Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Watched We Bought a Zoo yesterday. While I still thought it was good, I couldn't help that the "Hollywood treatment" ruined this movie. Before we get into that, let's talk about the actors first. I was never one who thought Matt Damon to be extremely cool or anything like that. Lucky for him, he did the Bourne Identity movies and I also watched him in Green Zone and he started to kinda appeal to me. Anyways, the Matt Damon in this movie looked kinda chubbier but he's still so likable playing a widower. So good job for him. During the beginning of the movie though, the actor that stole the show was the daughter Rosie, who was very very cute! Everytime she delivered the line, we bought a zoo!, you just want to squeeze this cutie. The guy who played his brother is not so bad looking as well but his character was rather moody in the movie so he did come across as a brat. Understandable though considering their situation. Then we met the other casts, like Scarlett Johansson and Elle Fanning.Elle Fanning's character was super cute. It felt so nice that she with her blond hair and dorkiness contrasted so well with the moody dark boy. If this movie needed any kind of love story element into it, then I thought hers and the boy was good enough. However Hollywood had to bring Scarlett Johansson. I'm not a fan of Scarlett Johansson and while I think she's not a bad actress, I thought her character's presence in this movie ruined what sweet, heart-warming, wonderful, inspiring potential this movie has :( You see, Matt Damon played a widower who's shown throughout to be still in love with his death wife and Scarlett Johansson played the head zoo keeper. There wasn't much attraction going on between them and yet Hollywood had to add the scene in the end when both of them kissed. Aarrrghhh!!! It's so Hollywood and that's why Hollywood movies can be so ... well so Hollywood (crappy) sometime, aarrrghhh!!! It's so formulaic that a couple had to kiss. I cannot help thinking that if they did have to add that in, why not just stick with the 2 young kids who obviously like each other a lot and way cuter together.
So that is how Hollywood ruined a movie and made me unable to like it wholeheartedly. Instead of a memorable movie that this movie could be, it went into some tv movie which will be nice to watch on a relaxing weekend. I did a bit of a reading this morning about how the true story actually went down and it's a pity too that Hollywood excluded the grandma in the story. Come on! If you add in the grandma, remove all the unnecessary Scarlett Johansson's part, the heart-warming factor will definitely increase. I do have to say it's not Scarlett Johansson's fault. Any girl playing that role will still ruin the movie *sigh* Other than those comments, I have to say that it's also nice to see the animals and a bear no matter how dangerous it can be, can still look so cute.
:) eKa @ 4:04:00 PM • 0 comments
Monday, December 26, 2011
Merry Christmas! Well Christmas was yesterday but it's still a season of wishing good things :) How have been the christmas holidays for you guys? Mine was great. I've been having good things this holiday so I am what you call happy, or to underplay it a bit, rather happy :) One of the best thing about this holiday is being able to wake up late! It feels so glorious to be waking up after 9, mostly 10. Seriously the simple thing of waking up without the alarm is something that I really treasure. Well, let me tell you the other things that I did.Saturday I went to watch Wicked with YeeMaggio. Wicked was wickedly good and I love it! I have to say that I love my seat too, it's worth the money and the super early booking and the whole thing felt like a nice christmas present for myself. I do have to comment that it's rather surprising to see the quality of the actual seat in Marina Bay Sands Theatre. I'm pretty sure the seats in Esplanade are better than MBS. We were commenting that some cinemas here may even have better seats than MBS. Anyways, don't want to complain more. Wicked was really good that the seat thing was a realy tiny minor thing. I love the set! They're awesome. The costumes (there's a Lady Gaga-esque girl) and actors were great but I guess it's the whole overall thing that made it so awesome. It's a very good production! One thing that came to my mind. The original Broadway actress who played Glinda was Kristin Chenoweth and I can totally see her in that role, being super bubbly and funny and blonde :D Anywho, it's such a great show and I love it and I was really really happy that I got to see it :)
Sunday being Christmas is Museum Open House Day in Singapore. To be honest, I have never made used of this open house thing. It was my first time and I was actually inspired by Oshie who made used of it some holiday back. So me and YeeMaggio went to National Museum of Singapore to see the Dreams and Reality exhibition, which contains some paintings from Musée d'Orsay. I had wanted to visit Musée d'Orsay when I was in Paris, but the queue was crazy long that I really didn't have the time for it. All I had from getting to the museum was 2 photos of a horse and rhino sculptures in front of the museum. So that was quite a shame but now that there are some paintings from the museum here, I really really wanted to see them and it feels really cool to see works from Monet, Cézanne, Degas, and some others. It was extra special for me though to see works from Monet and Cézanne since I've been to Monet's wonderful house in Giverny and I've been to Cezanne's town of Aix-En-Provence. The highlight of the exhibition was of course Van Gogh's Starry Night Over The Rhone, which was really incredibly beautiful and dreamy. I didn't bring my camera because I felt rather lazy packing them and I didn't know if photography was allowed which actually was. In the end, I took some pictures from my Nokia. I'm not really the type of person who takes pictures from camera phone. I rarely do that but my phone is all I had and it turned out not so dreadfully bad. The exhibition is not necessarily big but I think it was still nice all the same and here are the few that captured my eyes :P I actually googled each of this to get the title and the name of some of the artists which I've forgotten.
Philip Wilson Steer's Jeune Femme Sur La Plage
This was the first picture that got me snapping away. I love how it's just a girl by the beach. She looked beautiful, a bit lonely, but I just felt something with the painting. I love the simplicity in it and perhaps the solitude of the girl :)
Monet's Woman With Parasol
Monet' Regatta
Monet's Branch Of The Seine Near Giverny
Monet's Meditation, Madame Monet Sitting On A Sofa
This is interesting for me because I'm pretty sure I saw the red flowery sofa in the sitting room of his house.
Monet's Camille Monet Sur Son Lit De Mort
This felt sad because Camille was his wife, which I believe was also the lady with the umbrella. It must be sad for him to paint her this way when she's dying.
Cézanne's The Card Players
I had a feeling that this painting was in my elementary french book.
Cézanne's Madame Cézanne
Renoir's Railway Bridge At Chatou
I love the flowery tree. I thought it was Monet's but thank God for google search image :P
Théo Van Rysselberghe's A Costal Scene
You gotta appreciate the effort in painting with all those dots. 
Fréderic Bazille's The Improvised Field Hospital
The man in the picture was actually Monet who was injured or sick or something.
Van Gogh's Starry Night Over The Rhone
This is the picture that captured everyone's attention. It was truly beautiful. I love the stars which were like little suns. The fact that all those brush strokes can form something so beautiful as this can only be described as brilliant and amazing :)
The day ended with dinner and shopping. I had quite a good deal because of the sale so it was a good day for me again. This week is the last week of the year. It hasn't hit me yet but I suppose it will. 2012 is me turning 30 in a few short months. It's depressing but I'm trying to push this fact away from my head. I had a good week last week and I think this week would be too. As I am writing that, I've decided that I'm gonna be having fun this week. I'm gonna do things that I want to do and with or without people I want to do it with. I wish you guys a great last week too. Eat well and be happy :)
:) eKa @ 2:16:00 PM • 0 comments
Sunday, December 18, 2011
I am so tired and sleepy and I have so many things to write. Today's news have been filled with the fact that the metro system (mrt) in Singapore broke down again when the company just apologized yesterday for the Thursday evening breakdown. I was actually affected by it this morning. I am too tired to write what happened in details but I thought the staff didn't communicate well on what's going on to the passengers and what options were available for them. It was quite frustrating being on an almost empty, free bridging bus knowing that there were so many people waiting for a train whose time of arrival were ranging between 20 minutes. I sympathized with all the staff who had to work hard or who had to come to work on a Saturday because of this. However if they have to be there, they should be more useful. So obviously Facebook was buzzing with everyone giving their opinions on this. One facebook friend wrote that a metro breakdown is like a natural disaster for the people of Singapore. Another wrote it's like a freak event. Both kinda ring true. Someone I knew once said that one of the safe characteristic that Singaporea has is that its chance on getting a natural disaster is pretty low. I don't necessarily agree with that because I think if God wants to obliterate Singapore, He could easily do so. It does bring into discussion that the fact that Singapore doesn't really face things like natural disasters and the fact that everything is so effective in Singapore, things like a metro breakdown does feel like a disaster. Due to the fact that everything is pretty predictable in Singapore, I often feel that Singapore gets flustered pretty easily when a curve ball is thrown their way. I've been in this country for 11.5 years and I can only recall 2 incidents when there's a black out because there's something wrong with the electricity. 11.5 years in Indonesia, you'll be lucky if the number of black out is only 100 times more. However due to the fact that Singapore is highly efficient, it's also rather hard to accept that such thing happens in Singapore. If there's one place in this world where it shouldn't have happened, that place could well be in Singapore. The fact it did happen does make one wonder, what the hell is wrong with Singapore now? Why are you getting sucky? It does seem like a harsh judgement because shit does happen and things don't always go perfectly all the time but I guess because it's in Singapore where things run reliably 99.99% of the time, people are getting pretty critical about this. So well, that's my take on the whole thing.The title of the post is to signify that I feel free today. It's like it's time to play now. Today was the last french class for this year. We had a test and I am totally disappointed with how I did. Mr. F decided to split the tests into 2 rounds, the first being last week. It was a reading comprehension test and I did badly, scoring only 13.5 out of 20. It was demoralizing and disappointing. The other day Max thought he heard I said 13.5 out of 50 and he was ready to laugh at me. Upon knowing it's out of 20, he thought I did good. I really didn't think so. The same score range was reflected all throughout today's rounds. In total I think I score 73 something out of 100. It's the worst test result I've had since I started studying french. I think the highest part I scored was for writing a letter, in which I score 16 out of 20. Mr. F thought I did a good job on that, writing a complain letter to a mayor, and yet he only gave me 16 :( Overall I passed each of the parts, it's just I didn't score particularly high. I was rather surprised with the marks I got for listening and conversation. I thought I would score pretty low on them. It's really disheartening not understanding the listening part but then when I heard my teacher or the other teachers speak and I could understand it, I thought man! it's pretty cool and how far we've come. The other day Mr. F was revising the grammar in using the different past tenses; all the explanation was in french and I actually got it. It reminded me to the time back in my Italian class where my teachers could be speaking all in Italian and I got it. It felt good and yet when it's time to watch something or listen to an interview and not getting it, I just feel so down. Anyway, no more classes, no more studying for test, it really feels like it's time to play. So I'm gonna be in a more relaxed mood these 2 weeks. Just need to put the shield up so that annoying people will not be able to enter my dome of inner serenity :P
I managed to watch 2 movies this week. The first one was New Year's Eve. I'm not gonna tell you that the movie is great. However I feel it's better than Valentine's Day. It had a weak storyline but as a girl I do get dreamy with all the sweetness. I think my favorite story was the one with Michelle Pfeiffer and Zac Effron. By the way Zac Effron and short hair, HOT! As for the rest, I don't feel like commenting much. All I can comment on is how different Abigail Breslin looks now that she's older. Hillary Swank looked pretty though she's really not your typical pretty girl. Ludacris was cool but his character in the movie was pretty useless. I really didn't love the storyline between Jon Bon Jovi and Katherine Heigl. Sofia Vergara was of course sexy but much much dumber in this movie and you can kinda miss the feisty Gloria in Modern Family. Lea Michele sang in the movie, surprise? She should try to walk away from Glee like connection. It was good seeing Ryan Seacrest. Watching the host of X-Factor really made me miss Ryan and oh Josh Duhamel was as always handsome but you kinda wondered if it mattered that he's in the movie. Same goes for Halle Berry. Since my comments are as weak as the movie, I'll stop commenting it now.
Today, I watched Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. I though it was good. It felt pretty long but I think it was very well executed. I am most impressed at the stunt that Tom Cruise did in Burj Khalifa, Dubai. It was scary and the fact he did the stunt, he deserved an applause. Josh Holloway was in this movie but he died within the first few seconds :( So why do I feel the need to write about him? Well just because you kinda wondered what Lost's Sawyer was doing next and also because his wife happened to be Indonesian (lucky her). Anyways, not loving his short clean haircut. He looked so much better with Sawyer's hairstyle. The opposite goes for Tom Cruise. His haircut in this movie is not so nice. He looked better with short clean cut hairstyle. Aside for those 2 guys, I thought Jeremy Renner was kinda stealing the scene too. It's shallow of me to say this but there was a scene when I thought that he had a nice butt :P Okay, back to the movie. The action was great and they really went all out and it's really like saying that if one wants to do an action movie, one should really do it this way with seriously a lot of amazing action scenes. It's rather amazing that the director was Brad Bird who directed the animated movie, The Incredibles.
I have to add, there's a scene in the movie in which using a screen, the good guys could trick what a security guard was seeing. It made me wonder if the same technology was being used in the Transformer 3D ride in Universal Studio Singapore. They were able to deceive the passengers by making us believe we are in the middle of a crowded city with tall skyscrappers when in fact we're indoor in a building of at most 3-storey high. There are really so many amazing technology out there. I do recommend you to watch Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. I think it's one of the promising movies this holiday season. It's highly entertaining.
On other news. Well a few things did happen since the last time I wrote. One of it was when someone basically told me to be less of a bitch for a better future for my social self. As much as I think there's some truth in the request but I know that I'm just not that malleable. I register a lot of things in my brain and I just cannot forget a lot of things. Not just things like the details of what happened but also things like how I felt when those things happened. Hence I cannot get pass many things because when I think of a bad situation, I'll still get angry or sad and I cannot be all sincere in the "let's move on" action. So what I want is basically, you do your own things, I'll do mine. Don't be a dumbass and bother me and I'll also not gonna trouble you. Sounds selfish? Well I stand by my opinion that some people would have fared much worse if they had been in my situation. I react the way I react and whether it's the right or wrong thing to do, I could only react the way my heart allows me to do and I don't like being judged or whatever on the way I should react. I don't care if people think I'm such a bitch or anything simply because I don't care much for people who may think that way. They are not the most important people in my life. In fact they're not even in the list of people whose opinion I value. You see, I still get pretty intense as I am writing this. That's proof that I couldn't get pass certain things.
I don't want to end this post on such a negative tone so let me say my thanks. I am thankful that though I got confused this morning because of the train breakdown, I managed to find my way and thank God it was a Saturday morning so traffic wasn't too heavy. I was half an hour late but there were times when I was that late as well simply because I was slow in the morning. So overall, the damage for me wasn't too great. The thing I am most thankful about is that a little thing happened today. It was such a small thing and yet it managed to make my heart smile. So thank you God. God, if you can make the tiny thing bigger, that would be great. However Thy will be done and in God we trust :) Alright, I'm really tired and sleepy now. Good night loves!
:) eKa @ 12:05:00 AM • 0 comments
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
The Week With My Brother and Cousins
My brother was here the whole of last week and we got to meet twice. The first time was for dinner exactly last week. My brother and I are not close, we don't really talk to each other so the idea of having to spend some time during dinner was slightly nerve wrecking for me. It turned out to be pretty awesome. We talked a whole freaking lot that I'm sure my mom would be in the state of disbelief if she had seen us. After my opening of asking what he's doing in Singapore, conversation just flowed to other things and we had some good conversation that I felt it was such a pity that we didn't have more time to talk. I wanted to write that it's like seeing my brother in a new light but I think it will be more correct to say that it's seeing what he really is as an adult and I think he's pretty okay. It was rather eye opening and encouraging and humbling to be listening to his thoughts about life now and the future. Something that made me feel that he's rather wise and perhaps more acceptant than me is how he embraces the path he's in. Unlike me, I'm not embracing the path I am in and I'm pretty sure I am leaving this path. I'm just waiting for that sign when I feel I have enough. For my brother, as much as perhaps he didn't fall in love with his path on first sight, since he's already in it, he's making the full use of it and strive to be the best that he could be in it. I knew that he works long hours, I just didn't know what the drive was behind it and upon listening to him, I'm pretty much in awe at what I heard and it caused me to question myself on why I don't have the same drive and don't have the same willingness in embracing my path. I guess that's what makes us different. As I said it's a humbling experience listening to my brother and maybe I'll see things in a new light bit by bit. I do hope we get to hang out again. I guess we two as adults are pretty cool adults. Though we are different in how we think but there's certain similarities that we have, like how we want to kick ass, and how we're kinda pretty good in what we do. So if there's anything that I would like to be thankful about, I am really really really thankful to God that I got to spend a real nice time with my brother last week, especially after my weeks which hadn't actually gone trigger happy. So thank you so much God!Other than my brother, 2 of my cousins and baby girl Mikaela were here. They arrived on Thursday and I got to meet them on Saturday as we were going to Universal Studio. My brother happened to be there also. He didn't plan to be there again since he has visited it on Wednesday but he was and he sent me an sms in the morning telling me about it. It seemed that he couldn't use his phone to send messages out anymore after that 1 message so I wasn't banking much on being able to meet him but lo and behold I spotted him as we were standing outside the entrance. My brother gave us S$30 food vouchers. So that's pretty good. His job seems pretty glamourous to me. So anyway me and the cousins entered Universal Studio pretty late in the afternoon. It didn't really matter for me because I only wanted to try the few which I missed on my visit last year, which were basically the monster house rock, the Madagascar ride, and of course the hyped up Transformer 3D ride. With my brother, Shrek 4D ride was the first we tried. Then my brother had to go. We wanted to watch the waterworld show but because of the rain, the show was cancelled for that hour. The rain was really stopping us from exploring everything. So anyway, then we went to the Madagascar boat ride. After that Mikaela was taking her nap.
Because of the rain and the long queue at Transformer, my cousins decided that they would just walk around and watch Mikaela and so I went to the queue alone. It didn't feel as weird as I thought it would be but perhaps I was too tired to think much about it. I think I queued for 50 minutes. It felt very long, snaking in and out. I got pretty nervous about the ride as I was getting closer to it. I think I started to feel it's not gonna be as mild as I thought it would be. My brother was right, it's a bit of a combination of the Mummy ride and Shrek 4D. So I was alone and I was seated at the end of the cart. I was a real chicken because I was really scared to the point that I really prayed that I'll be alright and not gonna die from a heart attack. As the ride started, I started to scream which took me by surprise because during exhilarating / scary rides like this, I don't scream. I don't know why I started to scream on this one. Maybe I was alone? It was a real awesome ride though. So awesome and I was blown away on how it looked like. I wonder how they made it. I wonder what's the track and surrounding actually look like. I was very very proud of myself that I managed to do this ride alone. After the ride, the girl sitting next to me was looking at me. I wondered if she's wondering if I was okay or she thought it was strange that I was alone. Overall I came out of it feeling utterly happy. It felt like a big accomplishment :)
After the ride, I met up with my cousins again. We watched the monsters house rock which I didn't think was awesome. Then we had dinner. After dinner was the fireworks show. Mikaela didn't think much of it, I think she didn't like the exploding sounds. My cousins thought it was pretty cool. I thought it was too darn short. It's the same thing as what I saw last year and to be waiting some time for it in a very bad weather with the rain, it just felt like a let down. However, they were delighted so I guess it's cool. I met with them again the next day (Sunday).
They weren't checking their phones so they didn't see my message telling them I'd arrived. By sheer luck, I spotted them, just like I spotted my brother the day before. I like how my cousin described it, it's like we're being pulled to each other :) I like those moments when words twined together in ways that I don't think of could light me up unexpectedly. So anyway, Sunday was spent accompaning the cousins to shop then we're off to Singapore Flyer. I think the improvement they did on Singapore Flyer was great. However the ride itself was boring for me. Maybe it's because I've been in it before and I was really tired, again the rain really brought down the spirit and energy level. One of my cousin was having problem with the height and Mikaela wasn't interested at all. You can never be sure with a 4-year old on what would interest them. She ended up playing and making lotsa noise with the other 4-year old Singaporean boy in the capsule. We ended up talking with the boy's grandpa. Anyway we ended up leaving the Singapore Flyer quite late and I was so tired that we decided to just take taxi. It was frustating because there was no taxi and I called every single number on the list and couldn't go through. I decided to stand by the street and there was a free taxi passing by but it didn't stop even though I was waving like crazy and almost stood in front of its way. I don't understand this and it often happens that an empty taxi just doesn't stop. I don't understand. Luckily behind it, there was a taxi which was willing to pick me up. I felt so happy because I haven't been standing long by the street but I did wait sometime at the taxi stand. My cousin thought I walked out to cry. So anyway, it's been a very tiring weekend for me. Maybe it's also because of the rain, I'm not feeling sickly these few days. Been having migraine a lot and feeling rather feverish. The brother and cousins had returned home and I kinda miss home a lot now. I miss my bed.
It still felt pretty nice to be spending time with the family. One thing I realize was that travelling with a kid can be quite a hassle. Do you know how fast one can walk pushing a stroller? It's weird considering that I've been pretty eager to see what kind of kids I'll have. After the 2 days with Mikaela, I felt pretty thankful that I am single and I have a lot of freedom to do things that I want to do. Not that Mikaela is a bad kid, her mom and auntie surely speak pretty highly of her and I know many people I know also speak highly of their kids. It's just having kids really does restrict you on the things that you can do and for that I am so thankful that I don't have all these responsibilities in life (yet). It makes me feel pretty good about being single and being able to explore the things that I want to do or just simply being able to walk fast without much care. Okay, it's been quite late. So I should stop now and lie down. Meanwhile, I leave you with a picture I took from inside the Singapore Flyer's capsule.
:) eKa @ 10:49:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, November 26, 2011
If you want it, you must will it. If you will it, it will be yours.What can you learn from Happy Feet Two? Baby penguins are so adorable! They're fluffy and so cute that you just want to bring them home and just hug them. Penguins walk funny and also that line above, If you want it, you must will it. If you will it, it will be yours. However I am not in a very positive mood today or this week for that matter. So I'm kinda not really inspired by the line above. Before we go into that, let's talk a bit about Happy Feet Two. Was it good? Well I thought it wasn't bad. I think there's a hint of global warming issue but it wasn't explored much, perhaps they didn't want to get too preachy. Story wise it's not so bad but not exceptionally amazing as well. There's a story about 2 krills voiced by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. I'm having difficulty understanding what't the message is in their story. Is it good to go on your own and go against the current and make your own path? In the end Brad's character was back with its swarm. So I'm not really sure what to make of that. As for the message, If you want it, you must will it. If you will it, it will be yours, it also didn't seem to be the main message of this movie. I think if there's ever any message to this movie is don't give up and by working together, people or penguins and elephant seals can crush icebergs. Oh well it's an animated movie maybe I shouldn't overthink or analyze it much. There were many kids in the cinema, for obvious reason. One boy next to me was kinda dancing during some of the songs and there was one time, he or his brother cried. I'm not sure why. The songs were pretty nice but I cannot recall any, so perhaps they're not so memorable? Anyways, so that's the movie. Oh I have to say that though Pink is a better singer however her speaking voice made Gloria's character sounded so much older than Britanny Murphy. So Britanny Murphy is kinda missed in this movie for me.
So this week ... well today kinda can make me say that I am in a sad mood. Although since this week is thanksgiving week and I have been searching deep within my soul if I have to give thanks, are there things I'll be thankful about? and I realize I do, I still feel like the energy level and the mood level is pretty down, specifically after today. I guess my Saturday didn't go as great as I hope it would be. Then again, it's kinda a truly high expectation to put on Saturdays to lift your spirit after 5 full days (5.5 if you're including Sunday evening) of melancholy. All I can tell myself is, so what you wish and hope is not gonna happen, but God will give you bigger and greater things than you can ever wish for. However since the spirit is rather weak now, it's hard to keep the faith in that right now. I guess I have to though. I should stop all my own wishful thinking and just believe that the way God will make it work out eventually will be awesome.
On other news. My brother is coming tomorrow. For one week it seems because of work. I'm not sure how his schedule will be like or if I'm gonna meet him. Mom seems to be under the impression that we're not gonna meet. We'll see. My other cousins are coming next Thursday and tentatively I'll be going to Universal Studio with them next Saturday. I am looking forward to try the Transformers 3D ride. However the weather in Singapore these days, as cooling as it does get, is not really ideal for outdoor activities because of the rain. Overall, I am kinda looking forward for these people to come so that I get a little distraction from my mundane and unfulfilling days.
On a more positive note, I'm gonna try to list things I am thankful for. I was thinking I should end each of my blog post with this, however as I try to list 5 things I am thankful for from Monday to Friday, I couldn't really find them, so I may not do this as a regular thing. For now, here are the things I am thankful for this week.
- I am thankful for the friends who could see my point of view and not say that I am crazy for feeling what I feel. Well they are kinda my friends so perhaps they are bias but they have been telling me that if they were in my situation, they would feel what I feel. So thank you.
- I am thankful for people who came to visit me for lunch, people whom I have lunch and watch a movie with. This point is kinda more or less the same as point 1.
- I am thankful for Max. He's trying to find this blog, I wonder if he'll find it. I am thankful for him because I can rely on at least one little bit of conversation with someone a day (I don't count conversation happening in sms and instant messengers as "real" conversation). Anyway sometime I like this boy around, sometime not (like when he criticized my french pronunciation *sad*) but overall I am getting used of him and I am genuinely thankful that he's around. It's a bit like when Ann Claire was around last time. In the beginning I kinda felt that my space was invaded but in the end I did appreciate always having her around during dinner or breakfast and then I kinda missed her when she and her mom left. I hope I get to leave Max instead of the other way around because it's always sucky to be the one left behind. Well that's pretty selfish of me.
- I am thankful to God for making a really nice shade of purple that sometime happens during dusk. I love it.
- I am thankful that I am okay, kinda healthy, safe and sound, and not really lacking in anything.
:) eKa @ 7:28:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, November 19, 2011
I just watched the replay telecast of the SEA Games badminton woman's singles. That was a real disappointment. I felt rather sad but I know it must have been harder for Firdasari, the Indonesian player, who let down the whole stadium. Oh well. Anyways, just wanna tell you that this is going to be a long post. Things are swirling in my head but I will try to do this in a chronological order.As mentioned, I went home last week. It felt really really great to be sleeping in my wonderful bed. I love my bed at home so much. The bad thing that happened back home is that water wasn't running smoothly. It felt like living in poverty because of the lack of access to water and that was quite literal. You see, in Indonesia, or at least in Jakarta and at least at homes like mine (I'm not really sure how they work for appartment building), we usually have water containers to collect water from the main pipe. I'm not sure what's the reasoning for this. I can only suspect that the water running from the government pipe may not be as constant as one expect so it's necessary to have big water containers to collect the water so when the time comes to use it, we will always have enough of it. In the case of my house and perhaps many others, we have 2 water containers. Indonesian has an exact word to describe it but in english I can only use water containers. The first water containers in my house is located under ground, in front of the house, under the small little area where mom has pots of plants. It is tiled. Now that I think of it, it will work well as a torture chambers :P Like one you can find in horror movie where the unsuspecting victims are kept. So anyway, it's not so big, it doesn't even occupy the entire underground area of our house. I guess for construction safety purposes, it's not a wise idea to have a hole filled with water under your house foundation. Now this water containers collect the water from the government main pipe. Then once or twice a day, dad will use the electric pump (I'm not sure if this is the correct word) to pump out all the water up to the other container located at the half level of my 2 and a half storey house (my house is small, hence we have to build up). The pump is not working really well, so instead of flicking the switch and barring one of the bar (I'm having difficulty explaining this) and have it work automatically, some other works need to be done and in my family, only dad knows how to do this. So the water goes up and water from this container is the one will be running down and being used by all the taps in the house. For some reason when I was there, the water wasn't running very well. The big plastic water container on top is old so moss does grow in it. It is gross but imagine fresh water from river, they also flow through rocks and moss and plants. Anyway we only use the water for washing not drinking or cooking. We use water from gallon bottles for that. Okay so, water wasn't running properly so that means it's clogged with debris somewhere. It's quite a nightmare because at two and half storey, there's a lot of pipes behind the wall that can cause the clog. If only there's an X-ray machine that can scan this kinda thing exactly. There's isn't. Everyday I just prayed that it would work out by itself. Mom decided to settle this after I leave but even then their trustee handyman wasn't available. Anyway, lo and behold mom said it did work out by itself 1-2 days after I left. It seemed the water finally managed to kick all the debris out and dirty water just came out from one of the tap and mom let it run its course out until clear water came out. Thank God! Thank God it worked out because it would be a major work to destroy walls and find where the clog is and thank God it worked out on its own because I think mom and dad not gonna be behaving nice in the face of all the reconstruction work :P So that's the long story of home.
Dewi's wedding went okay. I really don't like getting dressed up and getting my face all heavily made up. But I did. Me and cousin Marlisa attended the buddhist religious ceremony. The parents' part of this kinda thing is always touchy and the weeper of this one seemed to be Dewi's dad. Everyone was making jokes that's because Dewi's is the favourite kid :( I didn't cry because I tried my best not to. Her wedding reception was going in a very efficient manner that I was impressed. I think she really got most of the things done in 2 hours. I think they're really done by 3 hours. I basically just stuck around Emilia and her family. I don't know many people anyway. Dewi and Sofyan actually went to Singapore and Malaysia for their honeymoon. I met them for dinner this Tuesday. On my way home that evening, I realized that our conversation was really done in high speed Indonesian. We spoke really really fast. I always attribute this to us being efficient but even though we covered many things, there are still things we haven't talked about or I forgot to ask her. So anyway, that's one of my best friends who got married. I was expecting for Marlisa to follow suit next year. It could still happen, we don't know but anyways, it led to this next subject.
I expected the question of when my turn is. My school friends with husbands, kids, fiance asked me that. I remember Emilia answering on my behalf, soon. I know it's really nice of her. She just wanted the heat off me and didn't want me to be discouraged or stressed out. But the thing is and perhaps this is the wrong way of thinking, I don't want to be focusing much on it, is it very wrong to be single (at my age)? It is for the same reason that even though Dewi asked the organisers to specifically call my name out to participate at the throwing of the flowers, I refused to move. Don't get me wrong. I really want to get married. I want to have kids. I think I can be an awesome mom and teaming up with me will definitely be pretty cool because I am crazy, fun, smart, and at the same time pretty capable on many things. When one gives their loyalty to me, he can expect the same and it's one character that I really value deeply. It's just the whole idea of you are only complete when you are married is not something that I share. I'm pretty sure Oprah had discussed this one time. I am a whole on my own or at least each and every day of my life I strive to be a whole on my own. My name in itself already means 1, it doesn't mean 0.5. I am not someone's half. I don't really share that sentence that is often said in wedding, now you are one kinda thing. I have mentioned it before, my idea of marriage is more of Kahlil Gibran's version. I imagine myself being married to someone who is also like me. We both are 2 whole people on our own. We are already 2 strong and intelligent people. We are together because we love each other, we have massive fun together, great conversation and we make sense together but we should also be able to be independent and strong on our own. Alright, I don't know if I am explaining my points well. My point is, all these people and my parents who ask me this just don't seem to get that about me and I don't even try to explain this because I fear that the concept maybe too radical for them. I know dad and mom as parents would really want to see us kids get married and dad perhaps at his age (when people his age and his siblings had died) is rather worried he may not see the day. I also really hope that God grants us the chance to be married with our parents around. Mom and dad also just really want someone to take care of me which is also a nice and logical wish as parents. I get that. The thing is many people will argue, they should wish for you to be always able to take care yourself and that is exactly something that I strive. I don't know if I will be able to do it down the road, being 70-80 something. However at this age, with what's in front of me, with what I have or what I don't have, I strive to be okay on my own by own. It's really imperative for me to be able to be this way hence I don't want to pine or hope or actively looking for that person to take care of me. Yes, there is some worry that I will be single forever. At my age now, I don't know if that chance to be married is getting smaller or bigger. What I know is I don't have a boyfriend, not seeing one in the near future, so instead of trying to get one, I am preparing myself to be more contented being alone. I don't think it's a pessimistic point of view. I don't think that means I give up. It just means, I'm not gonna sit here just waiting. I'm gonna be doing stuff and maybe we'll meet when both of us are doing our stuff.
This subject relates to a conversation I had with a Singaporean taxi driver who drove me when I arrived back in Singapore. Seriously, often time I wish Singaporean taxi drivers are not so chatty. This one was so chatty he missed my turn and had to drive back. In less than 15 minutes, he's given me support about love and the pressure of marriage, told me about an Indonesian maid he knew who committed suicide just 1 month after she returned home to get married, and his phillipina friend who had to perform illegal abortion in a Singapore hospital and the moral conflict she had to face. At the end of trip, I knew about his marriage, which area his house is, how many rooms in his flat, and the area his 2 kids live. Very chatty! So anyway, he commented on how Indonesians get married young compared to the Singaporeans. I commented it is so and hence mom is pushing me for it. He was telling me, let love happens naturally as he believes that people who looks for love is looking for trouble so let it find you. Following that logic, someone still has to do the searching, no? :D He said the usual thing people often say, as long as you are happy now, why does it matter if you're single? So the annoying question comes. Are you happy? If I have to be honest, I don't really know how to answer that. I think what I feel most of the time is not happiness. Is it sadness, then? I try not to think of it as sadness. I mean just because you are not happy, it doesn't necessarily mean you are sad, right? I just feel restless most of the time and to say that I am restless just because I am single would be so shallow. I am restless because of many things, because of where I am in life, what I am doing in my life, what I want to do in my life, or more profoundly what I need to do with my life. I always have all these philosophical questions weighing me down. So that's me and my issues. To say I am not satisfied and disappointed with my life is also incorrect because I know for sure that if I have to die tonight, I will be thankful to God and I will leave feeling okay because although there are many things I haven't done or don't have, there are many things I managed to do. For God's sake, I managed to cross the number one things off my life list, managed to put new ones and crossed them too, and I am still putting more things and trying to do them. So in that sense, my life has been great and blessed and I am happy, really genuinely happy that I know I can feel that. So what's the conclusion? I don't know. Maybe I just need to ramble. Hmm ... I really hope I don't have to write about this kinda thing again because who likes repeated recycled materials :P Let's cross our fingers.
Movie of this week is The Adventures of Tintin. I watched it alone while waiting for Dewi and Sofyan to come for dinner. I like it and enjoyed it but it is rather heavy to warrant a second viewing. I have never read any Tintin comics. In fact each time I see the picture, it just doesn't interest me. However I watched it because it's Steven Spielberg's and also it reminds me of a very cute french guy by the name of Arthur who was rather excited when we saw the posters in Cannes. I think he will like the movie too :) The story was pretty good and for some strange reason I thought Tintin was rather handsome in the movie :P It is still strange though for me to see someone his age dressing the way he is, it just makes him look like a boy.
Now let's continue to the title of the post. If you think the inquiry about me and marriage is the reason for the title, well it is not. Something darn shitty happened this week. Someone said something to me that just caused me to freeze. This is the freezing in which I see no way of going back to normal. People who know me know what I am like. I do wonder if I am being emotional, sensitive, dramatic, but I am really sure if the same one word is to be told to the girl, she will also feel utterly pissed off. I mean I told 2 people that this girl used this word about me and without hearing the story, these 2 people already felt that the word is such a mistake. They felt she shouldn't have used the word. I stand by my reasoning that I did no wrong and even if I did wrong, I shouldn't be faulted because it's not even something that I should be doing. I will battle this out if need be. Mom even told me to fight this out. To add to that misery, another girl had to of course put pressure on me and told me something along the line that I am not being understanding. I was really in that I-want-to-scream-FUCK-OFF-and-throw-things kinda mood. Of course I didn't. So anyway yeah that is so shitty. Just one word and it got me to freeze and I know it is perhaps one bad character of me that I can just cut people off. Seriously though, as much as I want to forgive and forget, I can't. Can you still forgive someone even if you don't ever want to talk to them ever again? Does that mean the forgiveness is not sincere? I don't wish this girl or any people whom I don't ever want to talk to ever again harm. I wish them well but I just can't be all sincere and be all buddy buddy with them ever again. The annoying voice inside really led me to question if I am being unreasonable and I am lacking of patience in life. I will admit that I am not a patient person. However, I think I have been pretty patient in enduring many shit from many people in my life. I seriously think there are other people who would have taken the shits that I have had to face in life in a less admirable state than I do. So in that sense I think I fare okay. The thing is, there are just certain things that can freeze me over. Sometime I don't even know them until they happen, they just burn my inside and I freeze as cold as an iceberg (how's that for a paradox?). It does sound unfair though for people having to guess if certain things will fly with me when even I don't know it. I guess my advice is don't be a dumbass. Put the words or the action towards yourselves and see if you'll feel pissed. If yes, then don't try me unless you really want to hurt me. If you do, then I salute you because at least you are being honest :) Just be ready for me not to be all smiley and be friends in the aftermath :P Well you all gotta live with the consequences of your actions right. So that's the shittiest thing that happened this week. It spurred a desire in me to make a major change. With changes there is always fear and fear is always paralysing for me but sometime when it comes down to it, people just have to make the jump. I really hope that God will guide me in each step of the way.
What else to say? I was really nervous about going to class today because 1 week without french class does wipe everything in my brain. I know I just left for a few days but somehome this trip felt so much longer to me when I came back. All seemed so different and foreign that I felt like I am in the state where I am trying to get used to things again. Talking about foreign, I realize I haven't even written about Indonesia. I actually have some things in my head about this. I hope I'll get to write these thoughts down, maybe it does have to simmer and be boiled longer in the brain. So anyway french class. I was horrible, aarrrgghh!!! I made the stupidest mistake ever. For some reason I thought that the word for people in french "les gens" is singular. I like to blame the italian equivalent which is "la gente", which is singular. In Italian and French, the article 'la' is singular but I should have no excuse in making the mistake when "les gens" starts with 'les' which indicates it's plural. So anyway I used all the third person singular verb in my writing and made the stupidest mistake (for my level) in my writing. I should have asked it back and made all the correction instead of letting Mr. F continue reading it. I think he wasn't impressed. I just tried to laugh it off. God, I cannot imagine if it had been Mr. C. Then Mr. F was also speaking really fast in class that one time I didn't even realize he was asking me a question. Embarrassing. Speaking of Mr. F, I think with 1 week me being away, he's forgotten my name, sigh. I really need to study more. We need to take a test at the end of this term and man so many words conjugations have successfuly fleed my brain. Not to mention the memory demanding subjonctif, aarrrgghh! Today I was also having more difficulty in writing things. I was drawing blank. I think my writing was horrible. But I always think that way :( I think I have to start dedicating my time to go through all these words but man I am so lazy :( I really need to whip myself :(
Today I actually had to attend a 2-year old birthday party. I was actually really thinking about going but then I realize that I will not know most of the Indonesian guests and I hate the awkward social situation. I also know for sure that certains Indonesians just don't go well with me. I know it's weird of me to say this but really it's just like that. Not all Indonesians are as fun as my best buddies. It's just a matter of being able to click and sometime I feel I don't click easily with Indonesians. Geez, another whole page of things just come to my brain but I will not write it now. So anyway, I just said to the mother inviting me that I've been feeling under the weather. I just want to rest at home which is true. It's been a demanding week this week. I arrived Monday and I only unpacked my suitcase on Wednesday and also there's the whole shitty thing and the bit of flu (I've been self medicating). It so happened that la Gioia was also asking if I wanted to do the tree top walk today after class. I had to say no even though it's something I want to do. I just want to spend today and tomorrow catching up with the tv series I've been missing. It's been awhile since I have a free weekend. The last many weekends had been spent trying to (hopefully) enrich (literally) myself. So now, I'm just gonna stop writing, eat a chocolate bar and watch House and Grey's Anatomy in my cold room. It's been really long. Hmm, I am in need of some nice ice creams or cakes since life has been sucky this week and I think it will continue to be so in many weeks or months to come. I wish your days are much better and happier. Buonanotte tutti!
:) eKa @ 7:41:00 PM • 0 comments
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
The Ides of March & Tower Heist
I am sitting here supposedly having to do something useful with my time since it's the only right thing to do. However as how the world works, noone really does the right thing all the time, at least not me. All I can do is try to do the least number of wrong things as I can. Alright, enough with the self justification as to why I am blogging at this hour. I didn't give a good "because" to the "why" anyway and I just don't want to go there.So home is tomorrow. I'm not sure who's gonna pick me up in the airport. I don't think mom will be there because as it has been the last few times I'm home, she's not picking me up. It kinda makes me really sad, but I guess that's just the way it is. She still kisses me when I arrive though. Moving on. Have I packed? Nope. Today being Wednesday means it's laundry day as well as Glee day. I don't know if I'd be able to throw some stuff in after I finish those 2 tasks. If not, it would be the last minute throwing things in, getting my laundry down, and tiny bit of room cleaning tomorrow. They don't sound fun at all.
I really want to go home, but as mentioned before, I am not looking forward for the whole wedding thingy. Somehow I am more not in the mood now than I normally am on the prospect of dressing up. Normally I would just find it as a chore and annoying, so a mood less than that makes me really REALLY dread the whole thing. Other than that, going home also brings another chore. Need to get me a new ID card. Well, need to get the whole family the new electronic ID cards. Indonesia being Indonesia, the processes seem to be quite painful, as complained by the facebook friends back home. The queue system is painful because you get a number but you cannot estimate when you will actually get served. It may take hours before you get served, because 1 number can be for the whole family of 4 or 10, instead of 1 number for 1 person. So for people who have to work, waiting 3-4 hours will make you darn hungry, as told by Dewi when she was doing hers. So I think my dad's plan is to get me there waiting, and when our number is about to come, call everyone to come down and get our application done. Genius, cheating, lame? Well, it's up to you to judge. I basically just have to do what my parents want me to do and wait I will. I guess our whole family are in unison about not wanting to bribe the staff to get our application processed efficiently. So if it means waiting, I guess I have to do it. There are people who do that by the way, give something to the official to get bumped ahead of queue. My reasoning is, if we want a corruption free country, then we should not initiate this nonsense. I do want to make a complain to the office on why their queueing system sucks but unlike Singapore, I don't think Indonesia has a feedback methods in place. Nor do citizens write to the local newspapers on things that annoy them. It's just Singapore. So anyway ...
The reason why I want to blog is actually to talk about the 2 movies I managed to squeeze in before I go, The Ides of March and Tower Heist. The Ides of March was directed by George Clooney. Reason for wanting to watch it was because of Ryan Gosling and oh how he's so handsome! Love him! and love the fact he chooses nice movies to work on. The Ides of March itself is a good movie. I love it. All the actors were quite the heavyweights in Hollywood and they were very good. As much as I love seeing Ryan Gosling, I have to say that I don't like his character much. I think he took quite a childish approach in trying to solve the conflict. Overall, it's quite an interesting look on how a political campaign in America works and it's sad to learn that back door negotiation is always there as well as the fact that there's no real clean politician out there :( I think it's a really good watch but I know some people wouldn't watch things like this. In fact, most of the people who filled half of the cinema I was in were mostly of the older demographic. So if you think you're into this kinda thing, do watch it. I wonder if Ryan Gosling's Drive is also as interesting. I'm giving that one a miss though, since I don't have the time.
Tower Heist is also a nice movie for me. Of course it's not deep or anything but I think it was quite entertaining and I like it very much. Some has compared it to Ocean's 12, well in a way it is a bit similar in terms of the unbelievable heist they pulled but Tower Heist is less cool and crazier. Still I enjoyed it very much and the casts were great as well. How did Ben Stiller get to be so handsome? Must be the nose and eyes :P Casey Affleck was rather mumbling his lines, I'm not sure if he's funny in his attempt to be funny. Matthew Broderick looked pretty chubby. Eddie Murphy was fun to watch, not loving his character though. However it's Gabourey Sidibe, who got famous because of Precious, who's the must fun to watch. Her character was really funny. Maybe I was in a rather different state of mind but I really did enjoy this movie and love it. I can see it though if some people may just slam this movie since it is really silly.
Well, I guess that's about it peeps. I don't think I'll write again before I go but I'll be back soon enough. Too soon to my liking but that's just the way it is. Take care, aight!
:) eKa @ 12:21:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, November 05, 2011
The Very Long Post on a Saturday
Hello peeps. This is going to be a long post so bear with me or you can just leave half way, whenever it gets boring which I hope doesn't happen at the end of this sentence. There are just a few thoughts in my head and a few things to share. I don't really want to talk about what happened this week because now that I think of it, I cannot remember much of the things I did this week. Anyway, my week has never really been the interesting one. Let's start with today.My morning today was rather weird. My brain was really not working that I did many stupid things even before I left my room. I am too embarrassed to tell you all of it in details but to illustrate what I mean, let me tell you my first stupidity. So this morning I was putting my contact lens and for some reason I still couldn't see after I put them in. I thought I put the left lens wrongly so I kept on taking it down and putting it in. I did that for 2-3 times before I realized that I had already put my left lens and the lens that I stubbornly tried to put into my left eye is actually for my right eye. I cannot comment on this stupidity. I don't know if anybody has ever been as stupid as me. I think there is someone out there in this world who had absent mindedly done the same. So that's that and it just seemed one wrong thing after another. It really made me wonder how my day was going to be but french class today was rather uneventful.
Now we have Mr. F. Our first class with him was last week. It was slightly overwhelming last week. You would think that Mr. C's regime would have made us well prepared ... well he did prepare us well. It's just Mr. F started last week with shooting questions to each of us. It was simple questions like introducing yourself and giving opinion on simple things but the speed that it happened made us really sit straight and start preparing our words as the people before us was questioned. He was like questioning me if I'm javanese. I said nope, I was born and raised in Jakarta and he still continued asking if my parents are javanese. It must be my big wonderful eyes!!! I told him that mom and dad are from Bangka. I wonder if he knows where that is. It's really a different class with Mr. F now. His topic is not as heavy as Mr. C and yet it doesn't necessarily make us be more chatty in class. He did ask us to speak up but for some reason I felt people were more quiet. It's surprising that lighter topics make us more speechless than discussing England's riot or 911 for example. Mr. F also always asks us to write which is good but again the topic was pretty light. He was telling me that I did really really good and today he told me I'm in a good level. Last week I told him, really?!?! Because Mr. C is really difficult. He just nodded. My statement is true though. I think Mr. C would think what I wrote these past 2 weeks is not even worth commenting :P It is really strange. I've written it before that Mr. C looks so harmless and yet he could be so deadly and tough. Mr. F looks kinda scary for me and yet he's really generous with the praises. He was rolling it out to everyone when he marked our works. Everyone is great. He also speaks english pretty often and he is okay when we (or mostly I) speak english. It actually made me feel really good because there were many times last time that Mr. C had to say, okay Eka stop, no no no! :( I don't know though if this lighter lenient approach will be good for us in the long run. I felt good not being reprimanded for speaking english but the fact remains that I spoke english or horribly broken french when I should be speaking or putting more effort and control in french. So that's class so far. I'm not coming next week because I'm going home this Thursday.
Ah home. I really look forward to go home however it's such a short trip and the reason for this is Dewi's wedding next Saturday. I'm not really looking forward for the wedding because it's gonna be a whole day thingy and I have to dress up and I'm not loving inches of make-up on my face and a whole can of hairspray in my hair to make them look dead stiff. However it's a once in a lifetime event and true sisters is always there for their soul sisters, right? I just hope that when the time comes for me to get married whenever it is or most importantly wherever it is, they will come to my wedding. Anyways, I think I will only have 2 full days spent with my family and that's not enough time to catch up with mom :( At this point I don't know if it's because I'm just missing home so much or just need to get Singapore off my system but I just really want to go home asap. It can also be because of the blogs I've been reading make me miss Indonesia quite a whole lot.
You see, in my boredom I had to find things to entertain myself. It started with googling for Italian or French blog entry about trips to Indonesia. I wanted to improve my language skills hence the topic. I did stumble on some interesting thing, for example an Italian wrote this about Monas, un grande obelisco che si trova nel centro di una piazza enorme. It means, a big obelisk which one can find in the center of an enormous square. It really got me laughing because I never see it that way. It's really interesting to see your country in the eyes of foreigners. More googling led me to blogs from American Peace Corps volunteers. You can google more about peace corps yourself but basically what happens is, there are a group of Americans being dropped into villages in east Java to teach english at the local schools for 2 years. I think they are all encouraged to blog about their experience. They are living with the locals while they are there and all of them go to different villages. I'm Indonesian and I found it to be scary and overwhelming. I don't know if I can do it. If I tell my parents I want to do this kinda thing, I'm pretty sure they're going to object. I think some of them even have to teach in a madrasah, which is an islamic school. I will feel so self conscious knowing I am the only non-muslim in a school or a village of muslims for that matter and they are American! However it seemed people have been treating them well and they have embraced it all with much eagerness. I haven't read all the blogs yet but from the few that I read, the writers even voluntarily fast too during the fasting month just because they wanted to try it or simply to blend more with the community. I think they are pretty awesome.
What I really like and what got me laughing most of the time reading the blogs are their first impression of Indonesia, Java, and all the things that they have to get used too. Again I haven't read all, but from the few I read, the similar things they wrote are like about their briefing in which the issue of using squat toilet was discussed in great details :D They also wrote about eating rice everyday and tempe is always there as well in every meal (this was rather surprising to me, maybe because it's Java). None of them have written about Indomie so far and I found that to be very surprising, since it's one of our national food :P They talked about how their host parents will always pile more food in their plates and ask them to eat more. One girl wrote about the host parent asking her to take a nap. It's very funny and it does sound silly but it's Indonesian alright. Which Indonesian has never been asked to eat more or to take a nap? :D I cannot list all the things that made me giggle but things they wrote like having to take a shower using a pail did make it to one of my lunch conversation this week. It becomes really funny when you realize how something so normal to us is able to make someone else stumped. Someone asked one of the girl if she would bring a gun. I almost burst laughing. Indonesia's crime rate is not necessarily low but crime with gun is almost unheard of. I guess the prefered weapon of choice is the old reliable axe or other sharp things or of course the favorite bomb by muslim extremists. So anyway, I'm glad there are these blogs for me to pour over, I hope they will write often. I have to comment on one other thing. I actually watched a speech one of them made in Indonesian after they finished their 3 months training or something before starting the real thing. I have to comment that the guy's Indonesian is so awesome considering 3 months prior he didn't speak Indonesian! I suppose the Indonesian teachers had a hand in helping preparing the speech but his pronunciation which included the standard islamic greeting in arabic was spot on. However I still got a bit of a giggle because he spoke with a Javanese accent. It's so funny for me and I guess that boy doesn't even realize he's not sounding the standard Indonesian. But still I think it's cool that he can have a javanese accent which got me thinking. I guess the guy was one of the best one in the Indonesian class that he was chosen to make the speech but I wonder if he's also so talented to be able to hear clearly how things are pronounced and be able to emulate it. I for one, feel that I am kinda bad at this hence when Mr. C used to break into impromptu phonetic session, I felt pretty tortured. So that's one of the most interesting thing this week.
Movie of this week was Footloose, the reboot, which I watched alone this evening. It was horrible. The storyline was weak. I don't know if it's better or worse than the original one because I never watch the original one. I was only 2 when that movie came out. This 2011 was really bad. I don't even think the dancing was cool. Seeing the dancing, I am thinking Harry Shum Jr will be so much cooler in those scenes. Nice comments that I can make about the movie is so superficial, like the main boy is handsome. I found myself liking the sidekick more though, even though he's not as handsome. I guess character will always be a bigger draw than look. The sidekick is this goofy funny guy, and so he's more interesting to watch. So that's that, I'm not gonna write more about this movie.
Alone is quite the word I have a lot in my head today. This week brought to me moments when I was alone which I actually like and moments when I was alone which made me feel pretty lonely :( In the face of the loneliness, I just have to tell myself, being alone is a fact Eka and being with someone or with people is a blessing, luck, opportunity, hope or perhaps at time despair :P You can deal with the fact and with the rest you can only hope. So with the fact that I am alone, I tell myself to embrace the fact and just be happy that you can do things on your own. So after feeling quite alone today, I felt really good at the slightest thing. Like when the auntie who got me my lunch commented that she hasn't seen me for some time. She's nice and she knows exactly what I normally choose. Also the auntie who gave me my movie ticket today also made me feel warm and fuzzy just because she said enjoy your evening.
Although it didn't actually make me much happier but my Max's dosage for the day did get me laughing a bit. Max is trying this new thing to shock me everyday. Yesterday was a good one, he was hiding behind the door and suddenly just screamed boo! He almost gave me a heart attack and yet it did make us laugh (me less, he more). Due to that very successful attempt, he decided to make it an everyday event thing. Obviously I am not liking this much, simply because I really believe my heart is not that strong and I don't want to accidentally drop my dinner especially if there are liquid inside it. Today he tried again. Confidently he chose the same spot as yesterday. Me, who we agreed has become paranoid, started looking for signs and I spotted him behind the door and I told him, I can see you!!! It felt good to ruin his plan but this surely will make him be more determined to try more things.
So this week I had the chance to have quite a long talk with him which helped me to see things in a different perspective on the whole relationship thing between him and his aunt. Geez, I hope the aunt is not gonna stumble into this blog. So the 15-year old Max apparently has been going to clubs, though in his defence, it's only been twice since he came here. The thing is, he's 15. So how on earth did he manage to go inside Butter Factory? The answer is, using a common marker the boy turned 95 in his french id into 89. It wasn't even a neat work and yet the people at the club let him go in. I can only sigh. Maybe it's because I am an Indonesian who's been raised in a rather strict Indonesian family in regard with this kinda thing but I really against him going to clubs. I know for sure his aunt too because I've heard her complaining on the phone with this boy's mother and all of the sudden the times when she caned this boy make sense. That's also exactly what my parents would have done if we had done something as bad as this. Then this boy brought the argument of it's all being so normal back in France and he even drank more back there. He argued that right now it's like asking him to be a horse when he's a zebra. Well he didn't say that exactly, it's just my analogy of what his point is. I got it. I see his points and I told him that's why it's rather hard to comment on this. However the fact that he's doing this illegal things behind his aunt's back is just so wrong and now he has even made me promise not to tell his aunt. Well, I am no Sheldon Cooper with secret but all this information do get me tormented a bit. By law of non involvement that my mom imposed in me in relation to these people, I do kinda have to do what this boy asked of me as well as not trying to tell him to do anything even though I disagree truly with what he's doing. It's very mind opening hearing him telling me that his french friends now think he lives a boring life here while in my eyes he's already living quite a destructive life. Imagine having to raise children with someone with such different cultural perception like this whole Asian European way of thinking.
Maybe I am being too dramatic especially as he pointed that he only clubbed once in 2 months now but I am just really really strongly against him hanging out with all these older people and doing stuff he shouldn't be doing just yet. I asked him why he just doesn't hang out with people his age. He said because people his age are just wasting their time playing games. Point taken. Still, it doesn't really warrant him to be clubbing and all right? Again maybe it's the Asian thinking, or the Indonesian way of thinking, or just me thinking based on how I was raised and what is expected of me when I was young. I told him as Asian, we like structure. Maybe I don't explain that clearly to him but it seemed he gets it. I think as Asian or again perhaps as Indonesian, it's important that things are in its place, people are within their boundary, doing things that they suppose to be doing at the time they should be doing it as dictated by the norms that have guided generations before us. Westerners are perhaps more liberal (for lack of a better word). I am pretty certain the majority of Asians who find their kids clubbing at the age of 15 will give hell to the kid when perhaps the westerners's punishment (if any) will be less severe. Some may argue with me on this but really seriously think about it, canes and belts will most probably be on the hands of the Asian parents. Maybe this is disturbing, but I don't see anything wrong with the Asian's reaction. The way I see it, Singapore highlights the situation even better. If parents fail to discipline the kids themselves, one day it might be the Singapore government who cane them. So it's all quite understandable.
Another topic which brought a lot of discussion was when he told me he's meeting a girl for dinner. I asked him, oouh is it a date? He was like, why do you all do this? Why do you all have to think it's a date. Can't a boy and girl just as friends go out together. Of course they can, I say. Apparently he asked a girl if she would like to meet up with him and the girl asked him something along the line of if he trying to date her and that made him really frustrated. He said back in France he could say I love you and I miss you to all his friends who are girls and noone will think anything out of the ordinary. I told him, it's again the whole Asian thingy. We don't say I love you (often). Maybe we should but we just don't and I told him to be more careful in navigating this. Unfortunately I don't think I explain my point well here. Perhaps because my point is wrong. This is the way I see it, of course a guy and a girl can go out together just as friends. However when you just meet someone for a few times and haven't actually talked much to each other, it's still not a long enough time to ask someone if they want to hang out just the two of us without one of the other party thinking if there's something else going on. Yeah, I agree that one shouldn't read much into this kinda thing. But seriously, you meet someone for 2-3 times and in that 2-3 times you were in a group. Then suddenly you just choose a person of the opposite sex from that group and ask the person if you want to hang out. Why do you that? Choose that one person? He said because I like her. There you go, the word "like". He then retracted by saying like as in the normal like, not "like". I told him, I get that it could be that way but what if the girl thinks the other way. So anyways, it seems girls are throwing themselves to him. He said just by one comment in FB to a friend, 4 other girls of this friend suddenly asked to be his friend in FB and started sending him messages. I asked him, and you don't feel cheap that they only like you because you're half french? If you were an average Chinese Singaporean boy, you wouldn't get this much attention. I don't think he gets me or he just likes being cheap.
Today this boy was like asking my opinion on how his body looks. Oh God, you know these day I just try my best to be cool and I repeat to myself "it's french", each time this 15-year old, who is taller than me, walks around in his short boxer. So anyway, he asked me to comment on his body and I told him why he cared so much. Apparently he has self confident issue because he used to feel fat when he had to go to swimming pool so now he's trying to sculpture his body. The fact that he's telling me that made me feel how crazy the world is that he has to feel that way. I'm not saying that I am super confident with my body. My problem is I have issue with exposing much skin but I guess that's a good issue to have :P My point is if your body size is not extremely outside the normal range, just be happy and be confident with your body. I found myself telling this boy "who cares" a lot. On many things we talked about, I will often be screaming that line.
I'm tired now. I didn't take a nap today. I feel like I still haven't said all the things I want to say but this post is already very long and I'm really tired. So good night peeps. Hmm ... I would like to specifically say, buonanotte amore, mi manchi tanto e veramente spero che posso parlare con te, spero che sia presto, per favore Dio?
:) eKa @ 9:18:00 PM • 0 comments
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Hello peeps. Well, I guess you can see it. I change the blog's design. It's been awhile coming. Been planning to do it since I started meddling with HTML5 and CSS transition. However I've been lazy (what else is new?). Finally I do it today because after 2 days of confining myself to my room*, I decided that I really have to do something useful and here you go. It's developed with HTML5 and CSS transition things in mind, though I don't really use much of them or do it in a way that matters. The irony is, my vaio is running in windows XP so my IE is unable to show the page nicely because IE9 cannot be installed in windows XP. I really need a new computer but I still love my loyal vaio very much (loyalty is darn important for me). Anyways, I still have Google Chrome to see it in the display I am aiming for. The thing is, you gotta hand it to IE, it's able to render to font nicer than chrome. The texts are too sharp in chrome while it's nice and smooth in IE. I'm OCD this way.I remove the comment box because I just feel so lazy maintaining it with all its spam. If you have anything to say, you can email me, write on my facebook wall, or just sms me *thank you!!!*. I add a flickr section, it will randomly select a picture from my collection and display it there. It's kinda nice :) and another treat I have is I added a javascript code which will randomly choose a banner picture. There are 3 different pictures. All are pictures of flowers taken from my Keukenhof's visit. However the design is made with the blue flowers in mind, so perhaps the rest of the flowers don't match nicely into the color scheme. Whatever. I'm still pretty pleased with the design and I hope you too. So that's it for this public holiday today. I do get bored yesterday but I still don't want tomorrow to come. Life is rather good when I can watch Charlie and Lola.
*I was still not feeling well eventhough I had taken a whole box of medicine during the weekend. In desperation I even mixed some flu medicine together and I think I took more medicine than the dosage allowed. On Monday I just couldn't take it anymore and off I went to see the doctor. Surprisingly she gave me the letter to rest on Monday and Tuesday. She never gave me 2-day off, so I was really really stumped that she gave me 2-day off without me asking. Anyway in between not having money and I feel like I have to not betray the doctor's trust that I will rest, I really just stayed in my room. I slept a lot and I felt really bored. At least I achieve something today :P
:) eKa @ 3:09:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, October 22, 2011
I'm down with flu right now. I'm pretty much sick and don't have much energy and concentration, so I don't know how detailed I can write about movie of the week which I really like. Movie of the week is The Help. Maybe because I was sick when I watched it, my emotional state was rather affected that I actually shed many tears while watching this movie. The Help tells the story of african-american maids during the time when segregation was still the law in America. I seriously feel that anyone fighting for equality and acceptance should see the history of african american in America to keep the fighting spirit alive. It took a long way and the discrimination and perception was really hurtful but right now they have a black president. Discrimination sucks. I know because I'm an Indonesian Chinese. You may not like certain things about someone but to treat someone badly and make them feel inferior than you, that's just something that I despise.I'm digressing. The Help was really good. I think Viola Davis who played one of the maids should get an oscar nomination. It's heartwarming and touching. I like how it really focused on the maids. Even Emma Stone's character who's one of the lead didn't really hog the limelight much. I thought the guy he was seeing was handsome and it was really disappointing that that guy was disapproving of her book and they broke up. The white characters were just as interesting to watch as the black ones. Among the white one, I have to choose the character Celia Foote. She's crazy fun and it's fun to see her managed to make the character Minny Jackson to be rather speechless a bit :P Those two were hilarious. This movie was definitely carried by the actresses and they were really awesome. Each one of them from the mean one, the old lady, to the little baby girl really made the most of their scenes. This movie also had some witty lines. One line that really registered in me was, Love and hate are two horns on the same goat, Eugenia. And you need a goat. It's funny. Do watch it peeps. The critics has kinda called this the little movie that could, meaning that it actually stand a chance to win best movie in Oscar next year. Well we have to see the other contenders before we make our pick.
So that's about the movie today. I had a hard time waking up today. I was feeling really tired. It turned out it's just me feeling sick. As usual, I didn't really feel like thinking or talking much in class but Mr. C still had to call me up. A depressing thing happened. It turned out he's not gonna be our teacher for the next term, starting next week :( Everyone was feeling sad about it. Me too. All this time I have had teachers whom I wished could teach me for more lessons and it's always kinda sad when a teacher we liked gets changed. Like being the operative word there. On the case of Mr. C, I just felt that I finally get used to him and yeah kinda like him since he is very hardworking and does strive to make us really really better. If it had happened on my first few classes with him, I would have breathed a sigh or relief but now after finally accepting him and now that he gets my quirkiness and my flaw, it's really disappointing, no? As much as I don't enjoy getting told that my sentences are still not compact enough, that I'm repeating too many things, and my style of writing is still not so sophisticated, I do want the chance to try again and again and to finally shut him up :P It sounds like I'm dying of acknowledgement, ya? Maybe I just like being tortured. I do liken this sentiment to like having stockholm syndrome :P
On other news. Well, maybe there's 1-2 things to say but my nose is killing me. So I'm just gonna stop now. Take care peeps. Stay healthy!
:) eKa @ 7:16:00 PM • 0 comments
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