I'm eating air. Hap. Hap.
Getting it inside my stomach. Hap. Hap.
Refusing to come out. Hap. Hap.
Growling inside, eating every bit of room of my belly.
Bloating and bloating
Till almost blow.

Minyak kayu putih and mother's hand rub are the remedy. Or sleeping with back on top could be another option.

Press the tummy. Press the tummy.
Get the air out. Puff. Puff.
Release me from this torture.

7:25 pm

Listening to: Kool Moe Dee - Go See the Doctor
Reading: Ingenuo (so damn funny and deep)
Learning: Personality Plus; Making a Game with Flash (failed); PHP
Mood: Cheerful

Saturday, 21 August 2004

Finally, leisure time! I planned to sleep a lot on that day but I woke up at 4 instead. Grr.. I didn't really mind, though, since I got the chance to poop easily (normally I don't). I couldn't sleep again so I just played Hotel Giant. I made a new hotel called Karimun, and it is pretty successful. :)

11:00 I had a date with Nyo and Pyor to browse for digicams at about 14:30, so I thought taking a nap for an hour or two would refresh me a bit from waking up too early on my day off.

An hour or two became 3 hours. And I was already pretty late for our meeting, except that I took a taxi; but I chose not to. I felt pretty poor lately and tried to be wiser on the money issue. So I skipped the shopping rendesvouz and promised to come for swimming at 17:00. I did come, though late, to find that the water was freezing cold at the swimming pool and the hard wind made it worse! I didn't dare to come back into the water after my first try, but when everyone was heading back for swimming, I became more rational. I already paid Rp 17,500 so I'd better do something to make it worth.

The water was not very cold at the shallow part. Nyo was trying to teach me again to swim. "The water is salty", she said, "so it should give you the confidence that you were not going to get drown." True, but I just got so many excuses to avoid it. I tried to convince myself: if I could swim in the sea of Karimun Jawa, why couldn't I do that then?

Nyo's old swimming tutor took over to teach me the basic conditions of swimming. Because he is a complete stranger to me, I didn't complain as much as I did to Nyo. Hehe.. Miracle happened, though. I made a big progress by getting myself the right way of moving my legs and I learned the rythm of breathing. Another male swimming tutor started to teach me in a few moments later. Though what he taught was kinda similar to Nyo's tutor, there was one different theory he was teaching me, which made me confused. I felt a bit uneasy cause I felt that these people were taking advantage of touching my body. :P I tried to forgive it, though, since I also took the advantage of learning to swim freely.

Another swimming gathering with workmates at Atlas

Sunday, 22 August 2004

I woke up early again. Shit.

I should teach Ian that day, at 15:00 and later in the evening I've got a movie-outing with Denni and Rina. So again, I played a game, thought that I should sleep for a little while and woke up late again!!! Man. I called Ian, changed the lesson hour to 16:00 and told Denni and Rina that I couldn't be at the theater at 6, so regretfully I cancelled our meeting. I promised my mother, though, to take her to watch The Village on Tuesday. She is very fond of horror movies.

Ian was very good at our debate about Rap is an Art. I was very happy that he did it well. It was just the matter of the perfect topic; considering that he is a big fan of Eminem and hip hop music.

After teaching, I went to TP to see Rina. I took bemo and bus that drove me to another (wrong) direction. I was pretty annoyed since I already asked the kondektur if it went to TP and he said yes. It did not! I hopped out on Jalan Diponegoro and had to take a becak to the other side of the street. Ppppffff.. Well I was waiting for my bemo to TP when I saw these cars were parking at Apotek Kimia Farma Darmo, but not visiting the drugstore itself. Instead they were sitting in front of the building eating bakso. It should be very delicious, I thought. So I decided to also sit there and ordered a portion of bakso. It WAS nice. :))

The hangout with Rina was nice. We went to Gramedia and bought some reading materials; me disney comics (sale sale sale). We talked a lot, gossipped a lot.. Just perfect!

I went home and prepared for a bed when I felt the need to call ME. He was on the train that was about to pass the tunnel that our connection had to break off. He called me back a few minutes after and we chatted about his mother's birthday and how he wanted to tease her by giving her an uitje (uit-je = outing), but instead he was bringing an uitje (ui-tje = onion). Hehehe. He's still as crazy as ever. :D

I had a nice sleep.

7:15 pm

Woman - The Most Intelligent Creature

I was talking to Veve when she was driving me to the office this noon. I paused to see what her expression was to hear my story when I saw her typing sms on her mobile phone while driving. I was suddenly freaked out and asked her to stop doing that. She said it was alright. She just glanced to the cell screen once in a while to see if she typed right. Still.. it was our precious life I was worrying about. You never know what could happen. I can tolerate calling while driving for you can just talk. But typing is a different case.

Nevertheless, I'm always amazed in how well a woman can manage to do some things at the same time. In that example above, Veve was (1) listening to me, (2) driving, (3) thinking of what she should type in the sms, and (4) the typing itself. Just like when I was still working at CDU, I was typing on the computer with my left hand, calling and trying to convince a potential student by sticking the phone handle between my ears and shoulder and typing an sms for my friend with my right hand. Marvellous!

Patience, Strong Feeling, Love

Talking in Indonesian term, who can love as best as our women? In the old times, even still now though not as many, men are free to take more than one wife. The wives should live happily and get along with one another. I watched a contest of Which Men Get the Most Wives a while ago on TV and shuddered. Each contestant - the man is usually an old rich guy - was so proud to show off their merry joyful marriage life and boasted on how well the wives communicate with one another and patiently wait for their "turn" to get the husband's affection.

Now now, that is absolutely obnoxious to me. But at the same time, I do respect people's cultures and beliefs, though in any way I can ever logically regard, it will never be fair for the women, to be such inferiors. My admiration, in the other hand, really goes to those ladies' patience and strong feeling and love for the man they respect (I have to admit that there might be other reasons beside love and feelings to hold on to such life). Cause I know I can never accept that in my own life.

Women = Fairer skin

My mind might be a strange sample of Indonesian women's thought. Let's take the colour of the skin as an example. Most girls and women care a lot about making their skin "whiter". Many whitening cosmetics products have been launched continously these past few years to meet the female customers' demand of a whiter fairer skin. Good strategy, of course, since these women are really dying to have less Asian skin. But I really can't apply it to myself!

Face it, we live in a tropical country with the sun shining all year long. We are blessed with nice tan brownie skin to protect us from skin cancer of having too much sunlight. We don't get to feel an extreme freezing cold like what the countries in the other side of the world have in winter. But why do we, especially women, always fuss about the sunlight gets through the glassy window of the car or house? Why do we wear jacket to the hot beach and cause ourselves to sweat heavily? Why can't we think that our colour is sweet and exotic as hell? Why don't we just accept ourselves as we are blessed to be?

My tan after vacation.

I'm happy with myself. I don't think I'm an inferior and that I should meet general people's expectation of beauty. I do care about skin's health, but I also consider my own pleasure. When I want to enjoy the sun's warmth and earth's beauty with my own eyes by laying on the beach, I'll do it. Doing that already made me extremely blessed that I live.. I breathe.. I enjoy.. and feel peace.

Appreciate what you have got first, then you can really appreciate yourself.

8:07 pm

I'm back, Nasty World!!! I had a great fun in Karimun Jawa and though my main intention of escaping there did not work very well, I've got just an excellent adventure ever! I achieved something, I think. The courage of being friends with deep water and knowing its beauty down there. Vomitting on the way there seemed to be paid off when I got to see the real paradise. :)

I've not been feeling too good to work these past two days. School becomes painful and sucks. Excellogix bores me a little, except that the fact that I can meet my dear dear friends there. I've boasted a lot, eaten a lot, pooped a lot (wahahaha.. different behaviour of my original unbalanced nature urge schedule). Good thing though, except that I'm feeling fatter and fatter each day. But.. who cares? As long as I'm still myself, I'd get nothing to complain.

Feeling like flirting lately. Anyone available? :D

8:24 pm

Where did we go wrong, baby

Did this cold, cold world turn us into stone

Well Now all I battle is your ego and your pride

It's ticking like a time bomb

Ready to ignite

Hurt me to fight

So who's gonna rescue us from ourselves

When we gonna wake up (wake up)

[Wake up - Alicia Keys]

It has finally been decided. I'm moving on.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahaha

How I love hurting myself like this.

I am leaving for Karimun Jawa islands tonight. Yeah, that's what I need. Escape. *Whistle whistle* I'll probably drink just much alcohol and fuck a cute guy and swim myself all the way to the blue blue ocean.

Yeah well.. Pyor will be there, so she can be my stabilizator or whatsoever. I'll owe her much later.

Damn, it's already 6 something and I'm gonna have to leave at 8 and I STILL have not got any replacement for my teaching at St. Clara on the 18th!!! Idiot teaching job! I'll sure quit!!!

6:05 pm

There's a whispering wind, I feel it inside

Like a place I can feel but never will see

Let a whisper come touch you, come touch every thing

I stand in the way of the things I can be

[Maby - Whispering]

Last weekend was fun. Saturday I slept the whole day, just.. till Rina called for 2 hours in the afternoon. I went to her house then, watched some series of kung-fu movies she rented, slept over and went back almost noon the next day. I stayed only an hour to clean myself for then left home for a karaoke time with website workmates. The event was fun and singing did relieve some of my stressful thoughts.

In the mean time, I was thinking. I questioned many principal things about life, reviewed my almost 25 years journey, analyzed what I have done so far and got scared off of the fact that I'm supposed to be more serious in things. I've felt that I need more privacy, one thing I can barely get at home. I've felt the need to absolutely perceive that my things really belong to me, and not other people. I've felt like being free. I felt like being loved. I felt like..

But I've my bound at home. My beloved mother.. brother.. Zwartje and Kabuki..

This morning I felt a bit fresher than these past 3 days (only a bit, huh). I decided to postpone my thinking fase, or say.. postpone getting the answers. Tried to relax on my free-teaching day. Rubbed masker on my face (after half a year?). Cleaned and sorted some of my small things. Played computer games. Read novels Rina lent me. Slept. Ate. Played with Kabuki.

I decided to take more care of myself. Spoil me more. Get me some vacation soon (not yet known where to go though). Just.. let me out of my riddles for a moment.

Yes, for a moment, please.

5:37 pm

[Instrumentalia - Dzihan Kamien - Homebase]

I love Friday.. but also hate it. In one side Fridays always give a sort of relieved feeling that it's the end of the workdays of the week and tomorrow I can dream in my bed a bit longer. In another side, I'm always pretty stressed up with all the works load and mind burden that I may have not done good enough.

Well.. I just led a knowledge sharing [an activity that is done twice a month at my website office]. It was alright though I was not satisfied. I got the evening turn, that's why. There are not so many people working in the evening and there were like only 4 persons attending it, and only 2 of them are really practicing what I explain. It was about making a website layout with Adobe Photoshop. I really thanked Vanie, Jussie and Anton for paying attention on my tut. Love you guys.. Oh and also Alex, though he did it whilst working. I thought I would see some familiar expected faces in my tut, but....

Looks like my hard work came into nothing.. Yeah well.. whatever..

Who really cares? Who really cares when I talk? What I feel? What I say?

Nobody not really

Who wants to take the time to find a stand?

[Alicia Keys - Nobody Not Really]

In overall, this was not a very good week. On Wednesday I bumped my head to the wall (yes, accidently) at BCA, I broke 2 pairs of my high-heel shoes two days in a row, I had a kind of clash with my boss (first, and hopefully the last), a mess in my class cause 2 students threw up.. whatelse whatelse..

Well I'd better not remember those or I'll suffer in my weekend. The week was not super bad afterall, I've got Alicia Keys' newest CD from Nyo Nyo today so it should cover my disappointment.

No dinner tonight.

5:54 pm

Listening to: Nancy Sinatra - Bang Bang.

This is a fine Monday. My mother woke me up at about 5 a.m. as usual, asking me if I was better from my sore eyes and if I went to teach. I answered no, and continued sleeping. I was chatting with the mischievous love in the middle of the night to 2:30 and he suggested me to take a Bleidag to rest my eyes. I agreed to take a break in teaching, so I sorta enjoyed the relaxing morning.. until Michelle cried loudly when she was bathed.

I woke up and remembered that I promised to bake some brownies for Michelle's one month old celebration and A Lung's birthday. I bought some kacang mede and Blue Band the day before so I prepared all the needed ingredients and started working. Baking was always fun. I finished it just in time before leaving for work and brought with me some chocolate snack A Lung brought from Tarakan to share with my beloved colleagues.

Target of last month could be handled very well at last and I was a bit relieved. So the day went by smoothly, until I got 5 emails from Rusty containing summaries of my old emails I sent him when we were still together [yeah he was trying to make me remember our old happy times].

1st email received. Oh..
2nd at 3 minutes later. OK..
3rd at the seventh minute after. Well..
4th coming up shortly afterwards. Getting pissed off..
5th. Losing patience!

I replied the 5th email with a short one:
Could you please stop it??? It's annoying.

Veve was urging me to go for dinner at just the same moment, so I left my computer and tried to get some fresh air in my lungs to cool me down.

Back from dinner, 3 new emails were awaiting. All from him. The first two were alright. But the third one just made me really cross! He went crazy saying that I did all the shitty things to him and I should stop being mean coz all he meant was for good. He cursed, prescribed good logical love tricks that I should do; i.e. find a better man as any other smart girls would do, and told me that I should be just much nicer to the people who love me.

I took a whole deep heavy breath and inquired myself not to answer that email at the very moment; instead getting Veve and Shierly into a personal conference, digging second and third opinions about this sensitive matter. A half an hour later I made up my mind what I should tell him, trying to be less emotional and collected, I sent an email back to him; asking him politely to apply those "suggestion" he generously gave me to himself. I told him I appreciated everything he did but at the same time reminded him that it was already a then. It was beautiful alright, and I never meant to forget everything we'd been through, but even if I don't get the love I wanted from the man I love right now, I still can't get back to him. What is a relationship without love from both sides? It's a feeling that matters, right?

20:30 he seemed to get home already and sent me a message through yahoo messenger, making up a scene that he didn't love me anymore and that he already had a girl friend (also from Surabaya) named Ida.

Good thing actually. But what the hell has he been doing these past three months getting me back to him? Well I didn't argue then. It's good that he tried to save his face that way (no matter if the girl really exists or not), at least I didn't have to provide more reasons to make him understand that the feeling is not there anymore.

I should also tell myself the same thing concerning my vague "friendship" with the cutie somewhere in this earth. But I don't wanna bother cause I don't bother him with this status issue at the moment. Besides, I promised to be a good friend for him; and if my love has to be a one-sided love, I'll let it be. When it's time to change, I'll know.

Now he's gone I don't know why
And till this day sometimes I cry
He didn't say goodbye he didn't take the time to lie
Bang Bang..

1:36 pm

Saturday, 30 July 2004

Finally Saturday had come. I was lazying around till noon doing nothing. I was smsing with Rina after lunch and she wanted to go out with me that evening to TP. So I picked her up at 4:30 and went we there by bemo.

Jun was going to meet us at 5 but we seemed to be very late (it takes an hour to TP usually). At first we felt lucky that the bemo driver drove really fast like he was in a hurry. Until it turned at an intersection and cut all the way to the right when there was a bus coming from behind going to the left. Both were quite fast and they hit each other. I grabbed Rina's arm and we screamed a little for the bus is twice the size of our bemo and both did have a little crash on the sides. Instead of apologizing, the bemo driver was swearing to the bus driver and went away. Rina and I shook our heads said: "Crazy."

The rest of the evening was fun and fine. Jun introduced us to her highschool friend (whose name I've already forgotten hihi.. sorry girl, I'm not very good at names). We spent a couple of hours at Pizza Hut chatting and went to Sogo for some books browsing. Just before the plaza was closed, we went home feeling better for having some issues shared.

Sunday, 1 August 2004

I actually had a wedding invitation at WTC this evening but I just didn't feel like going. Eva, one of the English teachers at our place, was getting married and the thing IS I am never close to her and I can't even remember her face. Oh well.. I didn't go at last, since my mother has asked me (forced is the better word) to go to Giant Hypermarket to buy her a TV. Our old TV is finally broken and she asked me to lend her some money to buy it like 3 days before. In the meantime, everytime I went back from the office she always asked, "Where's my TV?"

@#*%7^$%#^@!@&^%#@$

She surely didn't think I spent the whole day having fun somewhere, did she? How could I go for a TV when I had to work my ass off for completing my work target?

Anyway, I got tired of hearing it so I did what she wanted. I told her to pick one and then rushed to my student's house, Ian, for a private teaching. My head was spinning coz of the crowds at the hypermarket and my eyes hurt really bad. I taught for 2 hours and bringing home some macaroni schotel of Ian's mother and some Dutch chocolate they brought me for oleh-oleh, I took bemo BM home when the sore in my eyes got worse and I hardly could focus. I slept all the way home and when I had to get off of it, I couldn't find any becak!!! Damn it. I walked then, trying to keep my steps steady till I got home safely. I didn't bother to take off my clothes and went directly to bed to close my eyes.

It was the second time I had this shitty sore eyes. I don't know why I got that and I don't dare to go to a doctor to check. :(

2:12 pm