it's been a...

Bad Hair Day Dog Hair Day.

Out of those specific acts of effort to express love/gratitude/anger, and with financial damage in mind, this counts in as pretty serious: visiting my ex-dog. Which means seven hours of semi-outback solo driving, a half-kilo pack of Smackos, frazzled nerves, thorough post-visit laundry and a 20-minute session of four-leaf clover hunting.


Bandit is spoilt rotten and rates quite high on my list; I think out of the people I've dated what I've done to him could easily place him ahead of half of them (then again, this fact could be seen in a different light...)

That pretty much sums up a lot of things.

a few days onward

Picking up last post's thread, here is my way of celebrating Christmas...

Operation Desert Kitchen Storm
I cooked an okay amount of desserts in exchange for a full English-style Christmas dinner (with a good measure of cat-stroking thrown in, lucky me.) Thickly-crumbled apple crumble and double chocolate cookies came out of a borrowed oven. Given the oven works well, they are some of the things that are almost always guaranteed to come out of the oven alright without having one to scale and measure every single ingredient to the 1/nth.
The cherry on the cooking cake was the Boxing Day culinary insomnia: waking up at 3AM without knowing why or how, before deciding that there must be better ways of killing time and going back to bed than watching TV or doing something equally mind-numbing. I then proceeded to make a pot of stew which took three hours to cook, before successfully tumbling into bed smelling like lamb stew and waking up at a respectable time.

TV ahoy
Karaoke for the musically ungifted, BBC documentaries and all things illegally possible without the possession of a TV licence. A spillover bonus of the Christmas dinner. Nice.

Glory to God in the high-street
Went to a bookshop to some books, some of them quite nice. Followed by book buying, and quite possibly book returning. Also went to this faux-village high street shopping site (my first time!) for a spot of retail exasperation, with shoppers being mildly rude and sale items strewn on the muddied floor. Yet still this semi-dedicated consuming-worshipper found a number of useful, visually pleasing and fairly priced items.
Ate at Villandry, in my Great Portland Street days a restaurant with nice food and posh aspiration, which turned out to be vile. You see, I had game pie, which turned out to be stew garnished with a circular disk of puff pastry. Wrong.

Anyway, that aside, the novelty of Christmas holiday is wearing off. I'm keen for things to swing back into normal gear.

better keep myself buckled

Back from cruise.
It's something I wouldn't really spend my money on, at least while my knees are still working alright, but I had a relaxing time indeed (thank you parents!) And some girly sisterly pursuits when the conditions are right. (Spare cash: check. Sister: check. Time: check. Language: monkey gestures suffice. My sister said communication will work out when one intends to do commerce.)

On the teaching front, my student's next proposed project initially looks like a leap. She herself wanted to make things she hasn't made before and 'not repeat', which is good on the progressive learning attitude to say the least. The challenge, I suspect, is largely mental for me. It is probably what it feels like if suddenly your kid grows 5cm taller over the night.

And yes, I am still job hunting. Offers?

Take care.

something that went past

The portico entrace to National Gallery is flanked by two Neoclassical-looking stone vases. These vases are filled with fresh flowers.

Today I made my visit there. Again. For the third time this week. (Yes.)

Tonight I just realised the flowers were blooming; they gave off a fragrance that drew me to willingly spend twenty minutes sitting underneath some floral arrangement to enjoy the smell and silhouette. It's a strange realisation that comes only after going there a few times, each time a day after another, that these flowers need to bloom before their fragrances can be sensed.

As for the more mundane details of its visual effects: white fragrant lilies (major contributor to most noticeable smell), garden variety-style white English roses, orange spray flowers, yellow blooms on straight branches, more blooming yellow blooms on smaller branches (that droop down), and plenty of lily foliage forming the mass of green filler as backdrop to other flowers. A seasonally appropriate arrangement in light of the Easter weekend. And sorry, dim museum lighting means no pictures.

On my way home, I encountered an elderly man with a soft woolen cap who was keen to talk to me; I happily obliged. (What I mean by 'old' here is 70-80yo kind of ancient, not the 40-50yo kind.) Nevertheless, whenever I get praised I feel uncomfortable. Being comparatively independent in domestic matters made me get into the autopilot of "I can do it" and "if I don't do it myself/supervise directly/hold a decent amount of control then I'm gonna lose it" problem-dealing principle. Ice this stance with "solve problem myself", and I've got myself a recipe for disaster and breakdowns. Ow. I still find it hard to trust people other than myself. D:

Well, in the meantime: three days left for the Easter weekend, three more days before start of short course, two more days of lent. There is a slow food fair held this weekend at Southbank - it sells spit-roasted pork and lamb (!) which I will come back for on Monday. Although going pescatarian was quite a trick, I think I've outgrown the challenge of staying off certain types of food. A friend confessed to giving up speaking in the first person back in high school, therefore answering for teachers' queries in third person singular... which should be not too weird in English, but apparently quite frustrating to his teachers (they couldn't tell him off for being religious. Ha.)

Anyhoo, it's early days but with the benefit of retrospective sight: happy Easter!

summer 2009 plan

Hello.

I plan to spend my summer in the northern hemisphere this year. It's still unclear whether this means "London", "travel the world" or something else.

I've been getting advices on how to spend my summer this year, namely:

1. Go home
The option I dread the most. I would be way too unproductive in preparation for my third year, not to mention four long-haul flights to get there and back. The saving grace is finding factories for sample production. There's also the chance to test out AirAsia's new London Stansted - KL service (price-wise it's better to book with Emirates or Etihad in January though.) Last year I missed the chance to grit myself with short courses... and given my love of learning, I'd probably skip this option.

2. Take courses across the Channel
I was told to take on a short course in Milan or Paris for networking purposes. Which sounds great, until I worked out the finance part (half of a year's school fees for a three-week short course? Those continentals are nuts.) The execution is, sadly and rather inevitably, shelved due a chronic lack of funds.

4. Work experience
Add another name onto the growing list on CV. Opportunity to network and source HR are greatly increased. Getting the right label to write a reference letter for your is a covetable pearl, but with that comes the shark of getting worked to the bones under a thinly veiled reason of 'training' and 'self-development'. So much for apprenticeship. And you'd think sweatshopping is dead. (Quite the opposite, actually.)

5. Travel to China and HK
For obvious reasons: find factories. Buy fabrics. Stay for free.
(Learn Mandarin phrases above "tuoshao", "xie xie" and "wo ai hong bao" - but they'll arise out of necessity. The Chinese community in London would be pleased with the vocabulary progress.)

6. Holiday travel
Lovely opportunity to relax, but who'd pay for me?

[Well, there was no number 3 and I intend to keep it that way.]

As for the more boring details of life this month... I believe they deserve a post of their own. Coming up soon!

covering unpleasantries

I'm back.

Air travel these days is a source of constant little irritations: those that don't really matter but we moan about anyway because we know the person sitting next to us will emphatise with our woeful experience.

This airline is generally great. I decided to use its services since it offered the best-priced (read: cheapest) deal available for the trip down under currently completed. It serves mediocre food and sold what resembles my favourite raspberry twists, which made me very happy with the cramped seating. That is, until the twists turned out to taste nothing like what they were made to resemble, I got to LAX and gained the curious yet dutiful attention of Dept of Homeland Security for not having a visa for transit.

Before we proceed, I shall duly point out that the beloved green RoI passport of mine is as much a source of amusement as it is of stress. RoI here stands for Republic of Indonesia and not Ireland, as how the term is currently interpreted (just for fun.)
Within it, there are many stamps and colourful hologrammed stickers. Immigration officials are repeatedly presented with an opportunity to brush up on their typing/data-entry skills as the passport's information page is handwritten and therefore non-scannable as most other passports (over 99% from observation) seem to be. Nevertheless, it gives me the perk of being identified as Indonesian and smile smugly (or nervously on occasions) as they fumble through the pages to find the right visa.

OK, back to Homeland Security.
They told me I needed to have a visa to transit.

What?!

Nobody told me so. On previous travels, I have never been asked for a visa to transit within the same airport, not even in nanny state Britain. When previous travels look like 40+ long haul flights and my parents retrospectively inquired in disbelief, it does feel strange indeed. I was told that to transit, I need to get out of the building, take a bus and get to the other side of the airport complex. And that there had been cases of travellers on C1 visa defecting their travel plans and thus illegally living in the States.

Fussy passenger flow management, or questionnable urban planning.
And bad assumption on their behalf: I prefer Melbourne to LA for holidays.

Anyhoo, I ended up not having to worry about waiting too long for the connecting flight. The Border officials are kind enough to show me around, interview me, take sets of fingerprinting and pictures (I wonder if they would hijack my Facebook account and replace the profile picture with a mug shot), being nice generally, being law enforment agencies overall, let me correct one of them, making my transit time enjoyable and memorable, and sue this for making them be so nice to me.

Which brings me to complain point #2: it didn't tell me I need a visa for transit (the global logic being one doesn't need one) (maybe one needs two), it didn't stop me from boarding that flight to LAX, and make me shell out more money in pursuit of returning to London lawfully in time for work experience. The deal that I thought was the best deal turns out to be much more costly than what it claimed to be.

Just for trivia, Homeland Security fined UA $3300 - more than the price of my ticket, but not big enough to get its lawyers worked out over contesting the fine.

But then, that's the corporation.
The people who work in it are fine and fun, and they are better-mannered than those of another US-based airline. (Can't remember which airline it was...) (Maybe it's good not to name names.)

And so does I conclude aforementioned unpleasantries.
More had cropped up between then and now, but my essays are waiting for me. So I'll use my jet-laggedness to do them. Till then! :))

Day 5

Most chronicled stories start with 'Day 1' or something to the effect of starting anew, but I'll start with this anyway... since I'm doing this on Day 5.

The weather was dreary when we landed on Wednesday, but it was quickly replaced with clearer skies (and soaring temperatures) over the weekend. Today it's balmy but not overly hot.

Today is also the last day of bake-off for the year at a certain ceramic cafe. I would most likely try to go there and paint/make something before the year ends, although I'm not fully committing myself to do so.

On the LAX-MEL leg of journey I managed to read through two books; one of them being the notable Animal Farm. If one manages to get past the introductory chapters (which are basically reviews of the book - skip it), the story is a modern-day fairytale with pepperings of socio-political issues. It's a thoughtful book that is at once amusing, and it's short... so go ahead and read it.

Other than that, I found perpetual Arctic sunset to be... strange.
And Arctic night to be of a certain undefinable wash of colours.

So, that is the update so far. Happy Christmas everyone :))

Goldregen

I've got three hours to kill until boarding time.

(After leaving this page to wobble on other minimally value-adding activities, that leaves me with 90 minutes.)

Anyhow, I went to see this woman I met last year at the airport's beauty lounge. I enjoy chatting with her (despite the fact I'm online under the pretext of virus definition update) because Dubai can get prohibitively expensive to enjoy at times. I came across the folks who worked at the free buffet restaurant, who are still extra nice to me... maybe it's because of the hair job :p These are better than roaming through duty free shops, and rank closely with my miss-the-SQ-flight experience nearly two years ago. (Geez, time does fly!)

One funny thing that Mercy (the beauty lounge lady) asked me about is whether I'm a granddaughter of Soeharto. Or, at the very least, comes from a diplomatic family.

Really, do I even have the smell of these kinds of women! XD

I actually intend to blog about more serious things (issues-based as opposed to people-based), but it's not flowing well at the moment... so I'll keep them for later.

Ah, now with barely over an hour left till boarding....... it's time to hit the shops.

(define 'home')

Hi people out there!

This is to let you know I'm back home... wherever 'home' is. I'll be around for approximately four hectic weeks before going back to London.

Small bits of update about life:
- London flat is somewhat deserted as three out of five head for the Far East
- not happy with how I handled my project last term
- not too happy either to have my scissors and awl confiscated by airport security - yes, they are sharp... and so does everyone wears clothes (doh.) Getting new fabric scissors in the near future.
- I find my bedroom to be unusually comfortable and roomy
- traffic in Jakarta is still, well... as per usual. :))

Alright then, have a good day folks! ^__^

(a mentor's musings)

Spike.

I went on a let's-check-this-arty/crafty-shop-out trip today, with a plan of spending an enjoyable evening in the shop... or so I thought.

It was quite interesting, really. Spike first popped in at around 6:30PM looking for lace (this or that or what?) for his t-shirt project. Then, he popped back in at around 8:30PM, out of breath, and just stared at me and one of the shopkeepers - who also happened to sit on the couch - to teach him how to knit. Few facts about him: ten, wants to be a designer (!), has made the aforementioned t-shirt pursuant to his dream career, and mum happens to have an Urban Green meeting in a restaurant around the corner. Aaaaand... he wants to learn how to knit and make fingerless gloves, pronto. Right.

(I haven't even been able to muster enough courage to make mittens, let alone gloves! D8 )

I have taught people on a number of different subjects before, but I find this little man interesting. I tried to make him do some actual knitting instead of merely raving about how fiddly knitting can get. He also wants me to deal with him to make him fingerless gloves once his so-called 'scarf' (basically a long piece of rectangular-shaped cloth) is completed.

Seriously, I find him amazing in an amusing and exasperative manner, as it's a challenge already to get his knitting somewhere. If he did make it as a good fashion designer, I think my musings here would probably appear hilarious to his legions of devotees. Oh well :)) I'm gonna get super-chunky yarns and thick needles, so that he's got something easier to learn to knit with. That is, if he turns up still wanting to learn how to knit next week ^__^

Teaching him how to knit also reminded me of other 'non-academic teaching' ventures I've been through: dancing, sewing, knitting, pattern-drafting. The honour of having the most satisfying student would probably go to a friend of mine who made a quilt for her boyfriend: we set off to buy fabrics with her knowing nothing about sewing, and within less than a month she has completed the so-called quilt on time. I'm not sure whether she'd repeat such a feat in the foreseeable future, but seeing her achieving something perceived as impossible gives off a satisfying feeling on my end of the experience.

Also, there's this picture I posted on myesight. It was taken from an upper gallery at the British Museum. The words inscribed are befitting to this post - here they come:

and let thy feet millenniums hence be set in midst of knowledge

Oh, and by the way, this is the blog's post #200. Yippee! :D

(polo-watching)

Er, I went... to watch polo. All the way to Windsor.


Polo and horse-racing are two horse-related sporting activities that are infused with glamour. I missed out on getting a good ticket to Royal Ascot, so polo seemed to be an appropriate alternative. Horses and WAGs aside, two things separate polo from its more popular cousin: dogs and better-looking players (note the order in which they were mentioned...)


Just before heading off, the sky was cloudy - luckily the day turned out to be sunny and gorgeous. Fresh air, a rarity in London, was abundant. Wearing polo-like stacked heel boots makes sense, as getting stuck in mud while teetering on stiletto is no pleasant business. Spectators were invited to 'turn the ground' at half time to render it more playable in the second half, but several men were employed to turn the ground at the end of each chukka anyway. The competitions yesterday were for the Golden Jubilee Cup and the Coronation Cup.

From what I watched, polo is a dynamic and highly aggressive sport. Eight mounted men (approx half a tonne of flesh plus four tonnes of horses) trying to hit a baseball-sized ball with their own mallets is more physical than twenty-two chasing after a soccer ball. To everyone's horror, a player actually fell off along with his horse on one of the games - he was lucky to be able to resume playing right away!

At the end of day, polo seems to be... interesting, enticing and energetic rolled into one ^__^ I'll probably go watch polo some other time... or go for a picnic in the countryside while summer weather is here :D

(sweet cakes and bitter tea)

Yesterday I went to see a chado demonstration at the British Museum out of curiosity. I have read a lot about how subtleties and prescribed mannerisms create a complex system of 'having tea' (even more so than the English afternoon tea with its hordes of china and silvers), so I was feeling quite confident that this would only be a real-life enactment.

How wrong could I be.


Before I knew it... I was participating: shoes off, name and nationality declared to the public. Probably the audience did wonder whether I was set as a decoy to ensure audience participation (dark hair, pale skin and all.) Every move was courteous, graceful and calculated... I couldn't help feeling like the clumsy duckling in the group. Moreover, I had 'kimono envy' too, as the practitioners were wearing kimono made out of summer's silk gauze - kimono of this type are hard to come across.

An interesting thing to note is higashi cakes were served to sweeten the palate before the bitter green tea is taken. It does make me wonder whether this gesture stems from an apologetic culture, praising and asking for understanding before divulging a perceived bad news. Reasons aside, I like higashi I would love to keep a canister of them in my room ^__^

A tea ceremony could run for hours; yesterday's demonstration ran for thirty minutes. I tried to sit 'the proper way' throughout the ceremony, and was unsurprisingly rewarded with red and stiff ankles. Now I understand why being a chado practitioner is a highly venerable achievement - sitting so still takes so much self-control! ^.^;

Come Fly With Me

I would love to join this adventure just prior to starting my final year project. I initially thought of travelling to North Korea, but Sail Indonesia seems to sound equally fun to me! ^__^

Also, I am going to Cartier International this Sunday. Other than men on horses and the ubiquitous polo shirt, I'm quite clueless on what the game involves, or whether it's a male-only sports. Oh well, there are still a couple of days left to study the game...

Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away
If you can use some exotic booze
Theres a bar in far Bombay
Come fly with me, we'll fly, we'll fly away

Come fly with me, let's float down to Peru
In llama land, theres a one-man band
And he'll toot his flute for you
Come fly with me, we'll float down in the blue

(foggy weather?)

Yesterday I went to this exhibition with Mag and KY before they leave London for summer. A 27-ton tilting stack of hollow metal boxes (assembled Lego-style with nuts and bolts) was one of the main attractions, but the top one was a fog-filled glass box visitors could walk into. I couldn't see objects that were half a metre away inside that box; that was how thick the fog was.

It turned out Mag was mildly athsmatic due to the humidity (the fog was generated from water), and KY was claustrophobic due to fear of bumping into another person (he did bump into two ladies). Here's a little scene a mischievous me created...
KY: "Where are you?"
Me: "Here..." (takes two steps forward)
KY: "I can't find you..."
Me: "Here!" (takes three steps to the right)
KY: "Gosh, stop moving around!"
Me: "Haha, I'm here!!" (run past the source of KY's voice)
KY: *bumps into two ladies*


The catch of going to art galleries is not being allowed to take photographs during visits, but we managed to snap some pictures anyway... thanks for the thick fog inside the box. We also took a picture of the man who stood next to the entrance with health and safety warnings, his hair covered with beads of water. Visit my flickr site for more pictures.

I wish I had one of these rooms at home...

Less than three months to go till school starts.

Whenever Whereever Whatever

I have got quite a lot of things on my mind lately. I really don't like thinking and talking about it, let alone blogging on it, but I feel like I'm going to rot on the inside if I try to make myself seem invincible.

I'm quite disheartened to hear my mom isn't doing too well with her health. This came to me as a quite a shock as she's a woman who excercises almost everyday and looks after herself particularly well (albeit with a tendency of pushing herself too far at times). As far as I could recall, she's always the healthy one at home, save a few occurences when we had food poisoning a year ago (and another one in the States) which usually occurs after we eat too much seafood. For a lot of reasons, this hit to her health is definitely scaring me... my brain runs at a slower rate because of thinking about her. Despite these, I really appreciate my family's openness about what's going on, because I hate to think everything is going well and smooth when everything isn't.

(I'm somehow glad my sister is going back to Indonesia soon, as it means she can look after mom when she's there. She was planning to go back to be with our parents, and the timing couldn't have been more coincidental... I don't quite believe in pure coincidence but hopefully all turn out well.)

I'm currently staying over at my friend Magdalene's place for the Easter weekend. It gives the landlady at home some extra breathing space, and I'm kind of keen to have unlimited showers at Mag's due to the fact her water bill is already included in her rent rates (which are unlikely to increase.)

Mag's apartment is sunny and small, and wasn't exactly interior magazine-prim... it's her 'creative chaos'. Anne and I ended up cleaning up the whole place out of our own initiatives just to make our stay feel nicer... and Mag was definitely pleased when she came home to find her apartment to be pristine and clean (she confessed that the clean state was actually better for her psychological/mental health.) I then realised that staying with that clean-obsessed, clutter-clearing landlady of mine has definitely done something good in terms of making zealously good efforts to be clean and proper. I know I have complained before about how strict she could be with water droplets in the bathroom taps, but I'm glad for her disciplines. It's like living with the headmistress of a finishing school.

On the funnier, more vain side of things, I've got a friend who's going to JRP. She's got a pristinely clean skin thanks to her mother's cravings of avocados when she was expecting, and back in Melbourne I would love to have her kind of skin (even now I still want to.) Also, she's the kind of person you would last ask for lotions or creams. If her class instructor at JRP found out what kind of skin maintenance regime my friend keeps, she's so bound to be shell-shocked... ^__^

I'm heading out to church now. Take care and happy Easter! ^.^

Lead me on girl if you like
Take my heart and my life
Take of me all that you want
And if there's a thing that you need
I give you the breath that I breathe
And if ever you yearn for the love in me
Whenever, whereever, whatever baby
Whenever, whereever, whatever baby

Wish I knew if I could
Be the one that you would
Love forever and a day baby

I Know a Place

Two weeks into the break and already in dire need of sleep.

Last weekend I went to Kent with my friends from church for a weekend away. I had previously thought that I was made for the gorgeous outdoors, albeit with a chic appearance, given my seemingly endless amounts of energy (yea, right.) My romantic notions were squashed when I realised during a walk in the countryside that I detest getting my shoes dirty! .\\//. Nevertheless, the manor we were staying with had some very cool equipments to clean boots with, which was good. They understand getting muddy is a part of life.

(I love paved or stony walkways.)

Secondly, I have been devoting much of my free time to help out a third year student - see past post for explanation. Although I love earning money, it has not been my primary motivation for helping her out; I simply would love to be lent a pair of helping hands when it would be my turn to do my graduation collection. It takes a lot of time, practice and patience to neatly finish a garment. The girl I'm helping out used to work at Alexander McQueen for two years, so she now has an eye for details - and the technician she employs is also a person for details. I'm so blessed to be able to see that every little button and every little way the thread goes through the fabric turns their finishing into a little work of embroidery. Besides, I also get fed a decent dinner before I leave every night... which is good!

Living at home with parents while studying is certainly a blessing. I totally understand that they may turn into nitwits who don't fit the description of 'cool' and 'flexible', but nevertheless they are a great help when it comes to being with you when you're going through a slog in your life. Sure, I can go through life independently, but there are times when I sit back on my bed and wish my parents were around to bother me so that I would move on.

I'm planning to go to Stonehenge on Monday. Between Monday and now, then, what I would do is sleep and rest as much as I can have. I might to go Tate Modern to see the slides. I'm just a kid who refuses to grow up play-wise I love playgrounds ^__^

Lastly, London tube map is a great design invention, but it's highly misleading when it comes to being a guide for pedestrians. I just found out that I live not that far away from a lot of museums, which means more walking on foot and more sightseeing! Plus more exercise for my lazy body. Tee hee hee :))

Have a good day!

When the whole world lets you down
And there's nowhere for you to turn,
'Cause all of your best friends have let you down, do-o-own
Then you try to accumulate
But the whole world is full of hate
So all of your best starts just drift into space

I know a place where we can carry on
I know a place where we can carry on
We can carry on, we can carry on
We can carry on, we can carry on

(one odd spring day)

Cherry blossoms, a herald of spring, were spotted as early as mid-January about 10 minutes away from home in London. They were again spotted late last week as I went around to help out the sewing (see my post on myesight for pictures.) And yet it snowed on Sunday... and Monday... and today. In what order should these natural phenomenons happen anyway? Blame it on climate change if you'd love to, and blame it on yourself for creating carbon footprints (myself included.)

Yesterday (Monday) was supposed to be a relatively snowy day. I was pretty disappointed to wake up to a blue sky. When later in the afternoon a brief snowstorm hit, I frantically tried to capture its images to no avail. But then, I was really lucky today. I went to Anne's place, and the snowstorm hit literally right after I got into her room! Call me a lucky lass if you'd like to ^^ so what we three never-really-lived-in-snowy-seasons girls put our boots and jackets back on, then ran as fast as we could down the stairs and onto the courtyard! Nevermind the chilly bite ^^



Hang on... I was planning to talk about wagashi as well. Due to the fact that the Japanese enjoy imbuing every facet of their lives with seasonality, and also to their love of sakura/cherry blossoms, some very creative people/chefs created what is affectionately known as sakura-mochi. Yes, as its name says, it is mochi made out of sakura.


The variety sold at Minamoto Kitchoan is not tinted pink. Regardless of its colour, it basically consists of a ball of sweet red bean paste that is wrapped with proper mochi (made from mashed-up steamed glutinous rice), which is then wrapped with a salty-flavoured preserved cherry leaf and topped with [yet another preserved bit of] a cherry blossom. It looks properly fancy. It inspires me to hit the store bedecked in a kimono attire that's properly of the season too ^__^

I wonder where I can get these preserved cherry leaves and blossoms... it would then mean I'd be able to recreate sakura-mochi whenever I choose to, although I'd rather reserve it for springtime occasions.

Oh yeah, the preserved cherry leaves and blossoms are also edible. I must be joking.


I also had a bit of fun by playing Monopoly. It turns out proper financial and strategic planning can be easily ruined just as easily as rolling dice. Playing Monopoly also sharpens one's sense of business dealing and bargaining... nevermind the fact that five grown-up Asians are playing at it. While trying to abide to the written rules, we feverishly over-invested on and over-developed our respective plots, and happily gave out soft loans when a renter could not afford the rent... as well as developing various tracts. (The I-pay-peanuts-when-I'm-on-yours-and-you-too-when-you're-on-mine kind of agreements.) It was like there was a secondary money market other than mortgaging properties to the bank. There was simply not enough money circulating in the game while we spent every little pretend cash we had on building hotels. Amusingly, the exercise had an ironic ring that sounds so close to reality. It did dawn on me that the whole banking/financial system that is widely enforced in the world bears the essential spirit of the exacting and calculative Moors (which in turn spread their influence to Europeans.) Probably it was just what I observed; do please correct me when I'm wrong.


At the end of the day, it was one good day... and I'm happy for it ^^
Have a good day, everyone!

(keyboard)

After submission week, the term's last tutorial, about 24 hours sitting nicely in an airplane (or in an airport) and two weeks' worth of holiday... this is my lame attempt at registering my presence on the web.

I still find Jakarta's traffic to be as deadly and chaotic as usual. Yesterday, it took me about an hour to move around two kilometres and do a U-turn on the way to Kelapa Gading. Needless to say, the passengers vetoed their own decision to go out and opted to have dinner at my place instead. One of the good things that came out of the traffic jam was that I got to hit the mattress earlier than I usually do.

Being a gourmand, I naturally have a list of things I would like to eat while I'm on holiday. Most of these have been ticked off the list, and I have scored some unthought-of extras too! :p (there are only three things left on the list.) According to my sister and Poss, I finished half of a martabak telor out of the one we bought yesterday... when I felt more like eating a quarter of it. Geez.

(I wonder what kind of seasonal confections Minamoto Kitchoan has in store for the New Year.)

I have met some of the people I used to work with, and was pretty happy I could actually meet them... but yeah, I do wish there is more time available to be spent hanging around with them. It is normal to expect to spend more time with people you have been in constant contact (especially the ones you meet almost everyday). I still haven't had a lunch of nasi gila with them.

As for my results at school, I scored well in the autumn term. This still means I can't rest on my laurels. Art teachers, frighteningly, have the ability to know that you are not doing things to your fullest abilities, and they stated as a matter of fact that I 'should be able to do three times the amount of work everybody else does'. The comment really means I should work... harder (as well as smarter.)

One last funny thing to mention... I keep pressing the symbol " when reaching for @. It boils down to the placement of symbols on UK keyboards. After all, it seems like I get used to it ^^

Have a happy Christmas wherever you are, and have a good time! Please spend your holidays responsibly :)) Take care.

Ku Ada Di Sini

Thank God for the holiday: thank God for the retreat, thank God for my friends, thank God for the opportunities.

By the way guys, the song lyrics are a bit off the track today, sorry about that.

Tak perlu seribu sahabat
dengan senyum sapa dan hangat cinta
Cukup satu alasan indah
Ku ada di sini.

Carnival

Second blog entry during this holiday. Oooh, life is beautiful.

I went to see DD and had a chocolate with him at MB. The strawberry-topped, chocolate-drizzled waffle was good... ::drool drool:: but nothing beats my Flinders St station waffle guy. At only two bucks plus one dollar of extras apiece (pure maple syrup, fruits, cream, nutella etc), nothing beats this guy's waffles. Belgians sure rock the world with their waffles and chocolates.

Secondly, I had a haircut at the usual place with my beloved David. His hair is just so spunky! It's weird and unusual and not classically refined, but I have to admit that his hair is aesthetically balanced (read: looks plain good.) The more I see him, the more I don't understand how he styles his hair. Anyway, I delegated quite a lot on the choice of hairstyles, and I was curious enough to ask for a 'styling variation of this cut', so I walked out with this on my head:


Okay, it's not exactly what I imagined. It's not a wig, and it's an extra 15-minute treat from David and his assistant. Side effects: I look like some star coming into life straight out of a magazine. Conclusion on haircut: amazed and happy. Expense on haircut: not too happy (now already looking for GHDs.)

Note to MasterCard marketing team: grab a copy of the Melbourne Cup race and watch this guy waving around a MasterCard-lookalike cardboard filled with what he thinks of the race. It goes like this...
Suits: $400
Ticket: $400
Watch Makybe Diva wins the Cup the third time: Priceless
Hey, maybe someone can simply hire this guy for marketing, he's got a witty mind.

I'm looking forward to dance tomorrow; thanks heaps to everybody who help make it happen!

Still concentrating to colour the sketches as they need to be submitted/sent off in a week's time. Life's interesting when there is zest in yours. I believe zest in life is what makes people passionate about themselves and others, and that makes the world goes round. End of philosophical nibbles of thought for now, take care and have a great night!

Carnival came by my town today
Bright lights from giant wheel fall on the alleyways
And I'm here, by my door
waiting for you

I will never know 'cause you will never show
Come on and love me now
Come on and love me now
I will never know 'cause you will never show
Come on and love me now
Come on and love me now
Come on and love me now

I hear sounds of lovers, barrel organs, mothers
I would like to take you down there
just to make you mine
in a merry-go-round

I will never know 'cause you will never show
Come on and love me now
Come on and love me now