite bloggers, bluemilk posted this which of course made me re-enter the rage haze, which then gave way to the shoulder slump and the sad face and the looooong sigh. I usually cope by watching Keeping up with the Kardashians or some other ghastly visual filth but this time I decided I would use the time to write a TL;DR blog post.

Gila bule ibu

Oh, how I constantly transgress language and cultural norms. Or in other words - I often act a bit dickish, and dickish embarrassing things always seem to happen to me.