(count the blessings)

I haven't been trawling the virtual world's periphery on a regular basis for quite some time now. This means a few missed appointments (mainly those listed/arranged/managed on Facebook), but I'm somewhat happy with the lack of internet access. It means more time to do domestic tasks and study.

Despite the study pressure that's been building up in the past few weeks, I am not too worried about it. Yes, I do care about my academic progress a lot. Yes, I care about how my future career will turn out. But, study/career is not the only thing that matters in life. There are a few things that hold my life together.

This blog evokes powerful thoughts about how ungrateful of life we can get (myself included.) So, here are a few things I am grateful of:

1. I can still eat properly, sleep well, and have enough money to buy fabrics for school work.
2. Not having to worry about waking up the landlady/resident next door because of late night studies.
3. I am going home in two weeks' time - whoo hoo!
4. I can drive around Jakarta easily and sort out my lists of 'things to do' and 'things to buy'.
5. My housemates are cool - they ain't angels, but they're okay.
6. The opportunity to save hundreds of £££ because of the situation I am in right now (yay! talk about blessing in disguise, or the cloud's silver lining)
7. That things that do not not sound logical still make sense and can work.
8. I am... online. Which means I am able to share how blessed I am, and how happy I'm really supposed to be! :D

Okay, folks. That's it for today. Have a great day :))

Dear God

I have truly moved into the new flat.

So far we've got some small scuffles and arguments - mostly minor (i.e. carrots versus mushrooms, who uses the bathroom at what times of day, which pasta to buy). The whole experience of living together with [good] friends and some people I haven't known before is a bit like marriage. It can get stressful when relationships are strained and people respond out of spite, but it couldn't get much better when we get along well.

I quite like it, too, when my housemates 'visit' my room for a chat. It's been a while since I lived in a house of young people. The general state of mess can get irritating at times, but it's not something we can't work on.

There's still no internet connection at home, but it's relatively little inconvenience to lug my laptop to school.

...I bet that's pretty much all I've got to say for now. I'm getting by okay.
Take care! ^__^

P.S. nice song.
P.P.S. feeds can now be emailed to you - check the feeder section.

Dear God
I don't understand
What you're doing
If You're real and you're in control
You must see the path we're choosing

And I don't understand
but somehow I believe
it's all in your hands

Yeah but I don't believe in a God who gives
more of his love to those who say they believe
And I've read your book and I think it says
it's not what you say but it's how you live

(#39)

Due to the lack of internet connection at my new place (whoo-hoo!), I have been getting my fix at school... when the facilities are open. Actually, it does give me less reason to spend my time looking at Facebook or some other random sites to kill valuable time...

I was curious enough to try out the latest new-in-town addition to body fragrance maniacs.
Interestingly, Le Labo also sells an olfactory training box (akin to wine sommelier training kits according to the saleswoman)... which offers 40 pure perfume oils. Forty! Now that's a lot of smells to explore. Let's say I happily spent half an hour chatting and sniffing all manners of scents that wafted out of the bottles.

Some of the things I learnt from this curiosity-sparked road trip are:
- 'grapefruit' smells nice
- there is no such thing as an existing natural apple smell; it has to be synthetically created in a lab
- the best sandalwood, clove and patchouli oils come from Indonesia (yay!)
- however, it's almost impossible to get natural sandalwood oil nowadays due to deforestation concerns

The post's title is, aptly enough, the most interesting scent of all.
39 was the number for civet.
(Apparently, I sniffed it.)

Alright then, have a good day! ^__^