This week was... hum drum. I did a lot of going to school, then coming home and falling asleep until dark. I don't know what it is here, if it's a reflection of my mental state, or if it's the high altitude (can different altitudes make you sleepy?), or what, but I just had no energy. I decided I don't like trying to navigate the angcot system on school days, because there's just not enough time to get there and back and actually do anything of substance-- I end up cutting it too close. If the angcots operated past six, or if there were a back up system like available taxies, it might be different. But I don't like the idea of being stuck in town, and I don't like the idea of having to beg a ride off of someone, so I just as soon wait until my day off before I go off venturing.

I got to actually teach half my classes this week, sans the other teacher. The other half of my classes, again, I didn't even go to because the teacher decided to give an exam and didn't bother informing me until I got to the class. This means it has been a good... five weeks? Since I have been to her classes at all, because last week, she asked me not to come because she was "teaching grammar" (although once that was made common knowledge, the bullshit was revealed and I didn't actually end up going because the school changed the schedule and nobody told me), and this week because of an exam. The three weeks before that were all the Ramadan holiday. Sometimes I feel so much like my time here is wasted, it's just depressing. I think I could have accomplished what I have here so far in one week back home (at the pace I was going last year). Yes, it's that bad.

Part of the problem is that the school is just not a priority. All of the teachers are of course underpaid, and thus teaching here is considered a part time job. Then, I also found out this week that part of the reason this particular teacher seems so absent is because she is taking classes towards a master's degree in Padang. That means that both of the teachers I work with are in programs in another city two hours away, and they are only both at the school on the same day one day per week. Pak Haswin is gone T, W, and F, and Wenny is gone W, Th, and F. They are only both at the school on Monday, when the staff is scrambing trying to put the week together, almost everyone misses their first class due to an overly-long teacher's meeting, and classes start late, anyway.

Besides the school situation, I've really gotten into my Bible this week. It has been my one source of constant comfort and I've really been with God in prayer. I am so grateful that November is flying by. It is perhaps not the best way to deal with being here, but sometimes you just do what you can.

I wish there were other ways to occupy myself here. I have made inquiries about NGOs or any kind of volunteer opportunities, and none exist in Bukittinggi. There are several schools that would enjoy a native English speaker visiting, and I'm on that, but I would like to do something that has nothing to do with education. I would like to do a lot, but just can't.

I've got two more weeks to survive in Bukittinggi before the TEFLIN conference at the beginning of December. Hopefully, the rest of November will just oblige me and be gone, as it has been incredibly difficult being gone from my family on my mom's birthday, my sister and brother in law's first wedding anniversary, and now my first Thanksgiving away. Once December gets here, I can reasonably start planning vacations away and I'm hopeful that is how December and January will go. We'll see. I'm learning to cope, but slowly. It's taking me time, which is all I've got! Haha...