Dealing with a Long Distance Relationship (LDR)

On our respective graduations 2007 and 2008

 
    I recently watched  a film called Going the Distance starring Drew Barrymore and Justin Long. The film was OK at best but what resonated with me was what the two protagonists had to deal with. An issue that I was all to familiar with this past year. The issue being keeping a relationship going despite being thousands of miles away from your beloved.

   As you well know, I have a long term boyfriend who I fondly named Doc on this blog (8 years and still liking the sight of each other!) and I left him for a whole YEAR - discounting his trip out to visit me in August - to work and live in Indonesia. Am I nuts? Maybe. It was one of the hardest decisions I had ever made, but one that I do not regret because if anything, our love for each other grew stronger for everyday we were apart. You know the saying 'absence makes the heart grow fonder', corny but very true!

This was not the first time Doc and I were not in the same place for a long period time. At university, we did the long distance thing when he was doing his year in industry near London, I was finishing up my course in Leeds. It was not ideal but we saw each other fortnightly and enjoyed banter on a then new thing called Facebook. Since then we had not been apart for more than two weeks and then Indonesia happened. I'm not going to lie, I started missing him after my third week. One too many longing Skype chats and of course the occasional breakdown made me miss my love even more. Our August reunion meant that we had not physically seen each other for six months and our reunion in Edinburgh airport a few weeks ago was another five months from that.

On holiday in Bali 2013

Despite being separated by 7 time zones and being 14 hours away by flight; we miraculously made it work! But how you wonder? I'll tell you:

• I made Skype my new bosom buddy - Doc and I spoke to each other nearly everyday using it to video chat and instant message each other (when the internet works). It is also cost effective when talking on a landline. I also recommend What's App and Facebook Messenger if you both have smartphones (I did not have smartphone in Indonesia). Communication is key for the survival of any relationship.
• Being clear on the parameters of our relationship - It is important to have an honest and open conversation about your relationship with your significant other before embarking on an LDR such as defining it and what are your hopes and expectations for it. From that conversation, you should get a clear idea if you want to enter an LDR with this person. Doc and I have a long term relationship so we were pretty clear that we were exclusive and hope to go one step further when I return to the UK.
• Trying to communicate in a different way - With the advancements made in telecommunications, some of the ways of old can be very touching. Writing letters might seem old-fashioned but it holds a great deal of sweet sentimentality, not to mention the fact that it keeps the relationship interesting and romantic! That being said, I did not write Doc any letters while I was in Indonesia ( it would take forever to get to the UK!) but I did it when we had our first separation at university. For Indonesia, I dropped a video message once a month in his Dropbox.

Croatia 2007

• Being positive about not seeing each other - Staying positive about the relationship is essential. So in order to have a happier outlook, drop the negativity about not seeing each other all the time! Channel the negativity into something else like a new hobby, for me it was getting to know my housemates, creating this blog, focus on my job and exploring Indonesia.
• Don't take it personal or be jealous -  Things can get hectic for both of you with work and other social engagements getting in the way. But never take it personally if one of you forgot to respond to a message or missed a call or feel guilty about missing an arranged chat because you were busy getting hammered at Ladies night (guilty as charged) . We had those moments but we had to be flexible and understanding about it and move on from it.

Jamaica 2009

• Relax and do it - I am an advocate of  Skype sex. Some people might be prudish about it ( I know I certainly was) but it is key to keeping the physical aspect of the relationship in check. 

Have any of you been in a long distance relationship? How did you deal?

Temple Trekking in Yogyakarta

Mendut Temple

Prambanan Temple

Borobudur

My last holiday in Indonesia was to the city of Yogyakarta (pronounced jogjakarta). Located in Central Java, this city is renowned for being the centre of Javanese culture and fine art. It was also, for a time, the Indonesian capital during the Indonesian Revolution in the mid-1940's.

The first time I heard about Jogja was through a gay Belgian couple I had befriended on my flight over to Jakarta last January. They were going to visit the city and all the attractions it had offer, including seeing the temples Borobudur and Prambanan. This certainly got me interested in a possible visit in the next few months. As I got settled into Jakarta life and gotten to know my house mates, coincidently they had just spent Christmas there and had regaled me with tales of rafting and visiting the temples, my interest was piqued.

 I  made the decision to go by myself in January as a last tango in Indonesia. I booked my train for the 28th of January for five days. I knew from the get go that I wanted to do the temples, eat good Javanese food and treat myself with spa therapies as I like to be pampered on holiday. More than anything, this trip was to get my head right about heading home and leaving all my new found family here.

So I left Jakarta on a train at 8 in the morning. The journey was a long one (7 hours) so I managed to squeeze in some sleep despite having a male passenger playing a staring contest with me and my neighbour practising her elementary level English with me. I wanted to take some pictures of the lush green of the Javanese countryside ;however, it is rainy and horrible and my camera could capture the scenery well enough, boo hiss!

Despite all that, I arrived in overcast Jogja  and quickly went about looking for transport to my accommodation, EDU Hostel. I took a becak (pronounced be-chak) for 30,000rp from the train station. I took in the sights and smell of Jogja. It smelt of rain and nasi goreng, honestly! I checked in and went upstairs to my 6-bed dorm room(female). Thankfully there were only 3 of us in the room. I couldn't help but notice how big the hostel was and how clean and tidy the rooms were,definitely puts it in the running for best hostel I've stayed in. 

My primary reason for being in Jogja was to check out the temples so I went on a mission to find tours for the temples.The hostel offered multiple tours of the temples and other fun activities like rafting and batik printing classes. I then decided on the 8 hour sunrise tour of the temples (Be at Borobudur by 6am and then Mendut temple and Prambanan), I got talking to a couple of guys who coincidently were on the same train as I was. They decided to book the same trip as me ,what luck friends! One is an American Peace Corps volunteer on holiday leave from Ethiopia and the other a Brit from Coventry (my family's neck of the woods) who is travelling through to Australia for work. 

Before the crack of dawn (4:45am), we disembarked from our hostel and were treated to the history of the temple from guide. As I was still virtually asleep, I did not listen to the guide and slept soundly until we reached our destination. However I do remember him saying that Borobudur was built in the 9th century and the architecture was inspired by both Javanese elements as well as Indian art which gives it makes Indonesian. As it is a place of pilgrimage, the journey begins at the base of the monument and follow a path that leads to the top through the three levels of Buddhist Cosmology: Kamadhatu (world of desire), Rapadhatu (world of forms) and Arupadhatu (world of formlessness). 

I paid the local price as I had a laminated photocopy of my KITAS while my new mates had to pay the bule price (difference between 200,000rp and 30,000rp anyone?) on we went with our sarongs wrapped around our hips and a lovely old man as our guide we were free to explore this beautiful Buddhist temple. I couldn't help but marvel at the stone carvings that told stories and overlooking the beautiful golden sunrise. I was beyond astounded. It is incredible what the  human imagination and faith could make with hands. This place is a true wonder, I wonder what would have happened if Raffles did not 'discover' it 1814? Would we have found it? Probably.

 Although it was not crowded, there were a number of high schoolers who were waiting to talk to visitors to practice their English and have their obligatory snap with a foreigner. I was obliged to speak to them after the temple tour was finished and spoke to them about Britain (they thought I was American) and British slang and idioms. I guess I could never stop being a teacher. It was so time for us to go as our 2 hours were up so the boys and I headed towards a warung for our free breakfast which was not great in all honesty. Borobudur should be on every travellers list if they are passing through Java. It is truly worth it.

One of the 1,460 narrative relief panels found in Borobudur.

Stupas

Buddha in a stupa

New friends

The temple trekking continued with  Mendut Temple, Borobudur's 'infant'. It is 10 minute drive from Borobudur and is so small that we did the tour in 20 minutes. Despite the brevity of the tour, Mendut was still a lovely bit architecture and more surprising is the fact that it is older than Borobudur. The temple also shows carvings the Javanese bas-relief of Hariti, considered as a symbol of fertility. It is still used today during the Buddhist festival of Vesak, where Buddhists walk from Mendut to Pawon temple and end at Borobudur.

Hariti

Buddha

Temple inside the roof

We then moved onto Prambanan which was on the other side of Borobudur a 45-minute drive to be exact. Unlike the temples we had just seen, Prambanan was a Hindu temple complex. There are three main temples each named after a Hindu god in which the followers would worship; Shiva (the largest and most impressive in my opinion), Vishnu and Brahma. We had these high school kids as guides who knew their stuff but bless them their English was not great.I've convinced myself that Prambanan was used as a location for the opening scene of the Mortal Kombat film, I'm sure of it. It is similar to Borobudur because they have almost the same intricate stone carvings telling stories and legends. However, I was not blown away by it as I was to Borobudur. Prambanan does have many more smaller temples surrounding the complex, some of them were in a state of repair and other were beyond that stage. Nevertheless it was lovely to walk around the vast complex which included a market to buy souvenirs.

Remains of Bubruh temple

Hard hat for the Shiva shrine

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Sewu temple

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After spending two hours at the complex, it was time to call it a day. We headed back to our hostel tired but thoroughly satisfied with our exploits. I was particularly exhausted as I haven't had to get up that early since high school. I highly recommend visiting these temples as you would get a sense of Indonesia's religious past. I'll be honest, I thought it was Islam dominated from day one but these temples proved that was not the case. If you are foreign visitor expect to pay 200,000rp at both Borobudur and Prambanan. Mendut only cost 3,000rp. It is also best to visit Borobudur in the morning because in the afternoon it gets REALLY crowded. 

This next few days were all about kicking back relaxing by the pool, getting lovely messages and reflecting on my time Indonesia. Going to the temples is on my list of favourite I've done here and will never forget.

In Edinburgh

The Chocolate Bule has finally landed in the bonny Scottish capital of Edinburgh! 

I am in process of catching up on my beauty sleep as well as having some couple time with my beau as you can imagine I am exhausted either way you look at it, lol!

Today was my first full day in Edinburgh and I think I will enjoy it. I am not to far from the city centre and there are plenty of amenities like shops, salons and cafes that will do me just fine I reckon. I also ate a delicious lamb curry for dinner and a tasty Camembert, chorizo and kale sandwich courtesy of Doc for lunch to make up for the McDonald's we had yesterday - don't judge us, I was tired and hungry - for lunch/dinner.

Tomorrow, I will give my new city a thorough tour and see what's the crack. I also need to locate my nearest bank branch and find a phone shop so I can buy a smartphone (yeah!) and job agencies for my next career move (no!). 

Stay tuned!

Back from Yogyakarta and The End Is In Sight

It's been three days since I came back from Yogyakarta and now I have just over 24 hours before I board a twenty nine (29) hour flight bound for Edinburgh. Therefore, I've been a very little bee. I've been having dinners and brunches here and there, shopping for more souvenirs, watching pirated DVD's and of course packing a year of my life into two bags.

I am now packed but I still need to weigh my stuff as I'm allowed 32kg of hold luggage. I have sneaky suspicion that I am well over that. Tonight I'll have my last meal with my housemates and farewell drinks with everyone else. Hopefully it won't be a heavy one but I'll set my alarm from now just in case it is.

My next post will be about my time in Yogyakarta and how it has allowed me to come to peace with my time in Indonesia. I will continue writing blog posts about my time in Indonesia while I'm living in Edinburgh, but with a heavy heart I will no longer be living in the concrete jungle of Jakarta. I've come to both love and detest the place (reasons I will address in a post) but try as I might protest about the place; Jakarta has my heart forever.

See you in Edinburgh !

Chocolate Bule Meltdown

This was a blog post long in the making. I had probably hinted at my state of mind a few months ago in a past blog. You see I had a meltdown. Not a psychotic episode or a bad day at school or having a fight with my housemates, no I had a few miserable months. October, November and December to be exact. This coincided with my absence from the blogosphere in that period. The scary thing was that apart from Doc, I did not relay my fears to none of my housemates or friends. That I was going through a depressing period in Jakarta. I did not want any one to comfort me because I've always been an individual who could look after myself emotionally and therefore did not need anyone to look after me.

Unbeknownst to my friends and colleagues, I acted like everything was fine. I went to work, did my classes, gossiped with my colleagues. Everything was normal on the outside. But the reality was that I was struggling to keep it together on the inside. I was crying in my sleep, I had trouble sleeping (I would get 4 hours if I'm lucky) and I would comfort eat on all the things that were bad for me (J.CO Donuts, Ice cream, pizza, etc). The binge eating could not quell any of the negative feelings and almost immediately I would feel horrible. What was wrong with me? Why did I feel this way? How can I overcome this?

Now that I've given myself time to reflect on those months, I realized where all the negativity came from.It was the fact that I was returning home with no great prospects plus my own insecurities as a teacher. As listed below here are some of the reasons and some probable solutions.

1.)  Doubting myself as a teacher- I got given a low level adult class , a challenging teen class, a low- intermediate business class that was out of school and an intermediate business class at another school . These were classes that I've found to be tricky to teach despite my experience in teaching these levels. The elementary adult class in particular was a pain in my ass because they did not appreciate the fact that they were there to learn and not gossip. I walked out of that class a couple of times because they pissed me off that much.  The low level intermediate teen class also did my nut in because in that class I had far too many clowns who sat together and refused to work with other classmates especially female ones and therefore made the classes awkward and difficult to teach.In spite of that, I did like the little bastards in the end. The intermediate business class at the other school was fine; however, with business English the danger is low attendance and in a class of 5, there were many times I had one on one lessons with a student. Needless to say, this further pissed me off!

This then created a knock on effect on my other classes. I was just not inspired to teach, I was over it! My poor low-intermediate business class and young learners bore the brunt of it because I no longer cared. I stopped planning lessons and instead stuck to mundane bookwork which is not exciting for myself or the students. It is easy to blame the students lack of attendance and in some cases lack of enthusiasm that indeed affected me as a teacher.

I felt it wass my job to stir up interest and make them want to learn. But as I learned, education is a two way street. I could only do so much as the teacher and it is up to the students to learn and study the language outside of the classroom. My biggest peeves with all my students was tardiness and lack of attendance which of course affects their learning and ability to pass the course. I had two options either keep planning to the best of my ability and teach or stop giving a shit. I chose the later. This is not to say that I did not care about my classes and how I taught them, this was more to do with letting the students' have their own autonomy on learning. I was too scared of my students failing because of how it would reflect on me as a teacher and instead just focussed on the matter at hand which was to deliver a good lesson and if all else failed there were always extra lessons for struggling students.

2. What the fuck am I going to do when I get back to UK? Is a question I've been asking myself since November. Now that I am no longer employed, the bubble has well and truly burst. The realization that I'm no longer an ESL teacher evaporated the moment I received my bonus and flight reimbursement. I realized 'shit, this is what I have to live on for the next month and beyond'. I am so scared of going back jobless and then six months down the line, still be in that state. This question has been asked by my friends, family and even Doc. It has given me sleepless nights and headaches. After having this job, I can't look at another desk job ever again without thinking that this shit is going to be boring. So, I decided that I will venture out my once comfort zone and look seriously at areas that take my interest. ESL is of course one of those areas, in addition to social media and being a teaching assistant.

So what am I going to do? Take charge that's what! I am very fortunate to have a boyfriend who would not allow me to wallow in self loathing and unemployment; therefore, he said he will help me on my quest to find gainful employment. My five point plan of action for survival in Edinburgh is this:

• See my loved ones family, in-laws and friends in my first few weeks home.
• Fix up my CV. I'm tinkering my LinkedIn profile as we speak and will do the same with my paper CV.
• APPLY, APPLY, APPLY- for any and everything well except for bar work and waitressing. I will also look into volunteer work to beef up my ESL experience.
• Apply for a CELTA or CertTESOL course for the April, May, June and July period. I got my eye on a couple of schools in Edinburgh so watch this space. I'm aiming for that period so that by that time I could pay with my salary (if I get a job).
• If all else fails get on the Dole - well I'll give it a couple of months before I start applying.

3. Food Inglorious Food - I am gluttonous human. I binge on all kinds of bad things and it was made worst when I moved here. because most of the bad things were dirt cheap. On a weekly basis, I gorged on a variety of junk food, Indonesian food (which is fried everything and no vegetables) and drank free alcohol like it was going out of fashion (ladies night what can I say?). Great diet right? WRONG!  I virtually cut out vegetables and healthy carbs and fibre out of my diet.  Of course all of this was not good for me and so my body said fuck you and in return constipation, dehydration, migraines, insomnia, weight gain (put on 10lbs since I've been here) and stunted hair growth. I was not happy with myself because I did not feel healthy. So I reasoned with myself and felt some changes had to be made on my part.

My solution is this. When I return to the UK, I will binge for a few weeks on all the stuff that I missed out on while in Indonesia (bacon, cheese, cider, donuts and the like) and then get started on my diet and exercise plan that will eliminate all those lovely but bad things and replace them with bland but good things starting with the scary Master Clense detox diet and then phasing out processed food, alcohol and all the other bad shit. Yoga and swimming will be apart of my fitness regime as well as hill walking and biking. Doc is super happy about the latter as it is his favourite hobby.

I am happy to report that I am over my meltdown and now I can only look forward to returning home but at the same time look back with pride and fondness of my time in Indonesia.