It's a great day ;D

Well, not really xP

I woke up late,
did my best to do something but not being appreciated,
didn't have time to dress up as well as i wanted,
ended up smelling of onions from cooking breakfast and lunch despite already showering and putting on some perfume,
forgetting my wallet and all the bus cards etc inside,
ended up coming late in the office,

and I could go on and on and on abt how bad today is...

but when I'm juuuuuuuuuust on the verge of ranting about it,
my dearest workmate stopped me,
"hey hey it's a great morning! no one dies, no one is sick, so it's a great day!"

and,... yeah, it's a very simple way to look at life,
and it's true.
it is a great day!

then, cause she noticed how uncomfy i was being conscious about my smell, she lit up her essential oil aromatherapy, both so I would feel just fine with my smell and to calm me down xD

awww, how I love her :')

and... yeah... it's a great day!

ps. and i love essential oil aromatherapy now 

Life paths

Today I found some virtual traces of one of my long lost friend.
It spoke about frailty,
about the darkness he chose on his path,
about a world so far from mine that I just couldn't imagine

It is scary how far our life paths have strayed apart

I remember him for protecting me when I was on the verge of entering a rather dangerous path

Maybe, in a way, it should have been my own responsibility to protect him on his way too?

We're all adults though...

Maha pembolak-balik hati, Ihdinas siratal mustaqim

Love is...

keep on holding my hand and supporting my unstable stances
all the way through the long long rocky roads in the middle of nowhere
that we slowly walked through
under the hot hot 40 degrees summer heat
with my movement-constricting long batik skirts and my 13 cm high heels

eventhough you already told me not to wear them :D

I love you.

Rahmat

Pagi ini aku sibuk memikirkan masalah tidurku
Yang terputus tak jelas dan akhir-akhir ini harus kulakukan dengan perut penuh setelah subuh karena hanya pada waktu itu lah aku dapat tidur sebelum jam kerjaku

Otakku mulai berputar, mungkin boleh ku-jama' saja shalat maghrib dan isya'ku...
bukankah banyak keringanan Allah bagi umatnya?

Kemudian sampailah aku pada artikel ini, yang membahas ramadhan umat muslim di jalur Gaza, Afghanistan, dan Irak.

Alangkah malunya..
Aku sibuk sendiri dengan masalahku,
Melupakan alangkah sangat dirahmatinya hidupku dengan limpahan pangan,
sumber daya listrik dan gas yang selalu ada, rumah dan kerja yang melindungiku dari panas..

Pagi ini, bahkan doa kecilku yang tak penting,
yang kuucapkan sembari berlari dari rumah mengejar bis,
agar tak ketinggalan meski aku sudah 5 menit terlambat dari jadwal,
langsung di-ijabahNya
dengan bis yang datang beberapa menit setelah aku bahkan sempat membenahi hijabku setelah berlarian
Sungguh hangat hati ini mengucap syukur.
"It's little package of surprises like this that made my day. Alhamdulillah", pikirku.

Aku terlupa rahmatNya jauh lebih besar dari itu padaku...

"Maka nikmat Tuhanmu yang manakah yang kamu dustakan?"

Hamba sungguh berterimakasih atas semua rahmatMu ya Allah,
Ingatkanlah aku untuk selalu bersyukur kepadaMu
Janganlah masukkan aku ke golongan yg mendustakan rahmatmu

dan berikanlah rahmat dan kekuatanmu bagi seluruh umat Muslim di seluruh penjuru bumimu ini, ya, Allah
semoga kami semua dapat melalui Ramadhan ini dengan sebaik-baiknya, amiiin.

Kesendirian

Sering aku merutuki kesendirianku

yang makin terasa mencekam dalam malam

Namun kusadari, manusia terlahir sendiri

dan akan pergi dalam kesendirian juga

tidaklah hidup ini selain persinggahan, 

keramaian adalah kebetulan

ketika jalan masing-masing yang sendiri itu bersinggungan, 

kebersamaan adalah rahmat,

ketika jalan yang dituju searah,

dan waktu dan tempat (dan koneksi?) memungkinkan

pada akhirnya, dalam sunyi malam, kesendirian lagi lah yg menemaniku

Sudah sepatutnya lah sepi ini kujadikan kawan karib

agar sunyi yang sering terasa memekakkan telinga ini 

menjadi sesuatu yang menenangkan hati

karena pada sunyi, dapat aku mendengar suara hatiku

gaungnya memenuhi ragaku dan dapat kulihat jalanku

dan pada sunyi, dapat kubercakap jelas dengan Kawan sejatiku,

yang lebih dekat dari urat leherku

yang kutuju dalam jalan sendirku

maka meski iri aku setengah mati,

 pada mereka yang malam Ramadhannya begitu damai bersama orang-orang kesayangan

dan ramai dengan saudara-saudara seiman,

akan kusyukuri kesendirianku

wahai kesendirian,

Ramadhan ini, temanilah aku merayakan malam-malamku

meski tempat ini sepi dari adzan

ramaikanlah hatiku

sebagaimana ketika aku ruku' bersama orang-orang yang ruku'

meski dalam sendiriku

Surga

Kusadari... aku tak pernah berani menulis tentang surga.
Pun dalam lantunan doaku, yang berani kupinta hanyalah yang terbaik dunia akhirat.
Sepertinya tak pernah kusinggung-singgung mengenai surga..

Mungkin karena aku tlah berkecil hati.
Merasa diri penuh dosa.
Sadar diri ibadahku bukan pada level yang kuharapkan...
Tak pantas rasanya hendak mengharap surga...

Akan tetapi bila kurenungi lagi...bukankah itu seperti seolah-olah aku ini berburuk sangka kepada-Nya?
Bukankah telah selalu dijanjikanNya ampunan bagi hamba-Nya yang meminta?
Bukankah selalu dijawabNya semua doa hambaNya?
Bukankah selalu diberikan-Nya lebih dari apa yang kupinta selama ini?

Tapi... aku tetap malu rasanya hendak meminta surga...

Untuk semua rezeki, rahmat, berkah, yang sepertinya tak henti-hentinya tercurah padaku.
Masihkah pantas aku terus meminta?
Sementara ibadahku yang cuma seputar yang wajib-wajib saja itu rasanya sama sekali tak cukup
untuk melukiskan betapa aku berterimakasih pada-Mu untuk semua ini,
sama sekali tak sepadan untuk menyatakan betapa aku begitu memujaMu.

Sungguh segala puja yg kuwujudkan dalam ibadahku itu ingin kuniatkan hanya untukMu.
Rabi'ah Al-Adawiyah meletakkan duduk perkaranya dengan jelas:
"Jika aku menyembah-Mu karena mengharap surga, campakkanlah aku darinya."

Tapi rasanya, aku tak berani pula sampai pada titik itu.
Alangkah sombongnya aku rasanya...sementara aku sungguh takut berada jauh dari-Mu.
sungguh, aku memohon, janganlah campakkan aku dari kasih sayang Mu.
aku begitu merindu-Mu...

Ramadhan ini..aku ingin sebanyak-banyaknya merayakan setiap detiknya dengan ibadah
Aku ingin memujaMu selepas Ramadhan ini dengan sedikit lebih kepercayaan diri,
bahwa aku telah menggunakan sebaik-baiknya Ramadhanku untuk memujaMu...

dan mungkin nanti... aku akan mulai meminta surga bila boleh?

Responsible internet use

While not really an avid reader of this blog, xiaxue, I some times check this blog for some healthy dose of chuckle. She is a "lifestyle blogger" with several awards from Singapore. She makes blogging her profession, and I would say she's very successful at it that she even got quite large factor of her house renovation sponsored. 

I adore the pretty things she has, talks about, and promotes. She is extremely open about her plastic surgery. Reading her entries about her plastic surgeries opened my mind. It was seemed like a distant concept and unreal to me. But now I begin to understand that, yeah, it's just how some people work towards perfection in their own sense. The way I would work towards my perfection... in studying I suppose (I'm still in the mindset of a student, pardon me xP).

This blogger, xiaxue, somehow has gotten herself long list of people who hate her for inexplicable reasons that I couldn't really understand, though. And sometimes reading the blog I feel she has a bit too much hate and anger in her for all of this haters of hers expressed through her rants.

However in this one particular case of haters she retaliated with full force: A bad ass example of how to deal with internet haters for a lady.

While I think everyone in this case has violated all the privacy policies left and right, she has made her point clear. That despite the so called anonymity of the internet and how it is just something virtual, in the end there are real people behind it. Putting the face to the hateful comments which were made mindlessly when surfing in the virtual world makes everything much real. As much as there is a real person / people behind every picture that is distributed with/without consents in the internet, there are also real people who comment on that.

And with more than one person interacting, we do have rules and norms that we conceived through our socialization.

And so, virtual world never means a world without rules and responsibility. Everyone still has to take the responsibility for all their actions. If anything, it is even a scarier world, as the rules are not really "clear" and enforced as we have it in our already stable real life civilization.

As such, like in her case, pictures of you could end up somewhere, taken out of context and used for other people agenda. And anything you ever write might come back haunting you someday. (Oh wow, I hope I never did write anything hateful and stupid here x___x)

And so, for me, I'll stick on just adoring cute little things and cat pictures in the internet. The kitties know I always say good things about them :D

Another thing I can take from this case: it just strengthens my choice to never use Facebook and trust it with my personal details :D

Housewife experiences

Housewife experience #1

It's incredibly... exhilarating, -while sipping the hot tea and munching the breakfast you made in the morning in a hurry to catch the usual morning bus-, and then suddenly realizing : Oh, wait, ... I don't need to be in such a hurry! I can make my schedule around the timing I want.

I then realized, it's such a luxury to be able to properly put the plates and eating utensils to the sink, wiping off the counter and the dining table after my breakfast (I know why my apt is always in a mess now *excuses*). Usually I rarely even have time to properly finish my breakfast!

And this morning, I could enjoy it all! mwahahaha xD

I know how silly it sounds now.. but... yeah, wow... having the control of time is such a powerful thing!

Housewife experience #2

Properly defrosting and cleaning your freezer doesn't necessarily involve long hours spent in messy, wet puddles of the defrosted freezer matters!
I always put off defrosting and cleaning my freezer.
As far as I remember to do that I would need to be prepared to :
1. Get my hands and arms (and sometimes my clothes too, yeah I'm that sloppy) wet and cold handling the icy-cold water from the melted freezer frost.
2. Make a mess in trying to empty the freezer from the melted frosts.
The only method I knew was using sponge and lots of kitchen towels and the mopping bucket. It involves trying to soak up the sponges and kitchen towels with the waters, then wringing them dry onto the mopping bucket. This method causes lots of mess and drips all around the fridge area. Not to mention it's not very practical.
One of my flatmate back then had a super practical way to deal with water problem in the fridge like this. She just stuck up the mop there, and mopped the area like she would mop the floor :D
I would admit it's such a brilliant way to solve the problem.
That method certainly got me and my other flatmate rolled our eyes and exchanged glances though, and swearing we won't put our food in that area xP

3. Mop the entire floor as it's going to be all wet around the vicinity of the fridge up to the sink area.

As a result most of the times my freezer can always be seen super fully packed with built up frost and all my frozen foods.

But hey, I just finished cleaning my freezer in less than 10 mins just now!

Turns out the key is not to let it all get watery! Cold, solid frost chunks are easier to handle than the same amount of frost in liquid form.

I just had to wait for around 40 mins since the time I turned off the fridge until I heard a loud crack. A huge portion of the frosts on the freezer ceiling had cracked :D

I then only need to transfer any of the cracked frosts, all still solid, to the nearby sink. The things I used were just a flexible cutting board (Ikea stuff) that I used to transfer the solid frost from the fridge to the sink, a plastic ladle to get most of the crushed frosts, and last, a wipe cloth.

And in less than 10 mins I finished cleaning up my freezer, and putting back all my frozen stuffs.
I amazingly feel super proud about it xD

I need Antoinette in my life

My childhood sad memories were always reminisced with a little warm fuzzy feeling involved. It's because as far as I remember on my sad times I was always accompanied by my dearest first and best ever companion: a tabby male cat I aptly named Antoinette.

He was just a stray cat before he was with us. He had always been alone and quiet. On our meal times, he'd join us, sitting around us, and occasionally he'd put his paws on my laps or my parents'/siblings for any food that he'd graciously devour even though it was veggies. No meowing ever involved, he just always talked through his eyes. He had a quirky night routine as he would just sit and stare quietly to an empty space in between our corner sofa joint for a long time. We call it his prayer time.

My sad memories were always involving me locking myself in my room. And Antoinette would sit quietly around me while I cried my heart out. I'd caress him, and after some time, I'd know that everything will be alright.

S**t happens. That's life. And if I just suck it up and go on, everything will be alright. Just like his always calm and soothing stare and quiet purr.

Unfortunately as life goes on, and bad things continue to happen too inevitably now and then, I don't have Antoinette anymore in my life now. I can only hold on to my memories of him: the reminiscent warm, and fuzzy feeling when I always have him with me.

Perhaps its the no-fuss attitude of him. His always calm and composed manner. Every time I see him I know he's something I can hold on to. Something that would never change. That he'd always be with me whatever mistake and failure I've made.

May you rest in peace, dearest Antoinette.

Faltering heart, faraway dream

For the longest time, the after prayer wish that I always repeated was that:
I want to do my master degree abroad...

It sounds pretty naive now, but back then, it was a pretty huge dream for me.
Ever since my junior high school, my parents had made it clear that they'd only allow me to go study abroad after I got my bachelor degree.
Their reasoning is on the level of maturity I'd already have by then.
A reasoning which I couldn't really debate... so I could only wait 'til the time come, and keep my wish in my prayer.

Before I realized it, I was already doing my Doctorate degree here in Italy..

Alhamdulillah.

The wish, though, was already too incorporated in my set of wishes. I just automatically said it every time.

Lately, as I'm already abroad, and already doing my doctorate, it got awkwardly changed to: I want to finish my doctorate degree well.

And now.. I realize I need to change my wish soon.

To what?


Then I realized, that my wishes have always been very abstract.
It's about the general wish to be useful, to be a better human being, for the life now and in the afterlife, etc.
But.. nothing very specific.

And now.. I'm almost reaching the next junction to my future...
I'm super eager to move forward.
But I don't have any clear idea of my destination.

I could certainly make up a simple goal like my previous wish: I want to work in a super cool company A, maybe.

But, looking at my age... isn't this time where I'm supposed to already know where am I going exactly?

I recently fell in love with G-Dragon's works. I found that most of the songs I liked are composed by him, and found many more of the songs he wrote that I like. The lyrics too are usually very especially deep and profound.

He is going to be 24 this year, and he already made his own solo album, all songs written by himself, a realization of his dream since his childhood. This song is particularly summarizing about his struggle from his very young age (13!) to be a singer.

I look at myself, and I envy how I don't have that kind of clear idea of my goal even now when I'm 28.

My father consoled me, he himself had never thought he'd be where he is now.
It was never in his imagination back then to be in his current position now.
And that his prayer has always been general too, like my abstract prayer.
But as time goes by, somehow everything flew him in this direction.

My mother, too, assured me, that the road to the goal is never conveniently straight. There are always deviations, left and right. But just like pendulum, it will sway left and right, just to get back to the center, always.

In the word of my brother, in the end it's all about fate.

It's something that we don't know beforehand, but we'll find it out when we are just there.

I'm on my way there...
what's the exact "there"..., I have no idea yet.

Sure, I can blame it to the not-knowing part, that my struggle is hard.
But even if I would already have known my goal, the road to success is never easy anyway.

So I'll just do my best for now and whenever,
and I'll find my fate when the time comes.

Programs I need!

History will always repeat itself.
My laptop crashed, just in the nick of time where I had to deliver my final thesis, and now I have to rebuild my life again (ok, the last one is an exaggeration :D)

Eerily, the same thing happened almost exactly 4 years ago. And that was around the time I graduated from my master.
Apparently my laptops lifespan are in sync with the length of my study somehow :D

Luckily, my current one is salvageable. So, I am now still typing on my dearest XPS ruby!
And in the process, I've increased my geekiness level by at least 300% or so! xP

J made me learnt how to:
- Examine the back of my laptop, identifying which bolt relates to which part of the laptop.
- Take the HD out (I used a screw driver!! It's astonishingly easy... I thought I'd have to use my full power or something to unscrew those minuscule bolts. And an addition of weak magnet on the tip of the screwdriver is really such a great innovation!)
- Identify whether the failure is in HD or in the other hardware. The chance has it that J installed a bootable version of Ubuntu in a usb drive that I carried around everytime. It really came in handy!

We found that the failure was in the HD. Booted using Ubuntu the laptop ran just fine. And after plugging the laptop to J's desktop, we found that all the data are pretty much intact! *BIG WHEW!* So, all my thesis data are safe and sound.

Alhamdulillah.

- Defragment and shrink a volume, J suggested to just make a new partition in the HD and install a new OS there.

- Install the new OS. J actually wanted me to use unix system. But I still want to live my life and work peacefully... and play my games someday maybe in the future hahaha. So after insisting on installing yet a new windows OS and deleting as much as possible unimportant data (well.. games mostly *sniff sniff*) we secured ourselves 80 GB of free space to be partitioned =D

And now I'm back, installing things from scratch. It's amazing that the list I made in 2008 is mostly still relevant now. The only differences I made this time are :

1. Chrome

I use chrome now. For no particular reasons actually. But J made me used it, and it already saved lots of my passwords :D
I'm still lamenting the non-existence of proper read-it-later extension on chrome though. In firefox the extension would automatically save the content of the link I gave and have it ready for me to be read offline at some other time.

2. notepad++

PSPad got real slow by the time. And it often got stuck in trying to save new files. So I'm trying notepad++ now.

3. Microsoft security essential

The constant nagging of the last AVG for me to download the new version really turned me off. And J suggested this one, so this is what I'm using now.


4. Winmerge

It's a new tool that I come to love and can't live without! I so often keep duplicate copies of a file, just to be safe, and ended up with no knowledge which copy was from which version of that file. This tool really helps me! It's super easy to notice the differences and merge whichever part of one version we feel fit.

5. Skype

Now it's an essential IM for me, because... my parents are using it now for video call! =D
They are marvelous, aren't they! My dad now carries his Ipad everywhere, and are always available for video chat... well, that would be on weekend and on his off hours though :D

And... the rest are still the same with the ones that made to my 2008-must-have-program list. It's kinda amazing, some programs really are just that good to last and stay updated.

Highlight of the day

It's a gloomy morning, with heavy clouds hanging, and light showers.
However, I've got my highlight of the day early in the morning : being chased by a dog while chasing my bus! xD

The dog is of a bigger breed. After consulting with J and wiki, I learned that it was of boxer breed with fawn coat and flash on its chest. The dog belongs to an old lady, one of my neighbour. Apparently they were out for a walk earlier this morning and happened to be in front of my building when I went out to catch my bus.

I did not really pay attention to them at first, as I was just hurriedly opening my building door and immediately running towards the gate. I first noticed the dog when it was then suddenly positioning itself on my direction and staring at me. I hesitated in a split second; he seems like to be of the breed of the guard dogs. You know, the fierce ones, with appearances meant intentionally to scare people off. But, alas I was late and the owner is here anyway, so I just continued my run.

As soon as I restarted my sprint, though, the dog dashed towards me!
And before I realized it the dog has already jumped on me, paws on my torso:
playfully begging for head rubs! awwwwwww =')

I have always been enticed by dogs. Well, picture of cute dogs and puppies actually. And the sight of dogs being walked around in my city, since I don't have any dogs nor friends who happen to have dogs xP

But I have never actually came into direct contact with any dog of this size.
And I have always been actually rather terrified of being in contact with dogs.
Aside of the consideration of the ablution hassle I have to go through if I got licked, their size and bark are rather disheartening compared to cat's size and cat's meow.

However, the dog who was looking at me directly in my eyes and had its paws on me this morning didn't bark at all. And it has completely playful and friendly eyes and attitude as it tried to get even closer, pawing at me and sniffing my skirt, when I stepped back out of my surprise. I couldn't help but just laughed, I didn't even want to say no to that adorable dog.

The old lady then called the dog and apologized to me to which I just said "No, it's ok" while giggling. Of course it's ok! In fact I was super delighted! I so wish I could just give the dog the head rubs it deserved!

The dog then found another passerby, which then responded to the dog more appropriately despite having her music player earphone cables entangled on the dog paws as it's jumping on her xD

So I continued my sprint again towards the gate. And what did I found:
the dog ran too chasing me!
Shortly, it was already running ahead of me!
This time, though, as apparently it has learnt its lesson and I heard the old lady's voice too saying something, the dog just circled me, while kept running with me.
awwwwww =')

The chasing then had to stop since I've reached my gate and had to leave, closing the gate behind me with the dog still running, now encircling the fence around the gate. Awww =')

Now I so wish I have a dog to run every morning with :D

Do not just randomly watch any movie you could download!

Because bad movie leaves a reaaaally bad taste in your mouth:
they torture you with all the questionable things happening during the movie,
making each second feels so horribly long, confusing and painful to endure,
and after finally the credit rolled in, the thought of "what was that supposed to be abt, originally?" will keep you restlessly wondering.

Stages of KPOP idolation craziness

1. Enjoying the song
Oh that song is cool.

2. Knowing the name of the group
Hmm, who sang that song? Korean group/singer, eh? I see.

3. Found more songs by the group and listen to them

4. Watch their performances
They usually have the MV for each of their promoted songs, as well as live performances on music shows. And Korea has several of these music shows at least one in each of their TV stations.

6. Watching fanmade clips / fan recording highlighting some features of the personnel/group

This is usually catapulted by all the suggested videos to the right of the youtube vid. Clicking and clicking will bring you to more and more suggested vids and before you know it you've spent significant amount of time mindlessly watching all the suggested vids that piqued your interest.

Each member of a group usually has their own fanbase. They will call this personnel as their "bias". Amazingly, from one song performance in a show you could rely on these fanbases to each have their own recording (fancam) that follows their "bias" throughout this song! Talk about dedication.


5. Researching about the group/personnels

Read the wiki of them, googling their data, history, stories etc.


7. Watching all shows which have the group/singer as guest

Korea has several talk shows, some reality shows, etc that often invite idols as their guest.

8. Checking their official sites and fan sites for every updates on their latest event, videos, pictures everyday(/hours/minutes? xD)

Oddly I found lots of these fansites are on tumbler. I suppose it's because their
easy to share facilities? People would post some pics, gifs, vids of their idols, and other would reblog it on their own.

9. Joining their official fan group


10. Buying all of their albums, official goods


11. Donating stuffs on behalf of their group/artists

Evidence 1 Evidence 2 Evidence 3: Indonesian VIP


12. ....

To go further to the extreme you could even be their sasaeng or privates.

Writing these all I felt somehow relieved that my downward spiraling motion to the bottom of kpop fandom has not been too much yet.

However, if there's anything we could learn from these KPOP idols, it would be their total hard work. They spent years in training to achieve their position. And really lots of hours have been dedicated to it.

Each time, it's the thought of appreciation to their hard work that could stop me from continuously drooling over their pics *oops* and get back to my own work. They've come along way to make their dreams come true.

I should work as much too towards my own dreams.

Current obsession

Wow! Fantastic, baby!


kyaaaaaaaahhh! that blue haiiiirrrr *___*



You think I could pull that hair colour off? *_*

Source : tumbler 1 tumbler 2

Andd, isn't this just super cuuute? xD

#BIGBANGBURGER by =Fiveonthe on deviantART

okayy, i'm completely fan-girl-ing over them now. So, to minimize the effect, and to prevent my blog to be a kpop devoted blog, I'll just keep on updating this post with my... current obsession of big bang :D


One of the thing I watch from a KPOP movie is their dance. As that's how my attraction to KPOP started: the venture to search an inspiration for my morning sport. However, I found that their dances are not meant to be cover-ed!

I now respect Big Bang more in this notion. They don't have complicated, extra synchronized dance with everyone, except on the chorus part. Since everyone has to concentrate on their part while singing. Compared to SNSD for example, I adore them for their complicated and ultra-sync moves, but I saw how only few of them could really sing good. And this is understandable since they're always too busy with their dance moves.

With Big Bang, I think they really make the dance choreography to accompany the song. Therefore a proper dance cover is kinda hard to be done, unless we really want to cover their background dancers for example, who are indeed dancing all the time they are on stage. However, big bang doesn't always have dancers around all throughout the song. So that's not really a good idea either.

But now that i think of it, it should be the correct way anyway. They are singer and performer by definition. Despite TOP having reported to have "visual" role aside from being the rapper (I giggled at that, but now, omg that's true! xD and he does that just so effortlessly *_*), none of them are designed to be the "dancer" as some people in other _singing_ groups.

I also respect them in the fact that they always bring some singing improvisation in their live stage. This makes watching any of their live performance worthwhile. We don't just hear what we could hear from their album. And for sure with this we are sure that they are not blatantly lip-synch-ing all the time. And I found that despite some slips that are normal, most of their live singing performance sounds above standard! And from what I have learned so far, I think that's super rare in KPOP world.
More kudos to them!

Distance

The internet connection has blurred the actual distance between people.
That's the slogan that all the social media sites have been carrying.

Yet, the reality of how the distance truly does not matter anymore now just hit me hard!

My download of 2.6 GB of something from a country far far away took only 4 mins...
while copying it from my computer hard disk to my usb flash drive apparently took me twice that time!

Surreal x_X

The power of data mining

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?_r=3&hp=&pagewanted=all

Need china ip?

If, say, the chance has it that somehow you happen to stumble upon some program in China that blocks IP from other countries. And you are just desperate to access it. Fear not, there's something to do that.

Here's the tool : Flashwind.
The site is entirely in chinese, but a little help from Google translator will do you good!
In fact it's pretty reliable that you can get away with google translator's version of the registration page help.

So, do register first as instructed in the register help page.
Then download the application.
The next step: using the tool.

It is pretty disheartening as it's all in chinese.
They have the tutorial on how to use it on the site, but the translation version of it isn't very understandable (at least for me x_x).

Googling on the tutorial of using flashwind doesn't give me any result either.

So here goes a simple tutorial in English on how to use flashwind:

After clicking on the executable file of the application you'll get the login page below:

Fill in your username and password that you registered on the site. Press the left button.

Next you will encounter this question below.
God knows what that means xP
but press the right button.
I tried the left button and then both flashwind and my computer complained about my User Account Control setting.



Next, you'll see that the program is working and loading its next page.


You'll meet this page. You can customize the program, and choose different number in the drop down list (my print screen shows the number 0461)
No need to do anything, just press the button I circled.


If you're lucky, and you see something like what the arrow pointed at in the bottom of the page, it means it's working.
You can try accessing the program that previously blocked your IP now.

If you don't see it, and instead you see "somechinesecharacters0461somechinesecharacters!!" it means the number that you used isn't working or something. Try changing it randomly.

Once you get it working to access something, the right hand tables will show you the list of other numbers sorted by its latency. You can remember which number works best and use it next time.

Last, if you're done, press this right button I circled to end it.


Done :D

Wash your hands!

I happened to watch the movie Contagion in the inflight entertainment during my ultra long flight to Indonesia last time.
And, boy, has it changed me.

The movie itself... is pretty "meh" to quote J's opinion on it :D

But one thing sticks to me the most, it gives me a new found paranoia on germs x_x
Despite the "meh" factor, the movie provides a pretty realistic illustration on what might happen when an outbreak of an epidemic virus really do occur.
If there's anything we can learn from the movie :

- Always wash your hands after contacts with anything... that you deemed worth-washing-hands-for!
I've always been pretty clean and careful with contacts to probable-germ-transferring-objects. I always carefully avoid to touch the public door handle as much as possible. For toilet doors I tried as much to handle it only with tissues in hands, for example. But in addition, I made it a case now to always wash my hands with soaps first after any trip outside then reaching campus / home.

- Don't touch your face too much!
I don't consider myself having the habit of touching my face. However, after watching the movie, I now realized I do unconsciously touch my face from time to time! Now I consciously try to minimize this contact as much as possible.

You should too.

A selfish, twisted love

If you love me that much, then don't let me outlive you.
Live healthy, live long.
longer than me.
So I won't have to suffer from losing you...

-thoughts on Valentine's day-

White chocolate is a lie!

I went to sleep last night drooling on the thought that I'd make gorgeous chocolate muffin with white chocolate chunks on it for breakfast this morning.
Imagining the rich dark brown goodness with pretty white dots here and there ....
A fashionable yummy treat, Yummmm!

The thought comforted me and made me wished it would be morning soon!

Well... the dream lasted until the muffins were out of the oven.

The warm uniformly brown muffins with wisps of their heat lingering in the air...
wait, what? brown? JUST brown? not polka dot brown??! >_<

and I learnt the bitter truth...

No such thing as white dotted choc muffins could exist!

Apparently since the white chocolate consists mostly of chocolate butter, and not the solid part of the chocolate, it can't survive the baking process T_T

There goes my fantasy of enjoying my muffin with the gooey white chocolate chunks that melts in my mouth >_<

The cupcakes came out mostly plain chocolate, as the white chocolate chunks melted into oblivion.
In the case that the chunk was big enough, you'd be able to witness the sad remnants of it. Tiny morsels of white chocolate, stranded on moist pockets created by themselves before they melt.

Well... that's a lesson about what is white chocolate learnt the hard way...

The main reason to-do list is created:

Because scratching off things from your to do list just feels sooo goood!

That little things you do...

(11/19/10)
So.. in one hurried morning, I didn't have much time to finish assembling the burgers I prepared. I left those ready-to-be-assembled burger pieces:buns, sausages, lettuces, tomatoes, pickles slices, with all the condiments; on the table, running away catching the bus while telling you to just eat them and pack the rest for lunch, -if there's any.

I wasn't expecting anything much on that lunchtime later when you said you brought some of them for lunch. Since if it was me all I could think of was just to throw them on plastic bags for food maybe. No idea how that would survive my fully-packed backpack though :D

Aaaand, when the lunchtime came, I found you've prepared them in individual lunch box. Each first wrapped in plastic, then serenely positioned in boxes that just fit them perfectly so they won't move and get dislocated. It was so professionally packed, just really seemed like the store-bought ready made food!
I was super impressed! Thank you my kuingkuing =')


And one night, I found that my beloved blanket had gone missing from my bed.
And lo and behold: it's stranded conspicuously on the heater on the wall instead @_@
Turns out you put it there to make it warm and ready for me when I get to bed =')

And today, on my worrisome thoughts on finding works after graduation:
me: kalo ci ntar ga langsung dapet kerja tapi gpp?
j: gpp
j: kalo ga kerja jg gpp

Awww, I love you so much, my kuingkuing yg kukuing dengan sekuingkuingnya =')

Rants on recent Indonesian songs and singers

Taking a break from happy happy kpop bubbly-autotune galore, I found myself listening to Youtube playlist of Harmoni SCTV few days ago. This phenomenon was triggered by an awesome vid J suggested : a performance by Tantri "Kotak" and Dira Sugandhi. I applaud this one performance as the most breathtaking of all the performances. Must watch!

On pronouncing "R"

J then discussed how he noticed the ongoing trend of improperly pronouncing "R" by the Indonesian singers lately.
They pronounced "r" as an English speaker would as opposed to a clear pronunciation of "r" as an Indonesian would.
I, being an absent minded listener that I am, did not really notice it. So I asked him to enumerate those offenders.

He mentioned Andy /rif did it. I kinda remember he has always done it before. If I'm not mistaken it was indeed because he couldn't pronounce "r" properly. J then mentioned Armand Maulana, Fadly Padi then Inna Kamarie in that Harmoni show.
I have no idea abt the last one, haven't watched her performance yet. But I vaguely remember Armand did have the same problem with Andy /rif and has been using the improper "r" instead in his songs.

I didn't really notice this trend that J dicovered, but I did notice the unconventional pronunciation of everything by this singer in particular : Astrid.

J, using his detective skill, located the unusuality of the pronunciation of "k" : "kyu akyui" and "akhyiri" hahahaha xD.
And later the pronunciation of "i" as "yi". Aside from the common improper "r".

I thought it was just the side effect of her unconventional singing style though. I don't know, I don't really enjoying listening to her style of singing x_x

But then with time, after listening to more and more Indonesian latest songs, I do notice this trend!

I understand we are now already in the phase where we are already very familiar with English language. And thus we started to have this language mixed to our language in the song. I accredit all the singers who then properly pronounce the English parts of their lyrics properly. But that doesn't mean you should pronounce the Indonesian parts with English-style pronunciation!

I understand for the sake of expressing the song, it is sometime needed to accentuate the "r" by pronouncing it strongly, or accentuating the other part of the word, such that the "r" is pronounced rather softly. But pronouncing it softly is a different story to pronouncing it English-way. Much even worse if you pronounce it European way, with "r" spoken from the throat (in German: in the way you say Berlin, Hamburg; in French : in the way you say Paris).

I think there are those three levels of "r" pronunciation:
1. Indonesian, Italian, Spanish style : strong "R"
2. English style : rolled "R"
3. French, Germany style : throat spoken "R"

We should be happy being a nation with a language that trains us to properly do the strong "r". It's super hard for French native speaker to say the "r" like we do.

So how about being proud of our language and maintaining this identity of our own language properly?

On a side note, there's one surprising performance for me in that Harmoni SCTV show. It was from Anji Drive:
Oh, he really does sing?!! o_o
and pretty well too apparently? o_0

It's surprising because I've really never heard that he's a good singer.
The only things I heard of him were the news that he impregnated girls x_X
How sad is that? A singer known for his mischievous "love adventure" instead of his own singing ability.

On singing technique

All in all, J touted Reza from The Grooves as the singer with the best technique on that Harmoni SCTV show. And... I'm not so good about singing technique stuff, but I think I could agree with him.

This talking about singing technique reminded me of a vid applauding Indonesian singers technique. While the captions and the tone of the makers clearly is flaming and abashing the other team, I must agree that the vid maker conveyed some truths there.

This correct singing technique is one I can't master either though.
I was taught about it in my uni choir group:
"Imagine the note first in your head, aim at it first, before then fully sing the full note, imagine it as you'd hit a target with a bow and arrows".
It's easier said than done. Super hard, really x_x
I finally just decided to sing to my heart content anyway,
After all it's just me, and sometimes my poor husband, who has to listen to it anyway hahaha.

So, I really applaud you my dearest Indonesia singers who are singing correctly! *_*

On latest Indonesian songs trend

I'm not really talking abt the KPOP imitation trend.
While I'm glad for the fact that Indonesian songs do have the diversity in that area, I haven't seen one that impressed me in the term of dancing skill and vocal strength.
So, yeah, on that genre of music I'm still waiting for one worth to be dance-covered to as I said here :D

The one genre that I'd like to discuss here is the back-to-Malay-pop style trend.
I just can't ignore anymore how almost all of the new Indonesian songs lately are in this vein.
J called it Dangdut v.2.0. Dangdut minus the percussion and flute accompaniment.
And I can't agree more to that x_x

I think it was all started by ST12 band. Despite their "urban" appearance and music style, apparently lots of people do love their songs. This new found popularity of this kinds of music apparently fueled all these recent new artists and songs.

Don't get me wrong, I love the diversity in music. And surely the popularity means a lot of people do like this music genre. But that doesn't mean all have to be uniformed to that genre. How about more creativity?

And what bugs me the most from this kind of music is their lyrics tendency.
I understand this kind of genre commanded that the singing is done with certain degree of melancholy.

However this doesn't mean all your songs have to be about all the sad sad things and all your desperation in love, does it?

This brings me to my next rant topic :

On lyrics

I hardly could stop complaining listening to each of the recent Indonesian songs. I found more and more questionable and mind-boggling lyrics every time. Up to the point that J commented on how I just like to complain and am asking too much :D

But, well, if human is known for never asking too much, we wouldn't have invented anything would we? xP

So let me bring to light examples of lyrics that just bugged me:

Abracadabra :

aku sulap kamu jadi lelaki setia
yang tak suka main perempuan

.... what the?

If you do have that magical power, how about asking something more ambitious?
You know, such as creating the perfect human maybe?
Rather than fixing just that one flaw which I think is just the surface wound of one rotten soul? I can't even find the proper translation of "main perempuan". That's how bad that term is.

And then there's song about a guy who got so heartbroken he wondered, should he die to be fine?
Well, yeah, if you're that desperate just go die already then!
What kind of a man would sing such song?
I think the only appropriate song for heartbroken guy is this song.
Sure, he's sad and crushed, but it doesn't mean he'd compromise his pride and grovel before the infidelity.

I could go on and on and on about lyrics that I found disturbing. The recent trend is about loving someone who has already someone else, or about affairs it seems. But let's stop at these two examples.

My main point in talking about this is that :
I think singers, through their songs, could really convey ideas to the listener.
They could inspire you to do something big. The way I always feel inspired every time I sing songs such as Bendera for example.

What kind of a nation would you like us to be when you kept on singing these hopeless melancholic songs?

Our former first men had spoken. Soeharto on his time had warned us out about this melancholic song phenomenon ("lagu cengeng"). He pointed out how these kind of songs would defer us from empowering ourselves in the development of our country.

Soekarno at his time banned the "ngak-ngik-ngok" songs for they conveyed the capitalism culture. They defer us from developing our national identity.

And if I could conclude this rant, just as Soekarno and Soeharto had spoken on these matters, music is not just something trivial.

Lots of good thing could come up from good music.
So how about creating more and more songs with empowering lyrics?
And with more creativity in the term of the tune and style?
And with proper Indonesian language, PLEASE!

Prosedur beli emas di Logam Mulia Antam Jakarta

Salah satu resiko menjadi orang dewasa adalah : harus realistis memikirkan uang dan masa depan.

Money, and everything related to it, has always been an icky subject for me.
But as an adult,- hopefully a responsible one at that - , I need it anyway to live and to secure my future.
And for that I need to learn stuffs about it...

Saving and investments are some of the key points in managing money well.
And as the story has it, I finally found myself in the path that have been taken by our ancestors ever since the beginning of civilization... saving in gold.

And here's an excerpt of my small adventure in buying gold at Logam Mulia Antam Jakarta. May this info be beneficial for anyone who might need it.

(Data per akhir Desember 2011)

Datang pagi!
Pukul 07.00 : Antrian mulai diterima

Kami berangkat dari rumah jam 6.15 (plannya jam 6 sebenernya :D) dan sampai di antam sekitar jam 7.15an, antrian sudah panjaaaang.
Kami mendapatkan nomer 72, setelah kami antrian masih panjaaang juga, tapi petugas lalu memotong sampai urutan 100 karena hari itu hanya 100 orang dalam antrian yg diperbolehkan (hari normal 150 orang).

Pada saat sampai giliran antrian akan ada body search singkat, kemudian pembeli diharap menunjukkan ktp dan mengisi formulir singkat.

Pukul 08.00 : 100 orang dalam antrian yg sudah mendaftar tadi dipanggil namanya satu-persatu dan diberi lembar antrian.

KTP harus diserahkan pada pos keamanan ini sebagai jaminan.

Setelah membawa lembar antrian, jalan ke gedung utama pembeliannya.
Dari pos satpam jalan terus lalu ikuti jalan ke kiri. Nanti ada gedungnya di kanan, semua orang lain kesana juga, jadi gampang.
Ruangnya kecil, ada dua ruangan. Ada cukup banyak tempat duduk, dan ada dispenser aqua dan nescafe gratis. Di ruang yg sebelah kiri agak lebih sejuk dan ada TV untuk yg bosan :D

Pukul 09.00 : Harga hari itu, jumlah stok yg tersedia, dan jumlah maksimal pembelian per item dipublish di meja informasi dan layar informasi. Nomor urutan mulai dipanggil. (Pada prakteknya waktu saya datang dilakukan pukul 8.45)

Pendaftaran order : Bagian 1A, 2A, 3A di ruang sebelah kiri
Bila ada kartu identitas lain: SIM, NPWP, dll dapat ditunjukkan disini.
Kalau tidak, dapat mengisi form saja : Nama, No. Telp, dan Alamat rumah.
Informasikan disini apa saja yg akan dibeli, dan bagaimana hendak membayarnya (transfer/ debit/ cash)

Dari bagian ini akan diberikan faktur dan nomor antrian baru untuk pembayaran.
Tunggu nomor tersebut dipanggil untuk melakukan pembayaran.

Pembayaran: Bagian 5D, di ruang sebelah kanan,
Jelaskan bagaimana akan melakukan pembayaran.
Bila via transfer, ada mesin ATM Mandiri di sebelah kanan bagian ini. Untuk debit bisa dilakukan langsung disini, juga via cash.
Setelah pembayaran selesai faktur akan dikembalikan setelah dicap "Lunas" dan kita diberikan tanda pembayaran (slip debit dll).

Bapak yg bertugas di bagian ini ramah sekali dan tidak habis senyumnya dari pagi sampai siang :D

Pengambilan barang : Bagian 6, 7, ruang sebelah kiri, seberang 1A, 2A, 3A bukan berupa meja tapi 2 pintu ruang tertutup.

Setelah melakukan pembayaran langsung masuk salah satu ruangan 6 atau 7 yg sedang tidak melayani pembeli dan serahkan faktur dan bukti pembayaran yg sudah diterima. Sebagai gantinya kita akan diberikan nomor baru, kali ini berupa lempengan plastik bagus, bukan nomor kertas. Akan tetapi kita akan dipanggil menggunakan nama lengkap, bukan menggunakan nomor ini.

Setelah dipanggil, barang akan diserahkan.
Cek barangnya, cek sertifikatnya.
Cek bahwa nomer sertifikat sama dengan nomer pada lempengan emas.
Simpan dengan aman sebelum keluar dari ruangan 6 atau 7 ini.

Keluar dari gedung, kembalikan kertas antrian yg diberikan di awal di pos satpam untuk menerima kembali KTP.

Selesai :)

Ps.1. Harga toko emas bisa lebih murah daripada antam. Untuk meyakinkan bahwa akan diperoleh harga terbaik bisa dilakukan dengan menunggu publish harga antam (jam 9.00) kemudian mengecek via telpon ke toko-toko emas. Info toko-toko emas di thread kaskus ini bisa dijadikan acuan.

Ps.2. Thread diskusi emas tersebut cukup informatif juga dibaca untuk info-info aktual dalam hal investasi dalam bentuk emas.

Reasons not to grow your nails long and wear nail polish

Aside from the sanitary concerns and the fact that it would interfere with ablution process:

- They take lots of time to apply!!

You need to have the following layers in a proper and healthy application of nail polish:
1. Base coat : to protect your nails from the chemical in the nail polish
2. The nail polish : Depending on the color of the nail polish you might need 1 or 2 layers of this.
(2. b) Ornament nail polish : I used glitter nail polish to add some sparkling elements to my nails.
3. Top coat : This will coat your overall nail polish. It provides you with the desired finish (matte, shiny, etc), smooth the nails (glitter nail polish left you with gritty texture in your nails) and strengthen them: protect your nail polish from chipping.


- (And when you do have lots of time to spare) They are super duper hard to apply!

The bad case of failure in applying nail polish :


The nail polish in my index finger was finally cleaned and removed as they crumpled @_@
My mistakes :
1. Applying the nail polish too thick
2. Applying them in non-uniform layer
3. Not waiting for each layer to dry up first before applying the next one

These mistakes caused the nail polish to build up on the nail edges as a soft, thick tissue of nail polish. They don't really stick firmly to the nails and crumpled upon contact with hard objects. The example of such failure can be seen on the tip of my middle finger and ring finger nails.

The only success in that picture happened to my little finger nail. I only applied one layer of color and since it's small everything dries up properly before I applied the next layer.

I found when you are using transparent nail polish you could save yourself from some of those hassle though. You'll still need to wait each layer to dry out but at least you need not to worry about applying the next layer to even out the color or to make sure that it has been applied uniformly.




- They interfere with cooking and daily chores

I'll consider wearing my nail polish later when I'm in Indo at my parents home where I have no need to do any household chores at all.

- Eating with ur hands doesn't really feel right.

Yeah, I suppose this is why wearing nail polish aren't exactly something in our Indonesian traditional culture (excluding using henna/"pacar"). We enjoy eating with our bare hands!

- They got stuck between keyboard keys.

And considering what I do, this is likely the main reason I'll never grow my nails long and wear nail polish ever again.


Anyway, having ventured myself the area of prettifying your nails using nail polish, I now could appreciate more all the girls (and boys?) who managed to keep their nails all pretty and lacquered. All those time and efforts... beauty is pain!

Winter woe

Eating during the winter is a race with time...
Devour it fast or you'll have to resort to enjoying your cold food.