An Exciting Week

The weather in Bandung hasn't been very friendly this past week. For the last few days thunder storms have resulted in flood and street damages everywhere in the city. Some of our students couldn't even come to the lesson because a huge tree had fallen across one of the main streets on Wednesday. Luckily, it hasn't rained cats and dogs in two days. But even as I'm writing now, the temperature has gone down to the point where I need to wear socks and a thick sweater even after all the windows have been shut.

It doesn't really matter how the weather is, though, because despite the downpour, it has been a good and exciting week. First, my big sister got married yesterday! It was also the first time I became a bridesmaid, and my, being in charge of the wedding dress was much more tiresome than I had thought! The party went well, the food served tasted better than it had been at the food testing two weeks earlier, and I was excited to meet my big family, my mom's old friends and, unexpectedly, an ex-student I haven't seen in years, who turned out to be one of the dancers. It was so good to see them again. I only wish that I had had more time to catch up with them. I did manage to find time to take some shots with my dad and my other sister before the party, though.

I also hung out with one of my best friends, Nat, last Sunday. We had a great lunch at my favorite cafe, and afterwards, a nice afternoon walk and chat in the nearby mall. And we bought books! I bought two, out of a few I was tempted to buy. The first one is the first book of Supernova by a great Indonesian author, Dee. I read the novel for the first time when I was still a teenager and borrowed it from a local book rental, but never finished it. Now that I have bought the book, I will enjoy the whole story, and maybe buy the sequels. The second book I bought was the latest work by my favorite author Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra, which I have wanted to buy since last year. I couldn't resist but to read it as soon as I got home and finish it overnight. The book, as it is with any of Coelho's work, is an inspiration and wisdom wrapped in delight. A highly-recommended book for anyone. Here I insert an excerpt of the book as was introduced in the author's blog:

Does a leaf, when it falls from the tree in winter, feel defeated by the cold?

The tree says to the leaf: ‘That’s the cycle of life. You may think you’re going to die, but you live on in me. It’s thanks to you that I’m alive, because I can breathe. It’s also thanks to you that I have felt loved, because I was able to give shade to the weary traveller. Your sap is in my sap, we are one thing.’

Does a man who spent years preparing to climb the highest mountain in the world feel defeated on reaching that mountain and discovering that nature has cloaked the summit in storm clouds? The man says to the mountain: ‘You don’t want me this time, but the weather will change and, one day, I will make it to the top. Meanwhile, you’ll still be here waiting for me.’

Does a young man, rejected by his first love, declare that love does not exist? The young man says to himself: ‘I’ll find someone better able to understand what I feel. And then I will be happy for the rest of my days.’

Losing a battle or losing everything we thought we possessed will bring us moments of sadness, but when those moments pass, we will discover the hidden strength that exists in each of us, a strength that will surprise us and increase our self-respect.

Wait patiently for the right moment to act. Do not let the next opportunity slip.

Take pride in your scars. Scars are medals branded on the flesh, and your enemies will be frightened by them because they are proof of your long experience of battle. Often this will lead them to seek dialogue and avoid conflict.

Scars speak more loudly than the sword that caused them.

Another of my best friends, Silvia, is coming back home for holiday during her master study in China. I haven't seen her in over two years, and this time, we have promised to hang out, also with Nat, just like the old college days! It's been such a long time since the three of us got together, and I'm so excited!

I also got a chance for another movie with a friend on Thursday. It was Jackie Chan's latest action movie, Police Story 2013, which is entertaining despite a few scenes of long conversations and its absence of comedy.

I am now going to enjoy the rest of the night reading over a cup of hot chocolate, and maybe also staying up late, as tomorrow is Maulud, which is a national holiday. Just before I end this post, let me share with you another interesting thing - or two. This time, it deals with photography. Thanks to Instagram, I got amazing pics to kill the time with while waiting for a make-over before the wedding party yesterday. These two are my favorite:

Wishing you an exciting week as well,

Here's To Dreaming and Striving

Friday, January 03, 2014

Hello, everyone. How’s your new year so far? I hope we all welcome this new chapter with more spirit and enthusiasm in our hearts.

I’m not a party-goer, not even on New Years, so probably like some of you, I welcomed the New Year at home with family, embracing the coziness inside while out there fireworks spluttered cheerfully and trumpets were blown. Unfortunately for Kayla, who doesn’t seem to understand the idea of New Years and why fireworks and trumpets are fun, it was a pretty much terrifying night with irritating noise. For the rest of us, however, It was a simple celebration with Ronde Jahe, a kind of Chinese as well as Javanese hot dessert containing glutinous rice balls floating in sweet ginger, which I helped Mom make. And after greeting my dear friends online, I spent the first two hours of 2014 watching a rerun of X-Men The Last Stand on a national TV channel. The movie is pretty cool.

I’ve made it a habit on new year’s day to look back on the previous year and to see what changes it has brought into my life. It’s a good way to reflect and be grateful. So, before going to sleep on the first day of the year, I looked back on 2013, and despite some bumps, big and small, it was a good year to me. It is the year when I finally got my own bedroom and had a little Christmas tree in the house. It is also the year when I met new friends and was reunited with some old ones, and is surprisingly the year when one of my best friends and both of my sisters decided to get married! 2013 also continuously reminded me that we need to let some things go in order to get better ones, and when we’re too stubborn to do so, life does it for us, sometimes in a way which we are upset about at first, but which we will end up being grateful for. I had to lose all my data in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, which was my favorite game and which I had spent months completing, when a student of mine accidentally uninstalled it, in order to finally free up some space in my phone to be able to install Instagram, which I had always wanted to try. And later in December, I had to lose most of my data, including some valuable notes I had written, when something was wrong with my phone and I needed to hard reset it, in order for it to perform much better now.

For the first twelve days of my Christmas holiday, I had to spend each day going out and being busy preparing for my sister’s wedding. After the New Year, however, I finally got the chance to enjoy my time just staying at home and relaxing. In fact, I’ve been spending most of the first two days in 2014 happily catching up with movies I have always planned to watch, like Turbo, which I watched with my sister. There is a quote I love from the movie: “No dream is too big, and no dreamer too small.” It is a quote needs remembering, especially for us grown-ups who, with our richer knowledge and experience of life, have learned to put logic above all and have often forgotten that the impossible happens to those who strive. No dream is too big, my friends, and no dreamer is too small.

I also finally got the time to read the online articles I have Pocket-ed, and was reminded again that the most important thing in nourishing our creativity is to just show up. This is one of my New Year’s resolutions, as it always is every year. We all have that creative spark in us flaming since we were kids – either it’s finger painting or simply coloring the walls with crayons, either it’s paper folding or lego building, or gardening, or writing poems or simply making some puns, either it’s cooking ending up with horrible omelets or even just some tunes for a great-song-to-be. And somehow, some of us ignore the spark or put it out with self-doubt and fear, which is often disguised in excuses about family or work, or worse, we let others extinguish our spark with criticism. Beauty, as is any work of art, lies in the eyes of the beholder. Only because your art teacher gives your drawing an E, or your friends say that your music sucks, or that you are a horrible cook, doesn’t mean that you should stop trying. If it gives us joy, why not do it for ourselves and ignore what other people say? Writer Isabel Allende said, “Show up. Show up. Show up. In the end, the muse might show up, too.”

I also learned that my favorite football club, Chelsea, finished their first match in 2014 with a 3-0 away victory against Southampton, which is a sweet way to mark the beginning of the New Year, and is hopefully one of the many more victories to come.

The New Year has been really hopeful, and hopefully we can continue to help make this old world an even more hopeful one. Happy 2014, everyone! Here’s to dreaming and striving.