Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Indo 2011

My 9-5 job is to advocate for Asian language and culture literacy in the school system. Makes sense then, to learn an Asian language, right? I have a patchy track record of languages (shh, don't tell my boss), studying French through high school, hating it, learning Portuguese when I was with Rui, then Arabic and Lithuanian in Vilnius. Oh, and an afternoon learning Korean in Seoul.
So I'm fluent in nothing but Strayn. Charlie studied a year of Indonesian at high school and seems to remember a great deal. So we studied a short course and enjoyed it immensely. Totally inspired. And very much supported by my colleague, the Indonesian Advisor. This week I'm due to start Indonesian Elementary II and in four weeks I'm gonna head to Sulawesi and get some immersion as I cycle around.
I started my cycling training with a lap of Studley Park this morning, hands frozen, eyes squinted in the bright 7am sunshine. Felt like a slug on a tractor but the tour has me riding 60kms every morning so I'll need to keep it up. Four weeks.