"What's life without a joke?" Motorbike - Part 1

So we have this awesome neighbor "Rez" who taught us how to ride motorbikes and also let us borrow his until we got one of our own. I've been driving it to and from school everyday so I've been getting a lot of practice in. On Saturday, he took Holly and I out to buy motorbikes. We knew which ones we wanted, and we even got a good price. We were going for it, but knew that there still had to be some work done on the bikes before we could take them home. We both needed baskets, I needed a new brake pad, Holly needed a new anchor…nothing big, all minor things. So as we are filling out the paperwork (and paying) they are working on our bikes. We thought that we could take Holly’s home that day since the tags weren’t expired, but after our salesman looked into it further, he realized her tags were expired as well so we wouldn’t be able to take them home that day. However, Holly already paid the full price and wasn't going to walk away empty handed, so we gave them a hard time and they sent one of their workers to the post office to renew both of our tags (still not sure why they do this at the post office?). Most post offices are closed on Saturdays so they weren’t sure if we were going to have any luck or not. We asked why they don't call the post office to see if it's open before sending someone there, but we never got an answer. They just don't call ahead here. If it was opened, we would take both bikes home that day. If not, we’d have to wait until Monday to take them home.

So, after waiting around for what seemed like forever, we receive good news. The post office was open, and they were able to renew both of our tags. We could take our bikes home that day, woohoo! So they told us they’d be ready, all repairs done, within 2 hours. We have lunch, wait around some more, then go back to the shop to get our bikes and take them home...we thought. We get there, check them out to make sure all is well. As I put my key into the ignition, the key keeps spinning around and around and I couldn’t turn it off. I needed a new ignition. So they send a worker to another store to get a new ignition, and we wait around even more.

I finally get my new ignition, and we test drive the bikes to make sure all is well. I drive right down the parking lot to the gas station to fill up my tank. On my way there I notice my spedometer is not working.  I turned off my bike once I got to the gas station thinking I was going to fill up, but was so mad that such an obvious thing was broken even after they worked on it all day. I didn’t even want to get gas anymore, I just wanted to go right back to the store and yell at them for the broken speedometer. So I try to kickstart my bike (a million times) and guess what, it doesn’t start. I call our neighbor and he comes to my rescue. He manages to get it started but realized I need additional repairs to fix that problem...We go back and I was super angry. I yelled at the guy who sold us the bikes. I already gave them my money, and now all these problems...no. Unfortunately the store was about to close, so they promised that when I bring it in on Monday, they will fix everything.

We later find out that the guy who sold us our motorbikes doesn’t even know how to drive one...

So, at least we get to leave the store with our bikes, right? Well, we got home and decided we needed to make a run to the local convenience store to pick up a few things. I hopped on Holly’s bike and we left. On the way back, her accelerator decided to stop working. It just stops accelerating. Completely. We barely make it up the slight incline into our neighborhood, and as soon as we make it to the top it turned off. It just died. We laugh. We laugh hysterically for a long time at how ridiculous our day has been. Eventually we compose ourselves, get the bike started again, and make it home.

So, tomorrow after school we'll take our bikes to get all the repairs, where I’m sure there will be a part 2 to this whole ordeal. I’m so thrilled.

I’ll end with some wise words from our neighbor, Rez, who has been our saving grace. All day I kept saying “this is such a joke!” and finally he replied “What’s life without a joke?” That's a good question...

Before all the trouble started...but we still love our bikes!

My lovely blue motorbike 

Holly and Rez

Injuries

I'd like to take note of the injuries I've had so far in my 6 weeks here:

1. Sprained ankle - twisted my ankle about 3 weeks ago....it's on the road to recovery. It was swollen for the longest time but eventually went to a Chinese medicine man and he performed magic on it. I walked out of there pain free and the swelling was down within a day. All the swelling isn't down yet, but one more trip to the medicine man and I bet it will be gone. 
2. Muffler burn - The motorbike was off, I was just standing next to it trying to lock it and bam. I burnt my leg on the muffler. This happened Tuesday, so it's been a few days now. With my terrible accident-prone luck, it might get infected. I'm going to take all precautions for that not to happen. 
3. This didn't result in an injury, but it could have- Yesterday I got home from school on my neighbor's motorbike that I've been using. I pulled up in front of my house, turned off the motorbike, and thought I put the kickstand down before I got off...I didn't. I stepped off the motorbike and I just graciously fell down with it. In my baju kurung of course. Thankfully, no one saw. I got up quickly and was fine. But still...most people fall on their motorbike when they're driving, I fall off when it's turned off.

I'm not exactly looking forward to what other injuries I'll face while I'm here....

Pahang Orientation, Move-in, and First weeks of school

Okay, so I fail at blogging. I can't figure out how in the world to sum up everything that has been happening because there's just so much. I’ll try my best to start where I left off…

We had orientation in KL until January 21^st. As part of the orientation we had Bahasa Malaysia classes everyday, sessions about effective activities, religion, culture, etc. Also for orientation we had 3 cultural visits to the National Mosque, Batu Caves, and Melaka. Here are some pictures from each visit.

We had to cover up to go inside the mosque

Monkeys swarm the stairs going up to the Batu Caves...so cute, but also so aggressive

One of the more memorable parts of orientation was our visit to see the Prime Minister. Like I said before, he is really backing the ETA program so it’s his baby. He invited us to high tea at his office. Security was everywhere you turned, cameras, press...I felt pretty important. 

Here are 2 articles about our visit: 

http://www.pmo.gov.my/?menu=gallery&id=3580&page=1951

http://malaysia.usembassy.gov/program_eta_pm-011912.html

After our orientation in KL ended, we were shipped to our respective states. 16 of us are stationed in Pahang, and for Chinese New Year we stayed in the government quarters north of the capital, Kuantan (which is actually where I will be living the rest of the year). The woman in charge of our program in Pahang, Faridah, was beyond anything we ever expected. She basically told us to tell her where we wanted to go, what we wanted to do, and she would have the bus there to pick us up to take us. We are so lucky to have her! One day she took us to what is called “Panorama Hill”, which we thought was just a simple overlook of the town Sungai Lembing. None of us were dressed in proper clothing for what was to come. I'm calling this thing a mountain (even though it's called a hill); we climbed a mountain that day. There were endless stairs going to the top, it probably took a good 45 minutes for all of us to hike up. Of course, we hiked at the hottest part of the day with the sun beating down on us. I can easily say I’ve never sweat more in my life. The view, however, was worth the grueling climb. 

View from the top of Panorama Hill

We started the orientation in Pahang after Chinese New Year. We met with the state secretary twice, once for dinner on the river and then for a BBQ at his house. Both times there was a live band, karaoke, and lots of dancing (both native Malaysian dancing and also, unfortunately, our American dancing which was very poor compared to the professional dancers).

On a side note, I’ve been noticing more and more ridiculous things in Malaysia. First of all, they eat 6 meals a day. Yes, 6. Breakfast, tea (with food), lunch, tea (food), dinner, supper. For our orientation we had all 6 of those meals at the hotel. One of those days, it was two of the ETAs birthdays, so we had dinner, like we always do, at 7pm at the hotel. Then, we are taken to Pizza Hut to have more dinner, along with a cake (which was the exact same cake, with the same writing, that the ETAs already got for the birthday people). As we are in Pizza Hut about to hurl from eating so much, I went to the bathroom. As usual, the bathroom floors are wet. I’m used to that. What was unusual, however, were the naked children running around the bathroom. As I was walking past the stalls, I saw some of those naked children in the stalls playing with the hose that Malaysians use to….clean themselves. They were spraying the hose all over the stall and having a great time. It wasn’t until I came out of the bathroom and recapped the story for everyone at dinner that I had realized what happened and how weird it was. Well, this is Malaysia, after all.

After stuffing our faces of pizza and cake at Pizza Hut, we were taken to karaoke. Being the smart person I am, I chose a seemingly innocent Lady Gaga song to sing. Well, I didn’t know they would play the music video along with the song. It was……bad. Really bad. Not for Muslims to see, or anything children for that matter (which there were). We stopped in the middle of the song and didn’t finish. I did something similar in Brazil. Sigh.


Our state orientation was pretty great, but there was some work involved. We met our mentors during orientation and we talked about our schedules and what we hoped to accomplish over the year at our schools. My mentor is a Chinese woman named Lynette. She has been SO helpful with everything…taking us to the grocery store, motorbike shopping, keeping me in the loop with everything at school. I’m so grateful to have such a great mentor guide me along! 

Eventually our orientation was over and our handing over ceremony was on the last day, January 31^st. This ceremony represents us being officially “given away” to our schools. We said bye to all the ETAs we had been with up until then, and then left with my principal, mentor, and Holly’s mentors.

Here's an article about our handing over ceremony (I was interviewed in this one): http://www.nst.com.my/local/general/fulbright-scholars-excited-to-share-their-passion-1.40123


So after the ceremony, Holly and I were taken to our house. Everyone who took us there was so impressed with it. It's a nice house, with more space than we'll ever need. But it's still funny because Malaysian standards and American standards pretty different. We had been told all along our house was over furnished, but that is quite the understatement. Clothes, blankets, pillows, appliances, dishes, stuffed into cabinets and drawers. There was no room for our things. We still have a ton of cleaning to do, but we’ll get there one day. We have to take everything out, clean it, then put it away somewhere else so we have room for our things. Our kitchen is huge, we have 2 stovetops in the kitchen, but neither of them work. Only the stovetop that's half inside/half outside works.

Our first day of school was the day right after we moved into our house. My school had an assembly to introduce me  and I said a short speech I prepared to let them know what I'm doing there . There are 500 students in my school and 20 classes, so thankfully I'm able to see all the classes over the course of the year.

 I teach anywhere from 3-5 classes per day, and on Fridays school lets out at 12:30 since it is a prayer day where Muslims must go to the mosque to pray.

 

At my wonderful school - SMK Teluk Chempedak!

My principal on the left and mentor on my right

As far as my goal for eating one new food per day goes….I’ve far surpassed it and continue to do so. Half the time, I don’t know what I’m eating. I do try to stay away from things that look fishy (which is so hard, because fish is in EVERYTHING). I try most of it, but don’t like it. It’s too salty and the texture is just not appealing to me.

Also, here is a random list of some gross things I’ve encountered thus far...

•      Spiders. I walked into my bathroom the other day and turned the light on to find a gigantic spider crawling into the toilet. By gigantic, I mean the size of my palm. I yelled some things I should not have yelled, walked out of the bathroom to gather my thoughts, and then went back in to flush the toilet to make sure he was long gone. A few days after that, the same sort of spider flew out of the AC in the guest bedroom when we turned it on. It was dead, but still. It’s still on the floor behind the bed and it will stay there for a long time because I’m not touching it.
•    Our neighbor took us out to dinner last weekend weekend and after a very long car ride to his favorite restaurant, I ordered roti arab (Indian bread) with chicken curry only to find chicken feet in my curry. I had already been suffering from an upset stomach that whole weekend…so that just did it for me. Needless to say, I lost my appetite and struggled to finish eating my bread. And I love bread so that's saying a lot.
•    While eating lunch at school, I was cutting up my fried egg to eat when I noticed a dead ant in the egg. No big deal. I discreetly took the ant out of the egg and put it on the side of my plate. Then I noticed another dead ant in the egg. I took that one out and put it to the side. But then I found another one. And then another. I was sitting with other teachers and I didn’t say a word, but they asked what I was doing and I told them there were ants in my egg. I never know what is normal in Malaysia, so I didn’t think this was a big deal at all. We have ants in our kitchen, so it’s probably normal for them to be in food, right? I’ve forced myself to live by “what doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger” so a few ants in my meal means more protein…or something. Well, the other teachers said it wasn’t normal and took it back to the kitchen for me.
•     You always take off your shoes before going into a Malaysian’s house, so when I was at someone’s house having dinner outside, I went inside to use the bathroom. However, this was a typical Malaysian bathroom (squatty potty, hose, floor soaked). I failed to see the flip flops in front of the bathroom, so I just went in the wet bathroom, barefeet and all. I was convinced I’d contracted a million diseases, but it actually turns out I contracted 0.

Okay, next post will be about motorbikes, school,  neighborhood, and other random happenings. I promise it will be sooner than the last one! 

Here is a link to a collective blog that all the ETAs are a part of. It has various news stories and random anecdotes that happen to us. It's worth checking out! http://fulbrightmalaysia.wordpress.com/

This article was just published about me today in the News Straits Times, they came to my school to interview me yesterday.
http://www.nst.com.my/local/general/games-stickers-bring-classroom-to-life-1.47230#ixzz1mVQkzq3h

These are 2 links to my two Facebook albums that have all my pictures :) 

Pahang Orientation pictures

Life in Teluk Chempedak