Project 365

If we are wasting time and enjoying ourselves we are not wasting time.

— Paulo Coelho

This is so true 🙂 and this is so ME!

Another interesting talk from TED, this time by Adora Svitak about what adults can learn from kids. The fact that kids are so naive and have much less experience than adults makes them dream with no limits and boundaries. As a kid, I used to do that. I used to dream about traveling abroad during the time when my dad had little money to even support us. But who would have thought that few years later, my dad took the whole family to travel around the Middle East. I also used to dream about studying in an English-spoken country when I knew that it was impossible to even talk about it! But who would have thought that I got the opportunity to set my foot in Australia in 2004? It’s amazing.

Now.. moving on to my dream about setting up a school for lower class to middle class Indonesians in Jakarta. I’m no longer a kid, but I still have this dream. Whether or not I’ll be able to realize this dream is another story. But I just need some support from people around me, especially my own family. Mom supports me, of course, but she has this skepticism (as always) and she thinks that it’s very hard and I shouldn’t be too ambitious about it. Now, I don’t like this kind of attitude. Of course, I’m not expecting it to be easy: building a school with cheap tuition fees but high class teachers… who would think that it’s going to be easy? But positive attitude (including trust) and continuous support is all I need, and that makes me want to dream more, feel motivated, and try harder. I don’t think I mind if I don’t get to reach my dream, but as people say… the experience and the journey to reach such dream is what makes a difference.

If I look back to my life, I realize that high expectations and trust from my parents is the reason how I get into this milestone of my life. I do think my parents place a very high expectation on me, as the oldest child in the family, but if they don’t do that, I’d probably end up doing Bachelor degree in an ordinary university and doing ordinary job. As a person who will end up being a parent later, I’d place a high expectation on my kids too later on. But perhaps I’d take a different approach from my parents. I’d give them freedom to do what they really want and continuously support them without forcing them to be on top of the world every single time. I don’t know how exactly I’m going to approach this, but like I said… I have all these exciting ideas about teaching and educating my kids and I have to read a lot of parenting books… 😀

I had a decent day today. I was so excited to meet him again and spend time with him for the whole day, but got really disappointed when he cancelled it in the last minute 🙁 I couldn’t say anything when it came to family, so I let it go. It does seem like I haven’t met him for weeeeks already! But I’ve only met him last Monday! Grrr… He promised to come on Wednesday… so I hope there won’t be any cancellations!

Thankfully, Ari was still at home when he told me he couldn’t come and I told her to stay. Qonit and Reyhan then came over and they brought us some foods! 😀 At least, I didn’t have to cook today (I was expecting him to cook for me! :D). I had another interesting girl talks with Ari, as usual. It’s fun!

Ari and I are planning to go to Utrecht to Jessie’s place next Saturday. We’re planning to sleep over and have girl talks for alllllll night loooonggg! Hahaha. Then we’re gonna go to Lisse to see the tulip fields 🙂 Gonna be exciting! I’m planning to meet up with Maureen tooooo…. Miss her too much!

Isn’t she an adorable baby? Allow me to introduce one of my favorite babies, Mentari who always brightens up people’s day 😉 Today was her 4 months birthday, but unfortunately, she was a little bit sick 🙁 Ari, Jessie, and me came over to visit her. It’s always refreshing to see her. And even… to see her smiling picture. I love it!

Today, Ari and I went to Helmond, a city about few minutes from Eindhoven. Jessie picked us up by car and we then went there to visit mbak Dina, who has just given a birth to a baby boy, Jethro. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of him 🙁 I forgot!

We also went to the castle (pictured) and walked around and had really nice girl talks! Having girlfriends is very important, indeed! We also talked about how hard it’s for Jessie, who’s a Dutch-Indonesian to be in Indonesia. Being a “bule” (westener / foreigner) is annoying; as she always receives too much attention from the people around her and the strangers. Indonesian people look “highly” on the westeners and the result is that, western people receive much better treatment than the local people. That’s what mbak Dina said to us. She tried acting as someone who came from the US (who couldn’t speak Indonesian at all) when she was shopping in the mall. And what happened was that, she got the attention from 3 salespersons who were so kind to help her (would it happen to us, the ordinary Indonesians?!?). Well, I bet not.

Anyway, after hours of girl talks and interesting conversation, we were invited to have dinner at Jessie’s house. It was a fun day! A total full day! Ari and I arrived at home around 10.30pm and we talked and talked for hours until around 3am! Phew! Girls just can’t stop talking when they’re together 😉

Finally. Finished the Knowledge Management report, alhamdulillah. Went to teh Rita’s place after 2 weeks of absence (due to trip and illness). Helped mas Umar with his C# webservice project…

Somehow, there’re too many things to be thankful for 🙂

My good friend Ari has been sleeping in my room for 2 days now. We’ve been talking, talking, and talking… updating each other about our life. The last time I saw her was right after the German road trip. So it’s been two months already!!!

Today she told me that I looked much happier. She even observed that the way I told her about him was very different with the way I told her about some other guys that I had involved with. I was like, what?!?! 😀 Hahaha.

Well. Perhaps, it’s still fresh from the oven. I’m still on the “exciting” phase. I’m like a new-born baby! 😀

Life is great, alhamdulillah.

Glad to be healthy again! For the past few days, I’ve been very very very sick. In the beginning it was just a sore throat. But then it got worse and worse. The headache came. The fever got through. My throat didn’t get any better. It was really painful! I couldn’t get out of my room for few days. I was very weak. I was on bed for the whole day. Being sick without anyone by your side (i.e. family) was the worst thing about living alone.

But alhamdulillah. I’m blessed that some people came to visit. Teh Rita & Mas Umar brought me some foods during the time when I really ran out of foods 🙂 Jimmy came over to bring me some lemons for my throat. Agni came too; though he came for the purpose of his paper, but he was kind enough to do some small shopping for me. Ian also took care of me for almost the whole day. Thank you all! 🙂

It really is hard to keep up with this project during the time like this, when I’m sick or when I’m out of the country. Well, the truth is that I enjoy doing it and I’m not going to stop. But perhaps, there will be some holes and I’m going to try not to create them anymore. Hehehe. I’ll try.

Every time I look into your eyes I know how much you care about me. And how much you want me to be happy. And every time I am with you I can feel the warmth that I’ve been longing to have.

We are destined to be apart. But I want you to stay and just be my friend. Nothing else.

I watched Mariah Carey’s 1995 concert at Madison Square Garden over and over again today. I had been a big fan of Mariah ever since I heard her famous song, Hero, when I was in elementary school. I fell in love with the song instantly. Since then, I listened to her songs, bought all her albums, and watched her video concerts. I even recorded all of her interviews on MTV.

I’m still a fan now, though not as much as I was previously. She still is one the best female singers. But her voice has changed. Her style has changed. Her music genre has changed. The way she sang changed. And for some reasons, it isn’t as good as before. I’ve watched her recent live performances for many times and I can say that Mariah is not able to sing high pitch songs like she usually did. She has difficulties to sing some of her old songs. She also has some problems with her emotion, I’d say. Her emotion and her songs do not connect anymore. At least that’s how I feel.

Anyway, this video shows one of the songs performed by Mariah and Boyz II Men at her 1995 concert. It’s called “One Sweet Day”. It’s one of my favorite songs!!! The song is about the loved ones who has passed away. It’s a sad song!! Enjoy!

“And I know you’re shining down on me from heaven…”