I'm too itchy to think of a title. Plus, I have to pee. Hey, this is a good title.

I just came back from my 3 day trip to Solo. Believe me, I've never been so excited to leave a place. For 3 days, I felt trapped in a very large boarding house with no one to talk to, and no place to run when the mosquitoes came flying after me. I felt like a sitting duck trying to ward off an army of blood suckers. On my second night in Solo, after being eaten alive (I swear, what the mosquitoes are doing, is not humane!), I decided to 40% DEET their mosquito asses! Well, it worked, I think. Although I've suffered a lot, there isn't one thing I would change. Since I've been in Indonesia, I've learned to take it all in and appreciate everything. Well, I don't look at an insect bite and think "This sure sucks, but I appreciate it, mosquito friends!" but I think "Although this sucks, I'm so blessed to be here in Indonesia. It is a small price to pay."

Last night, I saw my first full moon in Indonesia. Of course, full moons may have appeared more often during the duration I was here, but last night was the first time I noticed it. It reminded me of home. No matter where we are on Earth, everyone looks at the same moon. It's nice to have something so constant. It's like a souvenir from home that is always in your pocket, and it's something you can never lose or forget, which is a plus for clumsy people like me. In Solo, the night sky seemed so vast. In Indonesia, there is so much open land, no skyscrapers, just humble buildings that don't attempt to tower to the heavens. Then it hit me. I finally realized how far the heavens truly are, how incredibly vast the Earth truly is, and how small we are, like a microscopic particle in the greater universe. Sure we can do a bit of calculations, or build things thousands of times our size, or make little gadgets that make our lives easier. We have a bit of paper that we spend, we use it to buy useless things that make us temporarily happy. But ultimately, we are just small things. Who are we to ever be cocky? Who are we to ever be arrogant about ourselves? Our lives can never be eternal like the moon or our lives constant like the sunrise. We always try to find new ways to change the world we live in, but we still remain under the jurisdiction of the natural laws of the universe. Who are we to ever be so certain about anything other than that we can be certain about nothing?

Silly me, I still have not mentioned why I was in Solo. My school had a dance competition in Solo. I guess it's an annual thing. Every year, all the "disabled" schools in Central Java come and compete. There's music and dancing. Note that I quote "disabled" because that's what they call it here. In Indonesia, people don't spend their time trying to be politically correct. I suppose that's an American thing, always "spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror" (Jason Mraz song, yo!). Anyway, so I've been spending a lot of time with blind, deaf, and handicapped kids. They are really amazing. Sure others consider them physically disadvantaged, but these people can do things I can never do. They are not disadvantaged, they are just different.

I absolutely love my ibu and my bapak. I swear, my bapak and I are like two peas in a pod. We're both immature and spend too much time playing pranks on each other. You would think I would be homesick by now. Sure there are things I miss, but I'm too busy worrying about the little time I have left in Indonesia to think about returning to my life in the United States. I truly love this country, its people, and especially my host family. Some may say, "how can you love people you've only most recently met?" I say, "If love makes the world go round, why be so selfish with it?"