The Last Three Weekends

Listening to: India Arie

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So.. weekends after Stephen left Tegal seemed a bit dull. But I tried to make it as fun as possible.

The first weekend was at the end of the month of July. I couldn't really think of fun moments since that was supposed to be an emotional one. Ernie was leaving, for good maybe, to Malaysia. She was very busy packing and when she was not, she'd come by my room and we'd have the reminiscence of all the cool, stupid and crazy things we did in Tegal in the past 16 months (for Tegal standard, of course). We had a few lunches and dinners together and had fun teasing each other. So as said, it should have been a quite emotional moment for I might not be seeing her for some time now. But there was absolutely no room for sadness and being all melancholy about it. When you saw Ern's happy face, you couldn't help but feeling happy for her cause she finally was going for a better life and future.

Right, now the second weekend. TransTV was showing Harry Potter's sequence movies during the school holidays last month. I watched the first two (or three?) with Ayu and I found out that she also enjoyed the movie. The other day we also knew that Ebi, a new teacher here, loves Harry Potter, too. So we decided to go to Semarang to watch the newest HP movie (another point why living in Tegal shucks! We have to spend so much time, energy and money just to watch a movie)!

Anyway, we wanted to be adventurous by taking the third class train instead of the first or second ones, or buses. It cost us only Rp 16,000 for the three or four-hour ride and we arrived in Semarang in time for the movie. Ayu and I were lucky to get seats (we actually diplomatically "stole" others' seats but since the owner was a guy, he gave away his seats in order that the girls (we) wouldn't have to suffer sitting on the floor of the train like him and Ebi.

The priviledge of being a girl. Hihi..

In short, we had fun. The movie was cool, though not as dramatic as the previous one when Cedric Diggory was killed by Voldermort (Could you believe that I eventually cried when it happened?). And Daniel Radcliffe is not as cute as when he was younger. :P

Ebi was such a great fun, too! He's still 25, but he acts like a fifteen and a villager from somewhere.

There was this one time when we took a taxi and he sat beside the driver. He wanted to push his chair back and lean it a little so he could relax. But he didn't know how to do it! When the driver gave him the instruction, he got his chair pushed back all the way to the very far back and shocked me to death when it hit me in the back seat and trapped me there. Everyone was laughing, including him... until I told him to fix the chair so I could move again. He showed an embarrassed look and said, "How can I get it back?"

Oh. My. God.

I couldn't believe that this was the very same guy who dated a beautiful 10-year-older American woman!

Third weekend (last weekend) was a rather long holiday for EF Tegal standard. Saturday was a national holiday and though I didn't plan to go anywhere at first to save some cash for a better use in my real long vacation 2 weeks later, Ayu declared that she was going to spend her weekend in Cikampek and Jakarta.

Now I was not going to spend the whole 2 days off alone in Tegal. Ernie's gone and also Mba' Minda (forcefully asked, I suppose), that made Ayu my only housemate now. So I made an instant decision to go home.

I finished my classes at 20:40 (thank you very much to EF for giving me a regular 3-hour private conversation class) and I quickly packed a few things that I'd like to bring to Surabaya. Ayu rushed me off, afraid that I would miss the train. I told her to relax. It's always late anyway. So it was... an hour late. Hehehe... Not very surprising.

Anyway, I survived the 9-hour journey after being hollered by a 30-something-year-old guy who was sitting next to me and who kept asking for my number and somewhat "preaching" me about religion and ideas of life, love and marriage.. and how Javanese wives should obey and follow the husbands. Geezhhh...

I could have made the conversation big with my own eccentric ideas about all those stuff, but seriously... I needed my beauty sleep. I was overly tired that day at work and I didn't need another disturbance from a guy who tried to impress me with his "seemingly" educated Indonesian points of view! So at 2 o'clock in the morning when the train took a break in Semarang, I told him I was tired and sleepy and if he wouldn't mind, I'd like to rest for a while.

Mwah.

Gathering with a family when you don't actually live with them is always such a lovely thing to do. Michelle's grown up so fast. I bought her three pairs of cute clothing and I thought these clothings wouldn't last too long. The child's no longer a baby! Doh!

But she's made a big progress in her speeches. Long sentences now. She likes watching TV, as always, and her favourite phrase is of course, "Apa itu?" (What's that?) while pointing at the animals shown on NG on TV. She's soooo cute. And pretty. And clever. And adorable!

She asked me not to go back to Tegal, or if I did have to go back, I should take her with me. I said I couldn't, but I'd be back in 2 weeks. She was mad at me and didn't let me touch her until I really left. Huks.

There was no change in my sister and brother. Ita is still crazy and Michael is always nice when I'm there. He'd do anything to make me happy. Mum, too. Though making a daughter happy in my mum's perspective means to feed her with so much food as often as possible!

So yeah.. I ended up eating a lot (like 5 times a day.. man I was a freak!), sleeping a lot, talking a lot...

It was sooo nice to be home.