Pisang

Please do not read this word with English pronunciation! It is pronounced pee-song, and it means banana. Yesterday, was a pisang day. While singing "I Have Confidence" by Julie Andrews in my head, I walked confidently home from my language tutor's house for the first time by myself. I was told to walk confidently and less people will make comments about me being buleh. It worked! On the way home, I stopped on what we fondly refer to as Banana Street at the large banana stand. By myself, I told the man, "Saya mau pisang hijau dan kecil" (I would like small, green bananas.) However small this victory seems on paper, it was an awesome victory for me! I did something all on my own for the first time in almost 2 weeks! Definitely something to be celebrated for this independent spirit learning to be dependent :)

Then, yesterday afternoon, I attempted baking for the first time. I decided on my banana bread, because as most of you know, I'm VERY comfortable with that recipe :) What I didn't think about was the fact that I didn't know how to turn the oven on or what temperature to put it at (our dial has the numbers 1-6, not 200, 250, 300, and so on.) So, I called my roommate at work and while on the phone with her, I turned the gas on for the second time (mistake #1 was turning it on the first time without knowing what I was doing), sticking a blue lighter/springy thing down a hole in the oven and clicking it repeatedly until BAM! I almost caught myself on fire!! Now, I've lit a barbecue before after putting way too much lighter fluid on it and had a rather large fire poof out, but that was nothing compared to the fire exploding from our oven! Mind you, I'm still on the phone with my roommate at this point, and I definitely screamed into her ear. Don't worry, I apologized as she was laughing at me. Anyway, the rest of the banana bread making went fairly smoothly, with little breaks to keep killing tiny ants that threatened to go swimming in the batter. After learning that 3 or 4 on the oven is about 350, I set the temperature there and kept checking the bread. Here is the yummy result: