You can call me Daron. Mister Daron.....

The surveys would have us believe that the top life-stress situation is the death of a loved one, closely followed by divorce and moving house, and with change of job still making it into the top 10. Technically change of job, at least in terms of life-stress, actually means losing ones job rather than voluntarily changing it. I guess I can see that.

With that in mind, having only just moved house in February of this year and losing Dad last year, you'd probably say that I could have picked a better time in which to voluntarily change my job too but, never one to shy away from a bit of masochism, I decided that now was in deed the right time to change my job and in April of this year I tendered my resignation to EF Swara.

EF have been my employers for the duration of my stay in Indonesia and were in fact the ones responsible for getting me to leave Thailand after receiving my CELTA. Having started as a teacher in 2009 I was soon promoted to Director of Studies where I then spent the next 6 generally-enjoyable years training teachers, interviewing students and teaching classes, amongst other things. Armed with this knowledge I guess you'd now understand how much of a difficult decision resigning was too.

Over the years a number of friends have extolled the virtues of working in a main school rather than an English academy. It was, they said, "the best move that they'd made...", professionally and financially, or it was "the next logical step..." as I "can't work for EF forever...", yet still I fought to stay in the position I'd worked up to. I did this partly because of the enjoyment of the job brought about by the diversity of students ages and experience, but mainly because my interest was always around teaching adults. Working in schools surely had it's attractions, but it would mean working with kids, and for a whole year of it at that!

So it was probably a helpful nudge or maybe it was more of a blinking indicator light when I started noticing the volume of unnecessary paperwork that I was spending my time doing - that kind of thing annoys me. This led me to reconsider those earlier converstaions with friends and look around at some of the other changes that were occurring, both in Swara as well as EF in Indonesia generally.

I understand that 'paperwork' in either its digital or hard-copy format is an essential part of a company's practices, It goes hand in hand with creating "best practice" and covering a company's backside in case of mistakes, but when the onus for completing that paperwork detracts from the time spent teaching, or traing people, then that's not good. So when that annoyance starts to eat at you to the point that it makes you unhappy, you have two choices; put up with it or, as the euphemism goes, spend more time with your family.

Now coincidentally it was the thought of spending more time with my wife, Yohana, that became the catalyst. Yohana sets off to work early and gets back home late afternoon whereas I had been starting late morning and, depending on classes, been finishing between 7.30 and 9pm. Changing to a school structure would mean that we could spend more time together as I'd be getting up before her and probably back before her too.

The chance to work in a Senior High School means essentially the best of all worlds. I teach young adults, I'm teaching literature, conversation, comprehension and structure and I get to enjoy the school system including the daily structures, facilities and of course the holidays.

The first few days have been a mixture of training, orientation and, as of today, teaching and while change always means freshness I find myself loving every minute of this. I miss my old colleagues and students, it would be weird if I didn't but the new guys here have made me feel so welcome and the students are a perfect joy to be in a classroom with. It's going to be a great year...

Geoff Stoker

I'm going to miss my Dad today.

Not just today, I've missed him every day for the last year, it's just amplified today.

It's been a year since I saw cancer, a truly terrible disease, take a great man away and there hasn't been a day in which I haven't uttered expletives when describing cancer, but I'm not naive. There is no fountain of youth that keeps those we love with us or that allows us extra time, time beyond that which we've been allotted, he could as easily have been taken earlier......but I'm sure, given the choice, we'd all have preferred later.

Over this last year I've wished that there was some way, other than memories, which would have allowed him to be here when we needed him to be; those family situations that needed his opinion or a decision on the state of English cricket.

I know that Mum would have wanted him to stay around, they'd even have been able to celebrate a Golden Wedding anniversary denied to them both. To have been able to experience those few extra minutes, during which they could have continued to play out moments of love and togetherness that became a way of life from the moment they decided to spend their lives together, seems to be something only Hollywood can give. Yet spending time with his friends and family, both immediate and extended, meant a huge amount to Dad and I'm sure to his friends too.

I think that I speak for both Mum, Glen and I when I say that his loss is considerable. His uncanny ability with football score analysis, gained from years of his sons filling in the pools coupons, seemed to mean that we would never be millionaires but obviously that's not what I'm talking about. Instead I mean the man who cared deeply about his sons' choices, even when he was at a loss to understand them, Dad I miss your guidance.

To those of you who did know him, even in passing, I'm sure that on this day you will choose to remember Geoff in your own way, but please do remember him. I know that he remembers you.

Dad's light has been somewhat dimmed, but it will never fade whilst we still remember those times in which we met him.

Try to enjoy the cricket, Dad, and don't give Stokes a hard time.....

The House 14 Months On - Hitches, Glitches and Progress

At this point in the building of the new house it's important to retain a sense of perspective. I am also finding this to be quite a lot harder than I'd imagined.

If you buy an existing house, you buy what you see. You might buy something that needs no work at all and you can just move in and continue on with life. At the other end of the scale it may be a doer-upper with a process to convert it into the mental picture you had when you bought it. Either way, you have a rough idea of what's going to be involved.

In our case it is essentially the opposite and we're watching the slow process week by week and month by month. I can only imagine it to be like watching a factory build a car. When you buy a new car you are given the keys to a beautiful, shiny, new-car smelling dream. In the case of a second hand car you can still see the finished product. What you're not expected to do in this situation is to attend the production line to see exactly how it's put together. But curiosity, as in the words of Steven Wright, killed the cat (even if for a while I was the main suspect) and it is this, along with in most cases a significant financial investment, that forces us to go and take a regular look. In fact it reminds me a lot of knowing what the present is before it's wrapped and given to you.

Alternatively, and much more in keeping with human nature in this case, Albert Einstein pointed out that curiosity has its own reason for existing. That reason is to ensure, even without building, architecture, plumbing or carpentry experience, that you get to point out what's been missed. As a tradesman I assume that's what they live for, to have a layman point out that "you've missed a bit". I guess nothing makes your day more than knowing that Joe Public has his finger on the pulse and your best interests at heart.

That being said, there is always a period after the build called "snagging" where you get yet another opportunity to go around and point out all of the areas where the tradespeople "missed a bit". In our case we do seem to have had some aesthetically-challenged bods as you can see from the photos but all is being put right.

KITCHEN UPDATE
The kitchen is better news. We found out that the wall tiles that we wanted were out of stock in five places that we called. Then finally the sixth called back and confirmed that they had them and we can go ahead with the tiling on Monday the 18th of January. The kitchen equipment company are in the process of updating the CAD drawings and have confirmd that they can install once the tiling is complete anwe have the sink, hob, extractor and oven with them ready to be built in to the granite.

Next up are the wooden shelves and brackets....

The House 14 Months On...

At this point we are so close to being into the house it's starting to get frustrating. For the last couple of months, little things seem to have been causing big, and unnecessary, hold-ups. For instance, the project manager confirmed that they hadn't applied to the national electricity board for connection. Seriously, what's up with that? He then went on to confirm that the water supply wasn't connected yet either!

Apart from that there have been the usual snagging issues and they'll take a while to complete. The little 'touching up' jobs. These have included some plastering work and some cosmetic bits too but the biggest issue for me is the door we had made to enter the back yard seems to have warped a bit. Anyway, problems are in hand and being dealt with.

So that means our main focus is on the kitchen. This part of the project seems to have taken over our entire lives and something that was supposed to add a little extra to the house, in terms of extra room as much as atmosphere, is starting to resemble Ahab's quest for the white whale.

If you've been keeping up with this subject on the blog you'll know that we had a plan to get the kitchen looking something like this....

well it turns out that because we have a U-shaped kitchen, just like this needs stuff like this...

8 metres of kitchen cupboard base units

8 metres of marble work surface

17 metres of ceramic wall tiling, grouting and adhesive

1 x sink

1 x tap

1 x surface-top gas hob

1 x extraction fan and exhaust tubing

1 x built in gas oven

shelving

brackets

lighting

The tiling will take 5 days to put up, the kitchen units will take two weeks to make and can't go up until after the tiling, the plumbing and gas installation is to do and then the shelving to be done.

At this point we could still go for a simpler approach but, as with Ahab, the whale is in our sights. 

On top of the kitchen the single main thing that needs doing is for security bars to be fitted around the perimeter of the back of the house. The area seems genuinely nice and this is really just a precautionary measure, seemingly done by everyone.

Current plan is to move in on the weekend of the 30th and 31st of January. Watch this space for details.

EFGS goes to Bogor... wait, or was it Puncak?...whatever, it was somewhere in the hills!

2015 EFGS Trip

Every year, by way of a treat from the franchise owner, Pak Agus, all of EF Swara's centres get to take an individual school outing. No, not an outing with the students, that would be logistically crazy especially when considering the diverse age range of our students. No, this is more of a bonding trip for all of the staff that work at the centre, Admin, teachers, support functions etc with the aim being to get to know new people and to hopefully ensure success through familiarity. It always involves games and activities that promote teamwork, it always involves communal dining and a barbecue and it is always a lot of fun.

"Oi mate, have you got wifi on here?"

2014 saw us board a bus for Anyer, a coastal resort to the west of Java island, but for October 2015 we chose to head for the hills to the south of Jakarta, to a place with the vaguely-humorous-to-westerners title of "Bukit Pinus".

As you'll know if you've read previous blog entries we usually wait until work has been concluded on the Saturday before boarding a coach and hitting the road. This year was different. This year coincided with....Halloween! It was because of this that it was decided, due to the need to organise events before people arrived at the venue, that I would drive the school car and along for the ride would be Nina the Centre Director, Katherine the Assistant CD, Lusi the marketing co-ordinator and Weina, one of the Gading Serpong teachers. Everyone else would be following onboard the coach.

We arrived relatively quickly considering the erratic nature of Jakarta traffic and I was immediately struck by the remarkable beauty. I was also struck by how remarkably easy-to-find the resort was as I'd had visions the night before the trip of us getting lost in the wilds of Sukabumi. These trips are great because even living in a relaxed place like Gading Serpong you can sometimes forget just how built-up the area is so it's always appreciated to get out into the fresh air.

anyone hungry?

After lunch, time was spent relaxing, if you were one of the four girls, or in my case it was spent preparing the games and activities that we'd be doing over the next 36 hours. At this point I should mention that in much the same way the weekend is about teamwork, it could never happen without teamwork too and Alex the assistant DoS is just excellent when it comes to helping to create activities and atmosphere alike.
So it was that when the coach arrived, having taken a bit longer than we did, everyone was ready to tuck into the meal that had been prepared and. once that was over, people were split into their teams for the weekend and given the first task. Find the pictures of horror movie characters that had been hidden around the resort and bring them back to Alex and I to redeem points.

As much about helping people to orientate themselves with the resort and its facilities, the people of EFGS are competitive to a fault and took swiftly to the task which, once completed, was quickly followed up with a team quiz with both Indonesian and English questions.

The evening is always about downtime and relaxing and that was the order of the day as a prelude to the evening barbecue. The resort has a swimming pool, pool table, strategically located gazebos and plenty of communal areas as well as extremely clean and comfortable rooms. Bukit Pinus also has the luxury of a fire pit around which everyone sat eating the barbecue until late into the evening. Even this had a competitive edge as points were available for which team could tell the creepiest fireside story. Well, it was Halloween!

Sunday morning arrived and with it was a solid breakfast to fortify everyone for the games ahead. These included the energetic "British Bulldog", the hillarious-to-watch  "Snake" game in which blind-folded participants have to be led around a course collecting objects, team volleyball competiton and the concluding basketball shooting.

Lunch was served prior to our departure and for the first time in the weekend it rained. Not that this mattered as we were well undercover but then again it was the beginning of the rainy season and we were in the wettest area of Indonesia. To conclude the weekend, points were tallied, prizes were handed out, congratulations and commiserations were shared and multiple, multiple photos were taken. It was an exceptional weekend highlighting the camararderie that exists amongst such an assorted group of people. We're going to have to get thinking now to stand any chance of 2016 beating this.

2015 Is Over, What Does 2016 Have In Store?

Well 2015 was a mixed bag of a year, wasn't it? It actually started off alright with the discovery that we could make pretty good shortcrust pastry here in Indonesia but then it all seemed to go downhill from there. We started paying the mortgage on a new house that we wouldn't be moving into for over a year and that seemed to go ok, no huge changes to lifestyle just stopped thinking about holidays and knowing that it would be the last year paying rent.Then, in April, we lost my Dad which kind of put the kibosh on things for a while. This was followed a few months later by the passing of one of Dad's best friends and Dermot will be hugely missed by all of his family and friends.

But, as with all things in life, everything gradually returns to normal. Work continued in 2015 with new teachers coming and old ones going, things with the house progressed faster than expected meaning we were looking at being in by December. Mum came over for a holiday and got to see Singapore and Bali for the first time and then, seemingly out of nowhere, Christmas and New Year were upon us. Phew!

So as the New Year starts, with thoughts of resolutions and hope for what's to come, I thought I'd look forward to the year ahead....

House

Well we're still not in it. There's currently no electricity or running water hooked up and we've been told that the cable tv and internet service we currently use won't be available. On the up-side we're pretty close to finalising the fitted kitchen we want and think we can actually include a built-in hob and oven too. We've boxed up everything in our current house and have a man (actually 3 men) and a van organised for once we have the greenlight. We also have a contingency of paying an extra months rent on the current place if we need it. Hopefully one more month from now. fingers crossed.

Bike

I believe that I should get my repaired CBR 250 back this month (January 2016) which means that the Honda Beat will be available to rent out or sell. The CBR will certainly make driving the increased distance to work better than the scooter.

Gym

We've extended the membership at The Springs so this means that badminton practice can continue and allow me to stay fitter and healthier. Uchiel reckons that she'll be attending regularly too but I have my doubts....








Work

My contract finishes at the end of June with a new one due to start immediately. The big thing this year is to get something called a KITAP which will mean that I'm sponsored to stay here by my wife and not by my employer. I have been waiting for the paperwork to arrive but, as with all things, it's taking its time. Employment regualtions have changed again so we'll have to wait and see what recruitment of new native-speaking teachers is going to look like too.

Holidays

While the house continues to take up all available funds, we have some great stuff to look forward to. Mum is planning on returning for a few weeks in Spring and, just as my contract ends in June, we'll be heading to Bali for a weekend to celebrate Colm and Nova's wedding. Then in early July, Myles, Karan and Megan arrive for a couple of weeks and we've plans to visit Yogyakarta by train and then on to a beach holiday. That will probably be it for this year although it would be nice to think we might be able to do Korea for a few days skiing in December.

Movies

I've been enjoying writing #StokerScore (stokerscore.blogspot.co.id) as much as I've enjoyed the movies in 2015. There have been some surprises and some shockers too and from the look of the slate for 2016 it's going to be another cracker!!







So as ever a fun packed year ahead and I hope that yours is equally filled with awesomeness and that it produces many memorable moments. I plan to take 2016 by the scruff of the neck and wring out every last bit of enjoyment.

Love you and miss you very much, Dad, hope you're enjoying yourself.

Loyalty

I saw a farmer the other day who was carefully cleaning some tilling equipment and it made me stop and wonder for a moment. He was obviously cleaning the machinery so that it continued to operate to the best of its ability and I know I'm guessing here, but I think I'm on the money when I say that he initially chose this equipment for a number of reasons. Firstly, its ability to do the job he was going to use it for. Secondly, its cost when compared to alternative equipment on the market, and in line with his personal budget. Thirdly, its projected longevity, how long it could last if he treated it well.

Comparatively, I considered the way in which some companies use their workforce. Certainly they consider the ability of their personnel to do the job that they're going to be used for, but some companies are comfortable in using underqualified and inexperienced people to fill the roles. Usually in this case they offer comprehensive training to ensure that the employee has a thourough understanding of their responsibilities and then, through monitoring and ongoing training, they are able to build a successful worker. Other companies don't even do this, instead they employ people who are patently incapable of performing their duties, even with extensive training and hope against hope that they can do a facsimilie of the job.

So do companies consider the cost of their employees? Well they do in my experience where I was often told to make sure my wages were in line with budget as it was the biggest flexible cost to a business. Companies often have bandings to separate the salaries paid and these may be based on qualifications, suitability or skills etc. This ability to pull from a certain pool of resources can, with the addition of development strategies, lead to an enviable group of staff. But what happens when the intial salary is too low, or incremental increases are not in line with what the employee might expect? Well in the first case you're not going to have a lot of interest from the precise people you're hoping to attract. instead you'll have to interview large numbers of people who are exactly not what you're looking for. As for people feeling they are not able to see their salary increase in line with experience or qualifications, or even to keep up with the local inflation levels, they will just leave or they will stay and procrastinate over whether to leave or not.

And what of longevity? Do companies want to keep their employees? These people who have had time, effort and money ploughed into their development? Well many companies say that they do but their actions often contradict the words that they use. My experience has led me to believe that clear and uncontradictory communication of expectations, remuneration, and the person's part in the company's future are all significant factors in establishing loyalty.

The tilling machinery that the farmer was using is hardly sentient. It won't understand the principles of Carrot and Stick, or the taste of A Praise Sandwich, nor will it need to concern itself with the vagaries of Situational Leadership. But if you mistreat that equipment, if you fail to do what you need to do to keep it running at its optimum, then sure as eggs are eggs you're going to have a problem on your hands....