Hunkering Down: Learning the Indonesian Language Week 2

Let’s Start With A True Story

This week’s work commenced last Saturday when, while visiting a nearby mall, I told my husband “jangan bantu saya, mau berlatih bahasa indonesia saya” (do not help me, I want to practice my Indonesian).

I went in to a store selling women’s accessories and, as expected, was approached by the attendant. She was explaining something about an ongoing promotion, which I understood by just focusing on key words (and the promotional signs). I asked something in my broken Indonesian, she realized I didn’t speak the language and, as I have observed many times in the past, answered by speaking so very fast that all I understood was the language’s signature rolling “R” 😳

Good Lord, help me. Whenever this happens, I want to revert to English so that it’s them having the headache, not me! (That’s my frustrated reaction).

But I soldiered on.

I asked her to please speak slowly, that I was still learning the language – all this in perfect Indonesian because by now this phrase is burned into my brain. Her reaction was one I interpreted to be akin to mockery, complete with that side-smile and downcast eyes. She then removed herself from the scene/situation ☹️

Now, I am not saying they all react discouragingly like this (although I do remember another store attendant who also attended to me with an air of annoyance). I don’t know what that lady’s problem was or what she was thinking at the time. Although I managed to walk out that store with 2 sets of lovely earrings (and 2 bracelets for my eldest), I spent a good part of the weekend feeling disheartened.

Jeez, it sure feels like “arse” to feel incompetent like that.

😒😒😒

Here’s how the rest of week 2 went:

Monday

Lesson 49. Done!

Tuesday

Lesson 50 & 51. Done!

The cleaning lady praises my efforts for learning the language. She calls me “pandai” (smart/clever). She goes as far as to compare me with other expat wives who go back to their home countries with nada an Indonesian word under their belts.

Finally some encouragement!

I feel like I’m Wonder Woman 😀

Wednesday

Lesson 52 & 53. Done!

Thursday

Something unpleasant happened the evening before. So today I just want to soak my brain in positivity and possibility.

And knit.

Friday

It took me all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to go back and tackle lesson 54 again.

Week 2 Conclusion:

On speaking with the locals ~ Most of the time, my frustration is that they don’t speak slowly when they reply. They only try to choose other words to explain the same thing but this just confuses me even more. They appreciate the effort I make, but it’s as though they get self-conscious when they respond that they just want to get it over with by speaking very fast and leaving it at that. And if the person being spoken to happens to know a bit of English, he will respond in English so that I am no better off than when I started.

But, I am fortunate to have a cleaning lady who knows enough English for us to be able to communicate. She’ll be taking on a more active role in this process moving forward 😁

On studying:

It still feels like punishment.

 

… to week 3, and beyond!

Hunkering Down: Learning the Indonesian Language Week 1

So after this realization, I decided to dedicate 1 month to each goal.

This doesn’t mean that everything must be wrapped up and neatly tied with a bow by the end of the month. This is just to make sure I give each about 20+ weekdays of undiluted attention during which I put all my other goals on hold.

If a goal resonates, and I decide I want to spend more time with it, I will for as long as I need to. If a goal doesn’t resonate, then I will feel no guilt putting it away by month’s end knowing that I gave it a fair shot.

Let’s do this! 💪

I decided to dedicate July to goal #1, learn the Indonesian language. Here’s an overview of how the 1st week went:

Day 1

After weeks of neglect, I resumed with lesson 46. Focusing is difficult because I have ideas about my other goals and I have to exert willpower to bring my mind back to the day’s lesson.

Day 2

Moved on to lesson 47. Started to ask myself how else I could reinforce my learning. Dusted off an old edition elementary school workbook that I found on bargain a long, long time ago and proceeded to werk.

After 2 pages, looked for and found a podcast about language learning on which I heard Benny Lewis say that he didn’t need to speak the new language perfectly, he just needed to be able to communicate in it (or something like that).

Perfect! That’s what I want too.

What is coach surfing? 🤔

Enrolled in Benny Lewis’ 1 week email course : “Speak in a Week”.

Day 3

Woke up at 6AM with the intention to do some reading in my target language while everyone else was still asleep.

I worked on my new diamond painting project instead, and I wasn’t even aware that I made the switch! 😫

Plodded through lesson 48, midway, I was typing in my credit card details with 4 items for check-out in my online shopping cart. 😫😫

Day 4

I decided that if something was driving me to shop online when I had no need to, then I needed to take a step back from this and re-group.

Found a local TV program about arts & crafts, enjoyed it so much, and wrote down some new vocabulary.  Finally. Score! 😃

Day 5

I sat down for the day’s lesson but found myself watching a YouTube video about the 10 people who hate Megan Markle instead  😲😲

Good Lord, I have never sunk so low!

Decided to redeem my dignity by watching the local arts & crafts program again with notebook and pen in hand. Hmmm … decoupage looks like something I could get into. 🤩Noted!

😵😵😵

Week 1 Conclusion:

I’m really struggling with this. Maybe the language classes I bought is no longer engaging because at this level, I’m bombarded with words that are not common to everyday conversation. Then there’s grammar … 🤢

The local TV program helped because it was interesting and it’s training my ears to how Indonesian is actually spoken. I am happy when I am able to make out words, even those that I don’t know the meaning of 😀 I then write these down and note their meanings.

The old schoolbook also helps. Somewhat.

Here’s hoping week 2 will go much better.

May’s Pineapple-y Finish 🍍

Look at “Catherine”. She’s so “yuge” I can’t even picture her properly. We don’t have a large enough table that can properly accommodate her full size! 😁

She’ll be even more gorgeous (& yuge) once I’m done blocking 😍 Which, from the looks of it, is going to be a bit of a challenge 🤔

And errr … wasn’t staying away from crochet a goal of mine for May? 🤣 Talk about a preposterous idea! 🤣

Adam Made It! 🤗

It is now official, after the husband did a thorough fitting last night and did some muscle flexing in front of a mirror wearing Adam 😄 – I haz knit my second sweater! 💪💪

I haz conquered knitting (and seaming!) dark grey yarn, haz conquered working with snakelike implements of torment a.k.a. circular needles, conquered despair and the temptation to just give up and knit an entirely new and different pattern, and learned that maybe it’s wise to knit a size or 2 bigger than what the tape measure tells you to 😆😉

Odd-Photo Prompt: Brains In My Lawn

I’ve been going through my phone’s photo album and realized that, not only do I take quadruplicate shots, I take so many pictures of odd, random stuff 🤔 Do you do this too?

Most of the time I do it because it sparks an inspiration for a blog post … but then I never get around to writing about it.

I figured before I delete all this ‘junk’, why not use it for its intended purpose and maybe learn a few things along the way! 😁 (Nifty, eh?)

And so this week’s entry is the puffy puffball mushroom. Ta-daaaah!

I remember coming out the front door one day and exclaiming to my daughter “there are brains on our lawn!” because it was the first time I had ever seen such ‘growth’ 😄

In making this blogpost I’ve found out that these are called puffballs (mayhaps Calvatia craniformis). Puffballs vary in size from 3″ in diameter to the size of a dog. Some puffballs are edible, one way to identify these is to slice them open and see if the flesh is white and solid. However, it’s best to consult a professional shroom connoisseur to avoid death by  accidental shroom poisoning. 😨😨

When the puffball matures and is ready to spew its spores out into the world for the continuance of its species, it will turn brown and look like turd 💩

For our perusal, I have diligently documented this as well! 🤗

And this is our odd-photo prompt of the week, the puffball mushroom 🙌

There Lies Adam

Adam is 92% finished ⭐

But needs to be unraveled 😢 😢

I know!

And I was SO looking forward to beginning a new knitting project!

I am working on the neck portion now and asked the husband to do a fitting last night. Everything else fit (beautifully, I might add), except the underarm portion 😤 😤

Adam follows the pattern Joukahainen and is a pdf download from Ravelry. See the hot  stuff here:

It is a raglan sleeved sweater worked from bottom to top, so I don’t think there was any way to have done an earlier fitting that would have properly exposed the tight underarm portion.

I’ve been racking my brains for ways to salvage the project. But since stitch count influences the tapering of the raglan sleeves, which in turn affects length of the yoke portion, short of claiming Adam for myself, I see no other plausible option but to unravel, add more stitches and just basically start from stitch zero.

I’m a little teapot short and stout! Here is my handle and here is my spout! When the water’s boiling hear me shout …

My husband really likes Adam though and I don’t want to claim it for myself because I already have Eve.

Tip the handle and pour me out!

Allez – I am going to put on my big girl panties and unravel the thing and start from the very beginning.

What is worth doing is worth doing well! ~ says Paardje ❤

But maybe not today. Today I deserve CHOCOLATE! 😉

So meanwhile let me regale you with a photo of bat droppings in my beloved reflection place (but they obviously weren’t partying hard last night):

You do know I like to tease you, right? 🤣 ✌️🏻 ✌️🏻

Another “Mad-Woman” Attempt In Beginner Knitting

So if any of you out there are wondering why I’ve been posting so infrequently now it’s because I’m working on “Adam”.

Adam is a sweater for my husband and – get this – I’m knitting it using those snakelike implements of torment called circulars that I swear had a mind of their own at the start of this project 😫 😫

I say this because I could not, for the life of me, properly cast on using them! After so many attempts (and running out of colorful expletives) I finally decided to just cast on using regular straight needles, and take over with the circulars from the second row onwards.

This worked by the way. So far so good. 😥😥

So now this is also a raglan sweater that is knit from the bottom to top. I am now at the yoke portion and I’m seeing gaps in my raglan decreases that I am getting vexed about 😒 😒

But I think I’ll just fix it up later on when I’m seaming the underarms 😐😐

And then there were the sleeves.

Somehow the idea of “magic loop knitting” came into my consciousness and at first I was very glad to have discovered a technique that would make it unnecessary for me to buy another set of circulars with shorter diameter.

Glad that is, until I tried it myself! 😱😱

Then I threw another batch of fresh colorful expletives all over the place and almost got a pair of scissors to just cut the whole thing to pieces! 😤😤

Fortunately I didn’t.  And since I have to buy any knitting supplies abroad (or online), I just decided to knit the sleeves with the straight needles and will just seam them using the mattress stitch later on.

(Inhale. Exhale. Repeat 3X)

Oh and, you do know that Adam is but my second knitting project ever, don’t you? (Well now you do!) I just feel that you should know this. This is very important (nods head vigorously).

So here’s Adam so far and, I guess the point of this blogpost is just to tell you that I’m still alive and somehow sane 😄😄😄

Wish me luck again sexy people! ❤️‍ ❤️‍