Mood: Busybody

---

Yeah well, I've been behaving nice since I've come here. Some clumsiness acts occurred, as expected; such as leaving my keys inside the room so that I couldn't get in. I had to ask Aris, one of the staffs, to break my lock so I could come inside. Did that three times in a month and the last time I did it I had to bribe him with some dinner (hehe).

But for accident, it just happened this week. I was walking down the stairs from the teachers' room to the staff room to photocopy some teaching materials. At the same time I was reading the exercises I was going to give to my students. I wore the 7-cm heels and I slipped just when I was about to reach the first floor.

It made some big noisy sound, I reckoned, for people from the front desk (1st floor) and some students nearby, plus some teachers on the second floor rushed to see who fell down.
I grinned at them while trying to hide my pain AND embarrassment.

My whole body hurt that night and it lasted for about 4-5 days. I didn't have dinner then for I needed my bed badly to rest my (especially left part) body. But it wasn't enough. I needed a massage, my housemates said, but we were too busy at work to have some massaseu come here.

Urghhh....

11:54 pm

You know, in a way, being in a small town with a few to none entertainment variations could be a good sign in motivating your creative skills. I've made so much more pictures than I ever did when I was back in Surabaya. Most of them are of myself and workmates, though. But I also have some of the photojournalistic pics. There are a lot of human interest subjects here for sure!

So, can you guess who this hot looking girl below is? ;)

11:05 pm

Ella, one of the FD staffs, told me one day that there was a new gym opened near the office. I welcomed it enthusiastically, though am not sure yet if I can do it in the near future with my tight budget. But at least I know that there is another gym besides the only one we knew here.

Then we continued talking about having exercises by ourselves, like sit-up and push up. And she suggested me to do the standing push-up if I didn't like the laying down one.

"But be careful, Miss," she said, "It can make your breasts bigger."

"Errrr... why should I be careful with it? Big breasts are good, no?"

"No way! That's embarrassing!" she exclaimed.

---

A few hours later, Pam, Ernie and I were going to have a dinner outside. While waiting for Ernie to get downstairs, Pam and I were talking in the hall. She saw my ass and she went commenting like...

"Girl, you have such a big ass!"

I grinned and said, "Thanks!"

She replied, "Geezz... that's not a compliment, you know."

"Huh?"

---

Pam was going to the ATM when Ernie and I sat at the very same night at some food stall waiting for our dinner. Being curious as in the same evening, I got two different remarks about my sexuality, I asked Ernie what she thought about having big breasts.

"It's disgusting," she said.

"Why?"

"Because men like big breasts, you know?"

"So?"

"Well why should we encourage them to see our private bodies? When they get bigger, they will attract more attentions," she explained.

---

Is it only me or do I just live in a different world at the moment? I was brought up by a proud mother who always claims that medium to big breasts are always better than the small ones and an artistic father who appreciated women's curves more than anyone else. As a teenager and young adult I was still surrounded by a community that always praises beauty and curves. Just to mention some: Shierly, Veve, June, Rina, Vitria and many more. They never mind wearing or looking at, even encourage the "modern" way of dressing that show pretty much of our flesh.

But here, in this small town, there is apparently a different idea. Firstly, most of the girls or women here wear headscarves and long clothings. Secondly, it seems to be a sin to wear a tank top here, which later I decided to be a mistake since most of my clothes are tank tops and cute shorts.

The other day, Pam warned me to dress more appropriately on weekdays. Eventhough I didn't teach, she told me that there were quite some men going around the apartment. And wearing hotpants and tank top are not polite. Duh!
Pam is from Jakarta, but she's been here for three months already. I guess she has adapted with the culture here very well and lived based on their expectations. But as a newcomer here, it is still hard to accept the social rules here. Why can't I, in my own place, wear anything I like, just because there are other humans called men --who are not my husbands -- able to see more flesh of mine?

I always think that people do have rights in choosing their own clothes. And if we are to blame girls with curvy body as sinful people, how many people in this world, or to narrow it down, in Indonesia, who gain such a nasty, self-centered, narrow-minded comment?

And this is not to mention that girls receive the most part of the blames in the rape crimes in this country. Almost all of the religious people blame it on the girls. But hey, isn't it caused by a dirty mind, the history of which could vary?

This irritates me a lot.

11:44 am

So I went to Cirebon yesterday. My housemates -- Ernie and Pamela -- had planned it for so long. I wasn't that enthusiastic, actually, since I haven't really completely managed my life back in order. But I didn't really want to stay at home everyday. (I hardly go out on work days if I didn't need to buy some groceries at the market/mall. I mean why should I? Tegal is not very lively anyway, and my office is just one floor away from my room. LOL)

Anyway... Ernie cancelled it in the last minute on Saturday evening after our last classes. She was sick, she reasoned. Pam had already taken a shower and dressed, so she was so disappointed. I suggested her to go in the morning with me. She was back happy again.

But hey, we played poker until 3 o'clock. So our morning should be translated as past midday. :P

The journey to Cirebon only lasted for an hour (or 1.5 hr) and we paid only Rp 13,000 for a VIP bus. Cool thing.

What I didn't know was that we would spend the whole day at the mall only. So if you ask me how Cirebon is like, my answer will not be much more than Grage Mall, the so-called biggest mall there. I was thinking to get an advantage of staying in that mall by watching some movies.. but none was too interesting, at least for Pam. She watched MI-III when she was back in Jakarta a few weeks ago so she didn't want to watch it again. Urrghhh...

But it's alright. We spent some quality time at the Time Zone, Gramedia and Matahari dept. store. We have Time Zone in Tegal but we played anyway there. And as in Gramedia.... I was sooooo happy to see a lot of books again after a while! Tegal has no bookstore (shit shit shit) and so I bought 3 comics to bring home. I know I usually finish them in a very short time, but remembering that all of the teachers here have to work mostly from 10:30 to 8:30 in June and July because of the Summer Fun programme, which we call Summer Shit for we have to wake up early now (early here at EF is 9 o'clock. hehehe), I guess I will not have that much leisure time until next month. We'll surely work our arse off this month, but if it's really that busy, we may be able to get some overtime money in the end of the month. :P I'm feeling like being a workaholic atm. :D

ANYWAY, Pam is quite cool to hang out with. She's 24 and compared with the other teachers, she's the naughtiest, which makes her very interesting. She is a kind of shop-crazed, too. We especially spent so much time at Gramedia and Matahari - lingerie section. It felt sooo good to do it again after a while.

We were forgetting time, though. So we missed THE LAST DIRECT BUS TO TEGAL!!!! *sob* We had to take a night bus, which was more expensive. Pam suggested to stay the night there in Cirebon, but hey, no can do. I had an early class in the morning. So we got on that night bus to Tegal.

It was tiring and quite ok. But there will be no Cirebon next time if we only visit that mall again. I brought my camera with me, hoping to see something interesting to capture, but it turned out to be quite useless. :P So next time, another city.

I'll update ya later. Cheeeeeeers!

9:29 pm

Phew... One problem has been solved. The contract has been signed, with a few changes here and there. I tried not to be too hard on it as I previously thought I would, for unexpectedly I've enjoyed so much working in here. :) And the boss appeared to be much more friendly than I thought before. She agreed to change some things that I requested (for my sake), though I did not get everything the way I wanted. But well at least most of it already sounds like fair.

NOW.... I can start concentrating on my photography and web design. But first, I need my damn computer. Or a new one, which I don't need to pay right away (hahaha... is there a chance for that?) Well, basically ANY computer where I can install Adobe Photoshop. Windows XP operation prefered. I brought a lot of digital devices that won't work without the drivers (and I left all of the driver CD's at home in Surabaya) unless the operation system is XP. None of the computers at work qualify for that. :P
Is there another way to operate my removable HardDisk without its driver or Windows XP OS? Anyone can tell me? Denni?

I just browsed on someone's gallery on DeviantArt, Solkku. I think he has a GREAT style. He does things I like to do. Those nature pics, macros, conceptual. Of course he's supported with a good camera and lenses, which undoubtedly cost a fortune... but he inspires me to get my camera back and work on my own photography, now that I don't have (well still some) life and death problems! I gotta get ready for that. Now, get my computer first. *wink at Pei Pei* I know you're that kindest person on earth who's gonna be wholly-heartedly nice to send my home computer to me? *wink wink again* Hehe...

Oh well, my housemates and I were actually planning to go to Cirebon today and tomorrow. The city is only an hour away from here, but one of them appeared to be very sick in the last minutes. So I guess we are not going. :P That's alright, though. I can always find some nice things else that can be done.

Just realised that I was starting to like it here so much. and that's good. :)

5:36 pm

I'm about to settle the contract matter with my new boss tomorrow. Kinda excited how it will come out.

Will it be alright? Or will things go wrong and I won't be taking this job for the whole one year? All depends on how we work things out tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

10:12 pm