Not A Satisfying Week

I don't feel so good today. My body has been acting pretty weird. It kinda has its weekly cycle of weirdness, what's gonna happen on Monday and so on until Saturday, Sunday :( I have a reminder on my phone that I have to meet my doctor for a check-up but I still haven't done it eventhough it's been around 2 months late :( I'm pretty void of energy today. I'm feeling rather dehydrated now even though I've been gulping water every 10 minutes :S I blame it on my gluttony. Had dinner with NanSee yesterday and I ate too much as such I had a really bad cramp at 2 something this morning :'( I was thankful though that it was 2 am instead of 5 or 6 am something because this allowed me more time to sleep again and also because it happened on a Saturday. Still, I ended up waking up late today and was rather in a rush to go to class.

It's a new class today. We had Mr. Ben again. My God, for every question he asked me, I didn't get it and with LM, Mau, and Jacq on holiday, I kinda lost the people who would normally translate for me :( I was so tortured during the listening part and I was glad when it was over. I am looking forward for the girls to come back next week so that I can hide and sit at the back but I realize it defeats the purpose of wanting to speak this language. Anyway we have new people in the class. Finally there's a boy in the class, but I feel he's rather strange. He reminded me of R from my Italian class and it's bad. I just hope that his strangeness is not so criminally freaky as R's. I suddenly think that this guy would compensate for the fact that M is not in our class anymore but I think I would rather have M than this guy for some weirdness relief in our class.

So today Mr. Ben didn't just accept my comme ci comme ça answer on how my week was and I had to explain more. Aaah, I'm not loving that question. I'm not having a good week but it's actually not a bad week. It's just my perception of the week. I think I was talking about this to Gascoigne this week. It's like you face a situation, not necessarily a bad situation, but your thoughts and emotion react to it in a negative way and it affects you in a negative way. So that's what's been going on this week and in the end that's how I feel about this week :( I feel bad for all the negativity that I feel or give out that every night I would be praying, forgive me God, forgive me God. Even when I suddenly got awoken at night, I would in reflex repeat that line :(

Well, that's pretty much it peeps. I think I actually rambled without substance. What else is new about that? :P I'm just gonna take it easy tonight. I'm gonna lie down early. Take care peeps!

:) eKa @ 7:01:00 PM • 0 comments

The Social Network

Went to watch The Social Network this afternoon and I have to say that I actually enjoyed it very much. I like it for many different reasons. I like the way the story moves although it was a bit confusing for me at the beginning, but after I understood that the way the story is being told was based on flashbacks during 2 different lawsuits, I found that the story-telling was rather clever. I think it builds the emotion and the contrast of the movie really well. During the flashback, we were made to be so excited for these kids and then during the lawsuits part, you can't help feeling sad for these kids, especially the character of Mark Zuckerberg and his best friend Eduardo Saverin. How did such good friends ended up that way. Maybe as the movie perhaps hinted and showed, they were never best friends in the first place. I do have to say, I have seen smart people who is rather into themselves and don't really have much sensitivity for others.

Anyway, as it had been written in many articles, the movie is not really an accurate depiction and portrayal of the people and how Facebook happened. I actually think the part that made Mark Zuckerberg looked to be such an asshole was actually the first 5 minutes of the movie when he was talking to the girl he liked instead of all the arogance he showed or how he backstabbed his best friend. In the end, you can't help feeling sad for this guy. He looked so lonely. He just felt so misunderstood. Everything he did was just kinda his proof or way of telling the world he can do whatever he wanted. I guess in the end he didn't get why people could be so pissed at him. I think that's the thing with smart people. Oshie once said that there's the way nature balance things out, that smart people are often really really socially handicapped, most of the time they're simply insensitive with how other people feel. Well, maybe the real Mark Zuckerberg is not really such an ass. He did make such a generous donation to a school recently.

As for the actors, I kinda found Andrew Garfield who played Eduardo Saverin to be very handsome :) I like looking at him :$ I thought Jesse Eisenberg who played Mark Zuckerberg did really good. He looked pretty nerdy. Somehow the way he said his lines brought to my mind Jim Parsons' Sheldon Cooper, although the only thing that connected these 2 characters are their brains. I have to say that when I watched Jesse Eisenberg playing such a smart character, I felt so envious. It made me wish I could be smarter. I really wonder how do the brains of these people work. It must be so cool to be able to just get it. As for Justin Timberlake (yes, he was in the movie), I think he did really well showing a charming side as well as the asshole side of his character. Overall, I thought the movie was pretty enjoyable and interesting for me. I don't know if other people would find watching the geek who invented facebook to be interesting though :D

So that's about it, about my weekend. I kinda did something different with my Sunday today. Instead of hibernating, I decided to go out and watch a movie, alone. I guess I've been feeling rather awkward and reluctant to be doing stuff alone and I thought I need to shake off this feeling. I'll be damned if I couldn't do stuff on my own. It's not really like being able to ride a bicycle, like once you know how to do it, you'll always be able to do it. For me doing stuff alone is like a mental state that can grow weary if you don't exercise it and can eventually disappear. Since I have noone, it's imperative that I am comfortable with myself. On other unimportant thing, had gado-gado for dinner today. Kinda felt good to be eating it but kinda felt sad about it also. Simply because I'm alone. The loneliness really kills. I just miss my mommy. I miss home. I miss being able to eat dinner on the dining table with my family. You know, if people think I'm kinda heartless or I build walls and harden my heart a lot, I think it's for reasons like this. If I don't toughen it up, if I don't try to be strong, this kinda feeling are just gonna break me down. I have noone to hold me here, I really do think noone cares about me here, so I have no choice but to just be rather tough inside. Sorry for this emotional rambling, I'm gonna lie down now. Take care peeps!

:) eKa @ 9:51:00 PM • 0 comments

Mangia, Prega, Ama

Hello peeps. As whiny as this sounds, I want to start off with how hot Singapore is. It's 9 pm something now and it's still 31°C!!! Yesterday we reached 35°C and it seemed it would be like this in days to come, aarrrrghhh...

It's been a rather hard week this week. I attribute homesickness, hot weather, and pms to me being rather unfriendly. I'm not even trying. I'm pretty self-absorbed in my own ways and thinking and I will admit it, I don't care much about others. I AM such a not really nice person, ya? I suppose ... perhaps ... oh well.

So today, I went to watch Eat, Pray, Love with la Gioia and YeeMaggio. Was hoping to get more people to watch it with, but in the end only these 2 were available. Anyways, I didn't find the book to be exceptionally amazing but it's because I'm not a big fan of self-help book kinda thing. I bought it because I once saw it and then someone wrote something about the book on the shoutbox in this blog. How do I find the movie? Well I think it's a nice watch. Love the sceneries. Bali kinda attracted me more than Italy. I miss Italy so much but I kinda want to go to Bali more watching the movie. It's just so green and relaxing. Julia Roberts was lovely in the movie. Perhaps a tad too lovely that her depressed moments didn't feel too sad. As for the guys, I think Javier Bardem kicked James Franco's ass. I actually like James Franco a lot. I kinda think he's the male version of Natalie Portman. He's extremely good looking, talented, and intelligent. I guess his role in this movie as just the pretty boy didn't give much room for anything else other than being cute. Javier Bardem had the role as the guy whom we had to fall in love with and he was really charming. He can call me darling anytime :)

On other casts, I'm just gonna comment on the Indonesians. I was surprised at how nice Christine Hakim's english is. She's like an icon in Indonesia but her role in this movie wasn't big. I thought the man who played Ketut was really good. He's not how I imagine Ketut is. The lady who played Nyomo was also pretty fun to watch. Her lines were snappy and her timing was nice. For those who don't think it really happens in Indonesia, I can attest that Indonesians will, without hesitation, ask you if you are married. I guess it's an Indonesian thing. I think culturally we really do think that one of human being's tasks is to create a family. That's a life cycle which is in our duty as human to fulfil. At least that's how I feel how Indonesians think. At least that's how my parents think. Well for my mom, I guess she just wants someone to take care of me.

During the movie, I had to point out to la Gioia that when Javier Bardem's character brought a drink to Julia Roberts in a plastic with a straw, it's so Indonesian! I was so amused with it because I haven't seen this for so long. I remembered my school days in which we would have coca cola or fanta or sprite in plastic like that with straws. Good memories. My brain just switched to the thought of how can you not fall in love with pasta and pizza when you are in Italy? Watching the movie, I just want tagliatelle bolognese pronto, per favore!

Okay let's talk about the movie. Story wise, I don't know if it's very meaningful. I don't know if whoever watched it felt a connection or understood the importance of the different parts of the voyage, their relations, and how it enriched or healed the soul of Elizabeth Gilbert. It may just seem to be such a nice holiday or something. The movie's most enlightening moment for me was when Richard from Texas said that you can choose your feelings the way you choose your clothes everyday. It was like a slap to me. I know it but I have never even tried to do it. I am controlled by my thoughts and emotions instead of the other way around. Hence why my thoughts could jump all over the place at lightning speed. It's also something which a currently-very-famous-Indonesian-motivation speaker talked about on a tv show when I went back last week. Mario Teguh said, choose good thoughts, choose good feelings, choose good actions and see the changes you will have. I've heard this many times and I have never put even the slightest will power into it. When I am sad, I am so deeply sad that it's like the sun never shines. Yes, I am so dramatic. I want to say I will try to do it from now on, but I don't like making promises I cannot keep and I don't want to say things that I will not do.

I'm digressing. Back to the movie. I was rather sad on some parts which were missing. I read the book so long ago so I didn't remember much about it but I remember there was a part when Richard from Texas talked about soul mate. I thought it was highly enlightening and yet it wasn't in the movie. Then the guy who helped to rent out the villa in Bali to Liz was actually an Indonesian and he had such a heartbreaking love story. It's such a pity that it wasn't told in the movie. Overall I still think it's a nice watch but more because of the 3 different countries it brings us into. I miss Italy deeply but again Bali just made me so proud to be part of Indonesia. I am in dire need of a holiday. With around 2.5 months left in 2010, I don't know if I have enough time to do so :( This line that Julia Roberts said really resonates in me, I want to go somewhere where I can marvel at something.

Okay, I need to get something out of my chest. I have forgotten much of my Italian :( But here you go, my broken Italian. If anyone would correct me, I would be most delighted. For those of you who stop reading here, buonanotte!

Questa settimana, ho scoperto qualcosa e il mio cuore è rotto. Mi sento molto stupida. Semplicemente perché sapevo che qualcosa come questa sarebbe successo. Ho scoperto che forse io non sono ancora matura perciò non posso accettare qualcosa nella vita. Gioia mi ha detto che probabilmente è perché io non sono aperta. Forse, forse. È stupida. Quando ho un sentimento per qualcuno, ho una certa immagine sulla persona e quando la verità è diversa, io chi è la cretina è facilmente delusa :( È peccato perché penso che lui sia stato molto simpatico oggi. Quando un ragazzo nota che qualcosa è diversa con te, ti fa sempre piacere :) Ma sarà più stupido di me si continuo avere questo sentimento quando io so che sarà difficile e quasi impossibile. Ho bisogno un ragazzo chi è giusto per me. Ti prego, Dio? Un ragazzo chi non è complesso. Mi sento molto male perché voglio solo la cosa facile. Mi sento molto male perché la mia mente non è aperta per qualcuno semplicemente perché la persona ha qualche fallimento nella sua vita. Povero lui, no? Si io so. Ma forse sono troppo egoista. Mi dispiace. Mi veramente dispiace perché io sono molto male :(

:) eKa @ 10:14:00 PM • 0 comments

Back in the Hot Singapore

Hi peeps. Arrived back here last night and my dear God Singapore is so so hot. Jakarta was pretty sunny as well when I was there but somehow I feel that Singapore is hotter.

Anyways, surprisingly I was in the same flight with Felis yesterday. She also went home during the weekend. I guess to get some things done for her wedding next month. Another person getting married before me :P She's so skinny and with the getting married and all, she just seemed like a whole different person than what I used to know. I wonder if people ever feel that way to me, that I have changed a lot. Anyway, apparently Felis is gonna move back to Jakarta after the wedding. It seriously put some thoughts into my head about settling back in Jakarta but I don't think my family can take the 4 of us living under one roof again. I think it would be disastrous.

Dewi did ask me though, if I ever gonna go back to Jakarta. Hmm ... I forget the exact question, it was either that or when I will go back to Jakarta for good. I seriously have no answer for that question. If I have to dig in into the depth of my brain or heart for the answer, I just get depressed and I don't want to go there.

So let's talk about Emilia's wedding. I think it went well despite of this and that. I wonder what a wedding organizer is for when Emilia still had to handle certain calls or called people. I don't think she should be doing any of that. I think in the end she's happy though. She looked gorgeous as expected. I think her wedding was pretty pricey but again as long as she's happy. My cousin, Marlisa, surprisingly hasn't put up any pictures on facebook. We actually had to wake up at 4 am something to get ready. I had more make-up on my face and more products on my hair than the whole 5 years combined. I'm not loving all that but everything was done for Emilia. It's not like I helped her at all for her wedding. So I tried to suck it in even though I whined so many times about wanting to scratch the fake eye lashes from my eyes. It's good to have friends like Dewi who knows I whine a lot and just deal with it :D It's also always good to meet those friends from primary school. There was one whom I couldn't recognize and that's Julienne and it's because she looked stunningly beautiful, so different from our primary school days. That's one hot mama. I also have to embarrassingly admit that I forgot the name of one of my high school friends. I know it's very bad of me. I have no excuse :(

Oh I have to comment on the fact that with Dewi and Marlisa both having blackberries and boyfriends (they both have those things), I did get pretty lonely being basically alone *sigh* Yeah, I wish they had given me more attention, but oh well. Now speaking of blackberry. I have heard about the fact that Indonesia is a large market for blackberry but I think this trip was the first time I saw it first hand. EVERYONE owns a blackberry!!! My cousins, friends, brother. If only I can take pictures of Dewi and Marlisa and their boyfriends sitting on my left all typing something on their blackberries. I am one of those people who found people to be rude when they are so into their cell phones even though they are with other people. But it's Indonesia. Compare this to Singapore, I think Singaporeans are more into iphones or things with touch screen. As for me, the silly me has an illogical loyalty on things and in terms of mobile phones, it's with Nokia :P I also want to add and write this again (even though I have written about it before), I guess the average number of cell phones each Indonesian in big cities like Jakarta has, is 2. For the life of me, I still couldn't get the reasoning behind that despite them trying to explain to me about things being cheaper, etc.

Having only spent a few days at home (1 of it wasn't even spent at home), I do get pretty homesick right now. Well that plus other things, annoying things, sad things, I am in a pretty sad mood right now. I'm trying so hard not to feel sad but ... I can't really write about it, it's personal and I am just waiting for a willing person to hear me out :(

So back to home. I am glad to be meeting my mom and spent some time with her. I, without shame, used my mom's money all the time I was there. On my last day, my dad even offered me some money since he thought I was dead broke. It's a long story which I'm not gonna elaborate here. Let's just say, I have money. It's not a whole freaking lot, but I have enough money and no I didn't take the money my dad wanted to give me. Talking about dad, he locked my brother out on Saturday night since he thought my brother was not gonna come home. I had been awake since 4 am on Saturday because it's Emilia's wedding day. Didn't have a good sleep because my ignorant brother decided to blast the tv when he was watching something. Lo and behold, I was the one who answered his call when he wanted the door to be opened, at 3 am Sunday. I was so disoriented that it took him 3 phone calls. Lucky me, one of the phones was in my room. I hung up the first one because that what I do when I want the ringing to stop and don't want to answer the phone. On the second one, my brain was really not working, that I didn't understand a word he said. I think my brain didn't know which language it should work on, that the words my brother said was intelligible for me. On the third call, I think he spoke slower and I finally understood him but still I almost fell going down the stairs and I think it took me 10 minutes to open the lock since I even had difficulty putting the key to the lock. I am still tired thinking about it.

What else to say. Didn't eat much thing because I don't think I had much time anyway. I still have so many things that I want to eat. I seriously have to start making a list of things to eat as when I used to when I was in NUS. I did try domino pizza. I thought it was good. Mom didn't really think so though. She deep fried one left-over slice. I was so tempted to eat it but I didn't. Thinking about it, maybe I should have eaten it, so that at least it's not clogging my parents' arteries. Hmm ... I guess that's about it about home.

Today thankfully I had the chance to spend some free time alone. So I went to watch Io Sono L'amore, an Italian film with Tilda Swinton as the main lead. I chose that because it's in Italian and I need to refresh my Italian. My italian is not really refreshed, I have to say. I really need to speak more, perhaps read more or watch more things. I thought the story was pretty simple. A rich wife in a life which is pretty routine and normal found herself passionately in love with his son's friend. It's like a whole new world being opened for her, yadda yadda yadda, you get the idea. The son died accidentally when they tried to talk about it. After the funeral, the wife decided to tell her husband and then she left her family. I do kinda admire those people who run and let go everything, comfort, security, to chase their dreams or whatever they are passionate about. However, in this movie, I am more interested in the then what. What happened after that, after they've been together for some months or years. They're totally happy forever and ever? That love and passion was really enough to sustain them? See I am that skeptical about love. I really wonder if it's because I haven't found it yet or it's the case that I am just one of those people. One of those people who is so lost. I know my Christian friends would say I need Jesus in my life but I'm just so cynical about it all. What's wrong with you Eka? Okay, I am drifting. So good night peeps. Take care 'aight!

:) eKa @ 10:36:00 PM • 0 comments

On Life - 021010

Hello guys, how are you doing? I am kinda very drained right now but I haven't written anything for so long so I feel that I should write something. As if you care, right? Anyway, what's been going on that I haven't been writing? Err ... nothing much? I haven't been watching any movies since the last time I wrote and so that's one reason why I haven't written because normally I would write about the movies that I watched. There were some socializing going on in the past 3 weeks. Did make it to the end of the world (for me), to Pasir Ris for a barbecue session with the Saturday's people which unfortunately wasn't attended by much of the Saturday people :( Then I did meet up with 2 people whom I haven't seen for a long time. Oh this reminded me that, there was a week in which I was so annoyed by some people that I was like in disbelief and heartbroken with the things they did or didn't do and you know what, I hold my tongue and I didn't say how I really felt. I think it's because somehow I feel that people shouldn't tell you how to behave or feel in a certain situation. Your characters do that for you and I cannot tell people to change their characters, if they sucks ... well they sucks, I hate it but others might love it. Whoaa ... that's me, I can still hold a grudge for a long long time (try forever!).

Alright, enough negativity. On Thursday, me and La Gioia went to what is called A Steamy Literary Event, which I guess is a small celebration of the launch of the book, Love and Lust in Singapore. There were readings of some short stories from the book. How did I get into there, well because I knew 2 people who contributed stories into it, MarChe and D from my Italian class. It was a pretty interesting event. A totally different crowd or community (if I can say that) to the people whom I normally hang out with. Based on the 6 stories which were read, I think the book is pretty interesting. I have gotten the book, signed by those 2 people. D's comment for me was sweet. My classmates are always so nice. Looking forward to reading it.

Speaking of a book, in the 3 weeks since the last post, I finished reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I don't normally read fast because I watch more stuffs than I read. The reason I finished so fast is because it's LM's book, not mine and also because I know I will have Love and Lust to read. I have heard about this book before because Oshie was so into it. However when I read it, I don't think I like it much. Well for one, it kinda sucks that your talent can come to a waste without the right opportunities in your life, which include which family you were born into, what year you were born, race, country, etc. It just seems pretty limiting and demoralizing for me :( But I suppose in a way it supports the notion that there's such thing as God or the higher power which controls how your life is written because no matter how much potential or talent you have, if it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be and there's so many factors to make something happens and as much as the book also emphasizes on hard work, there are many other factors beyond our control which affects our success. When Oshie told me about the book, I was kinda in that sad state of mind (months ago) and he was so into the 10,000-hour rule. So I googled about it and I was counting on the hours I have spent in the place I was and I was thinking it was near to that amount and I was thinking didn't I deserve it then? To get out of the "shit hole". Yeah it's not related at all to the book and not even what the book means with the 10,000-hour rule but that's how crazy and stupid my brain is :P Back to the book, it also dedicates quite a portion on cultural legacy which now I kinda use to explain why I think the way I think or why I see things the way I see it. Again, I may deviate from the book because the book also says that it's possible to get cultural legacy out of our systems to make us better in what we suppose to do. But still, for me it's nice to be able to say, I think this way because I am an Indonesian and there's nothing wrong with it :D I don't know if I am making any sense now, or ever?

Talking about being Indonesian and all. I'm going home this Thursday for Emilia's wedding next weekend. Looking forward to go home. Sleeping in my lovely bed! Am I looking forward for the wedding? Man, now that I posed that question, I realize how bitter sweet it feels. At first, I was thinking that with a 5.30 am stand-by call, I am kinda dreading it but aside from that logistic issue, I was thinking that yes, it's bitter sweet. Here's a friend of mine whom I have known for 15 years or so and now she's gonna be a wife and pretty soon (I am sure) a mother (not that she's already pregnant by the way, I feel I need to put that disclaimer). It's a different life from mine, from what I've always known or see we are. It feels kinda sad to me. I kinda wanna say because it feels like mortality is rearing its head on my door but I am just beeing dramatic. It feels sad because she's going into that next chapter of life, which I am sure Dewi and dear cousin Marlisa will follow soon and so being left alone in this singlehood path kinda feels scary. I shouldn't think that way, I know.

Talking about going home, teacher Ben asked a weird question before I went home today. He asked me if people are asking me for money whenever I go home. I was like, hah?!? It's so strange for me and it's strange that I felt it was strange. In Singapore I always get annoyed with the stereotype that Indonesians in Singapore are rich and when the opposite of that notion was being asked to me, I was taken aback. Okay to be fair, his question wasn't exactly the opposite of that stereoptype but it kinda how it felt to me at that time. My answer to that was that my mother still offers me money, so they're not expecting anything from me. I know it's not the most perfect response. I do realize that some of the things I have said in class may have painted me as spoilt, materialistic, and pretty useless but what I said are true. This reminds me of how Mr. N once said, "C'est terrible, Eka" when I said how my mother is still my safety net. To which, I responded, "Non! Ma maman est très gentile!" :D I get Mr N but my mother is that awesome. Maybe I should have clarified more so that I am not perceived wrongly, but most of the time I don't and I do think people may understand and get me wrongly but do I care? I would care if I care much about this people, but we're not there yet :P Back to Mr. Ben. Today we got our test results and I was so disappointed. My result was 88 out of 100. La Gioia told me that I have become like a Singaporean for not being happy about it, but I AM not happy about it. It sucks but as much as I think Mr. Ben is pretty stingy, I do think that I myself sucks. The whole class didn't do amazingly. I was thinking that everyone would be averaging at 85 but it's actually much lower :( So Mr. Ben seems nice on the surface but he is pretty hard to get passed :( Aaaarrrghhh, still not loving it even though I know I do sucks. Had many conjugation errors today. Darn it! I kinda felt so embarrassed about it, which is silly actually. This got me thinking of how many Italian verbs I have forgotten. Try me, throw me an italian verb and ask me to conjugate it, I will most probably get it wrong. Depressing!!!

Hmm, what else to write? I am kinda too sleepy right now. So that's it? I just yawned. Good night peeps. Love you!

:) eKa @ 11:23:00 PM • 0 comments

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