So yesterday was my last jobless day. Oh wait a minute, that was not quite true. I was still supposed to be working for EF English First Tegal. But anyway, it was my last free day and I was inclined to have the maximum fun as much as possible. (Though I'll still feel like I'm on holiday anyway for the next two weeks. Since now I'm staying at Panorama Cottages -- where my office is -- for free while my Italian employer and his fiance are going away in Gili Trawangan for 2 weeks. And I am still on my training period for these two to four first weeks so I'll be working only until lunch time.)
Yes, you read it right. I'm on the training period. No matter how experienced I am in teaching or graphic-designing, I am a new-born baby in journalism.It is still 07:29 in the morning now, though. So I haven't figured out yet how exciting or how boring the new job will be. I'll know it in 2 hours. Fabio's ex-assistant will do the training.
Anyways, I spent my last weekend with Pam and Felix most of the time. It is a good thing to have to distract my mind from thinking about the guys who have passed my way these past few weeks. It still feels weird to adjust myself to a different state of mind and situation in almost every week. And right now, it feels weird not to see Mark around. I wouldn't say that everything always went smoothly when he was here. But I wouldn't say that it was bad at all, either.
Oh well, let's get to the point of this post. I had quite some fun this weekend. Friday I took Mark to the airport and byed him. I directly went back to Seminyak to Fabio's place with all my suitcase and other smaller bags. He and Inga (his fiance) had waited for me there. In overall, I quite like the small room in the attic that I am staying now. It's actually Fabio's personal gym, but Inga had turned it to be a more comfortable place with some well-designed lamps and a basic mattrass and pillow. They left for Gili the next morning.
Saturday, I met Felix and had a late lunch with him. He looked and sounded troubled, though. Apparently there were some problems with his girlfriend, which surprisingly had something to do with me! Strange. I don't feel I know the girlfriend that well to be one of the causes of the problems. I only met her twice and she seemed to be OKAY all the time. Anyway, that was his problem to solve. I was all ears, though.
Later on, Felix and I went to Mc. Donald's Kuta to wait for Mariza and her boyfriend to come. I needed to give her her flashdisk back. She didn't recognise Felix at first (long term memory loss?). Then Pam joined us, too. So yes, it was quite a crowd.
In the evening, after Mariza and her boyfriend left, Pam, Felix and I went for another meal (it was really killing me to eat so much in a day. Cause oh! I ordered another late lunch at Mc D too!). We went to this cool place on Oberoy street (not sure if it's the right spelling but it sounds like that) to a Morrocan restaurant that was featured on TV the other day. The prices were high, but they matched the taste of the food and the surrounding, I think. There were also belly dancers, with whom Pam was practising the dance! Pretty fun..
Sunday morning Pam and I were looking at some places that rented motorbikes. To our surprise, most of them had no available motorbikes. While it's actually the beginning of the low season! We found one finally for Rp 35,000 (is it a bit overpriced for a low season?) and headed to Nusa Dua. I was going to teach Pam to ride this motorbike.
I refused to sit in the back of the motorcycle and instead watched and instructed Pam to do this and that for her first lesson. She was very nervous at first, but she felt more comfortable later. I could see her excitement every time she made a progress. I have to say it was a pretty good first attempt of her, considering she can't even ride a bicycle very well!
We went to Ubud in the afternoon/evening. I met Felix' other friends -- Yuki and Ina from Jakarta, who just happened to have a vacation in Bali now, and Yuki's Australian friend, Mark. YES, another Mark! I can't believe how uncreative these parents are when it comes to giving a baby a name! I definitely won't call my son Mark later.
This Mark, however, speaks Indonesian so very well. He's funny, too. Everyone enjoyed everyone's presence and though at the beginning of the dance show I felt so sleepy and tired (there were speeches for the whole first 2 hours! and I did indeed sleep on Pam's shoulder!), the dances were pretty nice. They had to be. All this performance was conducted by Guruh Soekarno Putra, the son of former first Indonesian president. That explained why the ticket was so expensive. Gotta thank Felix for the treat, though. :) Dank je wel, Meneer!
Guruh Soekarno Putra
Balinese dancer
A bit about the other people... Yuki laughs all the time. A sweet personality she has. The laughs were in a good proportion, as in they more like contagious than annoying. So that was good. She works at ABN AMRO Bank Jakarta. While Ina is amazing.. Being 37 she is now, single, free, very well-educated and friendly, I could understand why Felix had a huge crush on her a few years back! That also explained why Indah, Felix's girlfriend wouldn't want to come with us to the dance.
It was a good evening. But they dropped me back to Panorama pretty late, too. I was tired but it was a good tired. What a way to end a vacation. :)
So what's after this?
ReplyDeleteWork in Bali?
Journalism???
what's happened with Stephen?
Which Mark was that again??? (confused, since there are SO MANY MARKS in your life!!!)
Sometimes I think that your LOOONGG blog posting did not really give the overview update of what you're doing, what you're actually up to, and what's next, etc..
It's kind of reading a bit of one scene whereas the entire big picture remains hidden and uncovered, hehehehehe.
Are you going to stay in Bali for the near future then?
where, and for how long, and doing what?
Whoa Sheila... now that you mentioned that, I just realised that I typed things to be meant as an overview of sooooo many things that happened in my life these past 3 weeks. And the thing is I didn't write them when I was supposed to. But again, I enjoyed my life too much to spare it online on the computer.
ReplyDeleteBut let's make it clear now.
Yes, I accepted a job as a journalist assistant here in Bali. I'll be working mostly on the making of a book about post-Tsunami issues in Aceh (but I won't travel there, there's a possibility but it's not likely). So yes, I'm residing in Bali now. Hoorah! In the mean time, IALF Bali wants me to work part-timely for them (they wanted it full time, but I accepted this journalism work first), so I'll be working for 2 companies here.
What happened with Stephen... That's a long story. Remember when I smsed you way too early in the morning and it was still dark there in Germany, to ask you if you could chat with me? That was one of the emotional times I had with Stephen and I wanted to share it with someone. You. But bad timing. Well in short, I was confused. He appeared to be a completely different person from the Stephen I knew in Bangkok and in Tegal. I suspected that it had something to do with the fact that I kissed 2 other guys before I met him and he was being a good boy (he wasn't quite like it). But my then conditions influenced the whole weird situation between me and Stephen. I was quite depressed cause I was already disappointed when he didn't show up in Lombok at the time he predicted he would and I had made all these efforts for Lombok. He didn't ask for it, so it was not quite his fault. But being a Carla, already expecting that she would have a fun birthday with the guy she really really liked after all these years; when it didn't turn out to be successful, it left quite a hollow in my heart. And when I finally met him in Bali, I was again busy with applying for jobs for a longer stay in Bali.. which to my surprise, I got a very prompt response from both jobs I was applying for. That means we often went our separate ways in the day time because I was busy with interviews and such! One evening I was all tired and we planned to party with his mate, Dom. It was okay in the beginning.. but I wasn't quite in the mood to drink. He got somewhat drunk and jokes went too far (or I was just too sensitive because of the lack of energy), and we had a huge argument. I didn't go with him and the others to the club. Broke my heart into pieces and spent half the night crying.. We had to split up soon after that cause I had to go back to Surabaya for Veve's wedding and the goodbye wasn't quite a goodbye I expected, either. He wanted it to be low-key (he later explained) so that it would be less upsetting for him. *shrug* Makes sense, but still.. I felt dumped. But that was my problem, huh? I shouldn't have expected! Expectation is a poison and I've always known that. I just ignored that when Stephen came into my life. But yeah.. that's the story. No more Stephen now.
And Mark Mulder (the one who planned to go here 2 years ago and cancelled it in the last minute because of that Filipino girl, you remember?) came shortly afterwards. He flew to Surabaya and we went to Bali not long after. I told him about Stephen on the very first day he arrived here, and I can't say he was too pleased with it. He certainly had an expectation (as I knew it). See.. there goes the expectation problem again. :P
But well, he's a nice guy, though quite annoying sometimes (but everyone is at some certain point, I guess). We shared the same interests (photography etc) and we also have a similar sense of humour. But yeah... you can't really do math here, though. It was a little hard to get Stephen out of my head for a while, cause no matter what, he came first. And he'd already made such a deep impression. But at the same time, being with Mark for 10 days was quite memorable, too. And I did need some time to adjust myself to a different world and people again (at the moment I am hanging out with Pam, Felix and some other girls from Jakarta).
So... weird life. But still much better than a boring one I had in Tegal. :)
Did you know that your life is quite exciting to read, red-haired ^^ ? You might have huge disappointments but you radiate such an energy ! Hang on, I feel totally jealous (student's life can be sooo boring sometimes) ;).
ReplyDeleteHello there, sweetheart! How's it going with you? I can't quite keep track with your blog cause since you were back from Ireland, you have been wrapped up in your exclusive French community and forgotten that you still have a reader that hasn't been able to understand French yet! Update the nut and tie blog. I want to learn some more French. I'll try to do the same with the Indonesian lessons.
ReplyDeleteWell, I realise that my life is pretty dynamic. Even in the most boring places.. But don't be jealous. Just finish your study ASAP, work hard, come here and have fun! :D