It's raining! It's raining now for an hour...I haven't seen a rain of this intensity to last so long and not lose power. It's raining with thunders and lightning and the level of water in the streets is rising dangerously. Nobody seems too preoccupied by this though and everybody is enjoying the breath of freshness that the water brought with it.
So, the organisation I'm working for has their own particular system of teaching English, so as to bring someone who does not speak a word to the level of being able to have basic conversations on a wide range of subjects in 3 to 6 months. The system is organised obviously around the bahasa - English conversion. And in order for us to feel its effectiveness, they are teaching us bahasa using the same system. Obviously, we will not spend 3 months learning that but we are getting the basics in order to be able to make basic conversation with our students who will speak no English in the beginning.
Bahasa is a very simple language. Luckily! Don't get me wrong, the vocabulary is completely non-related to anything I've seen before. But there is very little grammar. There are no times, no singular and plural, no articles, and even the verb "to be(is/are)" is not really used. It exists but many people don't use it and you can get around without saying it much. They also don't care much most of the times about the order of words (with some exceptions of course). So what this boils down to is basically an exercise in memorising. And here comes the realisation of the day:
I HAVEN'T MEMORISED ANYTHING IN AGES!!
Really, since I left school, I haven't really been memorising anything! Dutch words for a while, but I stopped doing that also at some point. Work-wise, there's google to answer all your questions. And for the rest..not much opportunity for it! So this is quite a challenge - I can feel the muscles of my brain stressing and focusing. Not to mention that I am super tired at the end of the day though technically I have not done much. But it does bring with it a sort of satisfaction. I just hope I don't forget it all too fast!