Saturday, November 26, 2011

HAPPY FEET TWO

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

Word That Burns

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

Blog Change!

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

The Help

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

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Minuit à Paris

Movie of this week was Midnight in Paris. Am I a fan of Woody Allen? Well I haven't watched enough of his movies to call myself a fan. The reason why I wanted to watch this movie was because it seemed interesting and I've seen the posters all over when I was in Cannes this year. Basically I'm just drawn. Back to if I am a fan of Woody Allen. Well his movies often have some elements that I don't really like. Most of the time because the characters in his movie were often so flawed. However, as I was watching the movie progressed, I found myself liking one aspect of Woody Allen. He wrote and direct the movie himself and it seemed he just didn't care if the movie will make sense, if it will be silly, if it's meaningful, if it's gonna appeal to anyone. I feel he's just doing what his head churned out and film it the way he wants it to be. It's very admirable of him.

I like Midnight in Paris. I like Owen Wilson, so it's a good start for me :P Does the movie make sense? Well scientifically obviously not. Does it have any message or does it enlighten me in any way? Not really, except it did get me thinking a bit on which period of the world history, I would like to live in. I'm still undecided on that. The movie felt fun for me and it made me feel I want to experience it as well :P Something about this movie though, I think you'll enjoy it more if you know the historical figures. Other thing that I can talk about the movie? Well as I said, I like Owen Wilson. His nose seemed to be more crooked. He's still ever so likable. I thought Carla Bruni is quite pretty in this movie, which is weird, because I don't normally find her so. The rest of the actors were really interesting too. It was a good ensemble. For the ending, I wonder if the girl is from the future. It would fit the theme. I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised that I understood the french dialogues. So all the french lessons did have their effects :)

The thing that ruined my movie experience was the fact that a mom brought her 2 young kids into the movie and for obvious reasons, the kids were really really noisy. The mother didn't even try to quiet the kids. I felt like I wanted to throw things at her. Seriously? Why would you do that? Bring your kids to a movie which definitely gonna bore them and then have them ruin the movie for everyone. Selfish much? I was also rather disappointed with the Cineleisure staff who allowed them in. However YeeMaggio did remind me that by right they could go in because the movie was just rated PG. I just wanted a nice time enjoying the movie which was rather good and yet I got utterly annoyed during it.

I have to be honest, I'm not really in a forgiving mood. Yesterday wasn't a good day. The suckiness of SMRT made me feel pissed even more. As I was trying to go to sleep last night, I thought of what it was that made me feel pissed the most. The answer is how people could be so self-centered. It's the same old story of me listening to people telling me their issue and the moment I sent out 1 line to tell them something about me, they didn't respond. I actually asked out loud, why does this always happen to me? I cannot deal with this. What kind of people are these people? Seriously? Can you just not step aside for 1 minute and think of other people than yourself? Do you think I am always interested and free to be listening to your woes? No I didn't but I tried my best to respond, especially to distress call! I was pissed as I was going to sleep and I was actually still feeling rather moody when I woke up. Was feeling so tired as well that I had to drag myself up and get ready for class. For some reason, I actually made it on time to class. Class was alright I guess. Maybe not for Mr. C because he's rather sick (poor thing). I think the only comment I can make after each of his class is, I survive it. I think I'm getting used to him but his class still makes me nervous.

This week still has its good points. Did a blackberry app this week. It works. So I've done an android app and a blackberry one. It kinda feels good to be able to do all that. There are other kinda good things but as usual, I'm not gonna write about it. Maybe I'll share some of the things that people said about me this week that kinda threw me off balance a bit (not exact quote):
"you're outspoken" --> somehow this kinda thing can still bother me even though I'm most probably that way. Probably? Denial, Eka? I even said if you have an opinion, you should say it. If not, what's your brain for?
"maybe you just like to be in control, but right now you're not" --> yeah, I'm power hungry, as usual.
"you look happier" --> this is very disturbing :P

:) eKa @ 11:10:00 PM • 0 comments

Sunday, October 09, 2011

REAL STEEL

Movie of this week was Real Steel. To be honest, I wasn't interested in watching anything because I thought there's no good movie at the cinema right now. However YeeMaggio asked me if I want to watch anything and we settled with Real Steel. It appeared to me as a kiddy movie but I thought it would be a better choice than all the chick flicks around. Real Steel turned out to be such a delight.

I'm not really sure what makes this movie pretty good. It think it was the execution. The story was not incredibly wonderful or anything. To a certain extend it's rather expected, except for the ending perhaps. The ending kinda disappointed me but I guess if it had been a happy one, it would have been too predictable. The robots were interesting and the main robot, Atom, was really a real star. You just gotta like him. I really wonder how they did the robots scenes. Did they make actual robots? That would be too expensive. Another star of the movie is the little boy. He's so cute, adorable, and loveable. His eyes really could melt you away. As for Hugh Jackman, well I'm never really a fan of him because I am not one who likes bulky guys :P However I kinda like him a bit in this movie. He's less bulky and when traces of his daddy side appeared, he is rather charming. I wasn't totally taken by him though because his character was pretty much a jerk. I couldn't believe his character was willing to sell his kid without putting much though into it. Then there's Evangeline Lilly who was looking pretty, without freckles this time around :P One thing to note, it seemed Hugh Jackman is pretty tall. Either that, or Evangeline Lilly is not as tall as she appeared to be. So anyway I like the movie, I like that feeling of going in with so little expectation and to come out of it pleasantly satisfied :)

:) eKa @ 7:51:00 PM • 0 comments

Sunday, October 02, 2011

The Tree of Life

Movie of this week was The Tree of Life. I watched it Vivy. Haven't seen her since March. Anyways, the movie was kinda painful for me. I read the wikipedia entry before watching this movie and so I knew it received such polarizing reviews but I also knew it won Palme d'Or at this year Cannes film festival. So I thought it's a movie to watch. It turned out to be a rather painful experience for me :( At 2 hours plus, it felt really long. I checked my watch a few times and I remember thinking when it reached the 1 hour mark, that I still had another hour or so to bear :( There were actually people leaving after about 15 minutes and I think the lady next to Vivy wanted to leave as well but I think because of her friend, she preserved. I remembered reading in wikipedia that there are scenes with dinosaurs and so I was hoping it would come soon so that there's some excitement, however the T-rex was just a baby T-rex and again it was another scene which left me thinking, what??!?!

Watching the movie is like watching installation art for me. More often that not, I don't get installation art and don't like it. If the movie has some kind of message that people should get, I don't get it. I don't understand it. I understand it in the way that your brain can be weird though. Your brain can move from one place to another, relate certain things, experience, and emotions to certain images. So in a way, I get the weirdness of the movie because my brain works that way too sometime. The movie started with a news of the middle son of a family died, then it went fast forward to the present day when we saw the adult older brother (Sean Penn) grappling with the anniversary of the death of his brother. Obviously it still affected him a lot. Then the movie moved back to the lives of the brothers with their loving and expressive mother and their strict father (Brad Pitt). Along the way, some imageries not unlike things you'll see in national geographics were being inserted. It's kinda hard to make sense of all this and they seriously made you wonder, what are you trying to say? I just see it as the imageries and the selected memories from the older brother reflected how the older brother felt and saw his life. I think that after all this time, he's still quite visibly broken, he needed some therapy :P

The last scene was rather weird again. I don't know what this supposed to mean. It showed the adult brother walking through a door in an unknown landscape and he met people from his past lives in all the different ages. For this scene, I saw it that when we finally die, we're going to meet ourselves and all those people from our past in all the different ages that we were and we're gonna reconcile with all of them. In this scene, everybody looked happy. Some had tears, but they were happy tears. Since I think of it that way, this scene was really really comforting for me :) I always believe what you are now is your past, present, and future combined. I always feel that you shouldn't do things that's gonna disappoint your past and future. Try to fulfill the dream of your young self and don't make your future self has regrets in life. Anyway, so that's that about the movie. I'm not really gonna recommend this movie because I don't know how you're gonna react to it :P It is rather disheartening that right now there aren't many good movies in the cinemas. Some of them are actually pretty dumb :( I actually feel rather disappointed that I don't have much things to see :( I'm waiting for The Help but it's still quite a long wait :(

On life, it's same old same old. I don't like being older but I kinda want next year to come soon. Geez, I need to slow it down and just enjoy these last few months of 2011. The previous post was pretty long that I forgot to write something that I wanted to write. There's been an addition in the household, I'm just gonna call him Max here. This year we had Chloe and Max back. While Chloe left, Max stays. I kinda like the kids but as they grew older, they do come with their teenager attitudes. On one side they are teenagers so they are allowed to be teenagers with all their way of thinking and attitude. It's just it's been a long time since I was a teenager and God knows I don't deal with them a lot. The last time I had to deal with them, I was more in a place of authority so my relationships with them, which I still call kids regardless of them being older, was perhaps rather different. Now having Max around, I do get stumped sometime seeing how he behaves. Last night at 1 am something as I was about to go to sleep, he got into trouble with his aunt. I don't know why they always have such bad timings. Even last time when Chloe was around, I got awoken at 5 am something with all the shouting :( I was quite fearful that someone would call the police :( So anyways, I had my dinner today and Max was at the table. For some reason he started the conversation in french, which was good because I could ask him what happened last night. He explained it to me and he said sorry when I complained to him that I was trying to sleep. That was kinda sweet of him :) I do think that it's all good between me and him. Between our love for The Big Bang Theory and my lack of authority over him, I guess he sees me as someone who he just could talk to as a friend. I'm not sure if he sees me as an older sister because he has one. Just like me who don't really see younger guys as my younger brother just because I already have one.

I do feel that the boy needs some discipline going on. I think he may even have a slight ADD. I don't know, it's been awhile since I'm a teenager and when I was a teenager time was really different than now. I feel he needs to find his center and be anchored a bit and not have his mind float all over the place. Am I asking too much from a teenager? I'm not sure I fully agree with how his aunt deals with him but it's not my place to say anything. I just hope that the boy is not too damaged and all will be good between them. As I said yesterday when we were all sitting at the table, it's like a battle of will power among them and the aunt was really sure she has stronger will power. The boy agrees as well but it's just been less than 3 months so we'll see. Anyway I do have my paranoia having him around. It could be nothing, just my paranoid self, but I could also be right as my senses usually are. Anyway, I can only say prayers to God so that what I fear will not happen *please God!* I seem to have written such personal stuff about someone else here so perhaps I should stop. Let's hope for a great week ahead *amen!*

:) eKa @ 7:24:00 PM • 0 comments

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Sunday Recap - 25/11/11

This week hasn't been good. On Monday for some reason I lost the contact lens of my left eye. I don't know how it happened. I was just sitting on my table. Then it was gone. Alright, perhaps I did kinda rub my eye but I wasn't sure when exactly it was gone. I tried looking at it all around where I sat but I couldn't find it. I wondered if it's possible that it got lost in my eye. Googled it and the answer to that question was not really. It wouldn't go to the back of your eye but it may get stuck in your eyelid or something. So me being half blind, made my way the optician. She helped me look for it and confirmed it's not there and now I am waiting for a new one. She's giving me a temporary replacement for the time being. It's a double bad news because my contact lens were actually new. I had it made less than a month ago I think. Even the optician was feeling rather bad about it. I'm not loving the unexpected expense that I have to fork out :( but shit happens.

More shits happen this week but I guess it's a matter of perception. Some people may take it with unbeatable energy and so on but this week I am not taking it well. I am trying to be emotionless but I believe some people find being emotionless is equal to being negative. I think this kinda people should just shut it. I stand by my opinion that I may not do certain things gladly and with a big smile on my face but I'll get it done with my utmost effort. How I feel has nothing to do with how I'm going to do things. Anyway if people want to care about how I feel, they shouldn't be an ass in the first place. But I guess as shit happens, dumbass are all around too.

Another thing this week that made me very very pissed was something that my dumbass cousin said in Facebook. She wrote about how one unknown cousin she's friend with in Facebook has been relaying her status updates to his / her parents and those information come back to her parents. She is like 19 or something so perhaps she should be excused for being brainless and a dumbass but I was very pissed because I thought she was refering to me that I had to ask my mother about it. My mother told me she doesn't want to intrude with other people's dealing anymore since a certain experience with a certain family has scarred our families a lot. I almost wrote some nasty message in the wall of my cousin but thankfully talking to my mom stopped me from doing so. Perhaps I am a dumbass in my own right because I often feel the need to voice out my opinion and when I am strongly against something, I like to make it known even though it may come across as nasty and rude. But I guess we need to rein this kinda thing in and hold certain things back.

Speaking of Facebook. I think this week, they changed the layout the same day Google opened Google+ for all. Personally, I've been contemplating on quitting Facebook or any social network things for some time now. Reason being are all the unnecessary and unimportant things written by my "facebook friends", like my cousin there. I do have Google+ account but I've only had 2 contacts there. I've never post anything there and so I've been just seeing what people wrote. I'm not really sure how to use it. With more contacts in the account, I feel some information overload may happen. The same thing with the new Facebook, I don't like it. So login in to Facebook has kinda become pointless to me. Another thing that annoyed me about Facebook is with how people have used it rather wrongly. Okay about this, maybe I am the idiot one who think more of a person when in fact the person don't think the same way about me or value me as much as I value them. I just feel that when you are close with someone, there are certain things that you should let the person know personally, instead of from Facebook. Imagine knowing something through a status change, with the rest of the 500 something "friends" that the person has. I think it's rude. When I told the story to some people, the first thing they asked, are you close with the person? Well I thought I was when that person had told me some personal stuff, but I guess I am the fool here. We're just facebook friends and seriously for me facebook friends do not necessarily mean we are friends. There are people in my friends list whom I have no intention to speak to ever again. "Why don't you just drop them?", some will say. Simply because I don't care much about Facebook, they can be there or not. Being friends in Facebook doesn't validate the level of your relationship with someone, at least for me. On the example above that I mentioned, it does enlighten me of certain people and people who know me know how strong headed I can be and so instead of dropping that person in Facebook, I just drop them in real life. Loyalty is very important for me in friendships. Some people have the idea that friends come and go. I really don't like that. If I have invested my time and emotion in getting to know someone, I would like the feeling to be mutual. So if someone is gonna be insensitive and self centered then I am just the fool, aren't I? Why would you put someone on the top of your list of people when they don't do the same? I know it sounds selfish and insincere but I dare anyone who thinks they can do it. I think if there's such person, it's what the definition of "loser" is. Don't be anyone's door mat. You deserve better! So if someone is only gonna charge to you when they are sad and all and never share their happiness with you and never listen to you when it's your turn to be sad, then that person is not worth your time. In the case of me, I would rather be all alone and extremely lonely than having to wait around for this kinda people.

On other news, this morning Ms. J flew to Bali and so there goes my lunch partner for the coming week. I wonder how this coming week gonna be for me. Oshie also flew home today, I think he might already have reached home. It's for good. He went through with the plan which he had concocted for some time now. I felt rather heartbroken when he told me but I guess most of our interaction are done online so in that sense there are not much changes. He's been using his last week meeting people around, having his last meal. I got the lunch time slot on Thursday. It was rather sad waving goodbye. Even though we are not amazingly close, it really feels like losing one of your comrade. He asked me if it's never in my mind about going home for good. Oh well it is. In fact the deadline is approaching really fast and as it approaches, I'm torn if I really gonna do it. I'm not extremely fulfilled here and I'm pretty sure I will not be extremely fulfilled at home as well. But as Oshie said, you'd never know. We've given Singapore 11 years and we don't feel belong here so why not give home a try and see what it's like. For my own life, I have no answer for this. I am hoping God will just throw a curve ball or something and just make things clear for me. So that's today's musing guys. I'm gonna spend the rest of weekend with Grey's Anatomy and Fringe now. Hope your week will be splendid!

:) eKa @ 7:02:00 PM • 0 comments