Moments

The last time I wrote in this here blog, it was still The Month of Fasting. Happy as I was to be experiencing Ramadhan again, all things have an end to it. Eid was the start of another happiness, and Ramadhan is a big blessing and a chance while it lasted. (I hope we Muslims have done our best to make the best out of Ramadhan, and I hope that we'll meet the holy month next year).

Eid this year took place in the same day as my grandparents's 50th wedding anniversary, which means this year's Eid was special. A day before Eid, we celebrated with a family dinner. Not only was the food decent, I also got a life lesson from Ka'i.

Eid was, as usual, pleasant for the family here. Everybody was dressing up in nice clothes to welcome the "start of something new". Grandparents always welcome guests to their house on Eid, meaning a lot of people for me to shake hands with and smile at. Anyways, what I like most about Eid is meeting up with people and catching about on what they have been doing. Eid is the perfect moment (or excuse) for a family to gather, and it's always great to hear about them and being able to say our sorries because here Eid means we're starting out new.

This year, my grandma also took the chance of our gathering here to update the family picture hung in her house.

I also experience something which brought me a lot of happiness and excitement on this year's Eid. My mom, my sister, and I took the chance of the holidays after Eid to go to Malang, the place where my mom's parents live. Let me tell you how I miss Malang very so, and it was so pleasant and heartwarming to be there, because wherever you glance, you see trees. Have I mentioned how much I love trees? And the air there was so pleasant. I just love it there, I did not want to leave. But I did have to leave. I miss Malang so much right now.

School's already back now, and a lot of emotional things are happening. But, whatever, I'll get through it. I always do.

Looking Back - Part 2

We did everything together. We passed everything together. Our relationship is, something that existed inevitably, because we came from the same womb. We're told that we're one of those which don't fight and get along very well. I'm happy to say so. We had a great time. We had the same interests then, when it came to cartoons and games - two things that revolve around our lives. I remember the times we spent in front of the computer in the corner of our father's office at home, taking turns playing Barbie games. I remember the weird TV show we produced together, the MC your favorite brown stuffed puppy, the studio being in the car that took us everywhere, when we experience long car rides in good ol' Jakarta. The matching clothes that we'd wear. Lots of cute and irreplaceable moments that I can't name here. Even though we are, in a lot of ways, opposites; we'd always find something about us that are the same.

The petite, brown-skinned woman is someone who played a big role in my life. Even though we have no family-relation, we are each so familiar to each other, we feel like family. She took care of me since I was a (not so) little baby (she'd brag about how heavy I was). She cooks for me and my sister, washes our clothes, picks us up sometimes from school. I did not have many friends at home back then - so my only company was she and my sister. We'd play a lot together. Bouncing off rubber balls in the garage; biking in the neighborhood; going on explorations across the neighborhood to find something new; playing snakes and ladders, laughing out loud for reasons like missing the tall ladder or going down the longest snake; and the list of it goes on. I cried hard when we parted the day I moved to East Borneo - she cried too.

Looking Back - Part 1

I have gone so far. The road that I'm stepping on still oversees a long, winding path. I don't know how I feel about the future, but I do know how I feel when I look back.

There it is, the face of a beautiful woman. Her face shines when she laughs about the silliness of my sister and I. She's always busy in her big building, where I did not know what she does. I was happiest when she took days off from the building, even if she was ill. No, I was not happy because of her illness. I was happy because when I came home from school in the late afternoon, I saw her. The weekends that I spend with her are also very lovely. She always carries all the plastic bags to the car herself, and I wonder - where does she get all those strength from? I remember trying to carry just one of those bags myself, and soon enough my palm reddened, because it was so heavy and the loop of the plastic bag was so thin.

And then there he was. Sharp looking, most of the time spending time in front of the screen. All I did when I spend time in front of the screen was opening Paint and making abstract drawings and opening up Barbie websites and alike to play games. But he didn't; he typed in pixel fonts to a black screen, and all I could do was stare in wonder. His world is a mystery to me, yet I still find myself lost beside him in my paintings and games. We spent time together by playing Alien Shooter, him directing the shooter-girl in the screen with the mouse and me, shooting with the space bar. I sat on his lap. I felt happy.

How things have been

I haven't been writing detailed stuff, haven't I? Oh, I feel guilty for that. I don't want my grandchildren to read scraps about her grandma, I want them to know me thoroughly from the experiences that I have.

The past two weeks have been like going up and down with no special margins. That means, when something is exciting, it's just exciting; and when something isn't exciting, it's just isn't exciting. Except, the AFS test that I've endured, it's something new and very eye-opening to me.

Btw, don't you ever wonder why it's called 'eye-opening'? We open our eyes everyday, that's for sure. Why do they use the term 'eye-opening' to say that "We've finally seen things from a different perception thus making our horizon grow". What's new is our perception, not our sight. I personally think that it's better to say 'unlocking new doors of the heart and mind', rather than 'eye-opening'. OK, my term is a lot more impractical than 'eye-opening'... but I just don't feel that 'eye-opening' fits the meaning.

Enough gibberish. I'll write about the AFS test after this. In the mean time, I'll just write about the small boring bumps that I went through these two weeks.

We had our class meeting in these past two weeks, and there are only a few things to name that made me feel quite excited: a visit to UPTD (which I forget what that stands for), a cookout with my friends at school, and the outbound that my teachers arranged.

UPTD is a place of government-relation where the works of Samarinda people are displayed and produced. Though the workshops there specialize in marble, wood, and plastic, the displays don't stop there. There are clothing and food too. The UPTD also helps uplift sales of the works by promoting them through various ways.

Even though it was tiring, the cookout I had with my friends were fun. I don't cook often at home (which is a total embarrassment, comparing myself to friends who some spend time in the kitchen), and it's fun to learn some life skills from my lady teachers and my friends. One of my friend, who we all agreed that she had the best cooking skill among others in our team, said that she learned how to do things from Cooking Mama. We cooked cireng, donuts, wedang angsle, and iced cappucino with cincau. (Most pictures below are taken by Mr John, and some are taken by Ms Eka, so... credits to them!)

The outbound, on the other hand, made me feel ambitious. I don't know why, but me and my team-mates (who were also my cooking mates) were so determined to win something. Well, even though we didn't get first place in the end (because we don't know as much geography as another team does) it felt great to be done and be accomplished.

The outbound wasn't exactly and outbound, but I felt happy and excited anyway. They programmed it to be like those races with bases and challenges in every one of them, and riddles to get to them. At base 1, we were asked to make something out of banana midrib and pomelo (jeruk bali in Indonesian) skin. Our team, Chucky, ended up making swords from them, hahaha. After completing the task, we were given two sheets of paper, one a riddle, and another a cipher for the riddle. After deciphering it, we look for the next base from the info on the riddle. And on it goes until we go from base to base.

It's also tiring, knowing the fact that our school ground isn't small. But I guess that's what's fun about it.

Being pretty?

When I was in elementary school, boys are the most horrifying things to me. They are like alien, but not like the harmless E.T. To me, they look as if they have these laser eyes that have the power to incinerate me, so when they look at me, it was as if somebody were pointing their bullet to me. Sounds weird? It's the truth.

I remember crying before I went into my first grade classroom, all because I was scared of this one boy. He stared at me a lot (or maybe it was just me and my over-sensitiveness), and I don't want to see him do that to me again. I was not the smallest kid in my class over the years, but I tried to hide myself from him anyway. Today, I wonder why. It was my fears controlling me, maybe. I was considered a scaredy cat, even to my nanny. Either way, I am not coming back to the paradigms that I have back then.

Now I realize, boys are just a person like me. I can talk to them and mainly understand what they mean, but I get the feeling that I can't really get them; for now, tomorrow, or even forever. Not that because boys are the most complicated thing in the world (even as a girl, I think girls fit that term perfectly), but because... well, we're just different. We think different, we see things differently, and we eat our steak and other meals in different orders- well, maybe people in general are different... but still, some girls are still similar to the other, and some boys are also similar to the other; and I think that it's rare for a girl and a boy to be really similar in the things that I stated before.

Anyway, being a teenager is so weird. Weird and, awkward... in so many ways. But right now I will emphasize the part where boys are noticing girls more and girls are noticing boys more. Maybe it's me who's not over-noticing things about boys, or me who's being stared at; but don't you think that boys notice more things about girls than girls notice more about boys? I mean, don't you just feel them staring at you in too many places and then you feel all weird and lumpy?

Maybe this is what's been pushing girls to make themselves look "OK" in front of guys?

I may never know, but I can say that my hunch says so.

I do think about my looks lots of times, but I never sweat on it too much. I don't try too hard in terms of style, I just wear whatever it is I'm comfortable in. A lot of times, I seem like I'm the most uncaring when it comes to looks, but I still think about how I look in front of people. I do.

My mom thinks I'm pretty (obviously). But I don't know whether or not I should be happy when somebody else thinks that I am. Because a lot of times, pretty means that you're not able to do stuff well... you're not pro, you're not smart, you're not bright, you can't lead, and stuff like that. I feel sad when I think of that.

My dad and I once watched a science-themed TV show which covers a story about weather, and there was this one pretty scientist talking about the monsoon in India and how it happens. My dad kind of said that he only half-heartedly believes that she knows what she's talking about, only because she's pretty. I feel torn apart by the thought of it, because it was as if we girls cannot be pretty and smart at the same time.

So, does this mean that only males are aloud to be smart???? Maybe yes, maybe no. Will my dad think the same when he sees a good-looking man talking about something of relation? I don't know. But it tears my heart to think that, once again, they think that we can't be smart and pretty at the same time...

"So, when you're good-looking, you have to work twice- so that people will believe that you're not only good looking, but you're also capable." My dad said.

But, what I'm so concerned about right now is, I can't seem to prove that I'm capable. I'm terrible, I'm a stupido, I'm careless, I'm forgetful; it's hard. Do people really believe that I'm smart? What do they see in me? Am I just that pretty girl (maybe...?) or am I worth more to something?

I don't know.

All that I know is that the Chinese symbol in the color of black and white is true- how there is a bit of white in the black and a bit of black in the white, there are goods in the bad and bads in the good.

Long time no see, blog!

Well, hello. It has been  a good two months since I last posted on this here blog. I know, I'm such an inconsistent and lazy person, not to mention a procrastinator too, but I since I really hate that side of me, I'm trying my best to penetrate it.

Anyway, here are some important things that happened while I was gone:

The 2014 AEO

Okay, so, I joined this huge competition called "Asian English Olympics" (which was held by Bina Nusantara on February 18-22), where high school and college students from all around Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Hong Kong compete in five different competitions of their choice (and I participated at speech). Apart from all the awesome guys that I saw through it (what? There aren't many boys that I can see at school), it really was an eye-opening experience.

The sense of growing up was really there as I went through every single thing (the whole flying outside town thing, the fact that we stayed on the "dorms" for 5 days 4 nights, the new and unfamiliar kinds of people that we meet), and even though it looked like an adventure and some fun through the brochure, I can't help but feel pressured and filled with nerve as I had to perform well for the judge (and as a representative of my school).

Even though I didn't win, or got through the preliminary rounds, even (and that got me down in the dumps for a good 28 hours or so), I know that I definitely grew from the experience, and I know that if I give my all next time (yes, I'll have to admit that I didn't on that competition), I can nail something.

Argh, sorry for the picture that's too lazy to stand up. But anyways, it's me and Ina at Binus.

AFS

AFS is not something unfamiliar in my ears. I've heard of this program from lots of sources before; and all I knew is that you'll get to go abroad through it and experience the culture there, and at the same time, youu'll also get the people there to know about your culture. 

The only thing that sucks about this program is the fact that we'd have to do another year of school if we leave. We leave at the second year of high school, and come back when our friends are graduating. So the next thing you know when you get back to your country, is that your friends are going to college and you'll be doing the last year of high school with your juniors. Well, at least that's how it goes in my country.

Despite of the sucky part of this program, I decided to join. The only reason why I participated is, because there's only one chance to it. You can only apply when you're in your first year of high school, after that, you can't. If you don't pass the test, you can't try it again. No retries.

But the thing that really motivated me to join is seeing the real exchange students from aboard when they got the chance to visit my school for the AFS promotion a while ago. One was a girl from France, and the other one is a guy from Thailand. It was really cool, and I when Miss Cindy expressed her regrets when she didn't participate when she was our age because she didn't know that there is such a thing (as AFS), I was moved.

Thus, I decide to give a shot at it. If I don't get through, well, it's OK, I can look for other experiences. But if I do pass, I won't let the golden opportunity flee. Of course I'd take it.

But, I don't know. I have just finished the application today. There were lots of stuff that I needed to fill and there are a couple of people that had to be involved for it to finish, but thank God I did finish it.

I still don't know what I will exactly face, yet, but I'll be ready... just you wait and see.

***

So, there you go. There are some stuff that I didn't include here, though, but I think that it's best not to write them up here.

Oh yeah, I also got through the mid-semesters test this March, and to tell you the truth, I'm not really happy with the results. I realize, that I have been messing around lately at school. And, just to be blunt with whoever is reading this right now, I didn't put school into priority for a few months, and I always fantasize of doing other things while I should be paying attention.

But this mid-semesters really moved me. Seeing the results, I was really tired of getting the same grades... over, and over again. It's high time for some improvement. And I, I'm trying to improve right now.

I want to make my parents proud, I want to represent my kind well. And above all, I want to be closer and know my God more, and through learning about his creations (at school), I feel closer already.

Fresh News

How often do you get peed by a cat? Not everyday.

Today is not my luckiest day. I got peed by this jerkface (sorry!) cat which my friends and I usually call Oki. Ms. Eka asked me to shoo him away from the storage room because she was afraid that he'd eat the food that the janitors might have inside there. I went up to him and went like, shoo, shoo!

I knew (had a gut feeling) that he was somehow gonna come after me and pee on me. I think the reason that I had a feeling is because I wasn't the first victim. My friends had all seen Oki peeing everywhere, I did too, and two of my friends (whose names I cannot say here because I think that they'd not give me permission) got peed by him before I did.

This made me feel curious about why Oki did this. Is it because he felt threatened thus getting a need to "spray" on his victim? At first I thought the reason why he did is because he was marking his territories. That's as far as my knowledge can go. But why in the world would he be marking me as his territory? -_-

When I told Mr. John about the situation, he compared what Oki did to me to what skunks do to people when they feel threatened. But, the problem is, Oki is a cat. And skunks are skunks.

Maybe, Oki is just adapting. Maybe he's becoming a revolutionist of the cat world! He will be the first cat ever to pee on things that makes him feel endangered or annoyed. He should make a patent for this.

Either way, I am not a fan of his. I use to pet him a lot when I know a little about it, but now that I do know enough about him... well, enough is enough!

((I think I need to call Jackson Galaxy to my school!))

You'd never recognize him as a cat consultant on your first glance!

Phys-Math Showdown (PMS) 2014

Poster.

PMS. Maybe when you hear those three letters the little voice inside your head goes like: "Post Menstrual Syndrome?..." if it says that, well I have news for you. Good news and bad news. Bad news first, okay? Bad news: you got it wrong!; good news: it has nothing to do with a woman's emotion before she has her monthly menstruation. It's far from that, OK? 

It was Mr. Aidil's idea to make the sound of the competition a bit catchy, and he made up the name. At first I thought about how weird and negative it sounds, but now I think that the competition's name is the highlight of the competition itself.

You see, my school is not the most crowded school ever. In fact, it is far from crowded. If your school consists of 200-500 students, mine consists of 18. *and the crickets start doing their job when everything goes silent*

But that is no matter, for we have found a way to fix this uncrowded-ness of this school which I know has a bright future in front of it! My father has long said to me that we could do a bunch of fantastic stuff with what the school building's got to offer. Then, an idea of making a cerdas cermat (Indonesian term for a competition which consists of teams competing in who's the smartest and the fastest button-presser) was born. I don't really know the details and whatnot, but eventually I got to be the time-keeper of the competition (that sounded really special but I promise you that it's not).

The last day of the competition was today, and I am really grateful of how the competition turned out. Even though- as we are all human- it had some flaws, everything ran smoothly. I hope we will do better in the events that are to come.

(There will be a line of crappy photos after this sentence. Sorry.)

Kana does not like getting her picture, but apparently Icha does.

I guess also Amel does.

A big smile from my new friend, Riski. :)

The banner and places for the competitors at the Serbaguna room.

I got my box of snacks so, what's your problem?

Adji

Rani was the MC of where I did my job.

Competitors!

Mita had a headache so Ina decided to give her a pat-pat-pat.

Look, it's Ms. Time-keeper! (Who has a messed up hijab)

It felt like a huge responsibility to keep everything fair and square with the timing, I thought I did a pretty good job. I messed up a bit, but while I was handling the time I was also pitching in to make things run better.

Seeing those junior high school students competing also brought flashbacks on me. I remember the times when I was in their position, in my junior high school uniform, trying to answer questions that sounded so challenging yet so frustrating, not to mention the little amount of time that were given. But man, those were the times. I am one of those girls who like adventures, so venturing outside of ordinary routines- getting out of school because of a competition- is very special to me.

But now, I am one of those high school girls who were a part of the committee, like the ones that I saw when I was participating in the competitions of when I was still in junior high. Level up? No?

Making this competition a reality could be shortly described as getting through a long twisted maze. We cheered Mr. Aidil from when he announced about the concept until the end. We supported his ideas, and we tried our best to help out on the promotion (because our school is not widely-known for the moment, we needed extra extra efforts to promote about this amazing competition), and yeah, I'm very grateful with how everything turned out. Even though it's not exactly as planned, we ended up rounding 6 schools, each sending 2 teams. Words cannot describe how that felt like a miracle to us.

This photo is so cute! (credits: Cita)

Today was a very nice day. Another day, another thing to be grateful for!

I would also like to congratulate the winners of this competition, who won a flattering amount of money and swimming vouchers to Hotel Mesra. I hope the rewards are to be a good use, and I hope that this history will be repeated... with better planning and better results, of course!

When life gets boring, movies come to the rescue!

Hi! Yesterday I saw the movie Tenggelamnya Kapal Van Der Wijck with my friend Cita and my dad (don't ask me why my dad tagged along. Fine, I'll tell you. The other day he saw it with my mother, just the both of them, and he said that he wanted to see my reactions of the movie! So he pleaded to come along with me. At first I wouldn't let him, but then again, what the heck, and it's not like everyday I'll get to watch movies with him and Cita.). PS: the next paragraphs may contain some small spoilers, but I guarantee you that my small spoilers won't ruin anything.

Tenggelamnya Kapal Van Der Wijck (translation: The Sinking of The Van Der Wijck Ship), is a classic Indonesian story made a long time ago, when even Indonesia has not existed yet and the Dutch still reigned in our country. It's a story of two youngsters, Zainuddin (the boy) and Hayati (the girl). Zainuddin was not the luckiest lad, since even his dad has problems and eventually he lost both of his parents when he was still a kid. While Hayati, also an orphan, was the most beautiful flower of her village. She was the treasure of her family, and her beauty caught the eye of every man who laid eyes upon her, and of course, one of those men include Zainuddin.

Hayati; Played by Pevita Pearce

Zainuddin; played by Herjunot Ali

Zainuddin fell in love immensely with Hayati, and he saw her as a light of hope upon his life that were filled with darkness. Hayati in return, felt happy and he also fell in love due to the meaningful letters that Zainuddin kept sending her.

But even the most beautiful of loves has complications. Hayati didn't end up with Zainuddin. Family and cultural problems brought hardships to their relationship, which led to a sad yet hopeful good-bye that. Zainuddin kept a hold of Hayati's promise to always wait for him, but we all know how the story goes...

Hayati's family wouldn't let some random dude (Zainuddin) take away their lovely treasure. There was a man, also proposing to Hayati. A man richer and with status. His name was Aziz. With his charms, bad-boy vibes, and Dutch culture sticking into his bones, he was the dream... well, not exactly (everybody has 'a dark side').

Aziz & Hayati; Aziz played by Reza Rahardian

Btw, if you're curious about how all this is syncing to a sinking ship: in the end when Zainuddin told Hayati to go back to her hometown, on a ship called Van Der Wijck, the ship went to a disaster and sunk.

I didn't really want to see this movie in the first place. I'm very, very sorry for underestimating... I'm always prone to do that! Even though I already told myself a whole lot of times to never do it again. Okay, so there I was, with my "who needs the movie when you got the book" attitude, telling people that I'd rather read the book then watch the movie (but why not both?). But I ended up being curious with the movie since everybody's talking about it and I have to admit that it is, good. 

Imagine, a beautiful yet hurtful love story taking place in picturesque views of my lovely country, Indonesia. Isn't that a dream??? Even though Zainuddin and Hayati's story has complications, but I envy them so much for having such wonderful views and timings when it comes to moments in their love. The setting, the time! It was an era I wish I could have lived in, even though at that time Indonesia was still reigned and stuff. The clothing, the artwork, and the views and the way of speech of that time was magical to me. I even cried when things got melancholic, and it's not everyday that I cry in movies.

All in all, Tenggelamnya Kapal Van Der Wijck, as cheesy as it may seem (especially coming from me) gave me entertainment and an look upon feelings in which I still don't understand. But now I do... a bit. The story was not also all about love (but mostly it is); it's about friendship, how we all affect each other, and getting up after falling down. I'm also very impressed with the cinematography and props, it was all well done.

---

I also have been seeing Sherlock for some time. You know, the BBC drama "based on the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle"! Yes, that one. I really, really love it and I consider it my personal escape from my everyday which gets boring to some extent.

The unstoppable duo!

I have always loved detective stories, but I never really search for possibilities there, you know? Until I heard this drama, Sherlock, which I know nothing about and led me to a Google search for it. I ended up knowing that this drama got a 9.3 on imdb (which means that it's not just good... it's AWESOME). I watched it with my mother and sister and we all fell in love with the story line and I, also fell in love with Sherlock himself.

So, there. Stories on the screen which makes you wish that your life was like that, but even if you can't have lives like them, you can always feel what they feel and see what they see through the movies that tell their story.