When you first look at it, the untrained western eye might mistake it for a rack of brass pots & pans assembled in a fancy wood rack, or hanging from a bamboo stand. There are xylophones too.
Most of us weren’t born naturally gifted for this sort of thing… but class is fun. We make “music” (like something you might hear in an elevator) for about 2 hours, then go home. Some of us like it more than others- I like going as a class. It’s something we all do together, and at the end of the summer, we’ll do a puppet show performance, complete with Gamelan in the background. (Bryan will be the puppeteer, and the rest of us will be manning our rack of pots. Just kidding (= ha ha. Seriously- tickets around here are going like hot-cakes!
Just before class, we met a U. Maryland English professor / free-lance Washington Post reporter (John Auchard), who is in town to write an article about the lesser-traveled paths in the world. He’s a friend of USINDO, and heard there are a bunch of Americans in post-earthquake Yogyakarta- so he tagged along to our Gamelan class. Nice guy. He showed us his articles on Ethiopia & Cambodia… every year he spends a month living some place off the beaten path & writes about it; publishing his story in the Travel section, to encourage people to think of vacationing in places other than Paris & London. Sounds like a great job!
I didn’t have quite enough time to rent a moped of my own today,, and I had no ride back to school, to jump on the back of Marty’s moped to kickboxing class,,, so I ran.
Kickboxing class wore me out today! Whew… the gym is open 5 days a week, so only 2 of us went today. The teacher is great. Real nice guy- maybe 35,,, patient with the beginners. My shoulders are still burning after 2 hours of shadow punching. Man! I could barely hold a fork up at dinner (=
When I got home, all the girls (ibu Rochmadi, mbak Yuti (our housekeeper), and Nana) were watching really poorly acted soap operas. Even they it’s stupid (= they can’t help but watch it though! Ha ha… it reminds me of something I saw on Telemundo once. The really cheesy soap dramas. We’re on day two of a break from World cup. I can’t wait for the Brazil-France game, and Germany-Argentina! Whoooo,, gonna be awesome!
Most of us weren’t born naturally gifted for this sort of thing… but class is fun. We make “music” (like something you might hear in an elevator) for about 2 hours, then go home. Some of us like it more than others- I like going as a class. It’s something we all do together, and at the end of the summer, we’ll do a puppet show performance, complete with Gamelan in the background. (Bryan will be the puppeteer, and the rest of us will be manning our rack of pots. Just kidding (= ha ha. Seriously- tickets around here are going like hot-cakes!
Just before class, we met a U. Maryland English professor / free-lance Washington Post reporter (John Auchard), who is in town to write an article about the lesser-traveled paths in the world. He’s a friend of USINDO, and heard there are a bunch of Americans in post-earthquake Yogyakarta- so he tagged along to our Gamelan class. Nice guy. He showed us his articles on Ethiopia & Cambodia… every year he spends a month living some place off the beaten path & writes about it; publishing his story in the Travel section, to encourage people to think of vacationing in places other than Paris & London. Sounds like a great job!
I didn’t have quite enough time to rent a moped of my own today,, and I had no ride back to school, to jump on the back of Marty’s moped to kickboxing class,,, so I ran.
Kickboxing class wore me out today! Whew… the gym is open 5 days a week, so only 2 of us went today. The teacher is great. Real nice guy- maybe 35,,, patient with the beginners. My shoulders are still burning after 2 hours of shadow punching. Man! I could barely hold a fork up at dinner (=
When I got home, all the girls (ibu Rochmadi, mbak Yuti (our housekeeper), and Nana) were watching really poorly acted soap operas. Even they it’s stupid (= they can’t help but watch it though! Ha ha… it reminds me of something I saw on Telemundo once. The really cheesy soap dramas. We’re on day two of a break from World cup. I can’t wait for the Brazil-France game, and Germany-Argentina! Whoooo,, gonna be awesome!
posted by jonathan adventures at 1:33 AM
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