Tutto Passa, Good Riddance

Hello people of the Earth on this last day of 2009, which in my side of the world will be ending in less than 3 hours. All this year you've heard me complain and say that I am depressed but as I look closely at this year, it has some really good moments. The good ones really make this year to be quite a year for me, a memorable one. This morning as I opened my door and on my way out, I saw a stack of mails in front of my door. One of them was a christmas package from Dagi. It really is good to start your day opening present :) She gave me Jodi Piccoult's My Sister's Keeper. Looking forward to read it. Kinda a nice start to this last day, someone cares. Oh! It's also a nice surprise to see a christmas card from Ms. J :D Anyway, I am going to write some of my reflection of this year, 2009.

1. Number one have to be the trip to Italy. That is the biggest thing that has happened in my life currently. Think about it, what is the biggest thing that has happened to your life. When I think about it other than Italy. I thought of about being bornt :P I guess the biggest thing in your life are the milestones, the life changing things in your life, in which I can also say, getting accepted to NUS. Many people my age could claim getting married and having kids as the biggest thing that has happened in their lives. Even Dagi is getting married next September. I guess the time has really come for people my age. However, these are things that I can't say. Hopefully it is written for me though. Italia per me è libertà. Quando ho deciso di studiare l'italiano, è stata la prima cosa che ho fatto qualcosa che ho veramente voluto e con il mio proprio potere. To be going to Italy and to do it on my own and alone was a challenge and a great achievement for me. Yes, it may not be a big deal for many people but it was 2 things that I really wanted that I accomplished, travelling alone and Italy. It's a big mountain and to overcome it was just amazing. I think my most thankful moments to God in the whole of this year were when I was roaming around Italy, feeling the wind and the sun, seeing all the amazing things that I saw. I still cannot forget the first time I saw Colosseum, when I accidentaly found my way into it. It was so surreal. It still feels kinda surreal now, reliving those moments as I am writing this. I really have to hold on to this feeling. This is that happy and peaceful feeling. I kinda get now what Elizabeth Gilbert was saying in her book, Eat, Pray, Love. She was saying something about that happy place that you need to remember and go back to.

Anyways so I climbed a mountain and managed to come back successfuly. Now I am looking at other mountains. Somehow I still get nervous thinking about them. I wonder if it happens to other people as well, for example real mountaineers. If they have climbed the Everest, do they still get nervous climbing other mountains? Well, I know one thing for sure, even though I am nervous and perhaps a bit scared about new mountains, I will not back out. I know I have made it before and it can be done. So it can be done again. Italy gave me that and I really look forward to come back to Italy and have lots of gelato!!! :P

2. This year also brought some big changes in life. Sometime in March, I wrote about it felt like being tossed by the waves of the ocean. Lo and behold even as this week flies to a close, another change was put on me again, another big wave of the ocean which tosses me to I don't know where. So it's pretty certain that my 2010 is going to start with a big change. I had mixed feeling about it, but I did pray for a way out. Not quite what I wanted but since when God really gives you things as precise as what you ask? Like one of the Rolling Stone's lyric, you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find, you get what you need. We must put our faith in God, right? So this is the time to repeat the mantra, If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it. Amen!

Talking about lyric, I will also throw in something from U2, what you don't have you don't need it now. You see in the middle of December last year, I was having a bad time that there were times when I was in tears. One fine day it saw me sitting under a tree and someone was standing listening to me or trying to listen to me. This person is not in my life anymore but the fact that this person was there, maybe because precisely I needed someone then. This December, I am not having the best of time, but no matter how bad it is and how I curse, I haven't cried. I can't remember the last time I cried. So not having anyone to listen to me is probably not a really sad thing because perhaps God thinks, I don't need that as much, so hence I don't have it. Yes, maybe I am in denial :P

3. Talking about people, well I have to say that this year I have lost the so-called friends but I have also made friends. I guess I did go in to a bit of selfish mode some time ago, in which I really didn't feel like pleasing anyone. I don't want to do things that I don't want to do and I want to do the things that I want to do and perhaps in the process I pushed some people around but here we are and I don't really feel sorry about it. Seriously. I'm done having to compromise or strike people's ego. Guess what, those people don't even care about me. So good riddance :)

4. About new friends that I made. I also have to say that this year I also started something new. I am putting more things into my brain. At the beginning, I did wonder why I was there but as I've grown accustomed with the people whom I do it with, it begins to feel not so bad and fun. This is also something that I feel grateful about this year, meeting new people and making new friends.

5. On other things, as mentioned in some post, there were deaths in the family and babies being bornt. Everyone's life is moving and ending in their own ways. I am trying to chart my own life though perhaps I still haven't done a good job in doing so. In the topic of other things, the last movie I watched this year was Sherlock Holmes with Vivy on Tuesday. I like it very very much! It's a good ending for the year. Though I have to say that I didn't understand some of the English :$ and the weird me thought that Holmes and Watson sometime felt a bit like a gay couple, in which I have to say it's Holmes who is more gay. Still though, it was a really good film. I think Jude Law did a better job than Robert Downey Jr. As I was watching it, it did make me think how Dr House in the TV series House is really being based on Holmes and Dr Wilson on Watson. I know it's mean to be rude and condescending but I really like how these brilliant smart people can really just say what they want since they are so bright! If only I am smarter! :P Go watch it peeps, it's really worth it. It's been awhile since the Ocean's 11 movies last showed us smart twist and turn in the story and Sherlock Holmes is really all that, smart and witty :)

6. Oh yeah, I did manage to squeeze in another accomplishment this year. Finished reading my first Italian book bought from a bookshop in Florence. It's called Che Animale Sei? by Paola Mastrocola. It took quite long because I got distracted many times and I'm not actually good in Italian, so there are a lot of words that I have to look up in the dictionary, mostly in every paragraph. This make me think that I will not last reading Il Nome Della Rosa (The Name of the Rose) by Umberto Eco :( Maybe I should have studied more Italian so that I can go through books like that without the dictionary :( Anyways, Che Animale Sei? means What Animal Are You?. It tells the story of a duck on a journey of self discovery. The story is actually very deep and philosophical but told in a fable kind of way which I think make it easy for younger readers to follow. There are many other animals in the story, like a beaver who didn't want to go through the same profession as his family had been doing for generations. Then there was a young bat who physically didn't measure up to his species. Both the beaver and the bat had to deal with the differences between them and their fathers. Then the duck dealt with losing something which she had been calling as a mother. Then she found a new family but to fit in she had to change even though she didn't like it and didn't feel like herself, but she was told that's how ducks are. Then she fell in love and felt happy but then she was betrayed. Then her friend, the lizard, told her that she just needed to wait for the pain to go away, like when lizards lose their tails, they just have to wait for it to grow again. Then she met new friends, the moles. Do you know that moles are blind? I am learning something new! Since the mole could not see her and she could not see the moles, she could be whatever she wanted to be. Then she learnt to fly. In the end she married a wolf (of all animals!). So it really is a good story. I really like it. I kinda hope it would be translated to other language like English. I finished it yesterday and a line jumped out which I feel it is so apt considering this is the end of the year, it's tutto passa e niente in verità mai passa, which means everything pass and in truth nothing never passes.

So I guess that's it peeps. Last post of the year. I am not one who make new year's resolution but I do have some things that I want to do in 2010 and even in 2011. I don't know why I stop there, like life is just gonna end after 2011 :P but that's as far as I can see it now. Well, afterall the world might come to an end in 2012 :P Whatever it is, of course I wish for a better year but to be really in detail, I just wish for more time. It sucks when people leave as in when they die. So I really hope everyone in my prayer every night will always be safe. You know it's kinda funny that on this last day, Astley still managed to pop up and made me give a thought for him a bit. You see we kinda didn't tell people that he died, so people were still sending him stuff :P I really really don't want any death news next year *sigh* Okay peeps, hope you guys are having a blast. See you next year! :)

:) eKa @ 9:09:00 PM • 0 comments

The Christmas Long Weekend

Hello guys, how has Christmas been treating you so far? All's good? I do hope you have a merry christmas. Mine is pretty quiet, which is not unexpected.

Got naughty yesterday and took off earlier than I should have done. Was kinda a big deal for me but many people will see it as not a big deal at all. When I was on the bus, I realized how controlled I am and how I like things to follow the rule. Of course, still I like the rule to be bent my way if it benefits me, who doesn't ya? So yesterday I went to watch Avatar in 3D. Alone. Was supposed to watch it with Oshie but he decided to go home. Hope he gets the well-needed rest and encouragement from his family. Anyways, it's been a long time since I watched a movie alone. But I guess it's also been a long time since I last watched a movie. The last movie I watched was 2012 which was a month ago! When I realized that, I feel it's kinda incredible that I managed to stay away from a cinema for a month plus!

Okay let's talk about Avatar. Something must still be really wrong with me because just like 2012, after watching it I don't feel extremely excited or blown away and to think so many peple are raving about this movie. What I really like about the movie is how beautiful Pandora is. It's just an amazing world. The plants life were amazing. Cannot really say the same thing about the animals though. Although I will sum up Pandora as fluorescent on high, I still like it very very much despite that mockery I gave :P Pandora at night is amazing! Storywise, I cannot say much about Avatar. All are kinda too predictable, aren't they? Even though I don't like unhappy ending, I kinda hope the movie had an unhappy ending so that it wouldn't be too typical or Hollywood standard story. With so many imagination being poured into the world of Pandora, somehow imagination is lacking on the story. One that I thought was really strange was the fact that an alien life form will also kiss and make out and make love like human. I don't know, I somehow think that if there's alien life form out there, they wouldn't be like human at all. The Na'vi in Avatar is pretty similar like human in many ways, they sleep, eat, cry, bury the dead ones. All that is not really my kind of Alien. So anyways, as mentioned, I am not really that blown away with this movie but do watch it to see Pandora. It may not matter much whether to watch it in 3D or not. If you are not that totally excited about the movie, I think the 2D version will suffice :)

Okay nothing much to say. I woke up early today and as such I am feeling sleepy now. Merry Christmas everyone! My Christmas wish is may God have mercy on my soul. Take care all!!!

:) eKa @ 1:09:00 PM • 0 comments

Natale in Bianco e Nero

Si, io so che non devo scrivere il mio blog a quest'ora. Ma la verità è non sto facendo niente da circa un'ora fa. Sto facendo la mia cosa personale come cambiando le mie foto così che loro sono in bianco e nero. Ah, scrivere in Italiano è difficile. Dimentico molte cose :( Ho bisogno di cercare le parole sul dizionario. Comunque, domani avrò un piccolo esame francese. Sono pronta? Non lo so, penso di no. Sono stanca :( così stanotte voglio solo dormire presto e spero che domani tutto vada bene. Allora, ritorniamo alla terra e parliamo in Inglese :P

Kinda nice to be able to speak in another language, then I can write things that I don't want people who speak english to understand. Why don't I write in Indonesian, you say? I don't know. I miss speaking in Italian, I suppose.

Anyways, went to Singapore Botanical Garden after dark on Sunday with Vivy. It was my first time going there after dark. The park is large but in the dark it seems like it's even larger. Because it's dark, you can't see much, and hence kinda hard to be able to establish distance and what ahead and for directionally-challenged people like me, it got kinda frustrating to find our way around. Why were we there? Because I was curious about this Trees of The World Light Up thing that they're having. Suprisingly and luckily, Vivy was willing to accompany me :D

Basically there were a lot of christmas trees being decorated by local communities / organizations and some embassies. Kinda nice and interesting. I think they were encouraged to use recycled materials which somehow for me managed to ruin the idea of a nice comforting christmas tree. But I am just spoiled and high maintenance. So you shouldn't listen to my idiotic opinion there. Overall though, the people did become really creative and some of the trees were kinda nice :P I uploaded the pictures on flickr. There were some that I really like, like this orchid snowman and this wonderful setting.

I wanted to post some of the pictures that I didn't upload in flickr here. Then I got photoshop-crazy that I started to turn them in black and white. I kinda really love the effect (hence the word crazy). With christmas trees and christmas, you kinda like all the colours and light. With black and white pictures, all those colours are gone and yet I feel there's still a certain light and spirit captured in it. Many times I am never able to explain myself well, so if you don't understand what I mean, never mind :P By the way, is that sentence logically weird? Many times and never in the same sentence? How weird am I? Okay, okay, here you go :)

Actually, we are going to start in Orchard first. This first picture is of the decorations inside Ion's christmas tree. In case you don't know, you can get inside the christmas tree.

Then this is a section of Orchard light-up. This is the one near Tanglin Mall. I would just say it's the blue section :P

These ones are the ones from the christmas trees inside Singapore Botanical Garden.




Last one is the black and white picture of this from a different angle. In this picture, I am not liking the presence of the short lamp-post on the left. Oh well.

:) eKa @ 5:42:00 PM • 0 comments

The Lamentation of Being Away

I know people who I call friends who think that all I do is complain and I complain way too much, but this is my blog and I should be able to say what I want to say and screw those people who cannot be bothered to listen to me when I need to get things off my chest. I always write long sentence, don't I? It was only 1 sentence up there.

Anyway, many things happened at home this week while I am here and in my life here, I have a week of nothing. Nada! So these are my lamentation of being away. Gonna start with the saddest one.

My uncle (my mom's older brother) passed away *sigh* I haven't gotten the full detail because obviously my mom is busy there. From what I heard, he fell down and became unconscious. He had an operation but he was still unconscious until in the end he didn't manage to pull it through. So that happened on Tuesday and each day from then onwards, I was dreading every sms that I got, fearing that it would be from my mom with a bad news. The message did come yesterday and there's a bit of a gloom and darkness in my world. I am not particularly close with this uncle, not that I am particularly close with any one uncle. But my mom was. It seems like they talked on the phone at least once a day. So I feel it's hard on my mom. Well honestly, I don't know how my mom is taking it. Is she composed and strong like the horse that she is or is she in total shock *sigh* Mom just said that they're flying out to Bangka tomorrow. It seems they decide to bury him there.

It's a shock and I was thinking that I have known many people who died suddenly like this. I prayed hard for this uncle simply because I didn't want my mom to be sad. But what we hoped didn't happen and my faith in God is rather shaken. It's hard to say that all is in God's plan when it seems like things are so unfair. What good things can come out from this? When someone dies so suddenly, you don't get to say goodbye. Your last moment with the person might be not a good one. So it's so unfair. My uncle had 2 children. None of them are married. When I think of my cousin getting married without having her dad around, it's heartbreaking. When I think about them having kids of their own and my uncle wouldn't be there to be proud of that, that's hard. So God kinda sucks right now and I know I shouldn't think this way. These are big moments in my family journey and the fact that I am here and not being able to go through this with my family kinda sucks and is selfish of me. It is selfish not having to go through this woe with them and I feel selfish because I feel rather glad that I don't have to see the sad faces of my mom, aunts, and uncles and hear them cry. Knowing that I feel that way in turn makes me feel bad :( Then it brings into point of how long I am going to do this? How long will I turn away from my family and friends and miss out on these moments in life. Knowing how frail life is and how sudden life can be taken away, do I really want to chase a life that will bring me further from my family? My answer is a selfish one and I DREAD the idea that one day I'm gonna regret it a lot *sigh*

Another big moment I miss this week, my cousin gave birth to her 2nd child, a baby boy. I missed out when her first child was bornt, missed out on the first birthday of that baby girl, and gonna miss out on her second birthday. When you talk about babies, you miss out a lot in a span of a year. For example, when I first saw her baby girl, she was quite a new born, she was still wrapped in cloth pretty tightly. The next time I saw her, she was already so big and learning to stand. The last time I saw her, she had already learnt how to run a bit and say some words. With me being here, I had also missed out on a lot of weddings of my friends from school. It's just so ... so make me wanna smack my head sometime! Some of them invited my mom in return and my mom was there for those moments, not me. The thing is, I went to the same school for the first 11 years of my education, so there's a lot of story and perhaps bond between these friends and isn't it nice to see how they have changed and grown from when we know them when they were silly and just kids? I wouldn't know actually since aside from a few friends, I haven't seen the rest since I always miss out on gatherings and wedding. But it would be interesting for me to see how they are now *sigh*

So speaking about friends from school. Today the school where I spent 11 years of my life had a bazaar. My friends were there. My teachers were there. To see the pictures posted by my friends in Facebook, I just can only sigh and again feel like I miss out on a lot of things :( Facebook has connected me with many friends from the school and even with my physics/biology/form teacher. When I saw them commenting on my status update, it feels really good, and feels like I still know them as they were. I hope the chance will come to me when I get to see them altogether.

This week, I had the opportunity of having lunch with a girl I got to know for only a few days now. You know, cheerful and bubbly people is kinda weird for me sometime. I remember that one lunch MarChe said, "So being gay (= happy) is a bad thing for you?" :D Well perhaps because I am so subdued so the level of energy that these people project sometime are just so overwhelming for me. Anyway so when this girl asked me for lunch, it did feel weird (since I have only spoken a few words with her) but I went anyway because she is so sweet, funny, and friendly. So this girl is 22 right and I felt that man this girl is so fresh! She being from NUS as well, I even feel that she's like the perfect poster girl for NUS. I have to say that she is so articulate and kinda wise (or perhaps naive which I will discuss later) that it's like a totally different type of species from the other early twenties that I have the opportunity of getting to know. She has a certain maturity that's kinda almost frightening for me. Perhaps since she is also able to point out my negativity spot on *sigh* I was wondering if it's the 5 years difference between me and her that makes us see things differently. She's like so positive, the type of person who speaks about reaching the top of the mountain, flying to the moon, and reaching to the dreams that we all have. She's the "yes we can" in Obama land. The difference between us in seeing things kinda make me wonder what is it that 'cause us to have different feel of life. I wonder if it's just her who still has the naivety about how things work or it's me being already broken with failures in life in the 5 years of life that I have that she doesn't. It sure is good to be able to feel positive like her and I know I was once that girl as well. I was once the girl who climbed mountain (not literally) and felt like soaring to the sky. Something has changed dramatically in me. It's kinda easy isn't it to talk about reaching out to the sky when you are on top? But when you have fallen many times when you climb a mountain, when you realize that you are not even climbing the mountain that you want, somehow those failures have damaged me quite badly. Sometime I think I am a brilliant person who should be achieving more, but most of the time I feel I am not good enough and to feel you are inadequate is so limiting. It's the dark hole I am in and regardless of what people analyze it to be, I have been in this dark hole way longer than many people think *sigh* and you know sometime I just wish people would stop telling me how wrong I have been about this whole thing and instead tell me that things will be alright *sigh*

Pretty depressing post ya? Well I wish you well peeps. Ciao!

:) eKa @ 8:20:00 PM • 0 comments

of Life - 05/12/09

It's been a long while since I last wrote. Do you miss me when I don't write? Most probably you don't. So it's December now, the last month of the year. In fact we have kinda gone through the first week of December, so days are really moving to the end of the year, which will soon bring me to another year of being older. Whooaa ... not loving it. The other week, I was asking Yeni what age she is turning to in around 2 weeks. She said 30. I asked how it feels like, does she feel okay? :P She's like totally cool about it. Maybe at a certain age you just become acceptant? :P I was telling her that on my 29th birthday, I will most probably have a big bash to celebrate the last year of being in the twenties. Unfortunately, I am such a boring person so me and big party do not mesh. But I do want a whole year filled with exciting stuff though, a full year of happy and perhaps crazy adventures. I guess, I should start saving money for it :P

So how have I been? Nothing interesting really. Had a bit of flu on Thursday. Maybe if I had pushed it, I could have made it for the whole day but I really wasn't feeling it. So I decided to leave earlier and by the time I saw the doctor, I was actually sicker. The good doctor gave me a day off on Friday too. So spent yesterday in my room. Feeling okay now but just rather un-energetic. On my way back today, I really felt so tired in the bus. I don't know, maybe I actually have enough energy, it's just I didn't push myself much. Feeling quite depressed about Monday now *sigh*

So after today's session, I went for lunch with the husbandless. Ah these ladies are gonna hate me for calling them that :P It was supposed to be a bigger group but somehow it just ended up with us, the usual peeps. Lunch was at NYDC - Wheelock. I got remembered that the last and first time I was there was with Astley and some unusual combination of people. Somehow I couldn't really remember all the people who were there but some memories from that evening with Astley did come back *sigh*

Anyways, Oshie had successfully recommended me 2 things. The first one was the band Owl City which he loves because of the song Fireflies and the second one was the tv series, Glee, which he has mentioned so many times. So I got around to check out Owl City and I really really really love this band! I think the guy behind it is really talented and a good writer. From its latest album. Ocean Eyes, I first fell in love with The Bird and The Worm. This song is so loveable that it totally made my day happy and bright that Monday when I heard it. I love it, it's cute and just so lovey dovey in a quirky way :) Currently I am also in love with Vanilla Twilight. The lyrics are so sweet. The lyrics are actually kinda sad but it was so sweet that you just feel comforted with it. I love it. Totally recommending this to all of you. Kinda want to get the T-shirt too but perhaps it's not worth it to send it all the way here :(

I am currently addicted to Glee which is an American tv series about a show choir. I find this tv series to be amazingly fresh and entertaining. Love the music, love the unique loveable characters, love the witty amazing lines! If you think that this is like High School Musical, it's really not like that. After you get to know the imperfect characters in the show plus the crazy witty lines that they say, you realize that this tv series is not really for the kids. Loving it, loving it!!! I'm so gonna have a withdrawal symptom when this show goes for a break until April :(

Well, that's pretty much it about life peeps. I don't really have things to look forward to. I've just been trying to survive and make it through each day and hoping that something beautiful is gonna come my way. Take care all :)

:) eKa @ 7:14:00 PM • 0 comments

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