Days 18 and 19 (Friday and Saturday)

Everyone had the last two days off for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Co-workers kindly invited me to their holiday celebrations on both days, so I had plenty to keep me occupied.

Day 17 (Thursday)

This morning before work I went to a budgeting workshop for NGOs at Atma Jaya Catholic University next to the Jakarta Globe building. There I interviewed two men about foreign funding for Indonesian NGOs. NGOs in Indonesia rely almost entirely on other countries and international organizations to fund their programs and services, but the flow of money is slowing as the Indonesian economy grows.

I spent the rest of the day on the Web desk. Pinta, the Web editor, showed me how to pull stories from the wire and publish them online, followed by the now obligatory Tweet announcing a story’s publication.

Days 15-16 (Tuesday and Wednesday)

I didn’t have much to do on Tuesday — I tried to do some reporting from the office and then left early.

On Wednesday I was back on the Web desk.

Days 13-14 (Sunday and Monday)

Sunday I was on the copy desk.

On Monday I came in early to spend a few hours on the Web desk, which basically means editing short articles for publication online. Then I was back on the copy desk until 11:30 or so.

Day 12 (Saturday)

Today I went with Shari to a pet market for a story she’s reporting. A man who worked there took us all over the market to show us the animals legally and illegally on sale, including birds, owls, mice, snakes, bats, couscous and a very forlorn-looking monkey, and let us take pictures (for a fee).

Later we did some souvenir shopping on Jalan Surabaya.

Day 11 (Friday)

I returned the textile book to the Indonesian Heritage Society in the morning and did some reporting in the afternoon.

One of the copy editors had suggested a story on the 14th Pencak Silat World Championship being held this week in Jakarta. Pencak silat is an Indonesian traditional martial art. I got approval from the features editor and got into a taxi for the long trip to the stadium in South Jakarta. Neither of us realized, however, that the Globe already had a photographer and sports reporter there to cover it. So I gathered some quotes for the reporter and interviewed the sole athlete representing the United States for a feature called “My Jakarta.” I was pretty pleased with myself for identifying the only American in a crowd of hundreds of people from 30 different countries.

UPDATE: Read the story here.

Day 10 (Thursday)

I only worked a few hours today since I was up late writing the textile story. I went into the office in the morning to drop off some photos, spent some time researching other stories I was planning to write, and then went home for the day.