Fun Facts of the Make shift life!

just a few things that make living here just that much more interesting:

*blackouts* yes they happened in the states too- when its really hot and they do those rolling black outs. here though- when your power goes out because its too hot, you are thereby surredering to just turning into a wet rag of sweat, especially in my hot box of a room. not only is it already like sleeping in a sauna, but my one meager fan clicked off this morning and that powering down sound followed by utter silence warned me that i would not be sleeping anymore! oh yeah- and it makes our water pump go off so there was no shower to be had before coming to work this morning! so im sweaty, my hair is dirty and i had to brush my teeth standing over the kitchen sink!!

oh yeah- and i noticed on the drive to work that the traffic lights go out when there is no power...no generators.....so the 'every man for themselves' driving mentality becomes even more of a hazard! eh traffic lights are overrated i suppose:)

*australians* the aussies are a constant presence here, as well as a constant source of amusement to us. they are like their own species of stupid its great! dont get me wrong- i do have some sort of magnetic draw toward them but sometimes you just cannot help but drop your jaw with incredulity at their own ignorance- and i thought americans were bad!

so we invented a game- the BINSIN game. BINSIN stands for bintang singlet (the aussie uniform is a bintang singlet with board shorts and a strip of material from the bounty hotel tied around their head, or arm or leg, etc. anywhere they can tie these things they do and then they parade around the streets buying tubes of ephedrine that look like packs of gum from the motorbike taxi drivers slash drug dealers! so the game is, before you go into a bar, every one guesses how many binsins will be inside. the winner is whoever is closest. you get extra points here and there- for example, predicting and seeing a girl in a binsin is extra, and if you manage to site the 'hanger' then you get double. the 'hanger' is more rare, however they can be spotted- its those shameless creatures who buy their binsin too big, intentionally, so that the arm sleeves hang down low proudly displaying their man boobs. its a gauruntee that they have man boobs if indeed wearing this shirt- the hot ones dont partake in this cultural slur.

my favorite quote from my very cute but hopelessly ignorant aussie friend: we are walking to dinner and he is like, all excited, "wow they are selling bottles of absolute over there on the street for 6000 (60 cents)!!!" i look behind me, to see what he is all giddy about. Me: "uhhhh yeah no that is petrol." amazing. althogh i should probably give him a break on this one- its probably only in bali that they siphon petrol into old alcohol bottles and sell it on the street for 60 cents...

crisis avertede

figured out the photo problem and my boss with the electronically gifted hands has seemingly fixed my phone. he is the yin to my yang:)

Even in paradise it rains!

Still rainy season here- which means at least once a day torrential downpour carries on for hours, flooding all the streets and making our house smell like a sewer (any of my followers a plumber-by-night and know why this might be???) everyday there is a downpour, or after mel and i shower, our bathrooms smell like serious sewer-ness. last night melissa was so bad that i walked in and gagged- without even making it through the door frame. it was so bad we had to disturb linda and have her come up to witness the foulness. for someone who likes the smell of durian to be physically repulsed by a smell should describe the level of rankness. apparently people have been out to the house to figure out what it is but instead of fixing it they put like a layer of cement over the wall that leaks and say its fixed. yeah its not. any ideas?

so we all have these rain panchos that we put on when it starts to rain when your driving. so when i got back mel was like hey i bought you a present- a new pancho! and i said- hmm that is nice but i already have one?! and she said - not anymore....with alittle further investiagtion it came to light that someone had ripped hers, so she stole mine and bought me a new one when i came back. so ok thats nice! then i take it out of the packet the first time to wear it and there is a rip like 8 inches up the front- so all the way home from carrefour my pancho was flapping around me like wings and i got home all wet down my front!! premium poncho my ass.....i continued wearing what has come to be known as 'flaps' out of my niceness and refusal to force melissa into returning mine until two days ago, on the drive to our surf lesson, in the pouring rain, flaps up and ripped all the way up the front and off of me! so right this second im watching black clouds roll in and cursing melissa and flaps....

on a more positive note ( the new theme of the blog!) i had lunch at the roti place- yes we found an authentic roti canai place! and they also have teh tarik! before lunch i met jon at a gas station, where we gave our passports to a lady who is going to illegally restamp us in so we dont have to leave when our visas expire. best part-- this is an illegal activity yet we met in the open and public gas station where she took our passports and then we asked how long until we get them b ack. she replied one week- 7 working days, as they are very busy....um, this is so corrupt and illegal yet you are 'so busy' that you have minimum wait times? so ridiculous this place is:)

i dont think i ever put up the pictures of my house.....ok here they are:)
update. my blog is not working not letting me put any images on here an my phone just stopped working. today might be the day i need to be put on suicide watch......

where have i been??

SO i have not totally abandoned the blog and my four followers....i just really hadnt felt too inspired the last few weeks and really had no idea what to write. but too many funny things happened this last week so its back to the blog:) plus, inspired by jon's tutorial on the secrets to success, i have decided that i am only going to put positive energy out, and am going to visualize and believe fully in what i want, and it will happen. so im going to use the blog as my way of putting all the good things out there into the universe, so nothing negative will be allowed on here!!!!

speaking of visualization-- yeseterday jon and i finally made out way to kuta beach and had a surf lesson with our friend rizal! yes- amongst the trash ( seriously so bad sometimes you were stepping fully on a sandy bottm covered in trash!! the bags would get stuck to you and i pulled several unidentified objects out of my hair and bathing suit!! but we braved it anyways ( and the rain that threatened to scare us out of the water!) but no- we stayed in for two hours and both were like pros by the end:) haha well obviously not- but we were both standing up and getting it and it was so much fun! very exhilerating....veeeerrry sore today though:) but so worth it!! we are going to go again tomorrow i think- its about 3 dollars to rent a board for an hour so i think its worth it- gotta get good! the best part was that we did the lesson from about 4 30 to 6 30 so we were out in the water for the first part of the sunset and it was really incredible!

funny story: the other night after a late one, I decided to take a motor bike taxi home from kuta- basically these guys in orange vests will drive you anywhere for like a dollar. so i took one home and the guy is chatting to me all the way blah blah.... we are almost back to my house and im thinking of my bed and how comfy its going to be and then all of a sudden THWAAP!!!!!! a flipping bird has just slammed into my mouth!! im not kidding- i saw it coming and there was no where to go- it bashed me in the mouth, while we were going like thirty km/hr!!!!!! so then the guy is laughing and im screaming and almost crying and the whole way he is like no its good luck its good luck....i told him that this was the second time this had happened to me and i really didnt think there was anything good about it....yes, i think most of you know my story abouit the bird hitting me in the face on my bike in california so yeah. you think they get out of your way. im here as living proof that they dont!!!!! anyway i had a fat lip from it that thank god didnt last overnight and i actually had forgotten it happened until about 6 pm that night driving by the spot where it did and all of a sudden it came back to me and i was laughing so hard on my bike! ok enough for now! im uploading pics and will write more stuff soon....