I WANT MY OWL BACK!

Where did my owl background go?! :_(

I want my "hoot hoot" pink owl perched on the top of this page to be back. Can anyone help? :( I think I need to do something with the html again. Not exactly good with this stuff.

Anyways, guess where I've just returned from.

Papua.

I bet, if you know me well, that's a sentence you never thought you'd hear, huh? And two words that you'd never think would be in the same sentence; me and Papua.

Anyways, to make long story short, it was a business trip and lasted a week. I literally traveled from Merauke to Sabang because my next destination after FakFak, Papua, is Aceh Tenggara near Medan. I got to do with with a client, but more importantly, with my colleague whom I've considered as quite close. He actually helped the trip more bearable for me because face it, I was scared shitless when they assigned me to go, but it turned out 80% better than i thought. So yay! :) And we got to do some culinary trip in Medan, so all's good.

I might post pictures of Fak Fak and its wonderful citizen later. I'm too knackered right now and I'm actually writing this between sneezes. I basically sound like a man and my head twirls.

So hey, I just realized I never told you about this new side job I got a few months ago. I am now officially a volunteer to teach English to children; how fun is THAT!? Actually come to think of it not really, because I can't teach. I keep giving Snickers bars and Minute Maid juices to any kid who can answer my question, and I've come to think that they only came for the snacks. Well anyway. I'm currently not teaching, though, because the children are off for a 3-month internship somewhere.

I really miss my owl.

I have got to stop sneezing.

eternal infatuation

I think, I have an unhealthy thing for Disney.

By the way before we start, don't wory, this ain't a paid post. Trust me, i don't have to be paid to write about Michael Mouse & Co.

As part of our annual tradition (and by our I mean me and my soon-to-be-married, 27-yr-old sister and my mom) I watched Disney on Ice's World of Fantasy in Istora Senayan. This year, they featured my all-itme favorite, first-Disney-movie-I-like, the beautiful, magnificent, graceful...

...Lion King.

It's the first movie that made my cry when I was little and it's no secret that I heart lions. Even better, talking lions. So in short, the Lion King on ice was A MA ZING. Flawless. Scar was vicious as hell, Musafa was courageous, Nala was graceful and Timon and Pumba, well, were very little and big, respectively.

And then they sang all these songs that I still know by heart, thanks to the endless hours of watching its laser disc (!!) and dancing in front of TV to the tunes (!!!!)when I was a kid.

I personally think Walt Disney is crazy.

Was, I meant. The dude is practically responsible for all dreamy-eyed, wistful-looking children aged zero to twenty four years old (ahem) all over the globe. It's crazy how he created this whole alternate universe where princesses and fairies and princes and castls and insane-looking characters exist. Disney is ageless, in terms of its audience and the brand itself. You will never ever get tired of Disney and I personally do not get people who don't like Mouse & Co.

Anyways.

Work has been crazy. Something even crazier in terms of personal life has occurred last week but I'm in no mood whatsoever to tell it here. Oh, also, I have a new resolution. I've come to events in my life that are going berserkly (a word?) wrong, completely, unbelievably off the right path. Far beyond my plans. And that throws me down to the ground, many many times, so my new reslotion would be not to have plans. At all. Not even plan Bs and Cs.

THEN I'd be free from the threat of a cardiac arrest at such a young age. I get terrified and jittery all the time, worrying over the fact that my life will not go according to plan. I'm done with that. You can only get so far with them and what do you do when it fails to happen? You become depressed! Thus, my next plan, effective imemdiately, is not to have a plan.

...we'll see about that.

You're better off being boring than pretentious.

OK, I need to say something first before I dive further into the post.

I'm glad I'm surrounded by smart, intelligent, un-tacky friends and people in my life.

There, I said it. I'm not smart, certainly not knowledgable, and not that kind of intelligent person who blogs or tweets continuously about economic condition, financial markets, tradings, politics, or ancient history. (please; one of my ealirer posts was focusing on a talking cat.)

I'm glad my friends are all well-educated, filled with enriching experiences, and do not worship Starbucks, Segarra, 7/11, Bali (Twitter alert status: "Beach plz!"), fixie, current Jakartan ABG slangs, or Zooey Deschanel ("OMG her style is so me!!!!!!") as their ultimate hangout spots or role models. I like that each of my friend has their own distinctive style, thoughts, insights, one that does not scream desperation to fit in. I'm glad that I have those who constantly update me both on the entertainment hot spots in town and current affairs. Or, to quote a friend back then,

"These days you just can't afford being stupid."

Which I would love to put as the closing statement of this post.

Thank you.

"when my darkers days are my alibi"

So here's what I've been up to in the past months since we last talked:

1. I drank coffee. (!!) Although, bear in mind that my version of coffee is Nescafe's 3 in 1 with two teaspoons of sugar. At least.

2. Flew alone, abroad, for the very first time for a business trip. Don't you love how professional it sounds, 'business trip'? When I was little and went to airports, I saw men with gray suits and briefcases and wearing glasses and I wondered, always, what IS a business trip? What do you do there? It sounded far from interesting, but hey, like everything else in this world, you don't know how cold the water is until you dip your feet into it. In other words, it was pretty awesome. I get to look all serious in my work suit and reading glasses. (They weren't necessary, really, if only I didn't have a meeting to go straight into right after I landed. And the glasses were to protect my dear beloved eyes who are getting even more unpredictable. Speaking of which, )

3. I finally learned what my eye condition is !!! Thanks to RS Internasional Bintaro (whoops- I mean Premiere. They changed it after the Health Ministry required all so-called international hospitals to be officially accredited, and RSIB is not. But hey, we'll get to geeky stuff later.) I finally knew what this disease, this gut-wrenching, horrifying, mood-ruining eye condition is known as: Recurring Cornea Something. (Aggrasion? Aggression? Abrassion?). Which means, the most outer layer of my cornea is highly sensitive because it tends to "fall off". In other words, I'm screwed. Bad news, this disease is unpredictable in terms of when it's going to attack me, i.e. making my eye blood-red and making me feel as if a giant seashell is stuck in there. Good news, there is a cure (YAY!), which includes poking my eyeball with needles (I'm not frigging kidding.) which will help sew together my first and second cornea layers. Another news that is between good and bad, I can only undergo the treatment once the disease attacks again. In precaution though, I am now bringing antibiotic eye drops everywhere I go. I swear, it feels more important than wallet or phone that forgetting to bring it wherever I go freaked me out to no end.

3. My most anticipated client project went successfully in two cities. Had the pleasure of managing it on site in Surabaya, and the brand launch went well. Thank God.

4. I applied for a new job. All still very unclear about the prospect, but hey, would appreciate your good-luck wishes. :)

5. I started liking classic piano tunes. Well, at least only from this guy: John Schmidt. He combined songs beautifully, YouTube it if you haven't already.

6. I discovered that I have a tiny dot of mole in my right leg. You know what this means--the old belief is that people with moles in feet are bound to leave far far away. AMEN!

Whilst none of those updates was interesting, I will try to write more frequently here, as promise when I started this blog.

Good night!

"stop; turn back, rewind."

It's January 1st, 2011 now. I swear, 2010 must have been the fastest year ever. So in honor to that, I thought I'd give some much-needed awards for some outstanding events that occurred during my 2010.

#Happiest Moment of 2010
: This is easy. No doubt, Jan19-24, 2010. Bangkok trip, three bestfriends, laughing for six days in a row. Exploring a foreign city by foot, eating whatever they are selling in the streetside stalls, sleeping in a hotel we've only heard the name of a few hours prior to booking. Cheap bargains, cheap foods, made musician/artists friends while spending our last night at a jammin' cafe.

#Worst Moment of 2010
: Hmm. Must be when I started getting my eye virus more often. Hurt like hell. Think I'm exaggerating? Imagine living with a pin jabbing your right eye constantly. And it gets worse when you close it, so adios, sleep. Let's hope it won't happen again.

#Best Surprise of 2010
: The Disney media tour, of course. Going to each and every Disney park in the universe has always been my goal. Thanks to the office, I managed to visit the one in HK, all expenses paid. Two down,two more to go. Alhamdulillah. Best business trip ever; even though the eye thingy got in the way--again.

#Saddest Moment of 2010
: When my sister's boyfriend's dad passed away. Enough said.

#Worst Month of 2010
: April. No doubt. Two 'events' were occurring both at the same time, successfully making me lose concentration at work. It was bad, and I mean bad.

#Tear-jerking Moment of 2010
: Make that plural; my bestfriend's wedding, my bestfriend giving birth to her first daughter, my sister's engagement!

#New Thing I Learned in 2010
: ..that I could make a (half) decent three-layered cheesecake and apple pie.

#Most Shocking Moment of 2010
: Mid-April. I think it was a shock for everyone too.


and last but not least,

#Most Memorable Moment of 2010
: Mid-Feb to March. One month. I'm not saying if it was good or bad; all I know for sure is that it was memorable. And always will be.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Trees and mistletoes

A day where only laughter fills the air; where people aren’t pretentious and where we don’t remember anything that happens more than an hour ago. Carefree; liberated, relieved, laughing and smiling and teasing and reliving and getting away from the redundant daily routines where people stopped being funny and things stopped making sense. . Just a day. I just need one whole day. Where we say things we don’t think twice and think things that we don’t overanalyze. Where everything is just out open in the air and noone would regret what they said or did and noone wouldn’t bite back their tongue. Where we could return home and be puzzled because we couldn’t remember what we just did; couldn’t remember the whole day we spent together because we have returned to the normal life. Where the only things we remember are laughters and smiles and us throwing our head back with glee and affection and this urge to protect and take care of each other. Because eventually people die or disappear or age old and they will regret, for the rest of their lives, that they have never experienced that one day.

....

I feel like copying and pasting the words here. I feel like shouting to your face. I feel like transforming into that moment, that noon, that place, that conversation, that drink. Singular. I feel like telling you how you have absoltuely no idea how often I recently (re)read it. I feel like laughing at you for being affectionate when I was oblivious and oblivious when I was affectionate. I feel like this is extremely weird because this has been going on for a long time and I have not once experienced this in my life. I feel like smiling everytime I read "it". I feel like smiling when I remember. I feel like smiling when I hear them, because they make me remember. I feel like shaking my head at the events that keep happening, at the fact that as I am jotting this down, as my fingers fly over the keyboard, the random playlist is playing that song. I was, at first, awed when these events started happening, but then I eventually grow tired because I don't think it's normal. I don't think we're normal. Were. I don't think we were normal. I dont think we were normal and you noticed it. I think you noticed everything I said, I did, when I didn't realize. And I analyzed everything you said, and you wrote, right after you stopped noticing. And the more I did, the more I know I shouldn't have done what I did to you. At least, some parts of it. I feel like you'd given me one of the nicest feelings in the world when I didn't deserve it. You were there with your hands outstretched and I danced along without really taking it because I kept twirling around the ballroom. I feel like when I finally reached out to you, you smiled understandingly, looked down, pulled back and the fingertips never even really grazed. I feel like I should have listened to me instead of others; just like how you should've listened to just you. I feel like this is not me talking because I don't do this. I hate complications and I don't have a guideline to fall back on and I hate not having guidelines to fall back on. I feel like you are this distraction out of nowhere, completely steering me off the path. Were. You were. I feel like there was only 60% of you, or even 50%, that you showed and I missed out on the remaining 50%. I feel like not knowing what to say when I see you in person because "hi" would be over (under?) -rated. Because "hi" never explains what I feel. I feel like the biggest feeling I experienced was fear. I was scared by the fact that you knew me so well (and I'm not kidding) with just a short period of time. I feel like throwing up questions at you but I'm not sure if I want to hear the answer now. I feel like




I wonder if you still read this.