I've really dropped the ball on updating this blog in the past few weeks! I'll soon add in riveting tales of blue duck eggs, trips to the beach in Java, lots and lots of days working, my friend Jenn visiting, shadow puppets, javanese ballet, and gamelan galore! For now I'm in Bali with extremely expensive internet access. So far I am completely unimpressed with Bali... It's not the exquisitely beautiful beach I anticipated. Tomorrow we'll move on from Kuta, so hopefully it will get better. After that we head to the Gilli Islands of Lombok for some diving/snorkelling. I'll [View Full Entry]

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I recovered very quickly from that bout of dietary indiscretion, though I certainly milked it for all the sympathy I could! One of my professors from home was visiting my campus the next day. Perhaps I was still a bit ill, she looked very alarmed and turned into a mother hen the minute she saw me. The rest of the week was very busy with my project. Everything is finally up and running. Again, I am sparing the details here, if you’d like to hear more, email me! It’s very gratifying to finally have everything work out and come together! I [View Full Entry]

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I went on another vet student adventure - this time to visit a traditional duck egg farm out by Solo (50 km east or so of Jogja). This was a trip just for me, so I certainly appreciated the kind ride (from Andre, the same vet student I went with the day before). Unfortunately, this time we didn’t gain any elevation, and we absolutely baked in the car. The air conditioning left something to be desired, and so it was a tough toss up between clean, hot air, or open windows and mouthfuls of motorbike exhaust. Visiting the farm was really [View Full Entry]

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Today I went with another pair of vet students to visit a cow farmer in Salatiga. Salatiga is up in the highlands of central Java. Luckily we went in a car, not a motorcycle; the trip took several hours. It’s really remarkable how the temperature drops as soon as you gain a little elevation. Jogja is HOT! And the sun is very strong (funny how that happens near the equator, huh!). It’s also really really beautiful in the higher elevation; while it is all developed, it is very green with rice paddies, and a huge variety of other agriculture including sugar [View Full Entry]

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My project is progressing rather slowly… There are, of course, many hurdles to jump through. This is expected, and I am certainly not concerned yet. I have an office in the anatomy department of the veterinary school here. The anatomy department has a huge collection of animal skeletons and bones. It’s really cool! There are several articulated (assembled) cows; in my office are two complete monkey skeletons and a civet. The monkeys (maybe macaques) are very creepy, miniature humans with tails. I hid them in the corner. It’s fun being in the office there, every [View Full Entry]

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I’ve certainly benefited this week from the shopping and dining savvy of the group of Americans I’m working with - I’m arriving right as they are arranging to head home and so I’ve tagged along on several shopping expeditions. And Yogya is the place for fun shopping in Indonesia. It’s also the place for poor quality mass-produced tourist junk, so you need to be smart about it. Another girl from my university who is working on this project was in town with her sister, and so we attacked the fun Yogya markets en force loaded with shopping savvy. We visited a [View Full Entry]

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I’ve had several days to get settled in Yogya. I’ve met all my advisors at the University, and my Indonesian student counterpart. It is a very beautiful campus! I’ve finally moved my enormous pack of supplies to their final resting place - I’ve been given an office! And, they found me a really lovely room in a guesthouse for only $160 a month (oh, laundry is an additional $6 a month!). The room is decorated entirely (floor tiles and wall paint included) in shades of sky blue, which is quite fitting for me, though perhaps wouldn’t be my first choice. For [View Full Entry]

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In preparation for my summer project, we headed to the medical market to buy various supplies (you wouldn’t believe what you can buy here!). Behind the medical market is the live wild bird market, which we visited for education sake. There are no real regulations here on the trade of wild and endangered species. Luckily, it is not my job to visit these markets regularly and investigate what’s there. Though, it is good to know your enemy, and so we looked around. It was awful. Truly and overwhelmingly distressing. There were thousands upon thousands of beautiful birds in c [View Full Entry]

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Sunday June 8, 2008 This weekend I stayed with Jenni and spent most of the time tagging along with her, quizzing her on career options, and enjoying actually having a weekend off. Unfortunately, my new-country illness hit Saturday evening after she cooked dinner for the group here. I am rather delicate when it comes to nausea, and well… Anyways, my initiatory illness was pretty tame as far as gastroenteritis issues go. I was pretty much 100% by Sunday evening. In spite of my unsteadiness, I did attend the wedding reception of one of the Indonesian guys who works in the of [View Full Entry]

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Note -- photos will be added in the next few days! All the stories are true: flying in to Indonesia, the smog is truly remarkable. It is a thick brown cloud covering the entire city. But I arrived with my 40kg of luggage with no problems. Except that I was 20kg over the limit and had to pay a huge fee to bring it all onboard. The woman at the check-in counter seemed quite embarrassed for me, as if I had just packed too many clothes and shoes. She told me I could take some out to leave behind instead of [View Full Entry]

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