these days

Greetings friends!!

I'm happy to report that my life is becoming routine here. This past weekend I took the minibus into town all on my own for the first time and the only bad part was the heat! I actually went to KK three times last weekend. That's a lot! I've hand-washed and machine-washed my laundry. I am still meeting staff but I know nearly everyone's name by now and am familiar with them. I don't know all the names of the students but that would require one-on-one time with each of them. I can even communicate more and more each day. I'm learning more phrases and words. I really like when I can listen and hear a word over and over and eventually assume its meaning. Languages are fascinating, but the psychologist of me is more fascinated by the way we learn languages, are born with ears and a mouth and (usually) the ability to use them, and how our brains actually grasp a new language. Being here and interacting, even if I can't fully understand, is a work out for my brain!

I've been going to a presbyterian worship service with my host auntie ("makcik" is a word used for a woman who is older than the speaker and whom the speaker greatly respects and actually translates as aunt. but she doesn't have to actually be related to the speaker to be called makcik. pakcik for uncle. but I don't have any host uncles) and I plan on continuing to go to worship with her because I like her and the people are nice too. We walk to the airport to catch a bus that takes us to the main terminal of KK. Then we walk a bit of a distance to worship which is at the top story of a building with a bakery and random shops at the ground level. The location itself is different from what I am used to. But did I have expectations about worship with my makcik? No. YAGM=no expectations. I've been to other churches since I've been in Malaysia and their basic outline is the same. "Worship" is the first 40ish minutes and then "service" is the last hour or so. Give or take about 15 minutes. Basically, the first half is music, songs, and prayers and the second half has all your basic liturgyness. I like how the lyrics for the songs are on the big screen up front and I can practice my pronunciation and speed and yet have no idea what it is that I am singing. I can tell it's good though. I can understand about 5% of the words in any given song, so that's a start. The sermons here seem more broken down by reading. We read a reading from the Bible and then the pastor preaches and prays and then we read the second reading and then the pastor preaches on that. I think. I can't understand it. But we bring our Bibles to worship with us. My makcik tells me the verse and I look it up and read it to myself while it is read outloud in Melay. This is actually a super neat thing. It may seem frustrating but I can understand the reading, because I can read it in English, and I read it over and over and have my own reflective 'lectio divino' going on. I don't want to say I write my own sermon, but I listen to a few of the words that the preacher says that I can understand and I infer what I might say concerning those understandable words and the reading together. I integrate it a bit. But not being able to understand the preacher allows me to be in my own prayerful world in a room with a couple hundred other individuals who are hearing the holy spirit through the lips of the preacher. Is my theology totally out of wack? I just started to feel weird about what I've written here, but it's the truth. I don't understand the preacher so I just make something up in my head and keep the verse in mind. Isn't that awesome?

Even more awesome than that; my makcik handed me her New Testament Bible that's both in English and Melay. She's letting me borrow it for I don't know how long (language barrier). She handed it to me in the middle of the service and I started trying to memorize words or recognize words I already knew or could guess. I was thinking that this year I would read my Bible, since I have time to myself nearly everyday, but this is better. I started reading it a little bit yesterday. It's slow going because I read a verse in Melay and then the translation in English and then break it down word by word trying to figure out which word exactly translates to which English word, where I can find the tense, number, etc. It's powerful though. How insane would it be to attempt to teach myself Melay through the New Testament!!? Completely possible and utterly amazing. I don't think she knows what a truly powerful gift this could become.

So that's all religious and neat but here's what else I've been doing. The other day I went jogging with some friends down the beach road and to this big all-purpose park called Perdana Park. I hope I spelled that right. They have a huge playground, restaurants, like 3 different tracks/roads for walking and jogging, stretching equipment, pure drinking water station, and a lake. Every night the lake has this fountain show with pretty colors and fun music. We saw the show! It's pretty nifty.

We had Japanese trainers here for the last two weeks for an Autism Spectrum Disorders program called Kololo. I didn't attend any of the sessions, well actually I went to one seminar but I couldn't tell you what I learned, oops, but I saw a lot of interactions with the Autism Spectrum Disorders unit here at SM. Well they left on Sunday but on Friday (when all the training was over) I was invited to go do some last-minute site-seeing with them. I've noticed that I never turn down an invitation around here. Nearly never. No matter what food it is or how hot it is outside, I say yes and at the end of the day I am happy that I did! We went to the "Cultural Villages" which is this big lot with traditional styled houses. It was pretty sweet. I took some nice photos, but mostly it was just hot. You can't really ask me anything about these houses because I don't have any answers. We just oo'd and aah'd.

I knew I was going to miss the sunset so I just took what I could get from the curve of a roundabout. There are actually a lot of roundabouts here. Which is cool because I'm in the small minority that loves roundabouts. But notice, the cars drive on the left side of the roaaad. In a roundabout you lean the other direction! Haha! Crazy! Speaking of which, I think I'm used to it. We have to cross the street at SM in order to get to the vocational/senior side. My supervisor (and my own desk/office space) is on that side too actually. But lately I have looked right when I crossed the street BEFORE I looked left. I never really thought about it. And the sidewalks don't say anything about where to look like they do in London, so this is big news (for me)!
I have more stories but this is already plenty long so I will save them for another day! Happy reading! Thanks for everything. Seriously. Talk soon!

peace.