To cherish each moment

It's almost December, which means that Sharmini will leave Singapore soon.
Two weeks ago we had 4-hour marathon chat at Utown. Somehow every time we chat, we always get into the 'deep stuff' about life.

End of year is really a reminder for me to cherish each moment and the friendship that I have now. I thank God that He made me meet Sharmini in a unique way. And it's also beautiful how me and my colleagues became close with each other.

So yeah..before it's too late, I'd like to cherish each moment, and each friend God has given me :)
like these three girls who have been with me for 13 years!!
This is a real evidence how a smile/ simple gesture can change someone's life. When I moved to a new school in Primary 4, Monic "suddenly" sat next to me. And because of her, I got to know Dennyz and April. In Primary 5, I was closer to Dennyz than to Monic. Btw, pril, how did we become quite close?? (we've never been in the same class till high school!)

So yeah...it can be quite funny how we meet our close friends. (I only bumped into Ci Yaya again in May then suddenly became roommate, and my previous roommate, Evi, was quite a stranger when we started stay in the same room!). However, never forget that God put us in certain situation with a special plan :)

Thank you, Lord :)

Fruitful Weekend

Thursday night.. after office hour..

Hello! Welcome back for me to Singapore. Last weekend was the first time I went back to Indonesia only for the weekend. It was such a fruitful weekend, even though the beginning was quite bad. I missed my flight (for the first time!). Thank God we got another flight at 10pm. The moral of the story: in December I should just bring my luggage to office and leave immediately after work to the airport.

What I did last weekend:
1. Commencement photos with Nic, Pril, and Nyz
It was our first elegant photos. 24 poses, my goodness. We could not think of any other pose. Luckily we changed costume (so half with commencement gown and half with our little black dress). Most of the time was spent on make-up (there was only one make-up artist). We only started the photoshoot at 1pm!! And my mom..kept calling me, "Are you done?" >.< Anyway, we had a nice late lunch with my family + Nic,Pril,Nyz+Paul+Rc. 5hours together felt so short.. :(

2. After lunch, I attended evening Mass with my parents and Paul. It was the feast of Christ the King. After Mass there was Eucharistic adoration :) One favorite thing from Masses in Indo: we do not rush during Eucharistic prayer. Then, we went to eat nasi padang. To be honest, I'm not a fan of nasi padang. I'm not enthusiastic about trying different food. During lunch, when Paul asked, "What is this?" I just turned to my parents and Monic made this sound, "Duhh..you don't know this one?" (oops!) Anyway, so yeah..finally Paul tried nasi padang. After dinner, we went to downtown walk at SMS. It's an opened area with restaurants around you and live music! Before chillax-ing, me, my mom, and Paul just walked around SMS. Guess what? I bumped into my high school friend!!!

3. Sunday - "busy" day
In the morning we attended the Holy Matrimony of Ci Yaya and Andreas. The mass was held at Church of St. Laurensius. It is a new church, but built in 'old style'. It has high ceiling like Church of Sts Peter and Paul with the painting on the ceiling and it has the statues of 12 apostles behind the altar. Ci Yaya was sooo gorgeous. Her make-up didn't make her look like a different person :P

In the afternoon, we all went to Lippo!! Hahaha. Me and my mom went to style my hair while Paul had coffee with my dad. Somehow my dad asked him to try "tape", the fermented cassava. Hahaha. In the evening, we went to the reception. It's nice to see Ci Fanny and her family :) My mom managed to chat with Ci Yaya's mom. Apparently Ci Yaya shared to her mom that she taught me to do make-up and to tidy up my room. Hahaha. Her mom told my mom that she regarded me as her little sister. So touched to hear that :)

4. Monday
Raining!! So we could not go to the wet market. We only when to the 'modern market' at SMS (equivalent to Singapore's wet market). My mom bought some stuff for cooking and mangoes :D
We also went to buy fruit juice, Jus Kode, near the wet market area. Ahhh felt so good to drink my favorite juice: guava+strawberry!!

I tried to cut the corn to make 'bakwan jagung', but I was sooo slow, so messy, and my dad has called my mom that he's on the way home! So my mom just instructed me to watch and learn. She made 'baby' long bean (half of the size of long bean, in Indo they call it "baby buncis", Paul said in Singapore it's called turtle bean) with minced chicken, muntahu (silk tofu with minced chicken), kangkung, bakwan jagung, and fried egg with lap cong (my dad said that day we became vegetarian because we had sooo much veggie).

And tradaaaaa..time to go home..

I've been going SG-Jakarta for so many times, but I still cried every time I left Indo. I cried on the plane, I cried when I reached Singapore, and I cried when I reached my room.
But I really thank God for the fruitful weekend :):)
I wish one day I can make my home really warm too, so that my kids miss home like how I miss my home :P

Treatment Post: Green Flower

I think I should do this more often, to write a treatment post on what makes me stand up after the down moment, so that I always remember to scrap the evil thought before it expands next time.

After the green flower post, Dom sent me an email to encourage me. (Thanks Dom!). He told me that things can be learned!! So yeah.. I'll remember that :)

Another thing is actually before that email, something silly happened. I suddenly felt (after writing the post) that things that I like to do is USELESS. Cross-stitch lah, studying Thai lah, I mean..anyway I'll forget the Thai lessons and now when I try to brush up my Thai, I dunno what will be the use of my Thai language. I also only do cross-stitch or pergamanao (parchment craft) to make gifts and most of the times, I make these crafts halfway.

But yah..nothing is wasted.
Things that I do might not give me money, but I learn to be patient by doing these crafts and all things that I used to do give me good experience. It doesn't mean that when I stop doing it, my self-worth is also gone with it.

Nothing is wasted, even though now I don't touch my piano anymore, now I don't dance anymore, now my Chinese stuck in level 1,

Nothing is wasted..
I met Sherina and became good friends because of dance, I did NUANSA because of dance..
I got into choir and met wonderful friends because I had background in piano so I can read the notes
I understand basic Chinese now because I took Chinese till lv3!

:):)

Thanks be to God!

Mother Mary's Pregnancy

I've been wanting to write this post since last Sunday because next week Advent is coming! ("Coming" is coming!). Long time ago in one of the Legion meeting, someone shared about one way to contemplate in Advent is to imagine Mother Mary's waiting moment of the birth of her Son. Somehow last Sunday I suddenly remembered this again and I did a little bit of silly thing, which was to count Christmas Day minus Advent period and imagined how big Mother Mary's tummy, where Mother Mary was at this stage, and baby Jesus 'development' in the womb.

When I imagine Mother Mary is around 8 months pregnant, I imagine how heavy the baby is already, I imagine how hard it is to walk around, and my goodness, her journey for the census. On donkey somemore, not by taxi.

Thus, in preparation for Christmas, I'd like to accompany Mother Mary too in her difficulties. It's really really hard! Naturally, I am looking for comfort and loopholes to slack.

So... me and Paul have come up with these resolutions:

1. every time we open "unrelated" stuff during working hour (read: facebook/ youtube/ axioo --> for me hahaha), we put in $1.

2. have a minimum of 5-hour intensive working. every -1 hour equals to another $1. We followed Fr Joe's advice during an exam talk a few years ago. Draw a circle, divide the circle by 4. Color each quarter every time you accomplish 15 minutes work without distraction (SMS/ whatsapp/ daydreaming/ sleeping).
I tried that these 3 days. failed -.-

3. Saturday Mass at Church of Blessed Sacrament (because I have difficulties in dragging myself to Mass on Saturdays!!)

4. Every time I'm stubborn, I also want to put $1 as a reminder.

Okay that's all!!! :D

At the end, the money collected will be donated. So if we work hard, then we offer up the work spiritually. When we're lazy, we sacrifice "physically".

What's your Advent resolution??

hell day

HELL DAY
HELL DAY
LALALALALALALALALALLALAALLALALA

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Trekking at Gunung Panti, JB

Two weeks ago I went trekking at Gunung Panti. Carmen drove us (Mari, me, and Bianca) to JB. Initially we missed the turn, but after asking a resort, we managed to find the small path. It was written there that you should not enter the forest without permission but apparently people often trek there "ilegally". We were lucky because we met a group of Singaporeans who were also going to trek! So we just joined their group and apparently their 'guide' (the guy who was leading the group) has been trekking at Gunung Panti for quite a lot of times.

To be honest, if we had not met the big group, I would have been quite nervous. Imagine! Four girls trekking without any guide or any map. Carmen looked confident though. I guess because she had been to Everest Base Camp trek before. She knew roughly which path to follow when you trek. Hehehe.

The mountain was quite short (around 500 metres). It was around 2 hour-trek. It was very tiring, but because it was short, so it was quite manageable and it was a perfect short get-away from routine in Singapore. Hahahaha. The path was quite muddy, but in general it was okay! :)

So next short trek, hoping to go to Gunung Berlumut and Mount Kinabalu. Seems that these two need trainings though :P

green flower

Last Monday I bought green flower for the altar for Patrician Meeting. I didn't realize that green flower is 'ugly' when it stands alone (see? still use " ' "). At the end I threw the flower (initially I intended to keep the flower for Wednesday's Legion meeting). When I bought the green flower, I really thought it was "unique"!

Anyway, on Tuesday night, me and Paul bought another flower for Legion meeting. I dunno the name of the flower, but he combined it with green flower (different flower) and it turned out to be very pretty (Eugene said it's pretty! :) ). Apparently a change of flower for Legion meeting can give a different atmosphere. Hehehe.

Anyway, I still feel that my taste sucks. I know everything can be learned, but still, sometimes I don't have the confidence that I can be 'lady-like' or whatsoever the term is. Cooking also cannot, messy obviously yes, fashionable apparently not, in psychology also not so good, so I dunno la.. >.<

disclaimer: I'm not emo-ing, but it's true you know.. There are things that you think you were good at, now you don't do them anymore (e.g., dancing). The other things that you do now feels just like 'half-way' here and there.

it's weekend again!

Hello. It's weekend again. I don't really have any ideas about what I should write now, so let me share with you some interesting articles that I've found the past week:

1. http://carrotsformichaelmas.com/

I first encountered this blog from Dom's facebook. I think it's really a beautiful blog by a stay-at-home mother. I've just recently read her conversion story! She also shared lots of useful things for mother, e.g. ecological breastfeeding, a term that I have not heard before!! The blog really makes me think a lot about vocation, motherhood, and family life!

2. http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/life/most-hated-cities-861160
I've just found this article! I kinda expected that New Delhi is one of them and I was also not too surprised that Jakarta is also in this list! You should really explore this website. Even if you still can't travel to many places, the articles are just interesting and the photos are gorgeous!

Yup I think that's all. Hahaha..

Talking about ambition

I don't know how to write about this topic without telling too much of my personal story. Hmm.. Let me think..

I just met up with Yesslyn last Sunday and she asked me, "So how's your plan for your Master's degree?" It was not just me and Yesslyn there, so my answer was just, "I'd like to serve my 3-year-bond first." I think the 3-year-bond reason is a good reason to be given to others.

To some others, I would say that "Things are complicated now, so I'd like to serve my 3-year-bond first."
To some others, I will not say "Things are complicated". Actually, I don't think things are that complicated, it's just that there's this new awareness or realization that I have a different dream or "ambition". Something that Sherina said, "a higher dream".
To some others, I would just say, "I don't know, see how." Well, no one is certain about his/ her future right? But actually I'm not that 'don't know', but my plan/ dream depends on some terms and conditions.

Talking about ambition...
I told Wanyu (my colleague) that I think I can be a behavioral therapist my whole life and be happy with it. If possible, I don't mind going back to university 5 or 10 years from now. But ya.. let's see next year, okay? Hopefully I can really become a behavioral therapist. The thing is I was only involved in this field 2 times, but there's this thing in my heart that it seems like this is what I want. Of course hopefully in the loooong future, I can open my own therapy centre :) Or at least, I hope I have enough experience before I can achieve the dream 'similar-to-my-piano-teacher', having a clinic/ therapy centre at home so I can watch over my kids at the same time!! Hahaha..

My other ambition is "anything related to children" (doesn't sound like an ambition huh?). Opening a kindergarten with April :), or being a kindergarten teacher, or child psychologist, or even summer camp faciliators for children& teens! Hahahaha.

But but.. above all these ambitions, my first ambition to be ready to change my plan/ ambition for something better in this life. Something that is very precious and it's indeed a mission too. Some people might call me stupid because I'm 'still' young and I should have pursued my 'ambitions', but the best friends in my life understand that if the time comes, then this is a much better dream. It has its own challenge, but ya.. must be ready you know. In the books that Father gave me or in conversations that I had with Pilar or in the spiritual reading books, it is precisely because you are young, you can be more generous to God, give up more, and change direction of your ambition more easily.

And of course, above all, at the end of the day, we all wish to be saints :) how? by doing His will :)

Pray for me,k? :)

2 months before end of 2012

hello!! Less than 8 weeks to end of 2012. Time to review my resolution before it's getting too late!!

Here's my big plan that I wrote on New Year's Eve:

plan:
plan A: master's research in UK
plan B: working as behavioral therapist for children with autism
plan C: master's research in NUS --> yah..now I'm seriously thinking about it



fact:
working as research assistant on children's bilingualism.
Well, it is a combination of plan B and C. Hahaha.

plan:
 the big defects that I really want to tackle next year:
1. my laziness!!!
2. lack of temperance (see how I'm angry then you'll understand, see how I watch Korean drama in 3 days and you'll understand :P)
3. gossip -.- --> especially the subtle ones..

fact:
1. laziness --> It's a bit hard to measure when I start working. We don't have grades anymore. I would say that I have been more discipline than last year, but I still need to learn how to avoid distraction in work and to work more intensely.
I have problems in waking up on time :( Between August-Sept, there was a period of time when I could wake up on time, but after that I started to sleep again every time my alarm rang.
Time for facebook and youtube has definitely been reduced compared to last year (thanks to working life) :)

2. lack of temperance
The part on "see how I'm angry then you'll understand" is still difficult. My tendency is to just say it 'now', throw it all at one time. I think one practical thing that I can try to do in these 2 months is to learn to keep quiet and wait before I throw my anger or my unhappiness.

3. gossip
I'm not sure about this, hmm.. Still fell here and there, especially when I'm pissed off with the person.


plan:
well, next plan is, I also want to increase supply of bottled sunshine for other people!!!

fact:
2011's number of posts: 107
2012's number of posts: 65
ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH..

hahahaha..
Yesterday's topic of circle is on "Good use of time". So that's my resolution this week: to make good use of time!!
1. Work:
*to plan my work and not open unrelated websites (facebook, axioo :( ) (today still failed! >.<)
2. Spiritual life:
* set a specific time for spiritual reading and afternoon/ evening prayer --> after lunch and after work
* offer every hour for a specific intention
3. Study:
* review my Thai book
4. Friendship:
* catch up with some friends whom I have not met for quite a long time

Hopefully in these 2 months I can write more cheerful posts ya :):) (or unhappy posts, to remind us that there are moments when we're down but we have to let God raise us up)