Project 365

I’m back from my travel. Back to reality. There are so many things I want to write about my travel in Iran, Turkey, and Jordan, but I don’t have time to do it yet. I’m going to Jakarta in two days time. It was rather unexpected and unplanned, because my grandma was suddenly hospitalized. I had to change my plans and I’ve been busy with the preparation of my sudden move to Jakarta. Anyway…

My laptop is also broken & the internet is extremely slow here. This is the reason why I decided to slowdown my blogging activities.

Not sure when I’ll start blogging again, but I hope soon! I miss writing something here! I hope the next time I write again, there will be good news about my grandma. Amin.

Insya Allah I will depart tomorrow to start my one month travel . Hopefully I can get the visa on arrival! I don’t want my visa to be rejected anymore

Where am I going? For now, let me just show this picture as a hint:

Super excited!

Obhur may not be as beautiful as Indonesian beach, but it is the only place here in Jeddah where we can rent a cottage and enjoy the beach. Most beaches in Jeddah have been used for private residences (thanks to the greedy royal family) and resorts, so they’re not open for public (and "free") – which is a pity. You need to pay in order to enjoy the beach.

Most people don’t mind paying to stay in a resort, of course. After all, this place is one of the very few places in Saudi Arabia where we can escape from all those restrictions, not only social, but also religious restrictions! The religious police will not go in, so we have our own taste of freedom, which is great .

Apparently, the Filipino embassy rented the WHOLE resort next to ours for Christmas celebration. We planned to stay there previously, but we were turned away as it was already booked. But we could spot from our resort their Christmas tree. This was the second time in my life I saw a Christmas tree in Saudi Arabia. This was not just any Christmas tree. It’s a big one! The biggest one I saw in Saudi Arabia!!! LOL (look how excited I am!). There were even discos, karaoke, and live music. Men and women could mingle freely. I was amazed, but at the same time very pleased . I didn’t feel like in Saudi Arabia.

Anyway, about my weekend? It was a super great one! I feel so blessed to have my family – all five of us – in one place. We hadn’t had a family vacation with a full member for a long time. Alhamdulillah!

Here’s a silly picture of me and my siblings:

I’ve been so busy these days! Too many things to do yet so little time. I’m heading for an uber awesome trip (still a mystery for now ) in 9 days time. Yes, you hear me, NINE DAYS! I’m just too excited about it! Wohoooo…

But despite of the excitement, I’m currently super busy with 2 projects. I want to finish them before my trip but I think I can only complete one of them. One of the projects that I’ve been doing is this:

I’m developing a website of Angklung Eindhoven (yes, it can be viewed). Compared to other websites that I’ve created, I didn’t design the template. I focused more on the back-end part (yes, by that I meant that I actually edit some plugins to add more features that suit my needs). The website is almost complete though. I think I can finish it by this week .

The other project that I involve in is developing an Android tablet application for a restaurant. It’s kinda weird to develop this app, since I never actually played or owned an Android phone. But it’s been a fun journey! I’ve been learning a lot of things and I love Android! I’m doubtful that I’d be able to finish this app by next week, but I want some parts of it running, at least.

In addition to those two projects, I have another web development project to be done by next year AND a WordPress plugin related to traveling that is currently under development… which I decided to create for my own excitement. My own excitement?! Yeah, when a geek is bored, he/she would usually resort to coding. LOL.

My sister just got a smartphone. A BlackBerry to be precise. Her decision to abandon her classic mobile phone has made me the only person in the family who still refuses to follow the majority. My family fails to understand why I keep on resisting to get a smartphone. But I am a very stubborn person sometimes. If I said no, then nobody could change it except me. Anyhow…

It has been 4 years since the first time I owned this Nokia mobile phone. I did not actually buy it — I got it from my dad after he bought a new one. The phone does not look good anymore. The plastic silver cover has been partially torn up. What can I say? I may be a loyal owner of a gadget, but I am not good in taking a good care of it. But that small gadget is perfectly fine. It is working wonderfully. At least, I can make some calls and send some texts. That’s what I need it for.

Sure, smartphone is a handy and important gadget for my family. Being miles and miles away from each other, my family needs any cheap means to communicate. So far, Skype, VOIP, Yahoo Messenger, and (sometimes) SMS are the things that bind us together, despite our distances.

Recently, my mom who is a BlackBerry addict, has been trying so hard to convince me to use a BlackBerry so that she can communicate with me much easier and cheaper. I’ve used that ugly device before, only for 3 weeks when I was in Indonesia 2 years ago, and I have to say that I did NOT like it at all. I had to borrow and use it because I needed the Internet. Otherwise, I would never use it. I just hate it… It’s sooooooooo not user-friendly.

Well, that’s not the only reason why I refuse to use BlackBerry or any other smartphones. I just don’t want to be too addicted to it. It’s such a bad device. I already have an iPod Touch, given by my former boss, and I use it every.single.day. Even with an iPod, sometimes I complain if I can’t find any Internet connection. If I had a smartphone, I’d definitely be on the Internet the wholeeee time! I’m an Internet junkie, for sure, and I’ve been trying to limit it. Limiting internet usage seems to be unsuccessful for an IT geek, so the only thing I can do now is NOT to give myself a device that would increase my geekness (if there’s such a word, LOL).

I’m not saying that I will never get myself a smartphone. I will definitely get it one day (YES, it’s so tempting, to be honest!). But for now, let me just stick with my old granny phone. Let’s just see how many months or years I can resist the temptation . Hooray if I could stay with this phone until it completely refuses to work!

Not many people knew that I’d go back for good. Most of them found it out a week or even a few days before my departure. So I never expected to receive anything from them. I have too many stuff with me already. I didn’t want to bring anything more. But there was one special gift I got from our angklung team that really touched me and almost made me cry:

This frame is now put in my room in Jeddah. It’ll be brought to Malaysia next year, for sure! I’ll definitely miss playing angklung with them!

I still can’t believe that I have left Europe for good. It does feel like a dream. It really feels like yesterday when I stepped into this country for the first time. Now I have left. I have left for the better .

I had a lovely Moroccan farewell dinner with mbak Widi, Cintya, and Farida. We sat at a Moroccan restaurant called Chomicha located in Kruisstraat. The restaurant was quite cozy with a lovely setting. I ordered a 3-course surprise menu. The chef got to choose the meal(s) for me. They were delicious . The beef tajine was fine. I think Cintya’s kofta tajine was better

I hardly sat in a “real” restaurant here in Eindhoven. I have done it before, only one or two times a year. I decided to do it again since this is my last week in the Netherlands. I just want to treat myself with a really good meal! Alhamdulillah!

I’ve been so busy these past few weeks! Too many things to write but so little time. I’ll resume this project next week, insya Allah

There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you?

– Jalal ad-Din Rumi