damn i lost it!!!

i've written like 5 paragraphs when i decided to save it as a draft.. now i lost it! damn!!!!! hope i didn't lose my mojo hahahaha...

okay here goes....

i was just reading my whole blog today and i realized that i haven't been writing for waaaay too long... and what i mean by writing is actually come up with witty, altho maybe not meaningful, phrases... i guess life's routine has taken its toll on me.... oh well, hopefully i can still muster up few pebbles of braincells to create some sort of piece for you guys to hold your dear life onto... it's not like i'm stephen fry or anything, but give me some credit, will ya?! you know i'm quite a decent writer.... oh you don't know who stephen fry is? well, somebody need to take up on their reading, don't you think?

anyhoo, just to warm things up, let's start with life updates, shall we?

as you all know [and if you don't, you call yourself a friend????] i've been working at this consulting group called Octovate... it's been almost 9 months now that i've been working here... hey, give it another ten days and i could be in labor hahahaha.... in those 8 months, i think i've had, hhmm lemme count it first, i think 4 work-related breakdowns... it's not that i don't enjoy it... i looooove my job!!!! it's just that it's stressful, time-consuming, frustating and waaaay too multi-tasking.... however, my dad just asked me a couple of days ago how was i holding up with the job? to which i replied, i still get up in the morning and feel excited going to work... don't get me wrong, i still hold the occasional "i wish i don't have to go to work" and "i wish there's no meeting today" grudges... but still, the job is very exciting and challenging, and most importantly, i got my own private balcony to smoke hahaha... it's not really that private but considering that nobody else in my room smokes, the balcony is all mine!!!!

[intermezzo] heeeeeey, i just realized why i've been such a chatterbox lately... i think it's due to my lack of writing.... my dear friends [that doesn't include you my virtual friends ahahahaha], am so sorry that you have to put up with my yakkity gibberish lately.... let's just wish i'll write more often so you don't have to hear me talking all the time hahahahaha...

okay. where were we? oh yeah, octovate.... speaking of which, happy 3rd anniversary!!!! yaaay octo!!! hope you'll keep going on strong and taking me along with you hehehehe.... yeah, it's been loads of fun working here and i love it so far!!! let's hope 'so far' would go for years and years from now..... we just moved to this fancy office up on the 26th floor… some people hate it, some people love it… as for me, I loooooove my desk… see, at the old office, my desk was smack bang right there in the middle of the room where I would be right in the middle of every little conversation that took place every minute in my office… it’s not that I don’t love chatting away with my work mates, and you know how much I love to talk, but I hardly can get any work done… as for here in the new office, in front of me is half wall and half window… so when I choose I wanna be part of a conversation, I just turn my seat and if autism strikes, I just stare into the wall and pretend to work hahahaha…

right, as for the other part of my life, life’s been okay… well, people told me that I have this new maturity aura surrounds me these days…. Who wouldn’t???? tell me, if you’re to plunge into being the head of a family in a matter of days, wouldn’t you go all maturey all of a sudden?? Oh I forgot, right, the background story…. See, I’ve lived with my sister ever since I got back and a couple of months ago, she married a German guy and hence, she’s moved to Germany for good… she used to be our head of the family ever since my parents moved back to their hometown…. And now it’s my turn to take care that big family house of ours with of course the 5 people that comes with it… yes I do mean 5, 5 as in my two cousins, my maid and her two kids… oh not to mention another teenage male cousin that’s about to move in in a couple of days…. and that house was built in 1990 and was built for accommodating a troop!!! Imagine all the hassle if you will… Here I go again with the complaining… before the day of handing over came, I used to whine a lot about this… but now, I kinda enjoy it… I get to take care of that place alone, and what I say goes… whoooeeeyyy a lil bit of a power trip there, don’t you think? But I get to call the place my own… although when my parents come visit, I’d end up in the guest room still :( see, now you get why I suddenly add 5 more years on my aura….

As for love life, don’t get your hopes high, my friend… still no guys, sorry lemme rephrase that, no prospective guys came along my way since Dan… there were few who I thought could make the cut, but you don’t see them standing around me these days, do you? So there you go, still single and fabulous!! And don’t give me that “you’re not trying hard enough” or “you’re too picky” look… trust me, I’ve been selling myself around the block one time too many [oooops, that didn’t come out right hehehe, but you catch my drift…]

Hhmm what else there is to update? My social life? It’s been a blast!!! I had a wonderful birthday… it’s time like these that made me realized that I do belong here back in Jakarta… I do miss London, a lot! But I don’t regret coming back home, it’s truly my home… some of my friends gave me a surprise by showing up in the middle of the night and I know how big their effort was, considering few of them live miles away and another one just finished slaving away at the office for days… got another surprise from my favorite couple the night of my birthday, something I don’t expect at all from them, thank you guys!!!… and another one from my work mates… not to mention the endless well-wisher on my facebook [yes yes, I’ve joined the cult… got a problem with that???] oh get this, my mother cried when she called me that day… I still don’t get what’s upsetting her at all, but don’t you dare tell her that!! Oh well, the Amrans are a bunch of sentimental emotional freaks hehehehe…..

So there you go… in a nutshell, my days now are filled with work work work and party party party… I don’t even know where I got the energy to keep up with myself… somedays I do wanna get away from this hectic life of mine, but when I do, I miss it… oh humans, we don’t get satisfy easily, do we?

segitunyakah?

beberapa hari yang lalu gue berangkat kantor seperti biasa, jamnya gak telat2 amat dan gak kepagian juga.... nah biasanya sih kalo jam 8 dari rumah, nyampe kantor tuh jam 9 kurang, itung2 parkir n nunggu lift etc, gue duduk manis di meja jam 9 pas lah....

nah pas hari itu, kok traffic menuju PI lumayan lengang, wah lumayan nih gue bisa nyampe kantor rada pagian.... eh ternyata di underpass depan PIM dah mulai ngerangkak gitu... hhmm ada apa nih, tumben2an kok disini rame.... gue pikir perempatan kostrad lagi unusually rame, so i thought ya gpp lah, deket ini... ternyata lewatin kostrad juga sama, masih merangkak juga... hhmmm ada apa inih???? secara cuaca di jakarta akhir2 ini agak aneh (baca: ujan panas ujan panas ujan panas) gue pikir mungkin kemaren malem ujan deres jadi dimana2 macet.... jadi gue gak usaha cari jalur alternatif karena takutnya makin macet.....

yaudah deh tuh, gue luruuuuuuuus aja ikutin arteri pondok indah dengan kecepatan 2,5 kmh!!!!!! haduuu ga nyampe nyampe niiiiiiih... sedangkan jam di tape mobil dah mulai ticking away melewati jam 9 sedangkan gue masih di perempatan gandaria... damn!!!! sedangkan kerjaan banyak banget...

akhirnya perempatan pakubuwono lewat.... underpass gandaria city lewat..... udah 9.30.... ternyata biang keladinya ada di pertamina simprug... and guess why???? ADA AUDISI IDOLA CILIK RCTI!!!!!!!!!

selidik punya selidik, para anak cilik itu dan ibu2nya yang asumsi gue berambisi gila, udah ngantri dari subuh!!!

SEGITUNYAKAH PENGEN PUNYA ANAK SELEBRITIS?????

10 fakta tentang gue...

1. pernah patah telapak kaki tapi baru sadar kalo patah 3 tahun kemudian. gue pikir injury biasa, gak bisa jalan sih 1 minggu...

2. pernah pindah all the way across the world bermodalkan koper 2 biji dan surat keterangan asrama, dan gak kenal siapa2...

3. tahun 2005, setelah 25 tahun sama sekali gak pernah nyetir motor, berpikiran enak kali ya jalan2 di bali naik motor daripada mobil... akhirnya nyewa motor matic, nyoba gasnya beberapa kali, trus langsung nekat ke jalanan...

4. pernah ciuman ama cewek pas lagi baok... whatever got into me that night???!!!!

5. berpikir "hah? apa bagusnya???" waktu liat lukisan lukisan Van Gogh "Sunflowers" tapi tersenyum kagum waktu liat graffiti "Never Mind The Bollocks" Sex Pistol....

6. waktu umur 15, gw bawa mobil nyokap ke sekolah selama 2 bulan gak ketahuan, padahal orang tua gue gak tau kalo gue bisa nyetir...

7. ngiri ngeliat temen2 gue yang udah settle, apalagi kalo helda lagi ngajak nadjani...

8. waktu kecil pernah jatuh dari lantai 2, jatohnya nimpa beberapa guci nyokap, tapi selamat dengan luka kecil di kaki...

9. waktu smp pernah dress up as a boy ke pesta ultah temen gue dan beneran ditaksir ama cewek...

10. 5 tahun pernah agnostik, sekarang sih udah kembali ke jalan yang baik dan benar, insya allah...

Is hospitality dead?

I attended a workshop two days ago at Intercontinental Hotel, Sudirman. For lunch, the hotel split their coffee shop in two and the non smoking section was for the workshop attendees and the smoking section was designated for hotel guests.

At around 2 PM I had to receive a call and decided to sit at the coffee shop while smoking, so I sat at the "hotel guests area". A waitress came up to me and ask would i like to order, to which I replied "No thanks, I'm about to head back to the workshop anyway"...

You would think that a waitress from that kind of hotel would reply politely indicating that it's ok for me to sit there for a bit, but NOOOO... instead, she gave me a foul look while walking away mumbling something....

I might be expecting too much here, but is hospitality really dead in hotels? Isn't hospitality the most basic thing a hotel can offer to its guest? Moreover, isn't Indonesia famous for its hospitality? So why did I feel disgusted by the way she treated me?

currency tilang

ternyata nebus tilang itu gak mesti pake duit doang...
kemaren gue n temen2 kantor ngebahas pengalaman2 ditilang polisi, nih beberapa contohnya, siapa tau bisa lo pake juga jurusnya ;p

btw, kayaknya kalo cowok yg pake jurus ini gak mempan deh, yg ada polisinya tambah sebel.... hidup cewek!!!!

tangisan buaya
duluuuuu banget waktu masih sma, gue n temen2 gue lagi cruising, hehehe... bistu yg nyetir dengan santainya nerobos lampu merah... walhasil diberentiin lah ama polisi.....
polisi: "siang dek, adek2 tau salahnya apa?"
kita: "duh maaf ya pak... abisan tadi bingung mau gimana....."
polisi: "mesti ditilang kalo gitu" (sambil tersenyum sok manis)
kita: "yaaaaah :( kok ditilang pak.... hiks hiks... maaf deh pak.... hiks hiks... damai aja ya pak"
polisi: "ya udah kali ini gpp deh... bisa om lupain.. tapi lain kali gak boleh ya, kalau ketangkep sama om lagi, mesti om tilang ya...."
wakakakakakak... oooooomm?!? sejak kapan tante gue nikahin die???!!!!!

cubit
temen gue lagi pulang pesta malem2 nyetir sendirian... taunya deket rumahnya ada razia gede banget.... nah secara cewek ke pesta, tas biasanya bentuknya clutch doooong, gak muat deh tuh ktp, sim, stnk (hahahah kali deh...) walhasil dia disuruh minggir dan turun dari mobil...
polisi: "boleh liat sim dan stnknya mbak?"
temen gue: "yah gak bawa pak.... " (sambil cengengesan)
polisi: "hah? gimana sih kamu?"
temen gue: " yah maaf pak, tasnya kecil sih, damai aja deh pak" (cengengesan makin lebar...)
polisi: "damai sih gampang damai... endebre endebre endebre...... "(panjang lebar deh dia nyerocos soal pentingnya id card...)
temen gue: "iya pak, ngerti pak, gak akan diulang deh, nih ya pak damai aja" (sambil buka tas, ternyata isinya cuman 20rb)
polisi: "tuh, kamu gimana sih, sim gak punya, stnk gak bawa, ktp ketinggalan, duit juga gak ada lagi...."
temen gue: "jadi gimana dong nih pak?" (mengeluarkan senyum termanisnya...)
polisi: "ya udah deh, kamu saya biarin pergi, tapi cubit dulu yaaaa biar gak diulang"

huaaaaaaaa? cubiiiiiitt???!!!!
akhirnya temen gue sambil mesem2 menahan geli menyodorkan pipinya buat dicubit.... wakakakakakak....

blingsatan

gak ada kerjaan ceritanya hari ini... langsung deh yg gak sempet dipikirin kemaren2 jd berasa sekarang... jadinya blingsatan deh.... damn!

MAGENTA MOVIECHESTRA 14 May 2008

MAGENTA MOVIECHESTRA
A Musical Tribute to Indonesia Movies

14 May 2008
Plenary Hall, JCC
Concert Starts at 19.30

Sebuah konser persembahan Andi Rianto dan Magenta Orchestra untuk industri film Indonesia menampilkan soundtrack film Indonesia yang terbaik sepanjang masa

Line-up:
• Magenta Orchestra
• DI3VA
• Mike Mohede & Jaclyn Victor
• Ari Lasso
• Iwa K & Selvi KDI
• RAN
• Slamet Rahardjo
• Lucky Octavian
• Anissa
• Farman Purnama
• D’Cinnamons

Ticket Hotline: 021 724 6225


Ticket Price:
• VVIP Rp. 950.000,-
• VIP Rp. 700.000,-
• Tribun I Rp. 400.000,-
• Tribun II Rp. 200.000,-



Ticket box:
- Digital Beat @ Blitz Megaplex Grand Indonesia Jakarta (021 520 2687)
- Aquarius Mahakam Jakarta (021 720 8413)
- Duta Suara Sabang (021 3192 5471 – 021 310 1008)
- Duta Suara Mal Taman Anggrek 3rd Fl. (021 563 9472 – 27)
- Ibu Dibyo Cikini (021 310 0386)
- Raja Karcis Manggarai (021 8282 137)
- Detik.com Warung Buncit (021 794 4473)
- Tiketnonton.com Mayestik (021 725 7241)
- Etcetera Entertainment Senopati (021 724 6225)
- Aquarius Dago Bandung (022 424 1433)

Kajun di kantor...

Udah malem di kantor nih, jam 9an, satu kantor dah sepi semua, gue juga cuman lagi nunggu dijemput... ada sih kerjaan, banyak to be precise malah, tapi gak malem ini deh, dah mau meledak otak gue rasanya...

anyhoo, sekalian ngapdet kali ya, dah lama bener kayaknya gak ada isinya multiply gue... padahal kemaren2 kan itungannya masih pengangguran, tetep aja gak sempet nulis2... apalagi sekarang kerjaan seabrek2 gini dan gue juga masih dalam proses belajar...

gue udah sebulan ini kerja di Octovate, di permata hijau... ini perusahaan brand consultant dan gue di bagian creative consulting... proyeknya seru-seru, edan-edan malah kadang2... trus gue skrg megang 2 proyek yang dua2nya dah jelas banget proyek impossible... jadi dua2nya ini lama banget disetujuinya akhirnya sekarang dah mepet bener... mepet as in so bloody tight lo ngeden kayak apa juga udah susah keluarnya, hehehehe.. tapi yah dewa2 diatas bilangnya proyek mesti jalan, yowes dijalanin... tapi sambil nangis darah ngejalaninnya :( but hey, bukannya disemua kantor emang gitu ya?

kalo personal life sih, wah roller coaster gilaaaaaa!!!! ya jelas gue kaget lah, secara sebelom gue balik hidup gue tenang banget, terlalu tenang malah sampe2 on the verge kebosenan sendiri... eh sekarang di jkt, naik turun mulu... gue itung2 ya, gue di jkt udah breakdown (not the real breakdown sih, gue aja suka dramatis) ada kali lebih dari 4 kali... padahal kalo diitung kan gue baru 3 bulanan balik, harusnya PMSnya gak lebih dari 3 dong yaaa.. gak jelas deh nih kenapa.... mungkin juga kebelet nikah hehehe secara kayaknya semua orang lagi rame2 nikah, bahkan gue bentar lagi disalip adek sepupu gue yang jaraknya lumayan jauh dan laki pula!!!! but then again, cari pacar aja duluuuuuu :P

udah seminggu ini perut gue juga bermasalah banget, bener2 bikin ribet deh... mungkinkan karena stress?

kesannya gue gak seneng ya di jakarta? pernah sekali sih gue tiba2 kangen banget ama london dan kepikiran sekilas gue nyesel balik... tapi gak kok, i've never felt this good to be home and jakarta truly is my home...

This shit's for real!!

Shipped all my stuffs, all 8 big boxes of them, home last week...

Done my first leaving do, among many others to follow, 2 days ago...

Got my reference and a nice card from work peeps yesterday...

Going out for drinks later today with Juno...

A gig tomorrow, Roast on sunday, fish n chips on monday, packing on tuesday....

And Wednesday, I'm OFF!!!!

But today, and maybe for the rest of my time here, the butterflies are having a bloody rave in my stomach....

Jakarta = reality check

Kata temen gue sih begitu, ternyata bener juga loh, nyampe jakarta hidup gue jadi berubah total...

well, hidup sih belom berubah, skrg juga masih jadi jongos di juno, masih di london dan betenya lagi, masih kedinginan, winter keparat!!! cuman sejak gue nyampe jakarta, udah muncul gitu di otak gue, mungkin mendingan di jakarta kali ya? gue tanya sana sini, karir ternyata bisa jauh lebih oke, gue bisa belajar lebih banyak di jkt... dan ternyata emak gue knows me too well, dia bilang "yakin kamu bisa hidup di london tanpa teman dan keluarga?"... nah omongan dia itu nempel terus di otak gue selama 3 minggu gue di jkt.. tapi yg seal the deal itu adalah waktu gue bilang ke nyokap gue lagi mikirin gue mau balik for good, mukanya dia senang tak terkira akhirnya gue pikir kapan lagi gue bisa nyenengin orang tua gue... gue pikir gue akan lebih nyesel kalo gue gak sempet ngebahagiain bonyok dibandingin ama nyesel gue kenapa gue gak nerusin di london aja...

trus salahnya gue lagi, gue pergi ke bali ama sahabat2 gue... lo taulah betapa gue cinta ama bali... dan disana tuh gue jadi kepikir kalo gue di london gue gak kan bisa sering2 ke bali... hehehe cetek sih, cuman bali buat gue tuh my haven banget... trus ada juga momennya pas kawinan sepupu gue, gue sat back looking at them making all the wedding commotion and i thought "wah di london gak ada nih yg begini"....

ya gitu deh... walhasil gue skrg mantep mau pulang aja for good... waktu berangkat dari jakarta ke london sih sempet ada ragu, am i doing the right thing? tapi pas nyampe london, ternyata hati gue juga dah gak di london nampaknya, it just doesnt feel like home anymore...

gue dah bilang sih ama Dan, ya nangis2an lah ujung2nya... cuman ya mau diapain lagi, sedih sih sedih cuman kita berdua sama2 gak percaya ama long distance relationship, especially in our case, it's very unlikely to have any future... jadi ya sekarang kita make the most out of the remaining time aja lah...

Roma in a day.. almost... 22 Feb 2007

7th day of our trip

The night before we talked to our room mate and she told us that we need to get to Museo Vaticani very early to beat the queue... so by 7 am we were up and ready... got buffet breakfast at Trattoria Mama Angela across the road with a big group of old ladies... apparently the young ones couldn't face the early hours ;p

took the bus to Vatican City and 8.30 am we arrived at Museo Vaticani and the queue was already going around the block and i tell ya, it was one big block!! one old couple pretended to be so stupid and managed to jump the queue, leaving 2 other couples screaming mad... at least we got a bit of entertaining for the 1,5 hours from the family behind us with the dad keep annoying his daughter and managed to make her cry...

it was already 10 am when we finally stepped inside the museum along with 1 million other people... since both of us were really short on history stuffs and with the jam-packed condition, we didn't find the museum amusing... however though, it's the total opposite for the museum guards... now they are one hell of an amusing sight!!! so instead of looking up to the amazing frescoes on the ceiling and hurting our necks, we decided just to look sideways and giving smiles to those equally amazing well-groomed guards :) altho, i really have to say, the frescoes in the Capella Sistina is breathtaking! Michaelangelo painted the whole walls in the chapel, that includes the ceiling, the altar, basically any surface he could get his hands on... not only the Capella Sistina, the intricate hallways of the Vatican's Papal Palace is also adorned with millions of beautiful biblical paintings and for a non-christian like me, i'm guessing it would take a life time to admire and understand each one of it...

After we finish flirting with the guards ;p we headed to the Piazza San Pietro... again, i must say it doesn't look as romantic as the pictures... but if you recall the history of the place, now that is when you start to appreciate the whole big courtyard and the beautiful facade of the Basilica di San Pietro ... however, the courtyard does make an amazing background for pictures so there we were again taking millions of pictures of ourselves...

with just enough memory space for other sightseeing attractions, we left Piazza San Pietro... on our way to the bus stop, we saw the entrance to Vatican City and caught a glimpse of the pontifical swiss guards wearing funny colourful uniform... too bad we can't come in and take pictures... or rather were just too afraid to ask the solem looking guards for pictures... and i still don't get how they can look so solemn in those funny clothing... but hey, what do i know, i'm just an ignorant kid...

anyhoo, we made our way to the tomb of unknown soldier or officially known as Altare della Patria (Altar of the Fatherland)... it's this one colossal gargantuan massive (yep, that's how big it is) tribute to soldiers who died in the WW1... i've just never seen anything as big as that... and to think that it was built in 1920s with limited technology, altho i have a good guess that in that sense, the pyramids of Egypt and Borobudur temple might be a wee bit more impressive...

the Altare della Patria is located on top of the Monte Capitolino (Capitoline Hill) which rises just on the edge of the Forum Magnum, the ancient Roma central area... although we didn't know it then... so we just walked leasurely to the back of the gargantuan building and we found this big area of ruins literally everywhere!! after consulting the map, we found out that there's a shortcut through the ruins to the colloseo, our next sightseeing destination... little did we know that the Forum is part of the colloseo attraction... we just walked past in awe and wondering when can we go back again to that place with our jam-packed schedule and what not...

we finally stumbled upon Domus Flavia on Monte Palatium, the centremost hill of the seven hills of Roma... from the outside i must say it looked very enticing... turned out we have to pay to get in and that the entrance ticket would cover both the colosseo, which is literally a stone-throw away from where we were and for the monte palatium itself... since it was quite late and the whole ruins is just too big of an area, not to mention we have a train to catch to Venezia, we decided to leave this attraction for when we get back...

so we just saw the colosseo from afar, which wasn't hard for all its grandeur and went back from where we came from toward the Campus Martius, an area outside the ancient Servian Wall... Apparently this area is the most populated area of Roma in the middle ages due to the publicly-owned nature of the land, which i think were quite scarce in those days and therefore ancient Roman built plenty of villas and insuale in this area... probably that's why there were loads of temples around there and this is where the Pantheon is still standing up to this day...

So we made our way through the narrow roads of Campus Martius toward the Pantheon and when we got there, all we saw was this one circular building with a massive dome... we were quite dissapointed coz we've heard from people that it's one of the must-see building in Roma but we just couldn't figure out why... turned out that the Pantheon is the most preserved building of its age in the world... now, i gotta hand it to the Roman, they do know how to build a long-lasting structure, amidst all the battles and fire that happened to the city... now get this, the Pantheon was first built in 31 AD and up to this day, it is still used as a church and houses churchly activities regularly... i swear, the Pantheon looks like as if it was built yesterday!

Getting hungry, we dined in a little restaurant opposite the Pantheon across the piazza... while we were dining, the piazza was getting even more crowded.. apparently it's the time of the year for school trips and believe you me, there were more teenagers there than in a hundred high school proms put together...

so yeah, the excited shrieks of teenage girls drove us away from the Pantheon and forced us to find our way to the Fontana di Trevi... again, a majestic structure but this one is just a tribute to water... well, not really, i'm just exagarating about the tribute thingy... nevertheless, it is the biggest and most elaborate fountain in Roma and i tell ya, Roma got loads of fountains... i guess they just love the water that much! after a long day, nothing is more relaxing than just sitting there by the fountain listening to the water pouring down and yes, we did throw coins so we would come back there again one day...

feeling a bit refreshed, we headed back to the hostel to catch a kip before boarding the train for Venezia at midnight...

so there you go, almost all of Roman and Vatican attraction except the colloseo and palatinium all packed in one day of a long long sightseeing trip...

21 Feb 2007

After months and months, Rara reminded me of the unfinished journal i promised myself and her to write... so although it was a wee bit out of date, here goes...

Today we're leaving Firenze in the afternoon for Rome and since we've finished sightseeing the day before we decided just to relax and sit around and do a bit of shopping maybe, which is something we haven't done since we started this whole journey...

we got to a late start this morning, it must be around brunch time when we stepped out of the hostel after packing our stuffs and checking out... for a bit of breakfast, we headed to Ponte Vecchio again... it was quite a cold morning compared to the day before... so there we were, sipping our coffee and munching our ciabattas away in a street cafe on a busy junction while watching Fiorentinis (apparently that's how you call the people of Firenze in english...) walking about doing their daily business... in front of us was this newspaper stand and we're guessing that it's been there for ages coz all the old Fiorentinis would stop by and have a bit of chat with the owner... the whole atmosphere was kinda rural which is a really nice change since both of us grew up and live in massive cities... there were also many Fiorentinis dressed in sharp suit walking around (and by sharp i mean it's so sharp it cuts) but the whole provincial feeling to it was nevertheless prominent...

after an hour or two and since our nice little cafe was being invaded by a bunch of city teenage chavs, we decided to start hunting for tante mira's handbag... lo and behold, we went back with more than a handbag... girls will always be girls...

so we got back to the hostel to pick our stuffs up, said goodbye to the lovely Guiseppe and head straight to Firenze Campo di Marte for our train to Roma...

Around 8 pm we arrived at Roma Termini and walked to the Yellow, our hostel... turned out that it's this massive hostel with probably half of the world's bakcpackers staying there... checked in and given a room of 6 beds within a room of 10 beds and it was only one small room within two buildings of 30 rooms each, so you do the math how many people were there... we chose our bunk and unpack, and as soon as we finished unpack, two dodgy looking guys came along and reclaimed our bunks... after that nice homey little hostel in Firenze, the yellow definitely felt a bit too much for us... don't get me wrong, the yellow is nice and safe and we were bound to make a lot of friends in that place... i guess we were just quite tired and dodgy looking room mates were the last thing we need that night... thank god those 2 guys left the day after but hey, that's for us to know and you to find out in my next entry ;p

we were quite low in spirit so instead of exploring the city at night, we opted on going back to the termini and grab mcdonalds there... by sheer coincidence, we sat facing the termini with the schedule board blaring at us... after half an hour of silence and looking at the train schedule intently, rara bet that we could actually go to venice on a day's trip... so we reschedule our plans, make a couple of phone calls to om kidi, went to a bookshop for a bit of research, checked out the ticket fares and schedule, and voila! we could actually make it to Venezia afterall!! a bit daft really, geographically Venezia is nearer to Firenze than to Roma, but hey, spontaneity rules!!

after everything for Venezia settled and with our sprits rekindled, we decided to call it a night...

quarter or half a face?

couple of months ago, my boss approached me to ask if i can model for the company's ad since i was the only one around.. and by model i mean to show a quarter of my face while using headphones, hmm a little background, i work in an online music store so now you know why headphones... the thing is, it had to be done right there and then, so no preparation from my side, altho come to think of it, there were no preps from their side either... they just asked me to sit, pretend i was using the headphones and a girl took out her DSLR and snapped away... the slightest resemblance of modelling were about my hands as my boss told me to try holding the headphones in various ways but that's about it really... the girl showed me the pictures and i detest every one of them.. but she assured me that they were to used only a quarter of my face...

so the next week, the ad came out and to my relief, it was really just a quarter of my face, not many people can even tell that it's me...

months gone by and i forgot all about it...

last week, there was a music conference in town and my company participated... months ago when i found out about it, i asked my boss if they can get me pass since the ticket was sooo bloody expensive.. to cut the story short, i got the pass... as far as i knew, they wanted me to help them around in the conference, but when i got there, they said to do as i please, coolio!! however, i found out that actually they couldn't get me a pass and so they paid for my ticket, altho at reduced price... i was eternally grateful!!! so i thanked my boss and he said it was his pleasure and jokingly, he said that is my payment for the pictures.. no problem at all from my part :p

last tuesday, i was talking to one of the seniors and she said my face is on the company website... whaaaaaat?.. recollecting my memory, i do remember that they asked to use the picture on the website and i don't really mind, to be honest... however, this picture on the website shows half of my face, with the puffy eyes and all... and through out the week many people at work recognised that it was me and asked me about it... my closest mate at work said i should ask them for money... but my plan is to put the company in my debt so i can ask for more freebies like the conference, clever, huh? hahahahaha... (anybody from juno reading this, you do know that i'm joking, right? :p)

anyway, here are the pics, you decide whether i look good in those...

btw, looking at the headphone pic again, i can't help but think that i look like in pain, don't you think so?

million thanks

somebody just posted a comment for me saying i'm a good writer... too bad he/she didn't leave any name.. anyhoo, thank you so much whoever you are, that meant a lot to me and stay tuned for more untimely posts from me..

Help! I'm drowning!

At exactly 1 pm GMT, 29th November 2006, a heavy weight was lifted off of my shoulders accompanied by the student service staff good luck remark. The funny thing is that, at exactly 24 hours later, another heavy weight was put at exactly the right place. Yup my friend, it's crunch time! It's time to show the world what I am made of and prove that I can be what I have always aimed to be all my life. Imagine that, only 24 hours of breathing space before I realised that I got a mission going on here, a mission that was to set my course in life.

That's what you get for living in the world's 2nd most expensive city, I tell ya! Loose an hour of your life and you can hardly make the month without debts, well at least for me that's how it seems to work. I did swallow my pride a bit and phone home for a bit of the safety net I've been indulging myself in ever... hhmm ever since I was born to be exact.

However, the last couple of weeks, life seemed to be anti-climatic or could it be possible that now is the calm period before I unleash my storm? Well, it didn't feel so calm for me... Uncertainty about life has kept me practically wide-awake every nite. Is it just that I'm so hyper-active abstinence of any activity during the day has left me with abundant energy for the night? If that so, then why my head kept spinning each night trying to shell out ounces left of my braincells to come up with a fast-track of desirable employment?

Now I'm begging every bludger in the world, especially bludgers by choice, can you please pass on the trick of the trade for I'm in dire need for a little room to breathe and a handful of braincells to keep for rainy days.

Bday Pics

Me and Dan

Me and Indri

Dearest ones in London

It's all about me!

happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthdaaaaay!!

rite, 26 now and freaking out level going on strong! never actually had this feeling before, usually i embrace my age gracefully, if you can say that i'm maturing gracefully (you can't really say turning 26 is ageing, can't you?)

Mita the other day told me, after seeing my bday pictures, that i've gone to the mature side, i got calmness now in my eyes... hhhmmm... never thought such thing can ever happen to me at all... but yeah, that could be true, i think i've passed the last days of my 25th year in this world by thinking and contemplating too much that it actually shows in my eyes...

however, it was a wicked birthday i got... since the clock turned midnight on my bday, the text messages kept pouring in and also got couple of phone calls from loved ones.. went to sleep only to be awaken by more flooding text messages and phone calls from the family, oh i miss them so much... aaaahhhh it's time like this that you realise you've done good in the world, you've actually made a mark of yourself in people's heart...

and Dan was really loving that day, even though he was sick he managed to fetch me breakfast and all... and all the gifts he gave me!! 2 weeks before the day he already given me a set of mood beams, oh they're so cute you just want to squeeze 'em all day!! and the puzzle, the chocolates and of course, the birthday cake... but seriously, the greatest he gave was just by being his wonderful self...

later in the night, i've arranged some gathering with my friends.. well, actually indri organised it, i just sent out the invitations... it was really wonderful of indri and anthony to do that, i was reaaallllyyy touched... and on top of that, they still got me a present, as if the party wasn't good enough a gift!

anyhoo, everybody i invited showed up, oh it was amazing!! i haven't done this kinda of things in ages i forgot how it feels to have all your loved ones in one room... if only my family and my friends in jakarta could be there! more and more gifts poured in, i felt so blessed!!

bottom line is, i felt so contend that day, maybe a bit freaking out but if i really think hard, i think i'm pretty much where i wanna be by the time i turn 26... so wish me all the luck for the next year and hopefully more great things come my way...

If 25 wasn't so bad..

so why the hell am i freaking out when i turned 26?
actually i do know the answer...

career?
love life?
family?
yup, all of the above!

don't know where i'm heading
don't know where i'll stay
don't know what the future looks like,
don't even know where i'll be in the next month!!

frightened? don't even bother to ask..
happy? uumm.. think so..
intrigued? of course..
challenged? you bet i am!!

see me again in the next year and tell me
have i gone too fast or too slow for your liking

Idul Fitri

My second Eid in London just passed by today, it is a bit merrier than last year.. oh wait, well, yeah just a bit.. last year i spent it with my mates from the student halls, isn't it nice of them to be celebrating Eid only for me and menaz's sake? and today, i spent it with all the indonesians at the ambassador's house and i enjoyed every minute of it...

anyway, i dunno why but i did plenty of thinking this last month, especially bout my future and what i'm gonna choose to be my path... and yes, i do believe that everyone of us does have the right to choose your future, it's not just something that fall on your lap, you are what you choose and you will be what you will choose to be... hhhmm that's one of the smartest thing i've said in a long time...

the last year since i've been here, i've kept hearing stories about my friends making a life back home in jakarta and most of them are almost settled now in their career, they've truly made something out of themselves and i'm really proud of them...

but, apparently, my life has taken a different route, well, i chose a different route for myself and that route so far has only led me to be at my parents' mercy... imagine that, almost 26 year old now and i'm still a dependent... this kinda thing can really smash up your confidence, you see...

another thing is that my mom really wants me to go back home, to start my life there... see, my biggest ambition since i'm in college is that i wanted to be a global citizen and moreover, i wanted to be this woman whose name kids will be reading out of their business textbook... and ever since i got to london, i truly believe that to achieve that, i have to make a path here in the UK or anywhere else in the world, but definitely not in Indonesia... it's not that i have something against Indonesia, heck i truly believe that Asia will be the world economic centre in 20 years time, but it's just that Indonesia is where my comfort zone is and i believe that in order to push myself forward, i cant be in my comfort zone...

see, in indonesia, i dont have to prove myself anymore to my peers, i think i can get any recommendations i want back home, i got a really good track record and believe you me, i got several people waiting for me to go home to be their business partner, thus: comfort zone... but here, no one have heard of dilla amran, nobody knows what i can and cant do, and nobody knows how reliable i am... this whole thing just mean that it's a very very dark area for me to go in, i definitely have to struggle twice as hard or maybe even more than if i choose jakarta...

anyhoo, my belief and what my mom wants for me is thus collided, right? and i get to thinking that i'm somehow estranged from my family... see, i grew up in a democratic family, democratic in its truest sense, and apparently seeing this fact, my mom doesnt know who i am then... and if my mom doesnt support me, i feel like i won't be able to achieve it... unbelievable how your support system works, eh?

also, here in london i got to meet all this brilliant people, and i read their pieces, i exchanged thoughts with them, and it only made me realise that i've got a long way to go... i compared myself with my peers and i realised that i'm behind... another hit in the confidence area, eh?

however, these last month, i've had loads of heart-to-heart talk with my sister, and just this morning she said that my dad actually bought this magazine for me about Fortune top 50 most powerful women in the world... apparently he knows what i want, he knows what i aim to be and he supports me all the way... and i'm truly thankful for the never ending support from sister, she's the one who always has faith in me... as for my mom, i soon realised that it's her defence mechanism for the dissapointment of not living in the same country with her daughter and it's one of the things i have to fix when i go visit her...

i bet all this blabbering doesnt make sense for all of you... bottom line is, i am determined to make a name out of myself in this world, and it's not just any name, it's a name that people echoes, a name that makes my father cry in tears of pride and a name that allows me to say in my death bed "i've achieved what i wanted and now it's time for me to go"...

it is gonna be a long journey and it definitely wont be easy, wish me luck you guys, give me support to keep fighting when i'm down and to keep humble when i'm up...

Blurps!

Have you ever been so happy you think it's sinful? I mean, so happy you think that you should be banned from the crowd?? Seriously, I think is that my happiness reaaallly shows that people can just get blinded by it...

hold your horses people... Yeah yeah probably that's what love do to you... But it's not just that.. I dunno, i'm just feeling this enormous contentment in my heart how my life is, especially today... I ain't saying that everything's all good... I do admit that there are things in my life need to be sorted out but heck, everything else are just too good right now...

It started since my supervisor gave me his feedback on my dissertation, he said it's really good and he liked it so far, plus it only needs a lil bit of tweaking here and there, so mere it doesn't worth to mention about... Right, happiness meter gone up a notch, kerchiiing!!!

Then last weekend, I went to see the blue man group with Dan. It was adorable.. hhmm adorable maybe a very weak adjective to describe it.. it was hilarious and genius!

[yeah yeah probably you think that it's just a show, what's the big deal?]

it's not just about the show, it's the fact that Dan took me out to city that nit after a very tiring weekend for him...

[yeah yeah stop your judgmental yakity yak now, it is a big deal for me, aight?]

It's just so touching to see him making efforts for me and yeah, the butterflies danced in my belly that nite... But lo and behold, things kept on getting better... Actually, it's just simple things come to think of it, he just calls me more to talk about his day and I can feel he really appreciates what I think about the subject... But the point is, i'm just very flattered that he confides in me...

[Not again guys! No more "so? What's the big deal about that??" please]

haha no.. no.. I don't need to explain myself to you... he is making me happy, that's all you need to comprehend... And then yesterday, he mentioned a thing or two about what we're gonna do on my b'day which is closely followed by asking me to go to his friend's performance tomorrow... whoaaa!! This is big!!!

[Getting sick of this guys... Just lower those brows and try to be happy for me, kay? U think u can manage that? Rite! Moving on....]

Let's just get on to the fact here... I dunno why all these small things he's doing boosts me to cloud number nine, but heck, i'm loving every minute of this and all I can do is indulge in it, just float with it and keep radiating those happy beams to the public... It might do them good to be sparked or spushed as Jack McFarland define it..

[and if you don't know who Jack McFarland is, get down with the program baby! Watch more of that box, will ya?]

and today, after too long of a time of detachment from my close friends I acquired back in hendon, we actually met to really talk, you know, not just doing something together... maan, it's so good to reconnect with them, I almost forgot how it feels to go crazy with our wise-ass cracks thrown to each other... And we made a pact to do this every week...

again, lo and behold, more good things are coming...

yesterday, a really nice friend of my friend texted me to hang out together next week... See, she's living practically next door to me but considering that i'm not that close to her, I never thought it's a good idea to just contact her, silly me, right? Bless her for the initiative.. And then another friend of my friend back home just got here a month ago and we just chatted today... Again, we made plans for next week... maaaan!! Never thought spreading one's wings can feel this good.. I've been too cocooned in my comfy social circle I never thought I need to branch out... Turns out i'm dead wrong!!!

So there.. the blurps of an easily pleased girl...

Feedback Please

Right, there goes my very first review published.. so, what do you think guys? should i keep on writing like i used to, you know, with plenty of wise-ass comments or should i start writing as what i call it "with professional style"? which one do you like best?

and should i keep on writing about my daily stuffs? or should i write every little things comes to my mind, you know, without any focus on a particular subject? or should i just specialise from now on? or maybe.. uuumm.. maybeee.. i should start a different blog for something focused? uumm.. interesting...

so, feedbacks are anxiously expected, people... anyhoo, thanks for keep on reading so far...

[look at me, writing as if i got loads of people reading my blog, well, thanks anyway, my heart goes to all of you who's been reading it]

48 and kept on going...

Right, so she's 48 years old... anybody out there is as shocked as I am? I even searched articles about her and confirmed her age over and over again... Madonna, people, Madonna... that's who I’m talking about! Get with the program, will ya?

See, I went to see her concert last month, exactly on the date of her birthday and I’m telling ya, I've never seen a concert like that. It was by far the greatest concert I’ve ever been to... Well, let's start the concert's review like those professionals do it out there, shall we? I'm thinking of spicing up this blog like a professional review thingy (hehe poor choice of words, professional and thingy should never be put in one sentence) and well, in the past I’ve been posting my daily life and things gonna change a bit, now it's gonna be about things I’m thinking about.. You know, put a highlight in this critical mind of mine hahahaha...

____________________________________
Madonna Confessions Concert, August 16th 2006, Wembley Arena, London, UK

A giant disco ball descending from the arena ceiling, a line up of dancers starting to trot like horses and the 4 digital screen backdrops are showing a video of horses restlessly prancing around. The ball opens, Madonna comes out and sing in an equestrian outfit while harnessing her dancers in an S&M manner. This segment of the concert definitely projects Madonna's consistent interest over the years to the primal instinct in human.

The performance rolls on with her most significant message throughout the performance, message of peace. Undeniably, being a musical queen allows her to speak out loud with millions of listener, and she sure exploits that right. The controversial crucifixion stage act, one that has been condemned by Rome religious leaders, ignited the audience applause for her boldness. However, she expresses her warmth and compassion to the world situation by performing a tribute for Africa and also her protest to the world leaders without discriminating by showing footage of pre-recorded stunt incorporating Bush, Blair, Rice and Bin Laden with a very strong message of "Shut-Up! Don't Talk!". Her reaction to the present crisis in Lebanon is portrayed by two dancers with a Star of David and Star and Crescent painted on each chest dancing together expressing a love and hate relationship, to be closed by Madonna uniting them and ended up in a loving embrace of the three.

The rest of the show lines up her reinstated love to the disco era. As one might contend that this love is just a marketing campaign, she proves that she is truly committed to the theme. Injected with Le Parkour and roller disco stunts, the performance shows Madonna's triumphant attempt to marry the 70's and the present day.

The 48 years old pop queen proves she can still rock her audience with a tight set, choreography and sound. The musical director, Stuart Price, or who is better known as Les Rythmes Digitales, definitely has made a successful effort in trying to revamp Madonna's music and helping her to regain some of the fan base she has lost after "American Life". Her previous hits, such as “Music”, “Erotica” and “La Isla Bonita” are remixed to suit the dance tune which heavily hordes the air in the arena that night. The set is as successful as the sound. The backdrops enhance Madonna’s message and digital manipulation of the video footages contribute to the artist’s positive imagery in the eye of her audience.

The tour, once again, confirms her position in the music world. Undisputedly, the queen has managed to set the trend over the years of her career and definitely the path she led has not been without a world-wide stir in the pop world. Is it that her marketing efforts are just a one big success story or is it pure talent? I’ll let you be the judge of that.

a penny for my thought...

if you have a penny for every thought i've had, i'm telling you, you wouldn't be rich, well, no money you will gain lately at least... i've been extremely lazy, i haven't have any worth while thoughts lately...

however, i saw one documentary about last week, it's about krakatoa (or should i say, krakatau like how it is in my native language) on bbc 4... maaaan!! i didn't thought that blast back in 1883 was massive.. well, i did know that people in russia also suffer from the ashes a bit, but fuckin hell, from what i saw in that documentary, the impact was three fold and that was only the short term impact, don't get me started on the long term ones.

see, the blast killed over 60,000 people... now, put in mind that this happened in 1883 when the earth's population was waaaaay less than now... does 60,000 sound like a big number now? and the ordeal happened no continuously... see, the peak of the ordeal happened when the volcano blasted so big and occured 5 times in a day... the blast was so big you can hear it from australia, it is even the loudest sound ever recorded in history, fuckin hell!!! several hours after the blast, tsunami started to hit, now you might think the boxing day tsunami was huge, well it ain't nothing compared to this one... the 1883 tsunamis were 40 metres high!! imagine that!! now, if that ain't enough, the heat erupted from the volcano touched the sea and created a blast of gas that sweep through sumatra and java... the gas was so hot you instantly die if exposed directly... god, imagine the ordeal that went on that time...

long term ones, it's the effect of months of ashes pouring in the area, some areas didn't even get to see sunlights in months no end... as i recall, the eruption messed up the world's climate so bad, it took years for the weather to turn back normal... and the whole volcano vanished in 48 hours... now that's what i call a job well done!

now, if you think this is scary, get this, almost a decade ago, the earth cracked again in krakatoa's spot and resulted in "Son of Krakatoa" or "Anak Krakatoa". This volcano baby is growing by 5 metres each year and i do sincerely hope it won't erupt in my or my kids' life time...

don't you think it's funny that i get to know all these stuff, and actually be interested on it, just now, while i'm in UK? i actually need the help of other nation to come to realise my own nation's history... i don't know where it's wrong, is it me? or is it my country's fault?

Movies of the week

I've been watching reruns of That 70's Show over again this week.. seem can't get enough of that.. i dunno how any girl can get enough of the show, eric forman is unbelievably cute hehehehe... he got this smart ass wise crack comments that... ah never mind, as i remember, i already posted something about the show, heck i even posted some of his pictures, sooo unlike me!!

anyway, this afternoon i went to see Superman Returns with Indri.. all i can say is he can return to kryptonite for all i care after seeing the movie... to be fair, the hype about the movie isn't that big anyway, but let's face it, kevin spacey is nowhere near lex luthor at all!! oh come on, spacey with that chubby cheeks cannot and will not ever resemble the villain, no matter how much make up they put on his face nor how hard he tries to pull that scary villain eyes... now, don't get me started on kate bonsworth as lois lane... no lois lane, i repeat, there is no such thing as lois lane with soft curls and dreamy eyes... lois lane should always always be fiery and stern, enough said! wait, one more thing, all the scenes and angles, it's just too... too... too comicky, if you know what i mean... yeah yeah, don't give me that shit, i know it's from a comic book, but puh-lease.... the film is just borderline comicky and borderline real life... now, i think the producers and director should just made up their mind to where they wanna go.. pick one side of the two extremes, i guess it's not hard to do, isn't it? see, sky one featured spiderman the movie tonight, well, i guess it doesn't help me being softer on superman returns by comparing the two, but see, spiderman is just sooo comicky, especially with the opening title.. and also, as i remember, batman is also sooo similar to the comic with gotham city and all... but superman returns? it's just like a real day somewhere in the US, but wait, something is different, oh yeah, superman is here... it just doesn't register... besides, the story is just too lame, there's nothing bite in it... but mind you, they've been making too many superman movies and all, i guess the producers just have to settle with a weak plot, to be fair...

now, the highlight of the day was an indonesian movie i just finished watching... mind you, i don't even like indonesian movies, although you can say it's due too my too high expectation from them... heey but this one... i can easily put this one side by side with 'Arisan', the only indonesian movie i like, before seeing this one... the movie is 'Catatan Akhir Sekolah', that is 'The School's Final Note' for all of you non-bahasa speaker... actually, if you didn't go to high school in Indonesia, maybe you won't find this movie to be excellent... heck, i don't even care about the angles, the plot or the cast... i love it coz it soooooo resembles my high school times... with all the cheating, love drama episodes, the fooling around and what not that happened in my high school time... but the way they make it, it's just soo natural.. i actually felt like i was back in high school again... see, the thing about indonesian movies, they just tried too hard to make it an interesting movie by somewhat copying hollywood, they forgot the values that relate to us... yeah, maybe we did the stuffs they do in the movie, but let's be honest now, do you indonesians, like me, find indonesian movies are just too superficial or artificial that it hardly relates to you? from contemplating about the recent movie, i think it might be because of the extras.. the extras in this movie is just so natural, not all of them are pretty, some aren't pretty at all to be honest... but they picture the variety of people you'll find in your daily life... i think most of indonesian movies, all the extras are either too pretty or just downright ugly so they can be mocked at... now where do they put us, the mediocre clan, so mediocre you hardly see us? now, that's what i call real life...

Updates!

Moved house, in love with a guy, weather's been great... that's my update, enough said!! hahahaha just messing guys...

first thing first, i've moved to camden, it's like the central for whatever is happening in London, well maybe there are more places like that in London but heck, i love my new neighbourhood... hahaha it's my fave vocab of the week, it is my new neighbourhood, a really cool one... my neighbourhood is a 'punkish' area.. especially with the summer is here, everybody in my 'new neighbourhood' are busy trotting along the streets looking fab, individualistic and declaring bold statements through their fashion sense.. now for all of you who know me, you'd know that people watching is one of the stuffs i do on my sparetime, now isn't this new fab neighbourhood just the right place to condone this particular hobby of mine? And another convenient feature of my 'new neighbourhood' is that MTV is just down the block.. well, it's not important for me actually, not just yet... but just imagine, what if??? what if i can nail a job down there... wouldn't it be wicked if my hip and cool new office will be just 5 mins walking distance from my hip and cool home.... so, wish me luck guys, who knows that my dream office just might have an opening for me to fill in... another thing is, my new place is soooo fuckin bloody strategically located, it's 10 mins by bus to Indri's place, 10 mins walk to Dan's office and 10 mins drive to his place..

now, about this new guy... well, he's not new really... if you've been solemnly reading my blog, you'll notice several posts ago i've told you about him... but things have been really good for us... we've been having whola lotta fun, combined that with a bit of a fall out, things couldn't be more spiced up... and the good thing is, i'm sooo bloody rational with him.. fyi, i have a bit of compulsive disorder when it comes to relationship, personal space is an alien notion in my relationship dictionary, against my better judgement... i guess all of you would agree with me that it's bad.. come on now, say it with me, it's baaaad!!! now, with Dan, we had a fall out about this alien notion of mine and he got his way, the weird thing it got me thinking instead of cursing him and trying to call him every fuckin minute, i just stayed there at home keeping myself busy while he was out having fun with his friends... now wasn't i rational or what? don't get me wrong, i also put my heart into this, not just my brain.. it's just that back then my heart would do all the talking while my brain shut down, and with Dan, both of those two important feature of my body (besides the figure, ofcourse hahaha) actually have equal say... so far, i feel i'm blessed to have met him and sometimes it felt like it's a sin to have that much fun... ah fuck it, as long as we're having fun, not gonna analyse this...

that's it guys... catch up with you next time... cheers!

Lazy Ass

I've just read my friend's blog and it seems to me that she's been spicing up her writing style. I really like the way she writes altho it's a bit formal for my taste, but i think it can make its way to glossy magazines at some point. This brings me to my own personal writing ambition which i've forgotten all of the months i've been here. Well, not really. The first months i got to London i wrote solemnly. But i bet you've noticed how dry i've been with creativity and will power to write lately. Well, thanks to my friend for the reminder, so i'm making a promise to myself to write regularly and you guys are my witnesses!!

frustrated but motivated, somehow intrigued and definitely happy

that is how i'd explain me right now...

frustrated??
well, i'm frustrated with myself.. it's actually the disertation thing, frustrated cause it seems that i don't have enough will power to actually make myself think and make enough words to actually produce something that is comprehensible and academic (and you all know, i'm more like a practitioner than an academic... see, frustrating, rite?)
although i keep remembering my dad's advice, well i can't really call in an advice tho, it's a statement of fact... it goes like this "you know you're smart, that's why you're lazy"... buuuuut, ever since i got here, especially the last couple of months, i got plenty of people saying, even emphasising, that i'm really smart... i guess it got into my mind a bit and now here i am, being lazy again... i hope putting this in here will bring me down a bit from the heaven of praise, coz believe you me, called smart is the highest (!!) ultimate (!!) praise i ever wanted, so (spotlight please!) i would like to thank my dad, my mom, my sis and all my fans out there..... hehehe...

motivated??
i met my hard-to-make-an-appointment-with supervisor last week and he's really excited with my dissertation topic and he said he sees plenty of potential in it (hahaha yeah rite, he's not the one who has to do all the hard work, but then again, he's not the one that gets the credit, fair play...) i get me a bit motivated tho, but the feeling usually only lasts for, hm i dunno, 2 hours, if not less... hehehehe.... nah, i actually still feel a bit motivated, but surely you know how it is when you have all in your head, you wanted to say it but you can't actually put it into words.. another thing, they say that us, academicians, cannot just say things, where's the evidence?? where's the supporting statement?? aaaarrrgghh, even the smallest things matter, such as if i say big, they's asked "how big? why big? who says it's big??"... frustrating, right? ooppsss sorry, this suppose to go up there, this is surely an unacceptable structure in the academic world... ha! fuck it! it's my blog....

intrigued??
hhmmm product placement in music industry.... hhmmm.... how does it work anyway?? hhhmmm.. who make the desicions anyway?? hhhhmmm... is it any good for sales?? hhhmmm... intriguing... interesting... hahaa yeah rite??!!! well, it is, who am i kidding??? i am interested to the matter.. come on, it's like music and marketing theory match made in heaven, well for me it is, if you contend otherwise, i don't care, it's my blog, it's my dissertation and it's my life huahuahuahua!!! (with a roaring laughter)

happy??
most enjoying part of my life... happy for the fun i've been having with the guy i've been seeing, happy that it turns out i'm a bit ahead than my peers in my dissertation progress, happy that i think i'm gonna be working soon... don't get me wrong, being a student is great!!! but i've got no class no more, and i miss the feeling of knowing my plans for today when i get up, well usually i know and usually the answer is nothing... and the happiest thing is i might be seeing my family again in october!!! we're gonna do pilgrimage together in mecca, can't waiit!!!

the end? the beginning? the beginning of the end?

As you guys probably have read, my classes are all over, so unofficially, no more uni life... just a couple of weeks ago, my life was confined to hendon area, altho some of you probably notice, i did manage to do a little bit of action here and there along the way...

a couple of weeks ago, all i think when i get up are my assignments and exams.. it wasn't necessarily meant that i did my assignments nor i did some revisions, though... it meant that it was always on my mind, nagging, especially if i did something else than my work, there was this constant voice in the back of my mind saying "you need to do your work, you need to do your work...!!" kinda nagging but it kept me going.. however, i think i'll take a break from it and probably be hearing it again in 5 years time, that is if i still have the energy to go back to school...

anyway, with that voice missing, somehow i felt confused... not exactly confused but felt like i'm losing grip... what the hell should i do with my life now? i knooow.... there's still one voice left behind, it's my dissertation conciousness... i know, i know, i should be doing it, at least outlining what it is that i'm supposed to do...

but, i guess, for now i'm gonna start trying to find a job... as you all have read in my blog, doing nothing is not exactly waht you can call a walk in a park... it's frustrating, it's money wasting and of course it's definitely lung-shattering for my case... see, if i got nothing to do, i smoke and i puff and i huff... it's sooo bad... so yeah, that might be the biggest reason why i need to find a job, well quite shallow for a reason, but the end justifies the mean, don't you think? besides, i need the money to support this disgusting habit of mine...

approximately 3 weeks?

yeah, i guess that's right, that was the last time i put something up in this blog, right? uumm, to tell you the truth, there's been something i've been hiding... well, you can't actually call it hiding, i was just not ready to broadcast this to the world, just wanted to keep this to myself for a while and enjoying it in silent contentment.. although, this one, i wouldn't really call it silent though, because all of my friends here in london practically know exactly what i've been up to...

anyway, moving on... well, how to say this.. you guys all know that i'm not really good when i have to talk about men in my life....

uumm, see, i met this guy and he's awesome.... we can actually talk, i mean, seriously talk.... our first date, lasts for ages and we spent it by talking.... and it went on and on and on up to this day... for real, we always have something to say to each other... the thing is, it's not like we're telling stories of our lives or anything, stories can actually ends sometimes... we just always can give opinions to whatever the other is talking about, hence it will go on and on and on....

[okay, up to this moment, i'm beginning to feel that my cheeks are red]

and the stuffs we do, well as you're reading it, you might think it's cheesy.... well, we went to parks, street markets and just hang out with each other, just talking... i once went mountain boarding with him and it was loads of fun.. see mum? you can actually talk to guys you like, right?

[hahaha i beginning to realise this post has a completely different tone to the one before, well, fuck me, it's my blog, it should shows how my feelings are, not yours...]

so in conclusion, life's been great... hahaha so much for detailed updating huh?

well, all of my classes are over!!! all i've got now is dissertation and i hope plenty of vacations and happy moments... (shit, i can't believe i'm actually typing that hahahaha)

anyhoo, wish me luck with him and with everything elso going on in my life...

ah yes, one more thing, i got a week job in the download festival... wait till you hear the line up: metallica, guns n roses, korn... hahahha isn't it just wicked???

yes.. yes.. i know..

i know, i know, been a long time, rite? now stop yapping and here... here's another posting from me... satisfied now? hehehe...

hhmm let's see.. let's explored the current state of dilla's life now...
my family? they're doing great!! everybody in my family seems to be happy doing what they're doing now, you wanna know how i know even though distance keeps us apart? well, for one, they haven't called, and i'm not being sarcastic here people, i'm just telling you how it is.. and i can tell that my sister hasn't visited my parents because they haven't called... see, whenever my sister went back home, the three of 'em would immediately call, just to make me jealous... so there you go, that's how i know... and i called my dad two days ago, he was shocked! see, i haven't really been the good daughter calling them up, i would always wait for them to call and then go berserk on them saying that they forgot having a daughter living in london.... but it's all good people, it's just how my family is, we cracked each other up... and my sister? well, she's been buuusssyyy.... her office moved and all.. and i do hope she's busy with her social life too... hey, isn't this blog is supposed to be about me, why do i keep yapping about my family?

how bout my friends? well, my friends in jakarta seem to be very busy, too... the email rate between us have cut down from 20 a day to 1 a day, that is if i'm lucky... and that just tells me that there hasn't been a big issue lately among my circle of friends... so let's just assume that everybody's alrite back home... well, for my friends here in london, wait till you see my academic life review and you'll understand... and no, i know where you're getting at, no! i don't have any friends outside of the uni... well, depends on what your concept of friend is, if i'm american, i can tell you that i don't know shit about my 'other' friends (it's the people that i talked to once in my life, if so happens you don't know the american concept of friends, and if that's the case, you should read more...), but if i'm british, yes, my friends here are my uni friends... so get off my case, will ya??

now here comes the worst part, i might go on and on and on and on about this part, so embrace yourself people!! it's my academic life.... aaaarrrggghhhh, i promise, and you are my witness, that i will never put myself in this situation.... and what's the situation? well, actually, i've finished all my classes, and i do hope, really hoping, that that would be my last class ever in my life!! funny how time flies by, huh? if you just scroll down a bit, you can read the part when i just got the news about my acceptance in the uni... but hey, life's short, my friend... so far so good, you say? ha ha! funny you should say that... see, the classes being over only leads us to another situation, this is where all the assigment are due and all the exam are taking place... if you've talked to me recently, you can tell right away that my life hasn't been what you can call exciting the last month... well, for some parts it is, but you'll get there, be patient!! but all aside, i've been staring at my computer the last month, hoping somehow without typing all the bits and pieces in my mind would transform magically into words, nicely typed and organised in a document... but hey, if life is just that easy, it won't be called life at the first place... and right now, i'm stealing moments from my assignments just to keep you updated, so be grateful!!

and how bout work life? ah yes, i forgot, i don't have a job!! hahahaha i keep forgetting that minor fact... again, i'm not being sarcastic here, i don't like not having a job, but with all these assignments, social life, and what not, i can't afford to get a job... i'm not insulting you guys who do have a job, get over yourself, will ya?? like i said, i don't like not having a job, get down with the program!! however, i came across this website about expats in czech and all the works... it seems to be a rather interesting idea... i don't know, i might pursue that one day...

aside all that... life is just peachy!! i did manage to get out of these four walls of my bedroom and spent it in other four walls of somebody else's bedroom... hahaha just joking.... you'd like that, don't you?? ha ha!! sorry, it's not your lucky day... i'm not the kind that kiss and tell, mind you... well, not to strangers for that matter... but yes, my life has been great, i can't really explain it to you, especially not after you read all the stuffs up there, but yes, i can safely say that it's great, so great i found myself smiling this morning...

anyhoo.. that's the update for now... wait for more episodes of my so-not-interesting life...

hey btw, did you notice how i change the way i write? damn that peter briddlecombe, i never thought he would influence me like this... (and if you don't know who peter briddlecombe is, you should read more.. - aaarrrgggghh i'm stealing tony wilson's line all the time, and yes, you should read more if you don't know who he is)

cheerio!!

thought of the day

For the people who do you wrong, to be happy is your revenge
And for the people who do you evil, to be alive and happy is revenge

1 week = 1 paper?

After a hard long laborous (really? i gotta be kidding!!) week, finally, one bloody paper is done!!! it's only 4 pages long, couldn't have been more than 1500 words, but it took me a week!! what the f$#k is wrong with me??!! [well, considering that i only wrote about 1 paragraph a day and spent most of my days in front of the telly, no wonder, rite?]

hey.. hey... at least i've finished it now... yaaaaay!!!! whoooa.... hold your horses, it's not the time for congratulation and celebration yet... still got 2 more of 1500, 1 of 3000 and another 3500 of group work... shite!!

Another weekend to recover from..

wooow... it's been a long long weekend... my weekend started the minute my class ended on wednesday evening, which is about the same time my friends from birmingham arrived.. and from then on, the biological clock in my body was turning in a reverse manner...

hhmm on wednesday, we didn't travel much, only paddington, oxford circus and ofcourse sakura restaurant... buuut.... we did sleep at 5 am, thanks to the booze and the spinning... thursday, well thursday is a whole different ball game... we started at 3 pm, that's as early as we can muster hehehe.... well, that day the label on my forehead is "tour guide" and we went to the usual places, i even got my map marked on those tourist sightseeing places... first, it's the millenium bridge and went to london eye, hey but the difference today is i did finally ride the london eye, and as i rode, i can't help to think that this is my home now as i stretched my sight to london's sky line... hhmm i dunno what does it tell about me, am i that adaptive or am i a true traveller with no root whatsoever? don't get me wrong, i looove jakarta, my family, my friends and ofcourse i do love bali a lot... but london is a different story and i don't mind at all calling it home...

and as usual, after the thames, it's the whole works, house of lords, big ben, westminster abbey and buckingham palace... but this time, it ended in leicester square.. grab a dinner there, can't believe how tired i was as i sit in this small japanese restaurant, hahaha japanese everyday man... god.... afterward we went to waxy o'connor, it's a pub in the heart of leicester square, nice interior i have to say, and the crowd is really good.. i might find myself walking in that direction again one day.... went back at around 11 pm and did manage to go to sleep at 5 am again, hahahaha....

[so far, i'm not proud of this posting, have thought of deleting it several times now, but i guess it's better to keep on going, i'll let you judge for yourself]

friday was another day like any other day we went clubbing... ah i forgot, this time i cooked dinner for all of us... and as usual, i got nervous when we started to eat... well they said that it's all good, but i guess that came out of politeness :)

we went to turnmill this time, it's all new to me, and this time, i couldn't get down on the floor.. it's not that the music or the stuff weren't good... it's the complete opposite... i can't let myself not to be seen by other people, i just HAD to dance on the stage hihihihi.... and that day, after a long long time, i did something stupid again... but i regret it less and less as time pass by...

see, it's not a good posting at all, i guess most of you won't understand what i've written this time... well, f#$k me, it's my blog....

boredom can strike anywhere in the world

argh, the boredom strikes again... i feel like nothing interesting is going on... except the interview i had two days ago, followed by a series of new shorts, tank-tops and sandals hehehe..

the interview was okay-ish.. i was a nervous wreck when i walked in to the building, it was this new modern silverish tiny building, situated in between two gothic-looking building... kinda bit surreal for my eyes, but it looks nice... the company itself is a really small company, comprising of 3 person and numerous contributor, it's an online publishing company covering car designs, something totally new to me.... i told them that i'm adventurous (am i, folks?) and i see myself in 5 years time as an marcomm officer in a stable company, a part-time lecturer and a columnist... whoaaa isn't it too much in my plate? but i guess you have to set your ambition as high as possible, right.. altho it is still reasonable... if i wanna go all the way, i'd tell them in 5 years i'll be owning my own PR agency, which is too much for the 30 year old me, rite?

after the interview, i figure i'd go get myself a bag since one of my bags was broken the other day.. but as you know me who always have summer in the heart, i ended up buying 2 shorts, 2 sandals and a number of tank-tops... can't wait until summer!!! and as i tried it all at home, i realised, i do look better in summer outfits... i see myself as a more casual person in it than in several layers of clothing... argh when will this cold ends... altho, yesterday as i went to the library, i managed to not wear my jacket, kinda nice and perked up my day, but still, i wanna wear shorts!!!

as for the present moment, i feel like i've been confined in my room for too long now, no lemme rephrase that, i've been confined in hendon area for too long, in the last couple of weeks, the only place i go is the uni, my friend's house and that one trip to central, that's it.... i need to go out today, but i dunno, the assignments, the articles and whole lotta things i got on my list kinda keep me in front of my pc all the time, so i guess we'll see what my heart tells me to do later today.. ciao!!

has it always been there?

Silly me, i've always thought that i can't upload an image directly to blogger, usually i use hello from picasa which takes a long time to upload and take space as big as one post... always wanted to do a layout like this one, tho....

so here it is... this one is from tagor's birthday last monday... didn't get wasted that night and didn't do anything stupid.. yay meee!!!! now who sez that i can't control myself, huh????

so... i'll be doing this a lot from now on, hopefully like this i find it more appealing to write more posts...

Bullshits to justify where i am now....

Everybody needs music.... who dares to say that they don't? come on, don't lie... even birds chirping away at some park is also music.. the unharmonious of car honking and motorcycle passing by and not to mention truck engines sounds, you can also call that music, altho it's not friendly to the ear... now, can you imagine a world where there's only silence? i know i can't....

well, i guess i have to thank tagor for this one, i guess i can say that he's the one that opened up my ear to notice all kinds of different sounds and to be able to identify it as music... and some geniuses can actually mix them up and produce something that can make your feet tap to the rhythm... the more i think about it, the more convinced i am that they are geniuses... come on, who would've think that the sound of buildings passing by while you're on a train can make up a rhythm or melody for that matter besides geniuses....

and for this reason, for my amusement on music and its artists and of course my aspiration to be in the music inner circle, i chose this topic for my disertation among other assignments... but apparently, the characteristic of the people in the industry is not somewhat academic (well, if you left out classical music, that is, which is not to my interest altho they're still geniuses...) and this leads me to another problem... disertation, even only by its name, signifies an academic way of writing an essay, identified with literature reviews which are scholarly reviewed... now, can somebody tell me where the hell can i find this literatures??? apparently, people in this industry bear the motto "no talk, action only", which means there are few documentation as for what the hell they are doing in their work...

i know, i'm not supposed to be frustrated yet by this fact.. come on, i only spent 2 weeks at the most trying to find the literatures... and i'm in no way willing to trade off for another subject that of course will lead to easeness of finding the literatures... i dunno if this applies to everyone but, myself, i do believe that if you have the passion for doing anything, well, that anything will come your way in time, just have to put more effort to it and it won't even feel like an effort if you have that passion in the beginning.... sounds like a vicious cycle, don't you think? well, this way of thinking has lead me to many mishaps and trouble but i'm telling you, when you reach your destination, that passion will make it all worth your while....

here we go again...

As usual, i'm waaaay too busy with daily stuffs to spend, oh i dunno, 30 minutes in front of my pc to write something for the blog... what do i mean by daily stuffs? nothing much, tweaking photos, tweaking song play lists, watching desperate housewives back to back to no end, swinging by tagor's place which is spent by watching the telly, pretending to do my godforsaken assignments which only led me to the same spot where i started... see, busy, rite?

but hey... i managed to secure a job interview among all those stuffs i do, it's for an online publishing company, same old same old, rite? i dunno, i have a good feeling about this one, hopefully i'll be able to find out how londoners actually work and live by working there...

and among those stuffs i do, i managed to go to birmingham with tagor, gift and mita... it was quite an experience, at least i get to know how indonesian students live in birmingham and i also found out that London is actually the place for me...

Mum called, sister called, daddy called and Aan called, woooow, haven't spoken to her ever since i got to London... talked quite a lot... and i guess she's a bit dissapointed when i told her i intend to stay here for good... i think she got me wrong, i do love indonesia but somehow i feel there are more i can do here than back home...

and there's this another thing, somehow everytime mum called, she always bring the subject of 'boyfriend' and emphasize that it's better to be with an indonesian than any other nationality... hhhmm i wonder where does that come from? i mean, she was always open-minded and reasonable... i wonder what's been going on back home to make her change her mind on this particular subject...

and talking about 'indonesian boyfriend'.... hahaha i just had a bad experience with an indonesian guy.. not that i'm saying that he's a prospective boyfriend-t0-be, hahaha far from that and it's actually not that bad.. but still, to think that hooking up with another girl who happens to be my friend and my guest wouldn't harm their reputation.. hahaha what a laugh...

One f@#kin elaborate statue at Lady Lever Art Gallery

Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight Village

Rows of red seats at Old Trafford

Rows of white bench in front of windsor castle

Cathedral in Roman Bath

Good ol' trafford

been a long long time

wow, it's been more than two months since my last post.. the last post is still dated 2005... and plenty plenty of things have happened since then. but i guess i don't have to go into detail, don't you think? it'll bore the hell outta you, i'm tellin ya!

i guess ever since my last post about my europe trip, the next important thing in my life since then would be my new flat in london... i'm sharing it with wanna, my friend who happens to be indonesian too... it's this 2 bed room flat, with a lounge, it's all furnished, and i might say furnished by ikea... i will say this again, pictures say more than words so i guess i rather post a picture of it here...

the next thing is, my exam... i passed all modules, yay me!!! and i can boldly say that i passed with quite flying grades... i'm so proud of myself and i guess my parents and sister also are...

apart from those two, life has been quite constant... i did manage to go out often, either with indri or with wanna, tagor and gift (my friends from the 'junction' hehehehe...) and for those who know me, if i say i've been bad in all those occasions, i guess you all know what i mean.. hehehe... sorry peeps, it's not something i would like to share to the outer circle...

buuuuttt... the most recent thing that happened is my uni trip to liverpool for a week... now, for that one, i have plenty of documentation... it was maaaad!!! there are 100 of us plus several lecturers.... the uni provided us with dinner every nite which involved bottles and bottles of wine... you all know the result of the 'uni students + free alcohol' equation is, rite? it's a standing joke in the group that the whole week was to prepare us to be alcoholics.. at one time, the uni even spent 2,000 GBP just to pay for our drinks, which didn't include food.. talking bout heavy drinkers, eh? the lecturers also joined the fun, especially this one lecturer who were there with us all the way and really did take care of us, especially alcohol- and nightlife-wise speaking hahahaha..... the craziest thing happened in the tour is that we shared the same hotel with the England football team!!! talk about being lucky... i did manage to get a picture with lampard and bridge, but i can only glance at the other team members...

the tour was a very tiring one... see, with the alcohol and all, we still have to act like a professional, get up at 7 am, have to be ready by 9 with tummy loaded and all... and the sessions lasted well until lunch hour with one time break, and after lunch, it all started again up until 5-ish, went back to the hotel and have to get ready for dinner around 7-ish and by 10, we all would be drunk and dancing away the night.. ain't it a hard life....

we all got to bond real well tho, eventho it didn't stop the gossips flying around, but then again it's inevitable if you put 100 people in one setting for the whole week....

got a little bit of crisis, too.... two as a matter of fact... but it only made us all closer... and it was good to have a crisis when you have all your friends around you...

so now, it's back to reality... all the assignments, all the lectures and all the fun in london... in fact, we arrived in london by saturday afternoon and went out in saturday nite well until sunday morning... energetic is the word, mi comprade... hahaha yeah rite, now i'm all complaining about my wasted body from the crazy crazy week..

oh yeah, one thing to be noted too... the food in the whole week was awful... only on rare occasions that the food was worth chewing... and now i have a profound appreciation to lido, jun, thai box and all....

photos first

I've been in frankfurt for a week now... seem not able to get out of this city, hehehe... but then, it's a fine city... see the pictures for yourself...

anyhoo...

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2006!!!!

geez, 2005 has brought a lot for me.... well, don't really have time to contemplate now, gotta get ready for the new year party :)

so, i owe you guys postings about germany and about the last year i've had.. please keep remind me about those, will ya? hehe thanks....

Frankfurt am Main.. 4

View from Main river bank

Frankfurt am Main city night life

Frankfurt am Main at sunset

Frankfurt am Main.. 3

Frankfurt am Main.. 1

Frankfurt am Main.. 2

My first frost

My first angel

My first snowball

My first winter

Typical Xmas Display

Big Christmas Tree in Romer

Me in Romer

Nazi?

History of Alte Oper - True Beautiful Good

Statt Cafe in Bockenheim

My hosts in Ruedesheim

Alte Oper Frankfurt am Main

Frankfurt from the top

Me from the top

Ruedeshiem from the top

Typical german alley

Rudesheim Town Hall

Ruedesheim

On my way to Rudesheim

Town Hall am Main

Me and my host in Romer

Sunlite in Frankfurt

Romer

Goethe Haus

A typical student's room

My two hosts

Common sight in parking areas

Netherland's Palace

to commemorate people who died or condemned due to their sexual preferences

Noord Church (I dunno the dutch for church...:P)

Will always have the sun with me

Getting the job done

Church in the middle of red lite district

Early morning in a coffee shop in Amsterdam

Refurbishing amsterdam centraal station

Selling christmas trees along the canal

Good ol' Breukelen

Train ride Amsterdam Centraal - Utrecht

Read it all the way through for indonesian... no wonder we have that saying, if u know what i mean? hehehehe...

Amsterdam Centraal Station

Ice skating rink and an exhibition on Indonesia

Damrak during christmas

Christmas Market selling all kinds of sweets

Postcardy?

Bus Stop

Universiteit Nyenrode lies in Provincie Utrecht

Pathway of Universiteit Nyenrode

One of many creeks surround Universiteit Nyenrode

Europe Xmas Trip day 4

Today we're going to Amsterdam.... couldn't wait to see how it is...

hhhmmm i've been lazying around for a couple of days now... so i guess it's still my lazying around time, so yeah, i'm too lazy to put up my journal now.... tell u what, i'll post all the pics i took the last couple of days, k...

oh no!! i forgot... yeah, i got a tattoo!!! hahahahahaha..... check out the pic and tell me what you think about it, k....

btw, i also went to red lite district but u can't take pic in that district, so.. sorry people, guess i can't share that memory with you.. i also tried amsterdam's hash.... also can't take pics in the joint....

ZOBA

Nyenrode Universiteit

champagnes

wine shop

fake plastic tree....

breukelen city center

Europe Xmas Trip - Day 3

tonite is student bar nite, zolder bar (ed: the upper bar)... see, universiteit nyenrode (btw, it's pronounced nayenrode) is very far from any form of civilisation whatsoever (as approved by my friends, rocky and reggie), they have to make their own form of entertainment.. well, it's fun though, altho the walk is still about 15 mins from dorm to the bar, but then it's easier rather than taking the night bus while u're drunk.. besides, you get to really really mingle with your peers, and i do mean mingle!! even the guys are gossiping about their peers....

the student bar was on top of a building and it got this attic atmosphere... really nice... altho when i was there, they got another party (it was MBA's graduation party) downstairs, hence the bar was quarter full.. hehehe... get to meet a couple of rocky and reggie's friends...

the funniest thing was when a couple of dutch guys mounted a log on a stool... i thought it was a cutting board, a huge one for that matter... i asked what was that about and my friend said it's a game they play about nails and hammers... come on!!! seriously? you call that a game?.... see, the guys put some nails in the board, hammer it a bit so it stands on the log.. aannndd u swing your arm from your hip and hammer it at one go... well, ofcourse the nail wont go entirely into the log, so you have to make several rounds.... i tried it, and whaddya know... it's actually fun!! and the morale of the story is: even the lousiest-looking game in the world can still be fun, especially when you're drunk...

hhmm didn't stay long in the student bar, go back home, downloaded gigas of music and movies.. hahaha i'm still amazed with the power of dc++!!! it's soooooo easy to get music or movies!!! in less than 24 hours, i've downloaded 40 GB of data!!! woooow!!!!

and as usual, after an hour or two in front of the computer, at 2 we were ready for bed... and my friend started talking!!!! it's just hard to go to sleep if u need to catch up!! so yeah, ended up going to sleep at 4ish....

so, as you can predict, got up reaaalll late... and today, IT WAS SNOWING!!!! just had to go out and taste the snow... it was my first touch with falling snow, and it made this weird sensation, really coooolll!!! sorry, no pics, coz it's hard to actually catch the snow falling down in a pic.... lazying around up until 4 and went to breukelen, the charming small town, to get a coffee... went inside a coffee shop and even though it was 4:30, this particular coffee shop, hhmm the only one in breukelen for that matter, is closed!!! tsk.... so, we decided to go to this small restaurant, a very charming christmasty restaurant... (notice the oftenly repeated word charming)... again, pictures work better, so definitely gonna post some....

well, basically did nothing much today... gonna go to the other student bar in nyenrode tonite... i'll keep you posted on that one, coz the word on the street (well, not street tho, the pathways all over nyenrode, hehehe) is that this bar got this power frenzy thing... they occasionally throw people out based on lame mere judgement.. so yeah, i'll let you guys know bout that one... but sorry guys, no pic about this one, they wont allow people bring their camera in, they'll destroy it if found out... power frenzy, remember?

rocky with his pet...

Kasteel Nyenrode.. with its hanging bridge just like our theme park in jakarta.. hehehe

uni or zoo? hehehehe

one of many pathways in Nyenrode Uni

Europe Xmas Trip - Day 2 - contd.

ah i forgot... new words i learned and new stuffs i tried...

dankjewel : thank you
astublieft : please or you're welcome

tried olibolen, this dumpling with raisins in it and sprinkled with fine sugar, very nice, especially when u're hungry....

rocky also bought me tampouche (read: tampush), altho i'm not sure that's how they spell it... it's this cake with lemon fillings, topped with biscuits and sugar glazing.... very niiice....

i also ate apelgebak, which means apple pie, they served it with whipped cream and i also got a cup of coffee... the coffee was nice, altho a little bit weak for my taste....

well, goin for the campus bar now, i'll report to you guys tomorrow, i guess.. heheheh

Europe Xmas Trip - Day 2

hhhmm day 2 starts at about 2 pm.. hehehe... we were so busy catching up with each other, didn't realised it was 5 am already!!!

today is another utrecht day... and of course, the tour of the campus....

seriously, the campus is charming.... i'm just so get used to the city campus, i forgot how a suburban campus looks like.. but get this, they actually have a stable with reindeers, ostrich and peacocks!!! how cool was that!!!

hhmm i think pictures work better rather than explanation... i'll post some...

then we went to utrecht again, did a bit of grocery shopping, got myself a bottle of sweet soy sauce and "biji delima"!!!! hahahaha i can never let the indonesian treats just go like that.....

today, i actually felt like going abroad.. i mean, in london, i can easily understand everything, but no here, no way sir!! i actually have to tell people.. "sorry, i dont speak dutch"... and all the signages on the street looks a lot different, altho they resemble many of indonesians signage, remember? we were colonialised by the dutch waaaay back, so yeah, ofcourse we adopted lots of the words...

and i bought... drum roll please.... a 160 GB external hard drive!!!!! i know, i know, u must think i'm a geek.... but lemme tell you this, a 160 GB allow me to keep all the music i want.... sooo coool!!!! and it's a lot cheaper here than in london, so yeah, just had to use the opportunity...

Europe Xmas Trip - Day 1

Was so nervous in the morning, heck i was nervous from days before D day... that morning, can't eat anything, i get like this every time something major going on, and this trip is definitely major!! thanks to my best friend that made me some lunch that day, i finally get a few bites to fill the tummy...

at exactly 1 pm, got my suitcases ready and started to walk to colindale station, gonna miss that station for the next 3 weeks.. not!! :) so, here i was, embarking on my first europe trip.. in liverpool street, got some guys making comments about my luggages, heck, i'm goin for 3 weeks and i'm a girl, ofc it's huge, man!! checked around the station, found the ticket booth for stansted express, exchanged some money and hence, 2nd form of transportation on the way... oopps, after half an hour on the train, it stopped... "very sorry for the delay, people, but it seems you have to embark in this station (which is in the middle of nowhere) and get the next train which will come shortly"... aaarrrggghh a typical announcement, especially for people who depends on the northern line of london... sooo, got the next train and with no hassle arrived in stansted... this supposedly 3rd airport in london actually looked a lot better than our int'l airport in jakarta... wtf.... checked in and all, and yeah, they have a very tight security procedure, like every airports in developed countries :( and soon, i was taking off from london toward netherlands...

after take-off, closed my eyes, when i opened it which only seemed like minutes, it was already landing procedure.. whaaaat? only 45 mins... sooo cool!! again, i'm telling you, choosing london for studying was a wise choice.... arrived in eindhoven, which is a very very very small airport but then again, looked better than CGK, and waited for my friend, rocky, to pick me up... 10 mins passed, 15 mins, half an hour... hhmmm did rocky got the wrong day again? started to worry but then, i was very excited by the fact that i've touched down in netherland, so no worries people... ah, there he was with his friend, gerard... omg, rocky looked so different... as messy as usual, tho.. hehehehe....

so, we decided (hhmm they actually, i dont know shit about netherlands) to grab a bite in utrecht, the capital of the province... it's a really nice place.. and yes, i get to see the first dutch pride, the canals.... they decorated the canals with christmas lights... we went to this area in the city center where no cars are allowed... and there you go, another dutch pride, the bicycles... you really have to mind your walking here in netherlands, otherwise you'll be swiped by the bicycles...

well, actually i did nothing much on the first day, rocky and gerard are tired so by nine we called it a day...

hhmm i forgot, they took me to breukelen's city square, 20 mins from utrecht, it's the city where they live, and you can easily finish walking through the city center in 5 mins!!! i assure you, they got nothing in breukelen, altho i still say that it's charming.... seriously, it has this little town charm...

i didnt bother to take out my camera today, so no pics about that, yet.... but i'll make sure i visit breukelen before i leave....

so, got there in nyenrode (read: nyainrode) and it's this big estate tucked away from the big street.... you actually have to walk 20 mins to get to the main street.... but still, it's charming.... well, i guess i get to see it better tomorrow in day light...

routemasters

shite!! i havent tried this old-fashioned bus that is the trademark of london since i've been here and i missed their last route which taken place last friday... shite!!
well, been on one before but that was 15 years ago.. hardly count... shite!!!
here.. for remembrance.. i actually felt sad when i saw this site.... http://www.routemasters.co.uk/

now.. aint that breath taking?

typical london sight

past week or past semester?

this week... aawww got some stuffs i would definitely want to forget.... as you might have expected by now, i got drunk again this weekend.. and as usual, i did some stupid stuffs.. thank god my best friend is sooo kind, he mended that for me....
well, enough of that... writing it on my blog won't actually help me forgetting...

but aside from my stupidness, i managed to get my visa, toured all over chelsea by foot (yeah, ouch!!), got my new post-paid mobile number, decided on a flat, managed to organise my finance (again.. phew....), and finished my coursework and all my classes!!!

wooow... the whole semester have gone now... crazy to think i've been here since september, 3 months already.. and shiiit, in 4 days i will be in netherlands... didn't think it's actually that soon... ah yes, i also have managed to contact all the people i want to visit and most of them said they'll pick me up... very cooool!!! so yeah, next week will be all about tidying up the paperwork for the new flat, studying for exams in january and ofcourse, PACKING!!! HELL YEAH, i'm coming to europe!!!

btw, rolling stones are gonna tour europe next year!!! the thought alone of actually able to see them performing makes me shivers all the way through.... FINALLY, i get to tick one of my to do list before i die... hhhmm i think i'm gonna have to make a new list, this whole new life in London gives me some new ideas....

My First Europe Road Trip

GOT MY SCHENGEN VISA!!!! finally... after waiting for several weeks... it's finally happening, my first europe trip alone... i don't think i can take into account the trip i made with my parents to europe some 15 years ago, all i remembered in that trip was the eiffel tower, champs elysees, frankenalle, windsor castle and that's it... this time it's amsterdam (coffee shops, baby!! :P), all throughout germany and austria maybe... i still don't know where i'll be going precisely, but definitely gonna visit a friend in brekeleun, relatives in frankfurt, my sister's best friend in karlsruhe... heck, even up to now, i don't even know where those cities are exactly on the map... thank god i'm still careless enough to make this kind of trips... wait a couple of years from now, i would probably be too busy or too dependent to just hitch a ride somewhere...
anyway... this last week has been satisfactory, or i can even say it was really good... my best friend finished his thesis, i got my schengen visa, i finally made up my mind about moving out with a friend, and altho i did get sick yesterday morning but it was all good... and me and my group almost finished our coursework and we're ahead of the other groups... and i get to really bond with mita and wanna the last week...
so yeah, next week, it's gonna be busy busy busy... have to find a flat soon, finishing up the coursework and have to go get my visa...

alcohol or winter?

i just had a f*cked up weekend... my friend said it was the alcohol, my argument is that it's winter, gets you to do all kinds of weird things.... but another friend said what i did was nothing, but still, i think it's f*cked up!!

tattoo

i made up my mind yesterday to get a tattoo, after all these years trying to make up my mind....
i dunno, i just kept seeing people with their tattoo, and these tattoos, i'm telling you, it was exposed just like somebody put it there for me to notice...

so yeah guys, lemme know what you think about me getting it.. probably gonna do it next week, so u all have a week to influence me.... :)

aw shite...

just a minute ago my itunes played the 'adit's' song... havent heard it for several months now... aaahhh it brought so many memories... the kinds that make you wanna cry and smile at the same time.. daaaamn, i'm just missing him so much.... hope u're having fun up there, man.... lov ya!!

Turn your lights down low
And then pull your window curtains
Oh, let Jah moon come shining in
Into our life again
Sayin', ooh, it's been a long, long time
I kept this message for you, love
But it seems I was never ever on time
Still I wanna get through to you, boy
On time - on time.......
I want to give you some love
I want to give you some good, good lovin'
Oh, I - oh, I - oh, I......
I want to give you some good, good lovin'

(Turn your lights down low - Lisa Fischer - A Twist of Marley)

reviewing

just finished reading my blog.. woow.. reading your own blog really make you realise how far you've gone, don't you think?

2 months ago i was actually saying that this london thing is a new life, but now i felt like this is the life i've always been in.. weird, eh?

and when i go through all the older posts, i realised, i've been lucky... got a few downers in my life, but hey, it only made me richer... altho, i still can't forget the week when adit died.. that was too tough to forget... but still, i learned so much stuffs by reviewing my life so far and to sum things up... HEEY!! YOU ARE ONE LUCKY GIRL!!!

afraid?

Just had a loooong loooong chat with a friend of mine... and the conclusion is that i'm afraid.. sorry people, can't tell you the rest, otherwise it'll spoil the surprise...
thank you sooo much miiit!!!! muuuaaacchhh!!!

and of course, indri...

thank you babe for making that day even more perfect.. lova ya babe!!!!

surrounded with all loving people for my birthday

thank you guys for making this a very beautiful day for me... i really appreciate this, a lot!!!
i know we just know each other for 2 months now, but i love you guys!! THANK YOU!!!

quarter of a century

damn, i'm 25!!!!
does that make me young or make me old? your call....
all i know is, i'm lucky enough to be asked for id when buying a beer... hehe...

guess who resembles who?

here's the trendy ol' guy... MY DAD!!

the family

my god... i forgot to post my family pictures.. hehehe silly me!!!
sorry mom, dad, sis... but u know, u guys will always be in my heart!

thanks guys for coming to the airport for me.. LOVE YOU ALL!!

so... so.. UPLIFTING!!!

woow...
i got my paper marked today, the 2nd paper.. woooow.... i finally got what i wanted, eventhough i was soooo nervous bout it coz i didnt prepare enough time to do it and was doing it like i was being chased by an elephant... but, now, i got my reward and it is SO SO UPLIFTING!!!! feels like i wanna smile all nite....
hey, dad, mom, i did rite!! keep praying for me so i can always pull it off... love you guys!!

sunset in oberoi

home sweet home

cool pic, eh? i know it seems have nothing to do with the surfs, but it was taken in bali, so there you go...

Missing Home

the other day when i had a bad day, guess it was just a homesick streak... and silly of me, i started to listen to 'slank' songs, which is the indonesian leading rock band and flashes of memories bout watching their shows with my dearest friends starting to flood my brain... how silly i was, shouldn't done that, just making it worse... but after that day i got a little bit of sunshine here and things starting to pick up, my parents called and my sister emailed me from the land down under, and my friends emails always keeping me amused...

but last night.... another foolishness... i listened to jack johnson's album and started to realize how i miss the surfs and beaches back home... and i have with me movies about indonesia's surfs and started to watch those... my god! i didn't realize how i much i miss them... i miss the sunshine and the laid-back life there...

a few days ago, i kinda made my mind about not going back to indonesia for good, i mean i wanted to stay here and try to find a job and all... hhhmm do you think i can make it without my family and friends and the beaches??

...

My first bad day in london.... felt like in a deep shit, but nothing actually happening...

my tiny tiny room

Eros at Picadilly Circus then picnic at St. James Park

brighton

Week 3 in London

Boooy.. seems like i've been living here for a year... don't take it as a negative thing... i just got used to it real quick and it's one hell of a life here, especially when it comes about quids, if ya know what i mean...

hhhmm let see... all i've been doing was really coping up with my life here, havent been to central too often even... so the first week here was all about getting to know london... the campus set a guided tour of london for us and a trip to brighton... it was fun, seeing new places and all... and i got to meet a lot of people from countries i didnt even know exist...

the second week was about getting to know people in campus and finding my way around it... u had to stand in queues for god knows how long... probably just forgot how the campus life really goes, i used to do that in my old campus, but it's been 2 years now... and that week was really about partying... we got the river boat disco which was reallllly fun.. just havent been dancing like that in some quite time now... and then we got the after party in one of the halls' kitchen... well got to meet moooore people there... and then another party the day after.. wooow.. and another dancing in some pub the next day after that... ckckckck... but it's all good...

and the third week was really about coping with sitting on your ass for 1,5 hours... it's lectures time!!! it waaaas reaalllly interesting... i'm not sorry at all about selecting this major... it was actually fun!! hahaha never thought i would say that in my life, ever! and i had a picnic in st. james park with my closest friends here, judith, laura and heinz... they're all soo nice and fun to be with...

really... it's all been good here, reallllyyy good... i just love this place soooo much!!!

day two - london tourist

should i say more??? London is bloody fantastic!!!!!

buckingham

told ya i'd get there

london eye + big ben = amazing

the abbey

the new life

So here i am. Set up and determined to start a whole new life, at least a different kind of life for the next 1.5 years.

It's time for my flight to london. Yaaaaay!!!! Finally!!!! So i got a little going away party. It was fun, all my dearest friends were there. Kinda gave tears in my eyes. well, you probably know by now that i have two very watery eyes (and for those who know me well, don't you dare argue, it's my blog, i can write pretty much what i want hehehehe)

And it's time to leave for the airport. 4 pm on a sunday afternoon. My plane was supposed to leave at 6.30 pm, my dad's at 6.45 and my mum's at 7.15. there you go. Got all my family members scattered all around the world. Turned out, my flight was delayed, so guess i'll be the one who escorting somebody to the door.

Finished checking in and met my friends in the restaurant. A lot of them were there. oooohhh, i was very much touched. And when it's time for my dad and mum to go, i broke down. I'm gonna be missing them so muuuccchhh!!! As for my sister, when we were still in the house, i cried in her arms thinking the only one thing that will be hard to leave is her. Coz she's got a lot going on in her life and i got sad to think i won't be there for her like she always is for me. But she toughened me up saying it's a really good thing for the both of us, we will be living this whole new life and all. God, i miss her so much!!

So, i waited for the plane with my friends. And when it's time to go, at first i tried hard not to cry, but after a couple of hugs, i broke down again. God, i just love them very much.

See, the route was supposed to be cgk-kul-lhr. But since it got delayed, i have to go en route to frankfurt first. And with all the luggage i have, i'm telling you, it's not easy at all. At first I thought the 12 hours flight would be boring and all. Turned out, i slept almost all the way through.

So i got there to heathrow... The plane landed on 9.30 and i got out from there on 11.30. I didn't know where to go!! Should i go by bus, by tube or by cab? So i walked around and got confused. I decided to go by coach and then by cab. Quite costly than the tube but to think i have to manage the 50 kg luggage on the tube? No waaaaay!!!

So i got in to my flat. Quite nice, a little small, too small actually, but i'll just have to cope.

So here i am, a new londoner.

the sky

the view

prologue - before the new life - part 3

And hence, here we are, with another town to see. Since i'd be miles away from home, i should spend some quality time with my parents, and no other way to do so without visiting sawah lunto with my sister. And Angga and Rara came to visit, too. With athia also. I've got all my family members around me.

It was reaaaaaallllyyy beautiful. Everytime i go there, i kept reminded how green Indonesia is. I kept forgetting that living in Jakarta, with the polluted air and all. As always, when i went about there, i stopped at my favorite place. It was a perfect spot on the road when you can see river on your right, the rice fields on your left and hills and mountains beyond with little specks of forests. And as always, i shed a tear whenever i stopped.

And then, here's the fun part. I went to my father's ranch. Oh my god, how proud i am to have him as a father. He has visions i could never imagine. He built a small hut on the hilltop. From there, we can gaze on the cow pen, the meadows, the valleys, the small forests, the hills and the mountains. what else could you ask for?

And we got this waterfall, a small one that is. My father says he wants to make a small pool underneath it, so all his grandchildren could swim around.

I can't say no more, you just have to come and see for yourself.

mexico...?

prologue - before the new life - part 2

The next phase, which happened approximately 4 days after i got out from the hospital, is Bali!!!

I planned to go to Bali with Apit and his girlfriend a couple weeks before i got sick. So, i kinda worried, will i make to Bali? Well, i just had to go, didn't i? like i have other choice or chance. Besides, it's Bali, my future home.

So I went. Even my father thought i bailed after the hospital thing. But no way sirree... no way i would pass this one out. After all, with London and all, i don't know how long will i go there again. I did go after promising my mother that i won't get too tired and i won't take a shot at surfing. But I did get to learn to ride motorbikes. Woooow, the freedom of riding one, with Kuta's lack of parking space and the traffic jams, is enormous. Come to think of it, turns out i still have the courage and carelessness to be able to ride it straight in the crowded streets after trying the accelerator one or two times only. Turns out i didn't loose that along with gaining age.

Like always, Bali offers me different kinds of trips every time i went there. This time, it's rather adventurous than the other trips. We went to a kinda shitty place in rural Bali. It's a restaurant/pool hall/cafe/discotheque/playground kinda thing, depending on your necessities. It is in the rather dry part of Bali, so it kinda gave the whole Mexican/Traffic movie kinda feeling, with the red earth and dry trees. Give us a convertible and we would have felt like home in it.

And then, there was another time when we came across this gallery/museum. It was having its 10th anniversary and an exhibition for 4 painting maestros of Indonesia. So we stopped, took our chance, and went in. The event turned out to be rather grand. They have buffets, dance shows from the local communities and speeches, and i do mean a lot of speeches. The whole setting has an "orde baru" (it's indonesian for a shitty government era) feeling. They gave us speeches with no ends and the founder of the museum even managed to put his two sons for display on the stage while he delivered meaningless spontaneus speech. But don't get me wrong. I like the exhibition. The paintings are splendid. And the event gave me a strange kinda feeling, something i couldn't define nor have experienced before.

Another weird moment was when i blacked out over half a bottle of wine. Hehehehe talk about taking chances when my liver was taking the day off.

lookin like hell...

prologue - before the new life - part 1

The first notable phase of my life before london occured just a week before i was supposed to resign from work. I got sick. Yes people, the all powerful, high stamina, energetic dilla was slapped a bit on the face by God himself. "Thou shall rest, for thou needeth energy for London and whatever comes before", sayeth God. So after two days at home moaning and restless, I went to the hospital. And whaddya know, it's a two-in-one kinda thing illness. Turned out that i had the typhoid and dengue fever at the same time. Well, you know me, if i can manage, i won't waste time. So I manage to get two illness at the same time, so I won't have to rest too long.

I spent a week in the hospital. Boring, boring, boring. Every fuckin' minute of it was a nightmare. Can't do nothing much, just laid there on the bed, i even managed to pee on the pot for a couple of days. I did catch up with the telly, tho. I get to know every goddamn crap the indonesian stations get to make. Luckily they got cables.

it's not such a loss time, tho. My friends all came by and chatted for a while. Well at least i got to meet almost all of them. Those who can't make it called several times a day to keep me amused. But the one that was very touching was when apit accompanied me in the hospital when i just got in and was all alone.

The odd thing is, all of my family member was sick during that period. Wonder what's going on in the house?

And another thing that was really really weird is when my mom yelled at me on the phone having just acknowledged that i went out with my friends at night, about 10ish, on the second day i got home. Maaan, i haven't been yelled at by my mother for ages... she must have been fuming then....

continue to prologue - before the new life - part 2

UK

tak sabar aku tak sabar...

sabar sih sebenernya, apalagi kalo mengingat gue bakalan meninggalkan jakarta... gila ya, my life has been really reaaaalllyyy great here and i'm leaving it, tapi mudah2an sih gue bisa balik cepet ke sini.. yah tapi gak tau juga ya nanti gimana, kalo sekarang lo tanya gue, gue akan bilang bahwa gue pasti akan balik secepatnya ke jakarta, abisnya kalo nggak cepet2 balik, kapan lagi gue mulai kehidupan gue, kapan gue mulai punya karir, kapan gue kawin, ah banyak deh pokoknya....

cuman sekarang sih, gue kan lagi tahap2 ngumpulin barang buat keperluan gue disana, jadi excited banget gitu... perlu apa lagi yaaa... masih banyak nih yang di check list gue... boots, jas hujan, payung, kaos2 lengan panjang, macem2 deh... gue sih mau dipinjemin baju2nya nea bekas dia dulu di aussie, mudah2an muat deh.. oh iya overcoat juga belom beli...

trus abis resign gue ke bali duluuuuu.... kemaren kan bingung banget mau sama siapa, eh ternyata puti n astri mau... dan tadi indah nelpon, dia mau banget... terserah deh sama siapa, mau berdua aja dia bilang hayo aja... wah seneng banget gue.... seru seru seru..... asiiiiiik jadi juga gue ke bali!!!!! belajar surfing lagi pokoknya!!!!!!

KANTOR BARUUU.... (again....)

yup, i'm in my new office now... Jl. Gandaria Tengah IV no. 15.... dibelakang lab school.... enak banget dah rumahnya.. kalo sore2 duduk2 didepan gitu... trus tiap masuk ke kantor rasanya mau bilang assalamualaikum gitu.. berasa di rumah..

haaaa.... i'm gonna miss this place.. i'm gonna miss all the people here... haaa especially the people, they're more than just friends to me now after a year and a half working together... hiks.... they're more like a family... hiks....

i'm gonna miss the internal meetings we have each week...
i'm gonna miss the lunches we have every day...
i'm gonna miss ALL THE LAUGHTER WE HAVE EVERY POSSIBLE TIME WE HAVE!!!!

HIIIIIIIIIIKKKKKKKKSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

ketawaaaaa.....

lelah aku lelah.... hihihihihi.... sumpah ya ketawa mulu... gara2 nama2 orang pada aneh2 semua sih... yee jadi mereka yang disalahin... gue dari tadi siang ngebahas nama2 orang yang aneh2 seperti hoek pak cuh, jenny ng, herman suhirman, banyak lah pokoknya.... sampe makan malem tadi masih ngebahas itu juga (hehehehe gue masih di kantor nih... lembur lembur lembur!!) cecil aja sampe sakit maag gara2 ketawa mulu.... wah edan deh... ditambah tangisan ketawanya tiyas (bingung gak lo??!) hadu hadu i just love my office!!

sebulan berlalu??

man oh man.... oh maaannn!!! udah sebulan since my last post? gila juga ya.. once i thought i could never let one day pass without writing, well well whaddya know... i managed!

yah, work has been like hell.. don't get me wrong now, i LOOOOOVEEEEE my job!!! I love the office, i love my friends from JB, i love it!! well, despite the salary, it's a perfect little place to work... jadi gue seneng2 aja ngerjain semuanya.....

trus hidup sih so far datar2 aja... cuman everything is coming and going... too many dynamics in my world... farrah was here for a month and a half, and she kept saying she wants to be back here in jakarta, she's just having too many good times here.... mita udah di melbourne, starting a new life as a grad student, something i'll be doing in 2 months from now...

visa gue juga udah kelar, sehari sebelum london bombing, fuih!! well, the bombing doesn't do much to my plans, i kept saying if the bomb is meant for me, then it's meant to be, am i rite? sempet sih ada masanya gue mempertanyakan kepastian gue berangkat atau nggak, that was when i compiled the expenses for my whole time living there in London... wow some figure! and i got sick and all before giving it to my dad, but he said nothing to worry about, he already said that he can manage it, so don't question it... wow what a relief!!

hhhmmm what else what else?? i got tons of things i've thought of but since i have talked about it, it doesn't matter enough to be written here...

senengnya sih banyak yang nanyain gitu, kok blog gue udah lama gak diisi... wah wah whaddya know, i've got a little fan-base goin on... hehehehe....

oh iya, kantor gue mau pindah (lagiiii!!!!) kali ini ke gandaria, it's a little nice place in front of a public secluded park... yah waktu gue disitu cuman 2 minggu sih :( cuman at least gue sempet ngerasain lah.. siapa tau nanti balik kuliah gue disitu lagi hehehehehe.....

trus minggu lalu gue ke pre-departure briefing, diadain sama british council.... lumayan, jadi tau banyak... trus ketemu sama anak2 indonesia yang masih kuliah di UK, ada yang di london juga.. eeehh gue ketemu ilien.. yaelah udah jauh2 kuliah masih ada dia aja... hihihihi.... cuman that briefing really get me excited about going to london.... jadi gak sabar niiiih....

abis briefing itu, gue ke mangga dua.. wah menggila booow!!!! bener2 menggila.... gue beli film, software etc... kalo duit gue gak pas2an udah gak tau deh gue beli apaan lagi....

haduuu apa lagi ya... kayaknya hidup gue lagi gak menarik deh... apart from really looking forward to move to london....

yowis lah, kita sudahi dulu sampai disini... mudah2an sih ada yang menarik lagi nantinya....

cimaja.... hiks

haaaaaaaaa............ ada kemungkinan gue gak jadi ke cimaja............ sediiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiih!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sebenernya sih pilihan gue sendiri, maksudnya gue bisa milih pergi sendiri atau memilih untuk nggak sama sekali, soalnya mungkin gak jadinya itu karena temen2 gue mungkin gak pergi......

apa udah saatnya gue keluar dari comfort zone gue, yaitu diantara temen2 gue ??? hhhmmm.... nekat aja kali ya...?

ketemu juga

akhirnya ketemu juga temen gue yang suka begitu2an.... dan turns out luck is on my side, gue malah bisa dapet kamar gratis... asiiiiiiiik....... hadu mudah2an gak ada kenapa2 ya, jadi gue jadi ke cimaja....

lelah

oh man... i'm so f*#kin' bloody goddam tired!!!!!
tanpa sebab kenapa.. eh mungkin ada sih sebabnya... i've been running around like hell taking care of everything, dan selama ini gak berasa capeknya, nah baru sekarang deh it all blows up.... sejak hari sabtu, badan gue bener2 letih.... rasanya pengen diem aja gitu seharian, somewhere, clearing my head, my soul.... tapi tak sempat dan hampir2 tak mungkin...

udah gitu gue masih badung banget, gue mau ke cimaja hari sabtu ini, ada some sort of surf competition goin on, and they're giving free lessons.... cuman masih belum bisa menemukan teman untuk pergi... susah sih, temen2 gue kurang suka yang begituan.... haaaaa....

Kangeeeeen....

Damn, udah lama banget nih gak nulis… kangen juga gue ama blog gue ini… well, work was quite crazy these last couple of days, but maybe some of you already know this, the term crazy in my office doesn’t mean s%#t in other offices…

Hhmmm… for me to elaborate on what happened these last couple of weeks will be too much of a hassle, so let me just note down what’s really important and fresh…

Firstly, I had my hair cut… by FIRMAN... yes, ladies and gentlemen, by the great firman himself… quite an experience I’d say, since my not-so-long hair took a really long time to grow…. Rambut gue di Mohawk man…. Ckckck…. The good thing is, muka gue jadi berubah abiiis….. and for the better menurut gue… anak2 sih suka semua… sedihnya orang kantor kebanyakan gak ngeh gue potong rambut, mungkin karena gue selalu dateng dengan rambut berantakan jadi didn’t make too much a difference kali ya…… yang pasti nih ya, gue jadi ANAK HARI GINI bangeeeet!!!!!

Trus tadi gue ke ulang tahunnya adit…. Aneh sih emang, like apit said this morning, aneh ya ke ulang tahun tapi yang ulang tahunnya udah gak ada….. jadi ceritanya waktu itu gue iseng sms nyokapnya adit, just to say hi… eh ternyata dia nyuruh anak2 dateng untuk ulang tahunnya adit.. eh btw gue ampe lupa.. HEPPY BERSDEY MAN!!! Be seeing you soon!!! Look out for us up there, my friend… remember, we all love you so muuuch, and we miss you the hell lot more…. What was I saying? Ah yes… gue sms nyokapnya dan one thing led to another, akhirnya gue ama anak2 tadi dateng merayakan… it was a very nice ambience, like what we used to do on his birthdays or Christmases, just hang around on his porch, talking and laughing, oh yeah, I should say that the party was only for us and his family.. It’s very nice to have his family considers us as one of them too, I’m touched by their gesture, but you should know that my heart moves by pretty much of everything…. Anyways… we talked and laughed, had a gourmet with his mother cooking and all, kalo ada acara dirumah adit emang sangat ditunggu2 makanannya, his mother is one hell of a cook! Then we watched some movies bout him, and we took pictures as though we’re one big family, with his parents and sister sitting in the middle of us and all… ntar deh gue aplot fotonya, masih nunggu dikirimin ama adeknya… trus kita duduk2 lagi di terasnya… eh bapaknya muncul, bringing us wine and cigars… wooooow… the wine was shiraz 1991 (not that I know what that means) and another one from Yugoslav dated 1983… woow…. That was one hell of a treat, I tell ya! Trus bapaknya adit kinda nongkrong juga bareng kita.. hahaha mirip banget sama adit, celetuk2annya juga mirip banget…. Eh next thing you know, dia keluar bawain cognac… haaa gak tega deh anak2… ya kita nolak lah… gila apa dikasih cognac.. mau buka yang Yugoslav wine aja agak2 gak tega, we had to assure him several times that we can’t take it….
Well, overall, it was a really pleasant evening, nice to know that their family really cares about us… so I have to put another reminder that never to forget his family….

critical thinking vs laziness

gak tau kenapa ya, tapi kemaren gue tuh ngerasa gue lagi kritis abis.... segala hal yang gue liat, langsung gue cari tau gitu informasinya, atau kalo gue sebenernya udah tau, gue akan instantly retrieve that information from one of my brain cells...

gue juga gak tau kenapa kok gue tiba2 jadi gini.... cuman gara2 gue menyadari kalo gue lagi kritis led me to thinking about my own life and attitude...

for those of you who know me well, pasti tau deh kalo gue tuh sebenernya orangnya malesan banget dan have a very very low self-motivation.... kalo di rumah ya, kalo bokap gue minta ambilin minum, my instant response was "ni (as in uni in padangnese), bokap minta minum tuh". yup! that's right! that's how lazy i am... bokap used to say kalo karena gue tau gue pinter (please do remember people, ini bokap gue yg bilang, not that i pronounce myself as smart, tapi menurut dia gue begitu), gue jadi males...

beneran deh, kalo lagi brainstorm di kantor ya, every time we come up with an action plan, i'd wait until the next morning to do it.... gak tau tuh kenapa.... i just felt like i'd do it better tomorrow than today.. padahal kan you know what people say despite the A mild campaign, don't put off what you can do today until tomorrow, or something like that..

tapi, the good thing is, gue jadi sadar akan my level of self motivation and i swore to god to make it better.... kemaren dan hari ini gue cukup bangga ama diri gue yang responsive sama kerjaan kantor.... makanya gue ngerasa ini penting banget untuk gue tulisin di sini, as a reminder for myself...

status supir truk

temen gue statusnya "the me is three"....

bagi yang gak ngerti, artinya adalah "demi istri"....
took me awhile there, maaf deh, gue kan gak begaul sama supir truk.... hehehehehe

waktu berlalu

udah kamis aja niiih.....
gara-gara selasa libur, semua kestabilan dan dynamics di minggu ini berantakan deh... gue sampe lupa kalo sekarang hari kamis dan gue pikir kita ke caritanya masih lama, ternyata lusa booow....

hari selasa kemaren untungnya gue lumayan sibuk sih, jadi libur gak bengong2 doang....

bapak gue kan lagi ada di jakarta for a couple of days... trus selasa pagi gue janji driving sama dia... sekitar jam 8an lah... trus pas jam stgh 8 gue denger dia teriak2.. wah kenapa nih.... eeeeeeeee ternyata.... ada temen2 smanya dia dateng kerumah, ambushing him while he is in Jakarta... gak heran dia teriak2... trus ya as you all might have figure out by now, gak jadilah kita driving.. mukanya yang guilty feeling gitu... gpp kok pa, i fully understand...

mungkin gue harus introduce temen2 sma bapak gue lebih mendalam... mereka mereka ini adalah the kind of people yang really really really looooooveeeeee to hang around.... kalo bahasa jaman sekarang, bapak gue dulu adalah anak tongkrongan.... dan seperti anak jaman sekarang, bapak gue dan teman2nya kalo nongkrong itu selalu main kartu!!! dan main kartunya tuh bisa berjam2... dulu waktu gue sma, pernah tuh temen2 bapak gue spent almost 48 hours at my house, and they do not care whether my father is home or not.. as long as the coffee kept brewing, the cigarettes kept burning and the dealer kept dealing the cards, they would all kept playing... dan selama mereka di rumah, the rest of my family will completely ignore them... just assume that they're not there, said my sister... the only time you would hear them say anything to us is when i say "assalamualaikum" upon entering and leaving the house, and they would all say, almost choir-like, "waalaikumusalam".... dan ini kejadiannya seringkali berulang, jadi we all get accustomed to it... sering kok, bapak gue ninggalin mereka di rumah, misal untuk pergi ke kawinan ama nyokap gue atau ada rapat dan mereka dengan setia menunggu bapak gue di rumah....

nah, hari itu, setelah beberapa lama waktu berselang, here they are again and here i am again facing the same situation.. actually, it's no biggie, wong gue gak berasa ada mereka, cuman kebetulan aja lebih banyak lampu di rumah gue yang nyala dibandingin hari-hari lain.....

trus. rumah gue yang biasanya sepiiiiii sekali itu, hari selasa itu bener2 crowded deh udah kayak ada pesta aja.. temen2 kakak gue juga pada dateng... kan kakak gue kuliah lagi, jadi mereka hari itu ngumpul mau bikin tugas... yah untungnya gue udah banyak bikin janji diluar, jadi gak begitu berasa juga sih kalo rame....

pas gue pulang, sekitar jam 8an malem gitu, eh ternyata saudara2 gue rame dirumah, as usual, mumpung bokap di jakarta di hari libur.... bagus juga sih, gue udah lama banget gak ketemu mereka...

jadi ya walhasil, gue ngerasa gue achieve banyak banget deh hari itu, gue sempet ketemu mita, trus gue meeting sama temen2 gue yang urusan aksesoris itu dan gue driving, lumayan bagus lagi drivingnya (yah, for my standard ya...) seharusnya sih gue bangga dengan cara gue menghabiskan waktu libur gue.... cuman gue masih kaget... ini udah kamis looooh!!!!!!!

moodmeter

lagi down berat nih.... dari tadi pagi everything went downhill.. problem is, i don't know why... the lousiest kind, right?

emotional roller coaster

kenapa ya gue hari ini.. sebenernya sih gak emosional doang, gue physically in a roller coaster ride... badan gue gak jelas banget gini.... kayaknya gue mau seriously ill deh nih....
trus bawaannya gak mood mulu.... yah kadang2 seneng, kadang2 bete..... haaaaa bener2 gak jelas!!!!!

a thorn came off

Maaf bagi yang kurang mengerti kalo baca posting gue dibawah ini... ini cuman buat reminder bagi gue kalo i did those stuffs.. soalnya from now on, gue akan ngelupain this whole thing...

akhirnya setelah bertahun2 in vague, gue memberanikan diri untuk bertanya ke temen gue ttg suatu kejadian antara gue dan temen gue..... dan ternyata jawabannya melegakan hati...

dan akhirnya gue udah meralat kejadian tersebut ke seseorang yang gue anggap mesti tau ttg kejadian ini...

ah leganya... sekarang gue bisa set this aside in my life....

Friends

Gosh... i have a really nice friends!!!!

gue abis ngumpul kajun di citos, well gak kajun2 amat sih, ceritanya sih kita ngumpul2 demi feby, temen smp gue, yang akan berangkat ke perth buat kuliah minggu depan, cuman visanya sih dia belom dapet.. jadi gue gak tau deh.. just an excuse to hang out, i guess...

sebelum ketemu mereka, akhirnya gue sempet ketemu mita, walaupun si astrid ketinggalan sih ya.... cuman seru gitu ngobrol sama mita.... yah as usual sih, gue kalo ketemu mita apalagi sih yang diomongin... hehehe.... trus kita juga ngobrol soal persiapan sekolah.... kita bedua kan senasib... lagi menuju toward our dreams... sama2 lagi takut untuk kembali hidup melarat, ditambah ini di negri orang pula.... yah bagaimanapun, kita harus adapt lah ya...

trus tadi sama temen2 smp gue, wah gila.. to think kalo kita tuh udah temenan rata2 15 tahunan lebih.... gila!!!!!! dan walaupun gue gak bisa confide my personal matters to half of them, kita tuh sangat sangat sayang satu sama lainnya.. somehow, that feeling never have gone away... gila gue beruntung banget...

tadi sempet gue kepikiran kalo kita tuh ternyata grow up to be very different people... interestnya udah gak begitu sama lagi.... valuenya juga lain... ada yang berenti minum, ada yang sekarang malah doyan banget dugem.... tapi tetep ada yang otaknya jorok mulu.. hehehehehe... gila deeeeeh.....

trus gue juga sempet dicurhatin temen gue... gue gak pernah nyangka sebelumnya kalo dia bisa mikir sejauh itu dan kalo hal yang jadi masalah dia itu.. hhhmmm... yah well ever gonna be a problem.. ternyata berat banget masalah dia.... solusinya sama sekali gak gampang... yah gue cuman bisa kasih advice berdasarkan asumsi-asumsi gue dan gue sangat sangat sangat berharap kalo it gonna work out for my friend.. karena gue agak-agak gak berani ngebayangin gimana kalo nggak work out....

padahal gue hari ini cuman ngobrol2 doang nih ya ama temen2 gue, cuman somehow gue ngerasa kalo gue achieve banyak hari ini....

temen-temen gue emang de bes laaaaah.... i love you all, soooo much!!!!! Muach!

s#%t....

i'm having the most bizzare conversation....
i am now chatting with my friend about pupi.... hahahaha

"yah dia bodoh...."

itu adalah kata2 yang keluar dari mulut jonet... yes people... jonet!!!! for those of you who in the know, jonet adalah seorang lelaki, the only one for that matter, yang kerja di kantor gue.... trus dia adalah sumber dari semua celaan gue.... hihihihi... gak tau kenapa tapi setiap liat dia atau denger dia, otak gue selalu langsung bekerja brilliantly untuk menciptakan celaan-celaan yang kreatif.....

nah, beberapa bulan terakhir ini, jonet sudah berani untuk TALK BACK!!! ckckckckck..... nakal!!!! walaupun kalo gue lanjutkan celaan gue setelah talk backnya dia itu, dia akan langsung menundukkan kepala sambil menyesali nasib.... hehehehehehe.... kalo dipikir2 tega ya gue... mungkin gue yang salah ngejelasin, lo baca hal-hal diatas itu harus sambil membayangkan situasi yang lucu... dan setiap kita cela2an, we did it in a friendly manner..... jadi it's all good...

nah kemaren.... pas lagi makan siang.... gue cerita kalo gue selalu nyasar di denpasar.. ya gimana nggak, the only road sign they have in almost every corner just noted sanur and this goddamn museum... gimana gak nyasar coba...... nah trus jonet mengeluarkan kata-kata itu!!!!!

hohoooooo..... you're sooooooo gonna get it net!!!!!

ngapain yaaaaa....

tak ada kerjaan!!!!!! binun nih mau ngapain.....

bisexuality

barusan ada yang ngirim message di hi-5... ngajakin 3some, dia tuh bisexual, i can't help to feel gross...

waktu launching buku sama anak2 SD Mentari, salah satu dari mereka nyamperin gue, dia bilang dengan muka yang jijik gitu "they got books displayed about gays and lesbians!" dan gue dengan sok bijaksananya jawab, "well, they do exist, it's a fact that some people are gay... it's nothing to be ashamed about..."

sedangkan, sekarang, gue merasa gue mengkhianati kata2 gue sendiri.... dari dulu gue selalu gitu.. gue selalu berfikiran bahwa harusnya gue gpp dengan lesbians and gays, tapi gue suka takut kalo ketemu atau other close encounters deh sama mereka, bukannya gue takut sama mereka, gue takut muka gue gak bisa boong kalo gue tuh masih bertanya2 ttg mereka... gue takut muka gue nunjukin kalo i judge them, which i don't...

itu kan personal preference ya... gue gak boleh ngejudge mereka for their choice of life.... nah makanya gue takut kalo secara gak sadar gue ngejudge and it shows.... harus belajar acting nih kayaknya... cause i'm told that they make one hell of a friend....

irony and grief

tadi pagi gue pas jemput mbak winnie liat suatu pemandangan yang sangat ironis dan mengenaskan....

deket rumah mbak winnie ada SD dan SMP, trus ceritanya tadi pagi anak sd itu lagi pada olahraga lari... jadi ada beberapa anak lagi lari sambil ketawa-ketawa di taman deket rumah mbak winnie... lalu gue perhatiin ada satu anak yang berbeda.. ternyata dia bukan anak SD situ, tapi adalah seorang anak pemulung sampah... dia pake topi SD, tapi bajunya lusuh dan dia telanjang kaki, sambil bawa kantong sampah dan colokan buat ngambil sampah... wah ironis bangeeeet... sedih deh liatnya.... trus pat tadi pagi cerita ttg anak yang segede adeknya, rio, lagi ngamen di bis... haaaaaa kenapa ya? (this is a retorical question, people..)

gue tau belom banyak yang udah gue lakuin untuk mereka2 yang less fortunate... tapi gue masih berhak kan to grieve for them? gue kadang2 suka mengutuk sifat gue yang cendrung ignorant dan gak begitu peduli sama lingkungan.... i mean, i do care, but is care enough? yah mungkin gue coba pelan2 aja kali ya dengan bantuin yayasan tunas cendekia... sometimes grand ideas are just too much, sometimes we really have to take it slow to make it happen....

Your Match

tadi gue chat sama temen gue, ngebahas soal his match... he thinks that he has had his match once but he let her go... he said, everytime he sees her, whether in photographs or real live, his knees gone wobbly and his heart skipped a beat... woooooow!!!! i mean, wooooooooooooo!!!! you rarely gone through that in life, man! only those who are super lucky can feel that, and a small, small portion of these people who are even luckier to spend the rest of their life with the designated 'one'....
call me romantic, but i do believe in it... i believe that even if you have spent almost everyday with this person, but still your knees gone wobbly and you heart skipped a beat, well, man, she/he is the one! yah well, my friend got another consideration, he said that he's tired with all that.. that their relationship is too tiresome... well, i dunno.. maybe it is... i can't tell, i hardly know how they are together....
but, think, if you have a chance to live your life like a roller coaster ride like that, will you go through it? or will you choose peace and tranquility instead? hhhmmm... i'll let you know my answer if i have the chance to go through it...

Ini cover dari frame yang dibagiin waktu 40 hariannya Adit, baru sempet gue scan sekarang... sedih deh...

A poem for Adit from his family

Don't grieve for me, for now I'm free
I'm following the path God laid for me,
I took his hand when I heard Him call;
I turned my back and left it all.

I could not stay another day,
To laugh, to love, to work or to play,
Tasks left undone must stay that way;
I found that place at the close of day.

If my parting has left a void,
Then fill it with remembered joy,
A friendship shared a laugh, a kiss;
Ah yes, these things, I too will miss.

Be not burdened with times of sorrow
I wish you the sunshine of tomorrow,
My life's been full, I savoured much;
Good friends, good times, a loved ones touch.

Perhaps my time seems all too brief;
Don't lengthen it now with undue grief,
Lift up your heart and share with me,
God wanted me now, He set me free

Part of us also went with you
Papa, Mama and Tya

In memoriam of Aditya Wicaksono Soelistyo
(Born 9 June 1979 - Died 26 March 2005)

the signed book the kids gave me

Istana, here they come

oh wow! oh wow! what i'm about to write here is sooooo exciting..... gila... gue sampe gak bisa kerja nih, masih shock over the news.... wah gue baru denger another good news lagi.... wah wah wah jangan2 gue ntar malem nangis2 nih, terlalu menyenangkan pagi gue....

okay.. good news number 1... gue dapet email dari Ann tadi pagi, mengenai buku "A Forest of Fables" itu... anak2 itu diundang ketemu menteri lingkungan hidup dan ke Istana.... gila gak tuuuuuh..... wah sumpah seneng abis!!!! Hebat ya mereka... terutama Ann...

trus.. trus.. Ibu mertuanya Mbak Yanoel juga udah sehat setelah the long ordeal she went through with her disease.... wah ikut senang ya Mbak....

wear your ass as a hat

Topher Grace a.k.a Eric Foreman

that 70's show

TOPHER GRACE... now that is one cute dumb-ass!!! hehehe kalo sering nonton, ngerti deh maksud gue...
worked up gitu gue gara2 kebanyakan nonton that 70's show... kan baru dibeliin farrah.... trus ternyata udah ada 7 season, sedangkan yang baru keluar itu dvd season 2.. damn masih lama bener nih nunggunya.....
seinget gue, gue tuh gak pernah deh bisa sampe suka banget sama artis2 gitu... yah kan gak realistis aja gitu, kenal aja kagak.. cuman beneran deh, eric foreman tuh lucu banget... see for yourself deh... ntar gue posting fotonya....
trus shownya juga lucu banget..... lebih original dibandingin sitcoms lainnya, ya bayangin aja, ceritanya tuh ttg teenagers in the 70's, time when play stations and internet don't exist... mereka harus kreatif banget with how to spend their time.... apalagi kalo udah 'circle time'.... wah lucu abiiiiiiis!!!!!

Cerita si Gelang Merah

Sampe lupa gue, ada satu lagi highlight juga minggu lalu....

Gue sama Nia ketemuan sama pencetus yayasan tunas cendekia, namanya Mas Yudhis, nah yayasan ini adalah yang bikin gelang merah solidaritasKEBERSAMAAN. Nah kan karena semua temen2 gue udah tau dan pake gelang ini, gue dengan naifnya berasumsi kalo gelang ini udah banyak banget yang tau.. ternyata oh ternyata, yang gue tau dari Mas Yudhis, public exposurenya tuh masih dikit banget dan banyak orang meragukan gelang ini....

Kenapa ya? soalnya dari pertama gue liat gelangnya, gue udah tertarik beli, apalagi pas gue tau itu untuk charity, makin pengen beli gue.... tapi that wasn't what happened in the real world.... ternyata selama ini hampir gak ada orang atau media yang mengekspos cerita di balik gelang ini, padahal kan it's for a noble cause dan udah jadi trend pula... kenapa media2 gak liat ya? menurut gue sih news valuenya gede banget dari gelang ini.... hhhmmm am i being too naive here?

gue udah browse website mereka, dan apa yang mereka lakuin tuh bener2 bagus... get this, they're buying an Isuzu Elf to make a pustaka keliling.... that is from selling the bracelet alone, well, they've sold like 15.000 already dan sekarang lagi nunggu kiriman berikutnya....

gue selama ini pengen banget bantuin sebuah yayasan yang kayak gini, cuman kan gue pelit banget ya sama waktu gue, dan gue terlalu boros, jadinya banyak alasan deh... nah sekarang gue bisa bantuin mereka melalui data yang gue punya, atau lewat kerjaan gue... seneng banget... btw, kalo gelangnya udah ada, kita akan jual di aksara kemang pas acara launching itu.. dan gue mau ngebujukin orang aksara supaya bisa jadi partner outlet untuk gelang itu, mudah2an bisa deh....

percaya deh, bantuin mereka tuh gak ada ruginya dikit pun.... coba ya tolong di browse www.tunascendekia.org dan start helping, any way you can.. gue sih rencananya mau ngobrol2 lagi sama Mas Yudhis nanyain apa yang bisa gue bantu.....

Man oh Man!!

What a hectic hectic 2 weeks!!!
Gue practically gak pernah pulang sebelum jam 11 tiap hari dan gak pernah tidur sebelum jam 3.... capek deeeeh...

padahal yah, sebenernya cuman buat kajun doang sih perginya rata2... minggu lalu aja gue ketemu sama temen2 gue like 5 days out of 7... parah gak tuh... minggu ini juga gitu, gue yang langsung pulang kayaknya hari senin doang deh.... ckckckck

Yah pokoknya highlight of the two weeks nih ya:

• Gue dan teman2 gue decided untuk mulai bisnis, kecil2an lah... dari aksesoris dulu sama lagi menjajaki kemungkinan customized clothing (yang notabene adalah 'tukang jait'... hihihihi)
• I got my very own first notebook... wuidih waktu pergi beli tuh sampe deg-degan over excited gitu... senangnya!!!!
• Farrah dari US pulang, setelah 2 tahun gak pulang... gak lama sih, cuman 2 tahun yang lalu itu gue ketemunya cuman 2 kali soalnya gue lagi mau sidang waktu itu....
• Oh ada satu hari yang gue bener2 down... Tanggal 7 kita dateng ke 40 hariannya Adit, gak begitu sedih sih disana, trus ngobrol2 dikit sama Ibunya, liat kamarnya Adit, soalnya sejak rumahnya di renovasi kita belom pernah kongkow dirumahnya lagi... Gue janji sama Ibunya Adit untuk stay in touch, haduuu mudah2an gue gak lupa ya, i know how lousy i am with keeping contact.... Nah lalu, setelah Adit meninggal, Budi dan Angga bikin a short, a very short at that, movie yang isinya kompilasi foto2nya adit.... wah sedih banget... gue sampe sesenggukan tak henti-henti... Gue puter terus filmnya, keep repeating gitu... Gue kangen banget ama adit... walhasil besokannya bangun pagi mata gue sembap abis....
• Hari minggu ini akan launching buku kedua PYOB kantor gue, yang bikinan anak-anak SD Mentari itu tuh... wah persiapannya lumayan deh... sebenernya gak ribet-ribet banget.. tapi karena gue lagi megang account untuk bikin annual report yang harusnya naik cetak tanggal 6 tapi gak selesai-selesai itu, jadinya ribet abis..... hari ini deh puncaknya, secara semua persiapan untuk launching udah harus kelar, sedangkan hari senin pagi file annual report udah harus masuk ke percetakan.... yahud gak tuh..... mungkin besok gue mesti ke kantor, padahal mau nyekar ke Adit... yah mungkin abis nyekar, gue pulang dulu trus ke kantor dulu kali... ga tau juga deh nih besok....
• the most important ground breaking fascinating wonderful extraordinary (i cant even come up with any other adjective to describe it..) is the fact that I"M ACCEPTED IN MIDDLESEX UNIVERSITY.... wooooooooowww finally, setelah all that hassle dan deg2an berminggu2 nungguin hasilnya.... akhirnya one step closer to... LONDON BABY!!!! pas dikabarin, gue abis itu langsung trance gitu, gak bisa mikir jo... wuidih.. finally the future's getting brighter... doain ya supaya dapet visa.....

semangat!!!!!

kenapa ya hari ini gue semangat sekali? i got up earlier than usual altho doesn't mean i went to the office earlier to tho...

tadi pagi gue dateng ke sd mentari.. and these 17 kids presented their books for me and for tyas... how sweet!!! they all signed the books with their own little notes.... gue sampe terharu... untung gue gak nangis di depan mereka....

trus gue ke anindo, my overseas education agent, buat ketemuan sama representatip dari middlesex uni... orangnya ramah banget dan we chatted like friends.. well, not like 'actual' friend sih.. cuman enak banget ngobrol sama dia.. orangnya ramah bangeeeeetttttt dan lalu gue beli mcD dan ketemuan sama michael, temen capoeira gue dulu, yaolo.. udah lama bener kali ya kagak ketemu...

balik ke kantor, makan siang, trus weekly meeting, dan gue bersemangat sekali mengerjakan semua kerjaan gue hari ini.. padahal hampir semuanya paperwork... boy do i hate paperworks.... cuman hari ini rasanya lain dah....

trus tadi gue browsing yayasan tunas cendekia, itu loh yang bikin gelang solidaritas kebersamaan.... terharu gue liat effort mereka.. they bought a panther to make perpustakaan keliling.. hebat!!!! sayangnya, gue mau kasih komen disitu agak susah, gak ketemu bow linknya.... cuman gue mau kontak mereka, mudah2an gue bisa bantu.... or better yet, maybe they can come to sd mentari's booklaunch.....

gue rencananya emang mau ngasih gelang buat anak2 sd mentari, to give them tokens for their charity, cuman come to think of it, kenapa gue gak sekalian incorporate yayasan tunas cendekia di book launch or our other programs.. ntar gue mesti browse lebih dalem lagi sih soal ini.. mudah2an besok gue masih punya semangat kerja kayak hari ini.....

lebih hebatnya lagi... gue bikin2 proposal pas jam 5an lewat gitu... padahal gue udah males abis kalo udah gelap2 gitu diluar.. wah bener2 bikin diri gue sendiri tercengang.. hehehehehe

dan sekarang, gue lagi kajun nungguin rara, kita mau nonton bois tu men... yipppeeeeee... mudah2an aja seru deh.... walaupun setelah malam ini gue sedikit bokek, cuman i hope the experience will worth it.....

Copyright Feud Part II

Wahahahahahahahaha....... can't stop laughing.....

at approximately 10 minutes after i published the copyright fued, Ann smsed me...

"they aren't going to change it. they want me to give them permission to reprint and i will. battle over. strange eh?"

to which i reply

"wooow... all that hassle gone to wast hehehe... glad that's over, what an interesting afternoon.. so i'll send the books to you tomorrow okay?"

hihihihihihihihi

itemitemitem

tanggal 9-10 april gue ke carita. Hari minggunya gue body boarding dari pagi.... lo pasti bisa bayangin dong betapa itemnya gue pulang dari carita... apalagi for those yang kenal gue.. emang pada dasarnya gue udah item gitu...

trus... tanggal 15-20 april gue ke bali.. hahaha lo pasti mikirnya gue emang nyari masalah deh... gimana gak tambah item coba... cuman sekali lagi, for those of you yang kenal gue pasti udah tau kalo gue gak peduli sama warna kulit gue selama gue seneng... dan semua juga tau kalo gue paling bahagia being under the sun.....

waktu gue di bali, gue ketemu sama temennya temen gue dan akhirnya kita kemana2 bareng... gue, dita, arman, yogi, pedi dan nelson.. nah sekarang bear in mind kalo gue baru kenal sama yogi, pedi dan nelson di bali itu... eh masa tiba2 pedi nanya apakah gue emang aslinya item atau gara2 udah lama di bali... hihihi talk about etiquette.... cuman luckily, gue udah lama nerima nasib gue sebagai seseorang yang berkulit hitam, jadi gue gak marah sama sekali.. cuman lucu aja...

jadi selama di bali itu, i was pretty much under the sun all the time.. puncaknya adalah pas gue belajar surfing... dari jam 10 pagi sampe jam 3... wah itu kan pas matahari lagi ganas2nya....

yah jadi.. gue balik ke jakarta dengan kulit yang sangat sangat sangat sangat item..... tau deh nih balikinnya gimana.. cuman kayaknya item yang kali ini mendingan karena jadinya coklat kemerahan, bukan abu2 bluek yang biasa gue alamin kalo kelamaan di laut.... yah thanks to nivea after sun lotion lah kayaknya.... tapi kulit muka n punggung gue ngelotok... jadi sekarang gue punya masalah dalam mencari baju dengan warna yang will complement my skin, masalah dengan bedakan supaya kulitnya gak keliatan kalo ngelotok dan masalah handukan soalnya masih sakit banget kalo ngeringin badan terutama bagian punggung....

tapi... gue gak nyesel sama sekali.... sekarang aja gue masih ngebayangin kalo bisa gue ke bali lagi bulan agustus... apalagi kalo mengingat cuaca di london, wah bisa gila gue kalo gak ke bali dulu sebelum berangkat... haduuu mudah2an bisa deh...

i'd trade white and fair skin for fun in the sun.. guess that's just the kind of girl i am....

Copyright Feud

Wah kacau. Gue lagi ada proyek publish your own book dari anak-anak SD Mentari. Jadi mereka masing-masing bikin fable, ada 17 anak dari Grade 5 dan fabel-fabelnya dikompilasi jadi satu buku dan dipublish. Dananya dikumpulin dari orang tua mereka dan dari yayasan sekolah. Orang dibalik semua ini adalah Ann Hutchinson, guru mereka. Dia yang punya ide dan dia yang ngumpulin semua resources to make it happen.

Nah... bla.. bla.. bla... etc etc.. etc.. akhirnya setelah berbulan2 ngumpulin duit dan melalui berbagai proses pengeditan, jadilan buku itu. Judulnya A Forest of Fables. Hebatnya lagi, proceeds dari buku itu akan disumbangin ke korban bencana, namely Aceh dan Sumatra Utara. Hebat kan...??

Trus the problem starts when the director of the school called me
Director : I'm calling about the Grade 5 book
Me : Yes, What about it?
Director : It says right here that the copyright belongs to Ann Hutchinson
Me : Yes, that's correct
Director : Why?

Huh??? Run that by me again?? What why? Why why? Kenapa nanya gue? Ya gak tau kenapa.... aneh banget ni orang.... Akhirnya gue jelasin kalo gue waktu itu nanya ke Ann, what should the copyright be? Should it be Ann's or the children's or the school's? Dan Ann bilang make it hers aja... i thought she already conferred bout that with the kids and the school... yo wis... i'm just doing what the client wants...

Akhirnya setelah berbagai phone calls to and fro, pihak sekolah minta bagian copyrightnya ditutupin pake stiker dan diganti jadi nama mereka.. artistically, i won't recommend that... let alone considering the time that is running out.. the books must be out by friday for god's sake!!

Personally, i say it should be hers.. she's the one behind all this, without her, there won't be a book... she's the one who's been collecting all the resources.... and then suddenly there's this organization which claim it should be theirs...

tadi gue sempet di confront sama Ann, dia bilang kalo Jakarta Books merasa bahwa itu harusnya atas nama Ann, why don't we refuse to do it? I said we just here for the client, that's what PYOB is all about.. you have the say, we are just mere helpers... and she said Am I not the client? Woops... you got me there.. akhirnya gue bilang, i refuse to be in the middle of this.. she surely understands that i cannot be in the middle of this.... yah well, seems like the school really wanted it to be changed, and i guess there's not much Ann can do... at least gue udah sempet stress my point to the director that it should be Ann's or better yet it should be the kids' ... whatever they decide, it's their choice.. i'm just a mere humble servant of their wish....

why? how?

tolongin gue dong... jelasin ke gue kenapa seseorang bisa jadi begitu.... begitu...... f%@#ed up!!!!!!

aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

tick. tock.

13.35
13.36
13.36
13.37

waaaaiiiiiiiii????? kenapa waktu jalannya lama bener..... ngantuk.. males.. gak mut....
i used to think gue orangnya yang seneng banget berangkat ke kantor, seneng bisa produktif.. tapi hari ini.... huuuuuu jauh banget dari situ... lack of sleep maybe? damn those novels.... kept me awake at all hours... trus ditambah lagi sama the blue of having to end the very relaxing holiday... seem can't get enough of it... i guess i find again the pleasure of sitting idillic, reading a book or just stare into space, with a beer and a couple of drags of course... and i am very reluctant to let it go again... just wanna go home now and nurture my new hobby.. staring into space that is

BALI

celana pendek, tank top, rokok dan bir dingin
ini doang yang gue pikirin sebelum berangkat ke bali.. let's face it deh, di jakarta gak mungkin kan lo wandering around looking like that.. that's just what i love about bali... forget the air conditioner, forget the lifestyle, i'd trade jakarta with sun, surf and beers any day of the week....
akhirnya di bali i get to scratch off one of my things to do before i die.. i surfed!!! yeeey.. go me!!

i'm not really into details rite now.. coping once again to the hard day's routine is suffocating enough for now... the only thing i know right now is i'll be goin back to bali as soon as the wallet can afford it... todeloo!!

huuuuuuuu

TAK SEMANGAT KALI HARI INI!!!!!!!!!!!!!

kurang

For those of you who wonder, keretanya begitu karena ada pohon tumbang di klender, thus keretanya jalannya macet edan karena hanya ada 2 jalur disitu

8 freaking hours

waaaahhhh capek beraaaat!!!! gara-gara masalah sekolah, gue mesti balik lagi ke bandung, ngurus2in segala tetek bengek sama kampus... sebenernya bukan itu sih yang bikin kesel... tapi the 8 hours trip jakarta-bandung!!!!
gue kan harusnya naek kereta jam 17.45, jam 17.40 ada pengumuman di stasiun.. "Kereta Argo Gede jurusan Bandung akan mengalami keterlambatan" wah wah wah terlambat berapa lama nih?
ternyata jam 18.05 udah bisa naek kereta.... ah cuman 20 menit, ini sih kalo standar jakarta bukan telat namanya....

baca koran.
makan cheeseburger.
langsung tidur.
bangun.
kok keretanya gak bersuara ya?
liat kanan.
DAMN!!!! masih di cikini saja... that's like, one freaking station away dari gambir!!!
trying to be positive.
ah mungkin cuman telat dikit.
baca buku.
kereta jalan lagi.
tidur lagi.
bangun.
liat kanan.
S%$T!! MANGGARAI.
haduuuuuu.
lama bener berentinya.
tidur.
bangun.
MANGGARAI.
tidur.
bangun.
MANGGARAI.
tidur.
bangun.
MANGGARAI.
Haaaa bosan melanda.
baca buku sampe setengah dari 267 halaman.
telpon uni.
pulang aja kali ya?
turun? nggak? turun? nggak?
waddya know?? kereta jalan lagi
as of that moment, jam menunjukkan angka 10 malam.
agak excited.
in no time gue akan nyampe bandung.
decitan rem.
damn!!! not again.
stasiun jatinegara.
5 menit.
20 menit.
1 jam.
jalan dikit.
50 METER DOANG JALANNYA!!!!
udah nyerah.
terserah deh nyampe jam berapa.
akhirnya, pada tepat pukul 02.00 dini hari waktu bandung, saya menginjakkan kaki di stasiun hall, bandung.

Our Dearest Friend

My Dearly Beloved Friend

Dia udah pergi
Udah ninggalin kita semua
Tapi dia lebih bahagia sekarang
Lebih nyata

Kalo Adit ngomong, omongannya singkat, tapi langsung kena... Apapun yang dia omongin, kita semua pasti dengerin dan kita gak perlu mempertanyakan, kita yakin dia selalu benar.
Dia merhatiin temen-temennya banget... Selama ini dia yang selalu nyatuin kita, lewat e-circle dan MSN. In his own way, dia ngejaga kita untuk selalu satu. Dia gak pernah complain, gak pernah ngeluh. Apapun dibikin santai sama dia. Dia gak pernah nuntut banyak-banyak dari kita. Dengan caranya sendiri yang subtle, dia cuman minta supaya kita selalu bareng-bareng, selalu kumpul.

Dani punya teori, kalau Adit selama ini bertahan demi kita. Pas hari Rabu itu, dia tau kalo kita udah punya jalannya masing-masing, semua temen2nya udah ready to take off, semuanya udah bisa jaga diri sendiri. Knowing this, dia jadi tenang and he left. And so, he left us his subtle closures here and there.

Hampir 10 tahun udah kita kenal and it was a real pleasure having him in our lives. That 10 years have put a loving dent in our hearts. Kita akan selalu inget lo dit, dan kita akan selalu bersama as our honour to you. Take good care of us from up there, my dear friend. We love you... soo much....

Rinto

It was wonderful
The times we had
At first the chemistry was too strong
But later on the rationale kicked in
If we were meant to be
I'm sure it will find a way

Thank you....
Thank you so much
for what you have given, taught and shared

Anak Kerang

Pada suatu hari seekor anak kerang di dasar laut mengadu dan mengaduh pada ibunya sebab sebutir pasir tajam memasuki tubuhnya yang merah dan lembek.
"Anakku," kata sang ibu sambil bercucuran air mata, "Tuhan tidak memberikan pada kita bangsa kerang sebuah tangan pun, sehingga Ibu tak bias menolongmu.
Sakit sekali, aku tahu anakku.Tetapi terimalah itu sebagai takdir alam.""Kuatkan hatimu. Jangan terlalu lincah lagi.Kerahkan semangatmu melawan rasa ngilu dan nyeri yang menggigit.
Balutlah pasir itu dengan getah perutmu.
Hanya itu yang bisa kau perbuat", kata ibunya dengan sendu dan lembut.Anak kerang pun melakukan nasihat bundanya.Ada hasilnya, tetapi rasa sakit bukan alang kepalang.
Kadang di tengah kesakitannya, ia meragukan nasihat ibunya.Dengan air mata ia bertahan, bertahun-tahun lamanya.
Tetapi tanpa disadarinya sebutir mutiara mulai terbentuk dalam dagingnya.
Makin lama makin halus. Rasa sakit pun makin berkurang.Dan semakin lama mutiaranya semakin besar.
Rasa sakit menjadi terasa lebih wajar.Akhirnya sesudah sekian tahun, sebutir mutiara besar, utuh mengkilap, dan berharga mahal pun terbentuk dengan sempurna.
Penderitaannya berubah menjadi mutiara; air matanya berubah menjadi sangat berharga. Dirinya kini, sebagai hasil derita bertahun-tahun, lebih berharga daripada sejuta kerang lain yang cuma disantap orang sebagai kerang rebus di pinggir jalan.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cerita ini doang yang gue inget-inget seminggu kemaren. Well, it's been a life-altering week banget deh pokoknya. Kronologisnya nih ya...

Senin 21 Maret 2005
Gue dapet kabar kalo kemungkinan besar gue gak akan diterima di SDSU.

Selasa 22 Maret 2005
Yup, It's definite. Masa depan gue tiba-tiba looked bleak. Malemnya, karena gue kecewa berat dan gue baru tau situasi terbaru dari Bokap mengenai sekolah gue, gue ngelampiasin kemarahan gue ke Bokap and Kakak gue. Tapi gue udah minta maaf ke mereka kok, I'm really sorry Pa, Ni.... Tapi ada hikmahnya, kita sekeluarga yang selama ini mulai menjauh jadi deket lagi...

Rabu 23 Maret 2005
Gue mulai cari sekolah lagi, dan malemnya akhirnya gue jalan sama Adit, temen gue yang selama ini sakit dan gak ngebiarin kita untuk ketemu dia. Gak nyangka gue kalo dia udah sekurus itu, udah selemes itu... the minute we pull out of his driveway, I broke down...

Kamis 24 Maret 2005
Sahabat gue ulang tahun, akhirnya gue berlima bisa jalan bareng, gue bahagia banget bisa ketawa2 kayak gak ada beban sama sekali... malemnya my relationship with my boyfriend started to go downhill... it's the beginning of the end...

Jumat 25 Maret 2005
Masih dicuekin RInto, sedih banget.. cuman i tried to push it back... Gue ngerayain ulang tahun temen gue yang kemaren itu rame2 banget ke wonder bar.. hehehe udah gak bisa ternyata gue ke tempat kayak gitu.. gak enjoy sama sekali deh... dan malam ini, klimaks dimulai...

Sabtu 26 Maret 2005
Jam 02.00 dini hari gue memutuskan untuk pulang aja bareng rara n angga dari wonder bar.. tengah jalan, Apit, sahabat paling deketnya Adit telpon... The minute his name showed up in the cell, I knew something was wrong... bener aja, Adit ternyata udah gak sadar... Abis nganterin Rara pulang, gue n angga langsung ke MMC. Orang pertama yang kita ketemu adalah Bapaknya Adit. Angga nanya "Aditnya gimana Oom?" Jawabnya "Loh.. Adit udah meninggal tadi jam 02.30" DAAAARRR!!!!!! WHAAAAT??? I just stood there, leaning to the wall... It ain't right... Bapaknya yang nenangin gue.... Tried to be tough, but it's hard... Gue liat kerandanya lewat... DAMN!!! Well, he's better off this way.. but still.... Temen2 gue yang lain mulai berdatangan, and it was a really bleak morning..... Jam 04.00 kita semua pulang, after saying our brief goodbyes to Adit.
Pulangnya gue gak bisa tidur, gue telponin RInto terus dan akhirnya kita berantem berat... Walaupun udah kepikiran sama gue untuk putus dalam beberapa hari terakhir, tapi ego gue masih gak bisa nerima... akhirnya karena sama2 emosi dan capek, we left things hanging....
Jam 08.00 temen-temen gue mulai nelpon, sambil nangis semua... Kebanyakan temen-temen gue gak tau separah apa keadaan Adit in the last days of his life... Selama ini dia selalu pushed his way through his disease, jadi kita semua mikirnya dia akan push it this time too... Jam 10.00 gue sampe di rumahnya, gue gak mampu untuk masuk.... Tapi temen gue semua bilang kalo dia tersenyum di tidur terakhirnya, his typical smile dan katanya gue akan lebih lega kalo udah liat dia... Gue masuk, dan gue broke down... Di setiap prosesi yang ada, gue selalu nangis.. To cut it short, pemakaman selesai jam 04.00 sore dan every minute of it was filled with tears.
Trus gue pulang, gue tidur, gue bangun, gue ke kawinan temen kuliah gue, gue ke ulang tahun sepupunya Rara, gue kena tilang, gue pulang, gue tidur, semua dalam keadaan trance.

Minggu 27 Maret 2005
First thing in the morning, gue telpon Rinto dan nyelesaiin semuanya. Gue akhirnya bisa nerima kalo kita mendingan putus. Dan kita putus baik-baik. Pas mau nutup telponnya sih sakit banget rasanya, cuman abis itu lega. Trus selama siang itu, gue ngobrol sama Uni n Aa mengenai sekolah gue. After all the chaos on that topic, akhirnya gue nemu solusinya. Walaupun masih susah nerima segala kesimpulannya, gue berusaha untuk kuat. Gue adalah si anak kerang.
Malemnya, seperti janji gue ama temen2 gue waktu di rumah adit, kita ngumpul2 untuk celebrating adit's life, hari minggu sore di wok sambil ngebir, just like what adit used to do. Seneng gue karena temen2 gue adalah the best in the world, to me. Kita semua ngumpul, rame banget dan kita ngerencanain ke Anyer tgl 9 April. We all raised our glasses with tears in our eyes, FOR ADIT!!

Sooo... one hell of a week ya..... It sure is tough, but I'll manage... Gue kan anak kerang.....

Fiskal dan Debat

1-2 minggu yang lalu gue pernah ngajak temen-temen gue untuk ngisi online petition yang mendesak pemerintah untuk ngapusin fiskal secepatnya lewat YM. Dan barusan, tiba-tiba, out of the blue, temen gue yang menurut gue emang punya sejarah yang kenteeeellll banget dalam ngajakin orang debat, mulai mendebat gue ttg pembebasan fiskal itu.

Salah satu dari kalimat-kalimat pertamanya: "bebasin fiskal disaat negara lagi BU?"

ya ampun, temen gue ini ni yah, dia itu salah satu anak terpintar di sma gue dulu, a nerd if you will... aduh maaf banget nih ya, cuman gue gak bisa menoleransi ignorance kayak gini.. duit mulu!!!!

soalnya gue tuh dengan tulus percaya bahwa dengan ngadain fiskal, pemerintah itu defying the people's right to think globally... iye gue tau.. jauh sih emang urusannya... cuman pada setuju gak sama gue, biasanya orang yang udah sering, atau pernah, ke luar negri, punya wawasan yang lebih luas daripada orang yang puas ada di negaranya sendiri mulu...

sekarang kalo misalnya somehow kita bisa sering-sering keluar negeri, bagaimanapun itu caranya, kenapa gak dilakuin coba? kata temen gue itu sih, kalo orang pada keluar negeri, devisa kebawa ke sana juga dong? aduh aduh aduh, sekali lagi aduh... kenapa? kenapa mikirnya kayak gitu? coba ya gue kasih my version of the cycle...

fiskal bebas ---> sering keluar negeri, ke negara2 yang udah maju ---> lihat/belajar cara-cara orang di negara yang lebih maju ---> benchmarking sama yang di negara sendiri ----> bawa pulang pengetahuan baru itu ----> nerapin sistem baru yang lebih baik berdasarkan yang dipelajarin di luar negri (tolong, bagi yang suka berpikir makro kayak temen gue itu, sistem bukanlah "the whole system in life", proses mandi juga sistem kok) ---> negara jadi maju -----> turis banyak yang dateng, yang artinya adalah $$$$$ (itu kalo mau money-oriented ya)

lagipula nih ya, kan katanya Jero Wacik mentri kita itu, kalo ada fiskal, orang jadi lebih milih wisata ke dalam negeri.... yah my personal opinion is always have been that subsidi atau bentuk pemanjaan lainnya hanya akan bikin kita bego dan puas dengan posisi kita sekarang, jaman VOC banget.... kalau misalnya fiskal dibebasin, mau gak mau kan pariwisata dalam negeri berjuang sekuat tenaga to stay in the business untuk ngalahin kompetitor2nya di luar negeri, hukum alam yang sangat simpel kok.... nah kalo mereka dimanjain terus sama peraturan yang akan menggembalakan konsumen ke mulut mereka, yah ongkang2 kaki aja kalo gitu.. misal nih, fiskal gak jadi dibebasin (tapi masalahnya fiskal akan dibebasin wether now or later, soalnya udah tertulis di perjanjian AFTA) trus.. whaddya know.. 5-10 years from now, fiskal dibebasin, sedangkan industri pariwisata kita yang enggan beranjak karena udah dimanjain ternyata udah ketinggalan 5-10 tahun.....

ya udah lah, kenapa kita gak susah2 aja dulu sekarang, trus nanti kita maju full speed... yah kayak yang gue bilang ama temen gue, kita lagi ngalamin akselerasi kemajuan, jadi emang rasanya segala lagi susah banget...
tapi please please please, i beg you.. liat jauh ke depan dong hasil yang akan kita dapet.. jangan cuman bitching mulu kalo hidup itu susah......