I'm writing this as the witching hour draws nigh but unfortunately it's Thursday night and I have another day of teaching ahead of me. I've fallen into bad habits lately, napping when I get home from school and then not being able to sleep while most honest citizens, and a few dishonest ones, are snoring soundly.
SBY (the acronym for Indonesia's president) is going to have a cabinet reshuffle soon, according to the political pundits. The reason I mention it is that perhaps he'll replace the current Minister of Education who was responsible for the implementation of the "60 and you're out rule" for expatriate teachers. Would a new minister rescind the rule? It's probably unlikely but even if it did happen, we ageing pedagogues would still feel unsettled because another change of minister might herald a reimplementation of the rule.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on my stay in Indonesia. Tick. Tock. Soon I'll launch my worldwide cyberspace campaign to keep Sean in Indonesia. Via the blogosphere and the social networking sites, the collective cry of injustice will persuade the powers-that-be here in Indonesia to grant me complimentary citizenship because of my selfless service to the education of Indonesia's youth. As the clock passes midnight, it's comforting to imagine such improbabilities.
I may as well end a gloomy post on a gloomy note by quoting from today's Jakarta Post: Indonesia is losing its forests faster than any other country, with the equivalent of about 300 soccer pitches destroyed every hour, according to Greenpeace. Certainly an inconvenient truth but unlikely to cause much concern in the corridors of power. This rate of destruction will not be arrested because environmental awareness and concern are not a serious part of the national educational curriculum.
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