Past 2 Weeks

I didn't tell you what I've been doing in my last post, so here's a little update on life lately.

I met Vivy Sundays ago (24/10/04). Finally managed to meet her. She gave me this cute figurine of a little girl in a Halloween costume (supposedly a witch, I guess) from Austria. We met for lunch, then we went to SimLim because I wanted to buy a new memory for my computer. Well, that turned out to be such a disappointment. I was actually ready to just buy it, but it was so hard to find it and since I didn't bring my laptop with me, all that I got was headache and confusion I did find out something. My computer is deemed ancient, coming from a pre-historical age Hiks...I am really sad about it. After SimLim, we went to Bras Basah to check out the 2nd hand bookshops there. My first time going there. Didn't really find anything interesting there, but Vivy did buy a few books. I felt bad about torturing her with our wasted trip to SimLim. She lent me the Good Morning Vietnam vcd. Finally, I could get my hand on this movie. I was pretty curious about what the movie is about, because one of the soundtracks Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World is just so beautiful. I remember Darren always waved his hands when he heard this song in my room, silly guy Watched the movie yesterday. I was pretty sleepy watching it. The movie somewhat different than what I expected but overall it was pretty good. Not all about the comedy, the reality was there too. So many great songs in the movie. Should really watch the movie again and again to get all the jokes.

Oh yeah, last last Friday (22/20/04), my friend had his first baby. My feeling was right, it's a girl. Too bad, he didn't name it Eka, being the first born and all He was so excited about this baby. I think he had sent sms to the whole world when his baby was born. That's what you do, by the way. That's the courtesy, telling people when your baby was born. Unlike some people who didn't have such courtesy! But, hey who am I, right? I'm a nobody. Well, if you can call me a nobody, then you are totally damned. Alright, I shouldn't be rude again. After all, they were kind and nice to me in the good old days and I kinda owed them a lot. Okay...2 weeks ago, Arsenal was beaten 0-2 by Manchester United. Darn it I didn't watch the match, but even if I want to say it's unfair, I guess that's just the way God want it to be 2 weeks ago, I had a few weird and uncomfortable dreams. I hope one of them wouldn't come true. I don't have the energy to deal with it if it comes true, please God...

This week was okay, I guess. The highlight was when I was actually shopping like a girl last Friday. I went to Orchard. Went to several places and actually shopped. There's this promotion of branded stuffs in Takashimaya and I kinda bought a few stuffs there. I even came back again last Saturday to get my mom something. So I'm pretty much broke now and still I have already set my eyes on something expensive. I don't know if I could or should get it. Anyway, I was feeling totally weird buying all those stuffs, because it's so girlie and I don't want to be that kind of girls who really go to the malls and go from one shop to another. I always think that it's somewhat "low". I'm sorry, maybe it's not but I just think if you have the time to do something, do something useful like going to bookstores and gain knowlegde through books rather than going through newspaper or fashion magazines to check out places that offer promotion and such. But I guess, as a girl you do really have to know how to shop and I guess what I did wasn't really "sinful". It's not like I do it often and a lot. By the way, I'm a size 7 though I'm slightly short for it Oh yah, another thing, bought Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist again, but this time it's for me. The last time I bought it was for a friend. The friend that I gave it to wasn't really into books but I do hope he read it, it's not like the book is so thick. It was pretty difficult to part with the book the last time because I really wanted it but in the end I did part with it and now I have another copy for myself Oh, another thing, in the bookstore, I found out that since my Chinese zodiac is dog, I don't get along with roosters and goat. That pretty much explains all

Talked to my mom yesterday and wow did she blew me away with the news she's telling me. Come on, all this time she didn't tell me anything and all of the sudden she was telling me these things. I was pretty shocked. The news weren't actually good ones. I couldn't find the right word in English to describe this. The news kinda make us have to feel prihatin. I guess the nearest word I can find in English to describe it is concerned *sigH* One can see it as something normal but I'm just feeling it as something bad. Well, what do I know, right? Anyway, mom was pretty cool. She was actually telling me to travel alone if I feel bored. Surprisingly, as much as I want to, I felt pretty scared. Let's just see if I can pull anything by the end of this year.

Finally change the song list, after about 3 months? Sorry people, kinda occupied with things. So this list actually contains lots of songs which are not new anymore. They've been with me for some times. Got a lot of Josh Groban's songs from Vivy. Got the whole Closer album. I did have a feeling that I would eventually get it, I just didn't know how and it turned out it took a lot of waiting. My favorite is Mi Mancherai (Il Postino). Feel like crying hearing this song. Josh Groban does have that effect towards me I wonder if this is the soundtrack for the Italian movie, the Postman (I think the title was Il Postino too). If it is, then I kinda regret not watching it fully the last time in Arts Central. I didn't watch it whole, but I remembered that it was actually really nice. I was already quite moved by the little that I watched. I hope I could get a chance to watch it again. The song list kinda contains a lot of RnB and hip hop songs, it wasn't really intended, but the songs are pretty good. Was quite surprised hearing Simple Plan - Welcome to My Life because it really describes how I felt at one point in my life and I was all the things that the song says *sigH* but I am getting better now

Do you ever feel like breaking down? Do you ever feel out of place? Like somehow you just don't belong. And no one understands you.

Do you ever wanna run away? Do you lock yourself in your room? With the radio on turned up so loud. That no one hears you screaming.

Do you wanna be somebody else? Are you sick of feeling so left out? Are you desperate to find something more. Before your life is over.

Are you stuck inside a world you hate? Are you sick of everyone around? With the big fake smiles and stupid lies. But deep inside you're bleeding.

No you don't know what it's like. When nothing feels alright. You don't know what it's like to be like me.

To be hurt. To feel lost. To be left out in the dark. To be kicked. When you're down. To feel like you've been pushed around. To be on the edge of breaking down. When no one's there to save you. No you don't know what it's like.

You might think I'm happy. But I'm not gonna be okay.

Welcome to My Life

:) eKa @ 8:39:00 PM • 0 comments

Setahun Kemarin

...di ujung jalan itu setahun kemarin...

This blog is 1 year old today. I don't even feel it. A year has gone by and it's like I'm still trying to figure out my day, every day. Trying to find my rhythm, trying to find the routine, and feel it. Well, actually the routine is there, the schedule, and all, and to be honest these last few days (or weeks perhaps) I seriously want to run, to hide, to cave, to die? I was feeling so tired at people and I just want to be left completely alone without anyone else. Hey, that sounds so like last year.

This time last year, I was feeling something like that too. However, today is much better than 28 October 2003. I am mentally better. You may say that I don't sound that well now, but compared to last year, I am seriously much better now. This time last year, the worst time of my life (so far) was starting to take their form. All the dark feeling described in a Linkin Park's song were totally what I felt (and that was also perhaps the reason why I could relate to Linkin Park). Let me try to describe what I felt last year: betrayal, hypocrisy, weakness, stupidity, desperation, sadness, anger, sorrow, madness, emptiness, void, loneliness, worry, lost, despair, confusion, lie, dead. Geez...Writing that really brings back the memory of things that made me so upset (upset is such a soft word to describe how I really felt, but I can not think of another word now). The difference that I have today is that I am free from something that somewhat had put me down quite a lot. So silly! When the freedom came, I actually kinda asked not to go. That was truly one of the silliest and most embarrassing thing that I had done in my life (Dewi would say: "I've told you so"). Another thing was, one thing was given to me by God that lifted my worries a bit.

I do have to say that not all things are better now. Still feeling the hypocrisy and the lie. I just want to say that I am a good person and I know what is the right thing to do if I were in your situation. Do not think for once that you, not doing what politely you were supposed to do made me to be the bad person for not coming to you and embracing you. The courtesy should come from your side, not mine. I'm carrying this guilt, thinking that I might be the arrogant one here but you know what? I know for sure, if you were in my situation you would actually do the same and you might cursed too. I'm not cursing you, but damn it, it hurts!!! No matter how many people trying to tell me that you were the wrong and I did the right thing, I question myself and I hate that. I hate people who made me not sure and unhappy about myself.

*sigH* If only I have the guts to shout this to the people whom I want to shout this at *sigH* This post is not supposed to be such an angry and depressing post but if I have to think about last year, all those feeling just come back. They are not gone. They are just suppressed by the good things I've been receiving. Anyway, I just want to ensure you that today is okay. Right now my life is totally much better compared to last year. I have to thank God for it. He has shown me that people can still be kind to me. I thought I was going to die because of the madness but God pulled me out in time. Thank you so much God. I hope I can write nicer and happier posts in the future because who knows perhaps it would make people think of You too.

...melangkah pergi...berteman sepi...

:) eKa @ 3:42:00 PM • 0 comments


DaisyBLueButton.com

DaisyBLueButton.com Resurrected! Well, who would have known? I have never expected that I would get the chance to work on that site again. My dear baby that I worked my heart and soul for, for my CS3266 project. I don't think anyone really know how much the project meant for me. It was weird because initially I dreaded the module. I attended the lecture in my 2nd year and Dr.Hui was kinda demoralizing me, so I took a risk. I delayed taking the module for a whole year, even though in my 2nd year, there were so many kind people who would helped me a lot if I were to be in trouble. I just thought I wasn't ready and I was really scared. In my final semester, it couldn't be delayed anymore, so I gave in and I just prayed a lot There was never a doubt about what to sell. I wanted to sell flowers, period! I really had a great time browsing for pictures and I guess because it was something that I really like, I really enjoyed doing it. Really!!! People may argue that I was too stressed out about it, but I really like doing the project. The satisfaction was great. I can only named a few modules which really gave a good impression to me when I was in NUS, and cs3266 was one of them. Even Dr.Hui turned out to be quite a nice person, but I still would prefer to be under his radar during tutorial There were some funny moments during the tutorials. In a way, they helped to make the whole experience fun

Anyway, about DaisyBLueButton. Earlier this week, a friend needed help with setting up an online store using ASP and naturally I was bound to give help (for the obvious reason: I had DaisyBLueButton.com). This person told me about this 4 days before he supposed to hand in the site! Honestly I thought I wouldn't be able to make it. I didn't even know if my computer could pull it through. Thank God that I managed to install IIS in my computer. I'm so proud of my laptop He's one tough laptop Thank you God Then the next major problem was migrating my database, which basically was gone since it was hosted by the school Oracle. So it was quite a nerve-wrecking and tiring and dizzying experience to build my database again using Microsoft Access (mind you, I am not smart). One of the stupid thing that I did, doing the project back in NUS was that I didn't really pay much attention to the words that I used. Quite a number of my column names are reserved keywords in access, so I was having quite a headache and perhaps a heart attack (a little hyperbole here) when I was working on the access database. Thank God that I could still used the same column names, I just had to do some little modifications in my queries. Event though I didn't like the stress, it's cool that I was learning something new There were a lot other problems, such as XP having restriction to write to the database (if not through the database directly), Microsoft Access restriction, inconsistency in display, and my session problem (which Teddy amazingly managed to solve). I was so amazed with Teddy. One because he was actually willing to help me again despite being busy and two of course because of his brain and perhaps amazing eyes. He managed to spot that 1 line that caused so much problem, the session bug that made me so sad. It didn't cause problem last year and I don't know why now it's giving me such a hard time. A lot of other adjustments had to be made. New bugs were found. They had been lying dormant for a year, well basically it's because I was too proud of myself. I thought my site was bullet-proof but it's not. There were major loop holes in my flow of the whole thing *sigH* They made me so sad. In the end, within that 4 days (well less than 4 days I guess, I couldn't dedicate my 24 hours/day to do this) I managed to resurrect my dear DaisyBLueButton.com on time. Through all the stress, the dizziness. I was even having difficulty breathing on Tuesday night. By the way, my JavaScript to check the credit card number validity actually works. It was so cool! I couldn't really test it back then but I tried this time around with real credit card numbers and it worked I am proud of myself. I want to thank God for this opportunity that I seriously wanted to reject in the first place. I accepted the task because I remembered the so-many friends who didn't forsake me when I needed their help. Even in this week, God still gave me Teddy to help me. So I guess I shouldn't take all the credit. It's all God's work. Thank you God for letting me learn again

I made more changes on the site again today. This time around, I did it for me. I even added a new feature. I'm not going to say that now my site is bullet-proof because I learn enough to know that it will never be. This website doesn't worth a thing but for me it's just so personal. It's not an esthetically nice website but it really is my baby. I couldn't give you the address because there's no point in doing so since my computer are not online most of the time. I learnt a lot through this whole process. Again I must thank God. Well ... Most of you who strangely are reading this right now most probably don't get what I'm writing about but thank you for reading up to this line. Here, I'm giving you my favourite item from my imaginary store.

It's called Tulips for Lovers. Read more if you want to know the cheesy description Centuries ago tulips became the traditional way to declare love. 20 stems of pink, white and red tulips in a glass vase along with a touch of ribbon. Send an unmistakable sign of your affections that's as timeless as tulips themselves. The price is only S$55 Okay, now I'm going to tell you something so silly that I will regret putting this white into blue, but here it goes: back then I used to pretend I was sending this tulip to my crush I know I'm freakin crazy *sigH* Ikan yang itu bukan untuk saya

written Saturday night (16/10/04)

:) eKa @ 3:35:00 PM • 0 comments

About Weekend
Saturday (08/10/04) - Sunday (09/10/04)

My first free Saturday since a long-long time. Really free without having anything that I must do and it turned out to be such a boring day. I was so "garink" that I was feeling sad for myself. Managed to get up later than usual. Didn't do anything interesting and useful. Watched the Kerry and Bush debate on TV. By now people do know that Kerry is far more articulate than Bush. However you know what they say about people who can talk well, they can fool you I know that my knowledge about politic is very very little and I don't really know much about what's going on in the world, the whole true story. By the little knowledge that I have, I want to see Kerry as president because I don't think Bush is a good leader and he's just so ... so stupid? That's very harsh, maybe moronic? Or maybe he is very smart because he managed to become president in the first place. I hate his stubborn decision of invading Iraq. Reading the news about what Saddam did in Iraq, he does seem like a very mean person, but I don't like the idea just because you think that you should be the superhero of this world you should just go out there, ignore UN, and invade the small country. I know that there are other people out there sharing my sentiment. However my feeling is telling me that he may become president again. After watching Fahrenheit 911, I really do think that he can be elected again. When Florida was hit by storm again recently, I was thinking could it be karma that they were getting because of the fishy politic that Bush was having with his cousin. Alrighty, I don't know much, so don't listen what I say about all of this thing, okay Anyway, after the debate, I was basically switching channels on TV. Then Detective Conan was shown and I watched that. Miss watching it, really. After that I decided to go to Kinokuniya, so that I won't be so "garink". Browsed some photographic books. It's just my thing. I can't put it to words the feeling that I had going through the National Geographics books. Then I bought dinner which I ended up eating at 4 pm Hey, I didn't have lunch. Didn't stay long in Kinokuniya because I wanted to watch "One Tree Hill". Went online in the evening and ended up watching some of Indonesian Idols footage off the Net. They were actually good and Delon was really quite handsome It's surprising how big the production is compared to Singapore's. Indonesia who supposedly to be poorer than Singapore After that, I called home, and guess what my parent were doing. They were watching Indonesian Idol too and just when I thought the show has ended. It turned out now they were showing the Idols concerts all over Indonesia. I think Indonesian Idol has really been the family show now in Indonesia. How great it is to be able to be there and enjoy it with my family *sigH*

I LoVe Linkin Park
I really do love Linkin Park. After talking to mom, I watched the Live in Texas dvd. I'm in love with Mr.Hahn A friend told me that his wife (who is a teacher and expecting a baby now) loves linkin park too. At that time, I felt wow I'm normal I don't know why I should feel like that. I guess the people who I used to hang out with made me feel weird and think that it's improper to listen to band who (according to them) capitalize on screaming I don't know why I should feel like that or bother about it. I don't need anybody approval of anything. I shouldn't let anybody's opinion make me feel happy or sad. I should be the one who make myself happy. I should hell better not make myself sad. I should be able to count on myself to make myself happy. I should not conform to other people to feel normal. I guess I'm just tired of people
Anyway...I think I'm crazy for liking Mr.Hahn so much Come on, I'm not 14

Sunday was spent doing nothing basically. Took my usual nap. Ate instant noodle for dinner because I didn't feel like eating anything. Found a bug in the java programme that I did last week. So I had to fix it. Got an sms from my dear cousin Marlisa. I miss her. I wished her the best. She told me that Dewi's sister had delivered a baby boy yesterday. Dewi herself hasn't given me the news. Maybe she's busy. Anyway, I miss my cousin. I miss my mama too I wish all of them are okay, protected and blessed by God. I hope my cousin will get what she wants ... Oops sorry, it should be: she gets what she really should get. Because what we want and what we should get (according to God) maybe different. This bring me to this one last point I'm going to tell you. I don't know if I read or hear this somewhere but I have this saying: you can't lose what you don't have in the first place. If you don't lose anything why feel sad? I'm so tired right now, so I'm not gonna write more. I guess, often time we feel sad and disappointed about things that we thought could be ours and in the end are not becoming ours. The truth is, those things are never ours in the first place so why feel sad about not having them. You are not losing them because they are never yours. When it's meant to be it's meant to be. In my case, I should be more sincere and look back on the people who have helped me a whole lot without me giving anything to them in return.

It turns out my boring weekend managed to occupy this much space Take care people ...
written Sunday (09/10/04) night



Added: Monday, October 11, 2004

My dear God ... This morning someone gave me a 512MB thumb drive!!! This friend was giving me this as a token of appreciation because I helped him with the java project. Am I being "muna" (= hypocrite) for being happy with this present? I mean, I told him that I didn't want anything in return, that he shouldn't get me anything but in the end he (stupidly) did buy me something. I must admit that initially the promised reward was what made me want to "help" him but after the process, I realized more and more of how many times people had helped me when I was in NUS, people like Yuanto, JTG, and Teddy to name a few, without whom I wouldn't be graduating and yet I have never given them anything. Perhaps I did buy them chocolate, but only that. This thumb drive is truly the most expensive thing a person outside my family has given me (Well I don't know how much the ring that Dewi's mom once gave me worth). Anyway, apart from thanking this guy, I guess I also must thank God. Thank you God ... You always give me a lot of things and no thank you will ever be enough to express my gratitude.

:) eKa @ 2:37:00 PM • 0 comments

Night Creature

I haven't been touching Java for more than a year and recently I was given the chance to work on something using java. It is very weird of me to take the project but somehow I felt so challenged and so interested and anxious. I simply just want to do it. I'm terribly nuts, aren't I? The truth is I felt somewhat guilty in taking the project because it is kinda wrong to take it (well, there's no "kinda", it's just it). However after doing it, I have or I think I am beginning to sincerely move away from my original reason of taking the project in the first place. Don't get what I am trying to say? Never mind In the end I am happy that I managed to deliver I finished something and that thing actually works. Me!!! Who cried after a lab session in my first semester in NUS, because just like the previous weeks I couldn't get anything compiled Those were devastating days, my friends. I think I'm getting better, although still far below of the skill level that I should be having now I think I have that determination to work my ass off to make something work. Maybe I didn't try hard enough back then, but like I had said before I wasn't really me back in those early days .

Didn't have much time to do the java thing on weekdays (because I wanted to play) So I burnt my weekend to do it all. Started off from Saturday, and I ended sleeping at 4 am on Sunday morning. I'm not complaining, because I've been wanting to go back to this lifestyle. Music in my ears, working late into the morning, and as much as it was painful and tiring, when you see that your program actually compiled successfully and run and get the result that you want ... My goodness!!! That feels like seeing light at the end of a dark tunnel. The feeling was just superb. I guess that's why I can not stop, because after 1 part is working, then I just want to work on the next part, it's like fuel that keep your spirit going I'm sorry for being so poetic Sunday, I woke up at 08:30 am, so that was about 4 hours sleep. Work on the thing again and took a nap in the afternoon. I actually didn't sleep quite well, I guess my body just got a shock from the sudden change. I had a strange dream in my nap, I met an old friend who wasn't really close to me. In my dream, she was so nice and friendly, no surprise actually because she is. I woke up, had my dinner, thinking I don't really have much time but I ended up still scrubbing my bathroom, and after Gilmore Girls, I worked on the project again. At 11 ++ pm, all the things were done and functioning. I cleaned up all the mess in the codes. At 12++ I was lying in my bed, but I couldn't sleep. My body just didn't understand that I need to sleep. I think in the end I slept at 1 am. So I'm a tare panda now, with dark area under my eyes Anyway, again no complain. I am proud that I managed to finish it all in 2 days. I want to thank God for the strength and the help, couldn't have done anything without You. I am okay now, ready to take more challenges (I guess) but I still don't want to be a programmer. I just can't see me doing it for a long time, under deadline, under other people's term and condition. I want to it under my terms, under my time, which perhaps be more like midnight By the way, I just found out that you can actually do java coding using Dreamweaver. I wasted my breathe and tortured my eyes doing it using wordpad There were no color coding and no line numbering. When your code is very long, it's just damn tough man Alrighty, take care ya' all ... cheerio

:) eKa @ 3:45:00 PM • 0 comments

archives.