1 step forwards 2 steps back

So... I was thinking today that it has been over a week since I went into uni and left all the forms with my lecturer and the travel forms with the head of the school, so I was going to send an email and find out whats going on..

I open my uni email, and there is one there waiting for me, from my school!! "GREAT" I thought... that is until I read the first sentence!

"I spoke to John with regards to your ACICIS application, we unfortunately need to hold it off for a little while because of the recent DFAT 'imminent attack'/travel warning."

I just wanna point out that Australia is the ONLY western country which has upgraded its travel warning to "do not travel". This warning only applies to Maluku and the Central Sulawesi Province, neither of which are anywhere near Yogyakarta, which is where the ACICIS program is run.

From Jogja (Central Java).. Sulawesi is over 1300kms away... and its over 2200kms to Maluku ... so if Jogja is considered to be under threat, and being situated so far away, should there be a travel warning in place for Darwin, which is within 1500kms from both places...

Anyway.. enough dribbling for now.. I thought I'd finished jumping through hoops to get this thing organised... but I guess not.

Organised Chaos

I always planned on making a blog for my trip to Indonesia, but after reading Louise's blog (a past ACICIS student... bet you cant tell where i got the layout :P) I thought I'd make a Blogger account rather than just using my myspace account.

I'm probably getting a little a head of myself, because I haven't even been accepted yet, in fact, I'm still in the application process, but I'm pretty determined to go! So, most of you are probable thinking "What the hell is he going on about?? Trip to Indonesia?? And what the hell is ACICIS??!!" ... Well, early last semester we had someone come into uni and talk about this unknown "ACICIS", it stands for the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies... Basically, it allows me to go and study at an Indonesian university for either 6months or a full year. If you don't already know, I'm studying Teaching/Arts at Uni and I'm majoring in Indonesian and Japanese. The ACICIS program is a great opportunity for me to study in Indonesia, I think the best way for me to learn about all aspects of Indonesia is to go there, not just as a tourist in a hotel, but rather live like a local. Anyway, I'll talk about the program when I am accepted (not IF :P)

So far the application process is a little muddled, for the last two or so weeks I've been running around trying to find out as much as I can, but ACICIS is run through Murdoch University in Perth, so naturally, no one at my uni knows anything about it (even though several students went last year). Half the ACICIS forms cant be used, so I've had some trouble finding out what needs to be done and I've finally managed to get them edited by the school. The current travel warnings prevent my uni from granting me permission to go, so I had to sign away all of my rights witnessed by a JP... but it finally all seems to be underway... Now I'm just waiting on an email from the head of my school and my Indo lecturer. Once I get those, I can finally start to put my application together!!