Ci Vediamo Darlings

I think I have packed all the things I should bring. So I just want to bid adieu to you. Feeling a bit nervous now, since Dewi said she is counting on me to figure out where we're going. I think I've done enough preparation and research but now I'm getting nervous. I suppose it is like when you are taking exams. Silly ya Then dad is pushing me to see my uncle there, I don't know how that's gonna happen. I think I should do it, can't stand hearing my dad scream on the phone *sigh*

Then the body is also worrying me. Had vertigo on Wednesday and it's kinda scary for me. Flu and all I can take, but if it's fever, head spin, things that make me unable to get up and function, well these things just freak me out. Hopefully, I will just be fine and make it back here okay.

Had an unexpected call this week. A door is being opened for me. Unexpected, surprising and flattering but I think I will pass. Very very hard though, because I will be passing it purely based on emotion and feeling and not on logical reasons. Well perhaps some of it is logical. It's really tempting and the fact that the door is being opened without me asking or working towards it kinda make me wonder if it is a sign from God. Speaking of God, the Mr was like so annoyed with me talking about God, he said and I quote, "not everything also god god god one...". I think he purposely used lower case Ah, if anything, I wish he believes in God more

Okay, gotta go. Take care peeps. See you when I see you.

:) eKa @ 10:26:00 PM • 0 comments

The Dark Night

Went to watch The Dark Knight alone yesterday. Love the alone part but I'm not as excited about the movie as many people may be or as the very high rating in IMDB. The reason is simple, I found that for a superhero movie, Batman's storyline is too heavy and as discussed during lunch today, it has many layers. For me of course it is so much better than the brainless Fantastic Four, however I found it less enjoyable than Iron Man for example. I do have to give this movie an A though, perhaps A+. One is because of the obvious effort that the writers put into writing the story. The movie is not about bang bang kill the bad guy and look cool kinda movie. There is an obvious effort in writing the story, though at some parts I do have to wonder was a certain character necessary, like the Hong Kong bad guy. RH said he was necessary so that the story can be brought to Hong Kong Seriously though, the story does not end when you expect it. When I thought the ending was near, I saw my watch and saw that there was still an hour more of the movie. I kinda feel that the writers just wanted to do a thorough job in telling the stories of all the characters, so things got pretty long. I loved that certain people didn't die and for those who did die, I didn't mind. I guess because I don't think the actors who played the character were much charming to begin with.

Heath Ledger was of course receiving much praises for his disturbing joker portrayal. I thought I would felt so eerie watching his joker, especially when I first saw the trailer I thought he was so scary, but it turned out I wasn't frightened with him. He was really good I have to say. I feel you can't even feel Heath Ledger in his joker, he just became another persona. My favorite scene of his was when he was dressed as a nurse, walking out of the hospital and detonating the bomb. It was quite funny and disturbing at the same time. I was actually thinking that the scene can be a part of a music video for some disturbing metal or rock band. Anyway back to the movie, oh yes, Heath was good. I don't know if his death did make me expect to see him on screen more. I do really wonder if he hadn't died, would he had received the many attention? Still, I think he did a really good job and every time he was on screen, he was really commanding and shined among the others. Can't really say much about the rest. Though I have to say that I like Christian Bale, he was cool in this movie I kinda like him more than the first movie Do watch it people, because you wouldn't want to miss what the whole world is talking about now Not a valid reason, I suppose

Life for me is in a matter of days now. I hope I can get through okay. Talked to mom just now. Ah, mom is the moral compass but it's still kinda hard to do the right thing. However I have to do it, I suppose. Especially since mom said so and I really do feel disobeying your mother kinda give you more bad karma or bad luck compared to other mischievous things. So good night peeps, I need to prepare myself mentally well to clear all the things that I need to clear.

:) eKa @ 10:11:00 PM • 0 comments

Eat, Pray ... No Love

Hello guys. How has your life been? My one has not been a good one this week. As I said this morning, "questa settimana sono sfortunata". Perchè? Well certain unfortunate things happened, but some people are not being understanding of it and everyone pretty much hate us or me. I am not sure it is my fault but I might as well take it as my fault. Everyone is angry and upset and so be it, let them be angry and upset, perhaps at me and let me just be sad. It's just when they start scolding, I cower like a 9-year old. From being stressed out to extremely sad, now I am feeling very very guilty because I am leaving soon and with that I am leaving la Gioia in these difficult times. She has had to endure more nasty things and for that I am feeling more guilty and to leave her in such difficult time really makes me feel bad. I have nothing but hope for the best but being the pessimistic me, I can't help just feeling devastated with everything.

So with the unfortunate things that happened, I had run to food immediately when I was struck. Then there's the praying this morning. Made my way to the temple and I'm thinking if I should cover all ground and go to church tomorrow. Hence so the title of the post, which is also in reference to the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I had actually seen this book some time ago, thought it was interesting but I thought it was a typical chick flick kinda book, so I dismissed it. Then came the shout from aseagullflap so I decided to check it out at Kinokuniya today. Didn't plan to buy it especially since I am tight on money these days, but stress really caused me to be quite impulsive, so I bought it. Then I found out that it's actually based on a true story, so that is so cool. It's a story about this woman who after a divorce did a soul searching in Italy, India, and Indonesia. 2 countries are pretty dear in my heart. I've only read the introduction, will most probably start reading the book after I get back. From the introduction, I felt that it is quite fated that her self discovery came from 3 countries that started with I. Anyway my title has no love in it. Maybe I am looking at the wrong kind of love? I have been to talking to him recently though. Feel somewhat not so right for me because it feels like when we first started and I feel that we kinda starting the cycle again and last time it led to me being brokenhearted. So what the hell am I doing, ya? I am being his friend? I wish I can be without getting my heart broken *sigh*

So by the way, where am I going? My good friend Dewi is coming to town next Saturday. She got a week off because she recently resigned from her job and has a week before she starts her new one. We are going to take a short trip to Hong Kong then spend some time here. If I have my way, it will be a month in Italy. So why Hong Kong then? Well money is one major issue and also I think Hong Kong is the furthest an Indonesian can go without visa. Am I right? Who can confirm this to me? Don't start me talking on visa, I hate it so much that Indonesian needs visa to go anywhere. Anyway, I'm pretty much in charge of the Hong Kong trip. We have never been there before. So we are so excited about it and the fact that I am doing this on my own, I am more anxious and excited about it. By the way, none of us speak Cantonese or Chinese. So if all goes well, it will be a good morale boost for me, that traveling alone is possible. In light of recent situation I will also feel like I'm not a total failure, that I am a capable person that those people who think I am incompetent are the stupid dumbasses

Yesterday, Vivy kindly accompanied me to watch the performance, The Dancing Sky by Studio Festi from Italy. It's at the National Singapore Museum. Singapore is having its first night festival. Very very cool and awesome performance. What was it about? Well the description I gave Vivy was, "some operatic acrobatic floating dancers with spheres in the air ". My description was not good enough. Basically the dancers were dancing while suspended in the air, and yes there were spheres or balloons you can say. I thought they were really brave to do these stunts. The whole thing were really amazingly beautiful because I think these dancers are really dancers at heart. The stunts are just addition to the foundation that they had. The only bad thing about the whole experience was the too many people there. What can you expect, I suppose. Luckily it was Vivy who I was with. She didn't complain and was easy going and the fact that it was only 2 of us, made it easier for us to move. Let me leave you with some pictures. I couldn't take nice pictures, and these are the best I could salvage. Wish me well, peeps!







:) eKa @ 9:30:00 PM • 0 comments

Un Altro Sabato Sono Da Sola Nella Mia Camera

Così è un altro Sabato sera, io sono da sola nella mia camera. Patetico? Che cosa posso fare? Va bene. Un giorno non sarò da sola più. Credo di si.

Just finished eating 3 egg tarts. Fattening, but that's dinner. I am crazy about eggs but somehow egg tarts do not excite me much even though it can come with melting chocolate. Okay, that's uninteresting detail.

Finished reading A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earth-bound Travels in the Far East by Tiziano Terzani or Un Indovino Mi Disse in Italian. Obviously I read the English version. Bought the book in January and only finished it this week. The book is interesting, don't get me wrong. I just got sidetracked a lot. The whole idea was interesting for me. Tiziano is an Italian who worked as a journalist in Asia. One day a fortune teller in Hong Kong told him that he shouldn't fly in 1993. As a journalist living in a very dynamic Asia (looking at the past 10-20 years here you would agree that many historical things happened in our part of the world), it made it very difficult for him to travel if he couldn't fly. He had his skepticism, should he heed the warning or to dismiss it as something with no power. In the end he listened to the warning, partly as an experiment to know how he would travel around Asia and back to his country in Italia without flying. So he used trains, ships, buses, and cars. Can you imagine the logistic traveling for example from Singapore to Italy without using planes? The route involved taking a train from China across Mongolia to Russia. Interesting, no? He also used his travels to locate all the famous locals fortune tellers, shamans, lamas and learned more about them. He asked the same questions about him and got to know them, their power, and method. For me these themes are so interesting, hence why I bought the book. However the writing is not all about these traveling and fortune teller stories. He wrote about countries he visited, their histories, and his opinions. I particularly thought his writing about Singapore was so right on. I think his description about Malaysia was also so apt. Unfortunately, he didn't travel much in Indonesia because I would have loved to read his opinion on my beloved country. He also wrote about the interesting people he met, which I thought was so cool. One of which was his meeting with Khun Sa, the Burmese warlord known to the world as the opium king.

I kinda love how Tiziano viewed the world. I kinda think he's an old soul. Perhaps I am one as well because I so agree with his dislike to modernity which has destroyed the beautiful and uniqueness of traditions and cultures in this world. Everywhere has become more or less the same. All due to globalization. I have to admit though that I am part of that generation who are not hanging on to our own roots and traditions. I can foresee that certain tradition in my family may not be continued by me. I hope I will do them but it just seems unlikely. I wikipedia-ed Tiziano and to my dismay he had passed away 4 years ago in 2004. Would have loved to hear his opinion about this part of the world, especially Indonesia. Unfortunately he never stayed in Indonesia. Maybe he didn't find it intriguing enough. Would have loved to read what he had to say about my country, the changes that we are going through, the changes that have yet to settle. Everything is always changing in Indonesia currently. I believe certain things take time to take effect but in Indonesia sometime I think the impatience of the people or perhaps the self absorbed politicians are dismissing certain policy and effort just because nothing is improved immediately. Anyway I think Tiziano's other books are heavy but I think I should try getting and reading them. They will truly be enriching because he's really such an insightful person.

Didn't do anything of particular interest this week. Missed a wedding today. Really didn't feel like going. I totally preferred to go to my class. Was late though I did try to be early. Had a good morning sessions with them. S e K hanno raccontato la loro esperienza in Italia. Anna Maria ha detto, "devi andare". Si ma come? Vorrei andare tanto, tutto Italia. Ma come, da sola? Aspetto Dio darmi l'opportunita, aspetto per un tempo giusto. Un giorno credo di avere l'opportunita visitare Italia.

Anyways, been having movies in the classes. Learning about the famous Italian comics. So far we had Totò and Paolo Villagio's Fantozzi. The Totò's movie which we watched was Miseria e Nobiltà which featured the young Sofia Loren. I loved this movie more than Fantozzi and man how I can talk more about how I love it in English rather than in Italian. Anna Maria kindly gave us a transcript of a famous scene from the movie. When I was watching it, I didn't understand all the thing word by word but reading the transcript, I thought a line that Totò said was brilliant. This was a scene when Totò who worked as a writer for illiterate people met with one particular illiterate man, Cafone. Totò ha detto, "Dungue. Lei è ignorante?". Cafone ha detto, "Io? Si". Poi Totò ha detto, "Bravo, bravo. Viva l'ignoranza! Tutti così dovrebbero essere". Okay translation for you, so Totò asked Cafone the illiterate man, "So you are ignorant?". The man said yes. Then Totò said, "Bravo, bravo. Viva ignorance! Everyone should be like that". I love it, love it so much Today we had Roberto Benigni, famous for La Vita è Bella (Life is Beautiful). We did Johnny Stecchino today but didn't finish it because Anna Maria is splitting the movie for 2 sessions. Watching parts of Jhonny Stecchino, I thought Benigni is amazing. I particularly love the way he involved down syndrome people in his story. He is a good actor as well, very very good acting. I think I should really watch more Italian movies, no more Fantozzi though. I just don't enjoy slapstick comedy, mi dispiace. I love how our discussions now is involving something which I truly enjoy, movies. I hope we can do more of this. I do have to say the discussions parts do play a big role, unfortunately all of us have punctuality issue which cause us to lose much time and hinder us in doing proper exchange of ideas.

On other news. Plans are in motion for my trip with my good friend Dewi. She's coming here at the end of the month. I wonder if I should ask her to bring me a copy of Machi's book. Still thinking if I really want it. I'm afraid reading it will make me depressed. Less than 2 weeks to go, I should get ready. 2 weeks, darn! I wonder if I can get myself well prepared. So so excited about this. The success of the trip will surely be a good morale boost for me.

Allora, buona notte amici!

:) eKa @ 9:18:00 PM • 0 comments

Hancock

Just came back from watching Hancock with la Gioia and NanSee. Note to self, when you are in a bitch mode, avoid people! Had much trouble during the booking, I don't want to talk about that and then somehow the people that I asked were kinda a let down. Seriously things like this kinda make me wanna smack my head for counting on people. I guess I was banking on the wrong people. I have to say today I have been so unkind. Was very very bitchy. At one point I actually felt quite guilty for the unnecessary rudeness. Osh asked me to apologize before it comes back to stab me in the back, but before I could reconcile with my pride, the person with the bigger and more sincere heart apologized to me. Darn, doesn't that make me a real bitch? It wasn't her fault actually, it was more of mine. Sigh.

Anyway, I thought Hancock was really really really good. I thought Will Smith did well. There were moments when I thought he had a bit of Lenny Kravitz going on. Will Smith was just so cool, he epitomizes coolness. Jason Bateman was also another star. Somehow I feel he just fits these kind of characters but that kinda doesn't really show his range but still I wouldn't actually be too excited seeing him attempting more extreme roles. I thought Charlize Theron was pretty here, kinda didn't really recognize her at first. Storywise, it was really really good. I didn't read any review before watching this but I had a brief idea of the movie. I didn't expect the plot to develop the way it was so it was kinda a twist for me. Love the ending because I so thought they were gonna die but they didn't and I love it that way. I felt Hancock was still lonely at the end of the movie. Somehow watching that I was thinking of the Indonesian line, cinta bukan berarti harus memiliki. I've always thought it was kinda too hard to swallow but I guess I am beginning to see the truth in it. So anyway peeps, I totally recommend Hancock to you. Is summer ending? I felt the summer blockbuster movies this year haven't really been quite a thrill. So for something different do watch this, it's worth watching.

:) eKa @ 10:44:00 PM • 0 comments

Clinging to Solitude

Hello peeps, how have you been doing? I'm not doing so good physically. Been having headache and now I think flu is coming. I would rather it just comes and let me deal with all the antibiotics and such. Sigh. After CELI 3 last week, life did become lighter for me. I kinda thought I was going to revive my social life and start asking people for dinner and such. It wasn't really so. On the contrary, I was rather anti social. I think pms is what causing it. It's seriously a real mental pain. Anyway, I did go to some dinners, did catch up with some people, did do a long distance counseling (which cost me a bomb) but also did miss some dinner, social activity and did not return some sms. Currently I found some people to be rather boring and that's kinda the reason why I decided not to hang out with them, currently ... currently. Patience is really on the low side (perhaps together with blood pressure) and I seriously have no interest whatsoever in what they have to say, which mostly about them anyway. So I am in a bitch mode or whatever it is that you want to call it, I just don't give a damn really.

My life is currently pretty normal and manageable. Nothing interesting happens ... just yet. Me and my best friend, Dewi, is planning something. I hope it happens but knowing her or her family to be more exact, I shouldn't really put much hope on it. Actually yesterday and this morning I wasn't in a good mood. Someone couldn't do something and so I had to jump in for a rescue mission ... as always. God damn it! Why can everyone say, "I cannot do this and that" and I cannot? Why do I always have to be able to do everything? Why do I have to have such responsibility? Not a new issue actually. It's been a life story for me. When I was young, it was the responsibility I carried being the older one. My brother were excused of so many errors because he is the younger one and I wasn't and I had to carry that responsibility of that older one, of someone who should be looked up to. Since it seems like it's pretty much my destiny in life, to be that dependable and responsible person, one would think that I should be already acceptant about it and get used to it. I am so not. I still hope one would carry and take this burden away from me. There's always Jesus, no? The thing that I had to solve was at a glance rather difficult and seemed very complex and rather unsurmountable. However, I tried and lo and behold in less than 3 hours, I got to solve it in a very simple manner. I was thinking damn it Eka, you had that nickname in your msn, "If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it", and you had doubt and fear. I felt rather guilty for doubting God, perhaps to be more correct I was excluding Him in my worry. I did remember Him a bit and said, "please God help me with this". Perhaps that short line was the call He was waiting for. I told Osh about it and how I was disappointed with myself for not relying and surrendering to God. He said something like, isn't it normal and don't we all. I really feel I should be nearer to God. Kinda feel like I want to go back to church. Sigh.

Anyway, in the spirit of being anti social and to cling to whatever solitary moment I can scramble, yesterday I went to watch 21 alone. Didn't plan to ask anyone for it but then la Gioia asked me if we were going to watch Hancock. It wasn't out yesterday so I said no and told her I was thinking of watching 21 alone. She said she wanted to come along too. To be honest I was rather disappointed, which part of me explaining the reason I wanted to watch it alone was because I was feeling anti social that she didn't understand. But then again perhaps she was rather worried that I was going to that depressing mode. However fate was on my side, last minutely she had to accompany the ibu for some things. Funnily after finding out that I did have to watch it alone, I felt rather uncomfortable of doing so that I was thinking if I should ask anyone to accompany me. In the end, I really couldn't do that. I really wasn't in the mood for some company and I was seriously happy that I stuck with myself. I really really need to be alone.

I thought 21 was good. Though I wasn't really fond of Kevin Spacey and Jim Sturgess. Not that they acted badly, I just didn't really like their characters. Of all the characters there, I liked Choi the most, though his was only a small part. I think if they had stuck to the real events and had made the main characters as many Asian geeks, then I think it would have been more interesting. Yes, the movie was based on a real event, it was based (very) loosely on MIT blackjack team. Go wikipedia it peeps. I wonder if wikipedia is going to be a verb like google. Anyway the whole card counting thing in blackjack seemed so interesting that I would be quite interested to learn it, provided my brain is actually capable of that. Should you watch it? I think you should. Not much good and brainy movies out there currently that this one could be quite stimulating for the brain, though it is not so brainy itself. There were some witty lines and I like witty lines So overall, I think it was quite a good watch.

Okay, gonna go and read some Asian Geographic now which I took from eggie's room. Saw stacks of them in his place. Such interesting found and they were just sitting there. All those peeps are so ignorant. Ciao!

:) eKa @ 8:50:00 PM • 0 comments

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