Project 365

It was a tiring and fulfilling day for me. I have just came back from an ifthar  gathering with an Indonesian community here. I was one of the seksi sibuk (people who are busy because they’re in charge of the whole event). I was standby from 2pm til the end of the gathering! Helping to cook, clean, re-arrange, distribute the foods, and of course eat them! Though I was very tired by the time I reached home, I always loved to help :). It made me happy, somehow.

There were about 25 people came to the gathering. The foods were plenty! And they were so delicious! Again, I ate too much that my stomach complained all the time. I won’t eat again for sahur. It’s enough.

🙂

Literacy unlocks the door to learning throughout life, is essential to the development and health, and opens the way for democratic participation and active citizenship.

— Kofi Annan

… the most revered example of reconciling leadership is Nelson Mandela, who invited the men who guarded him in jail to his inauguration as president of South Africa, put leaders who had supported apartheid in his cabinet and set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to give people who had committed crimes during the apartheid era the chance to avoid imprisonment by confessing. Mandela decided that the only way he or the people of South Africa could be free to face the future was to let go of the past. Because of all that he had suffered, he had the credibility to do it.

— Bill Clinton in Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World

To be honest, I didn’t know much about Nelson Mandela, except that he was thrown into prison due to his anti-apartheid activities. So when I read this, I thought, “Wow!”. He’s indeed amazing! I should definitely read his autobiography.

Here are some statistics related to texting while driving in the States:

• Of all cell phone related tasks – including talking, dialing, or reaching for the phone – texting while driving is the most dangerous
• For every 6 seconds of drive time, a driver sending or receiving a text message spends 4.6 of those seconds with their eyes off the road. This makes texting the most distracting of all cell phone related tasks.
• Texting while driving is about 6 times more likely to result in an accident than driving while intoxicated
• 28% of traffic accidents occur when people talk on cell phones or send text messages while driving

I’m just concerned towards Indonesian people who can’t take their hands off their mobile phones… 🙁

Taken from here and here.

Found this group on Facebook and I thought I put up some points that I really like and that apply to me here 😀 (And I edited some)

So… You know you’ve been in the Netherlands for too long when…

• Walking from your faculty to the cafeteria has become unimaginable. You take your bike, even if it’s for 50meters
• Eating 7 slides of bread for lunch doesn’t scare you anymore
• You think 15°C is warm
• You don’t remember what a mountain looks like
• You still don’t know how to speak Dutch. But your English has improved. You don’t even bother to ask "do you speak English?", you just speak English right away
• You always check the weather before leaving home
• You have 4 seasons in one day
• You know that kapsalon is not a typical Turkish dish, but a hairdresser
• You can ride your bike in the rain, wind and even snow
• You “wash” the dishes with a detergent without rinsing them
• You go to the market and you only buy the stuffs that fit in you bike
• You have mastered the art of riding a bike and drinking coffee/smoking/eating lunch at the same time
• You understand why they don’t serve coffee at a coffeeshop.

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

A soul mate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master…

— Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

When love and respect have evaporated, what more do I have left for you, really?

One evening with Jessie resulted in this “nice” conclusion:

He is an a**h***. He is not worth it for you. And you deserve someone much better than him.

… and some disagreements and arguments, of course :D. Such a nice evening! Hihihi. A slap in the face is all I need now 🙂

I met a fellow blogger, Rahmah, who was one of the winners of the 2010 blog competition organized by Nuffic Neso Indonesia. She got an opportunity to attend a summer course at the Universiteit Utrecht for two weeks. So cool, isn’t it?

I realized that it was the first time for me to meet her after having to visit and comment on each other’s blogs for YEARS! 🙂

Going by the numbers of people affected, the disaster is worse than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake combined, the U.N. says.

— Yahoo! News

Help is needed now! 🙁