The end of this blog?

Well, I'm back in Long Beach now - my mom is here for one more day and returning to Nebraska tomorrow (Monday) morning. Already getting swept up in all the things I need to be doing - at home, in the neighborhood, and in relation to my work. I'll set aside all my wonderful materials from my trip in Indonesia until June, because final revisions to my book on Second Life are due June 1. Then I'll go back to it with fresh eyes and start writing, and of course all the while staying in touch with my friends in Makassar and elsewhere in Indonesia.

It's going to be a challenge, this master plan of mine - to keep two research projects going for the next several years, one in Indonesia and one in a virtual world. But I find they each cast light on the other in interesting ways, and it keeps my busy mind occupied as well. So we'll see how it goes.

It was a wonderful, challenging, and deeply rewarding trip and I'm so glad I did it and that my mom got to come for the last two weeks. I don't know what's going to happen with this blog now. I've never yet been one for blogging my everyday life here in the USA, probably because I'm so busy here with my anthropological writing, but we'll see what happens. For now I'll leave this blog up as a record of my adventures.

Thanks to everyone who read this blog along the way and who have supported me throughout. My best wishes to you all. Terima kasih banyak semua!

Tom

We're in California!

We just got back to California a couple hours ago and are home. Off to supper soon so this will be short; just wanted to let everyone know we are home!

We're on our way!

We've had a wonderful couple of days in Singapore, lots of shopping and walking around, visiting a museum, and other fun too. Now it's Friday morning our time, and this afternoon we'll be getting on the big Singapore Airlines plane for the flight to Los Angeles! It's been a great time, but we're looking forward to getting home.

We'll be awol for 4 days...

My mother and I are having a great time - I just gave a talk at a local university and my mom came along for the ride. Tomorrow morning (April 3) early we're going with the whole stuff up to Torajaland, a beautiful hilly area about 8 hours from here, a favorite of tourists. 25 of us will be going up and we'll be returning the evening of April 6. I won't be taking the laptop. So it may be April 7, Indonesia time, before we post again to the blog. Don't worry - we should have some great photos!

Mom is here, safe and sound!

Mom got in yesterday afternoon - right on time, amazingly, luggage and all! We had a good first night at the hotel and how are at GC and Mom is meeting everyone. I'll post more updates later!

Mom's in Singapore!

My mother's plane has landed in Singapore! I talked with her right before she got on the plane in Los Angeles. In Singapore there's a good chance her cellphone won't work (the standard used here in Asia is different from the US standard), and it's a relatively short (2-hour) layover anyway. So no news is good news - she will be here by 4pm local time!

Mom's on her way!

Just talked to my mom - she's at the boarding gate at LAX, getting ready to get on her flight to Singapore. Everything is going very smoothly and I can't wait to see her!

Time flying by...

Still doing the training and working on proposals for Gaya Celebes. One week from today my mother arrives, and three weeks from tomorrow I'll be back in the US! The time is flying by now... scrambling to get as much done as I can...

Yet another I didn't feel...

Whenever I see "earthquake in Eastern Indonesia" anywhere in the world press I'm getting in the habit of making these little "don't worry" posts - no one here even knew it happened, and even near the epicenter of this most recent one there are no reports of damage or casualties. I'm doing fine, looking forward to my mother coming next week, doing lots of things as usual and trying to relax a bit too!

Learning to type (and bigger pictures)

I recently downloaded a simple "learn how to type" program so the staff could improve their typing skills, which are at present pretty much limited to henpecking. They were so excited - it was so cute to see them all trying - if you look here you can see that one staff found an old non-functional keyboard and put it next to the computer (the black one in back) so she could practice while someone else was actually using the program. Their skills will improve rapidly, I think.

Since I've got a better Internet connection nowadays, I'm going to try uploading larger versions of my pictures. If you click on any picture, you should now get a substantially larger version.

Not again...

Now many of you will have seen news coverage of the plane that skidded off the runway in central Java. Once again, a long way away so don't worry. It's a little frustrating that the news only covers disasters in Indonesia and not the stuff that's going well. It's like there's an earthquake in California, and a plane skidding off the runway in Texas, and I'm in Chicago. It's obviously not a good thing, but just keep it in perspective - I'm fine!

Another one I didn't feel...

Many of you will read about the quake that just hit southern Sumatra - a 6.3 quake. Remember Indonesia is big - the distance between me and this quake is roughly California to Nebraska. These disasters are terrible but nothing new in this "Ring of Fire" area...

I didn't even feel it!

Some of you may have seen in the news that about 11pm California time, a 6.6 earthquake hit eastern Indonesia. It was hundreds of miles from me - I didn't feel a thing. On the map below, the blue circle is where I am and the brown circle is more or less where the earthquake was. Apparently there wasn't much damage - the quake was far from land - and no tsunamis either.

Use Irvine email...

Okay, now I've got my laptop set up for internet access in my little room. It's a dialup connection so slow, but seems to be stable. Amazingly, I can get the smtp server at Irvine to accept my emails, which means I can use Eudora. As a result, the best way to reach me now will be to use my Irvine email (tboellst@uci.edu) because I can download the email and then read it while not taking up time on the phone line. I will still check my google mail (tboellst@gmail.com) every day more or less, so if you prefer that one you can stick with it too. I'm excited to be getting settled in!

I'm high and dry...

Just so everyone is clear, I'm hundreds of miles away from the floods. If you look at the posting below titled "Surabaya!", you'll see a map of Java. Jakarta (where the flooding is) is on the west end of Java and Surabaya (where I am now) is on the east end, 600 kilometers away (a kilometer is 5/8 of a mile, so that's 375 miles). As you can see from the photos and blog entries below, I did get to experience the beginning of the flooding, but thankfully got on a plane and out of Jakarta before the flooding got bad. It's amazing that something like 300,00 people have been displaced - it's a monument to the consequences of poor-to-absent city planning (take note, Brian! hee hee). So don't worry, I'm fine and far away from the flooding. It's been raining a bit in Surabaya, but not very much; there's no flooding here at all.

If you want to follow some good, local English-language reporting on the floods, check out The Jakarta Post. The link is to the right, or just go to: http://www.thejakartapost.com/headlines.asp