Jatiluwih is located in Tabanan, central Bali. It's one of the biggest protected green belts in Bali and if one goes there, it gives them an absolutely different perspective of green. The weather is much cooler than most of the parts of Bali or Indonesia because it's close to Mount Batukaru, Tabanan. The people are friendly but I didn't see many local tourists coming to Jatiluwih. Maybe because the view of ricefields is already too common for them? But the foreign tourists who came there enjoyed the breathtaking views and some even go against the rain and walked through the fields. Below are some of the pictures I took when I went there last week.

Bali travel

1:10 pm

The period before and during the first days a woman gets her period every month is sometimes filled with negativity. I don't get that often but when I do, I get a real bad one.

I've been very upset with Mr Boyfriend. As other girls may have experienced, the period of the period makes us very emotional and every small thing appears big and life is just full of drama. But this has started even before that period of the period. Anyway, I'm not going to go into details of what our problems are - or may I say MY problem since he doesn't seem like he feels it but I just feel..... lonely. And worse, neglected. Again, I may not be necessarily intentionally neglected, but that is what I've felt. I guess I just did not expect that he was a real hardworking person who would be willing to spend the entire day and night at the office than be with me doing the boring stuff like watching TV. I guess I did not expect that his concept of having fun with friends always involved so much alcohol and empty conversations till dawn or worse, morning. Empty here goes only for me since all those convos were in French. I guess I was being too individualist for having fed up with being ignored (or not involving myself) in the conversations that were mostly in French at dinners with his bosses and workmates and so I pulled myself away from it, came to an empty and cold bed and left him grab his own fun until the morning came. Seriously, I didn't give a damn if it happened once in a while. But I am frustrated that it's starting to become a habit. And oh how much I hate being a dramatic nagger. But should I shut up and keep it to myself until I get crazy? No, I just had to blurt it out at the worst timing and ruined everything. Maybe not everything but I feel like shit.

At these times, I'd like to run to friends, or whoever that would listen, but I just realised that I had made myself exclusive in my circle of friends this past couple of years. Who do I want to share things with except Pam and Fabio? The others may have forgotten my name and deleted my number from their list for having been idle and not in touch for so long.

Of course there's family. But my only family here in Bali - my sister Ita - has her own problem and worries. And the fact that we don't live close to each other makes it even worse to have a nice communication. I'd like to call my mother, but the last time we were on the phone she was upset with me for not supporting her financially as regularly as I did before due to the instability of the early stage of my photography business.

Negativity.... negativity it is when a woman has her period. Plus fucking situational occurrences. Plus fucking thieves.

Yeah, one of my motorbike mirrors was stolen today when I parked it in front of Fabio's house.

Such a perfect day.

Bali family friends social life women

7:56 pm

I have decided to make an annual contest, starting this year, by selecting one photo I made of EVERY one of my clients the year before; in this case 2009. There will be two winners; i.e. one of the last year’s clients who gets the most votes and one random VOTER. Prize for the winners of this contest? A free session with me this year entitling the winner to run the next year’s contest again with it + 20 hi-res digital files + 1 canvas print (mounted).

HOW IT WORKS:

• Check my facebook fan page for the candidates’ photos.
• Vote your favourite photo(s) by clicking the thumb-up (like) button. Of course to do this, you will need to be the fan of the page.
• You will be given a month to vote starting from today so ask as many of your friends to vote for you if you are one of the candidates.
• The contest ends on May 12, 2010.
• The winners of the contest (2009 candidate + 1 voter) will be announced on May 18, 2010.
• For winners outside Surabaya and Bali, travel and accommodation fee of the photographer is to be paid by the winners.

This contest is ANNUAL. So to reserve your place as a candidate in 2011, book your session with me this year ASAP.

contest photography

9:21 am

I was assigned to write an article for Aquila - a new magazine for modern Muslim women in Asia recently. I was asked to write two articles, but due to the ridiculous tight deadline they gave me, I had to drop the other one or I wouldn't make it at all.

Anyway, I was happy to take up the challenge since the issue I had to write was interesting; i.e. Muslim comedians. I had to go through YouTube blogs to see the videos of these amazing comedians and found that some of them were really such quality, honest comedians! My favourite is Baba Ali. I am not going to explain it here thoroughly but when it does come to print, I'll put the writing on this blog.

However, while in the process of making the article, I was online on facebook on the other tab, and an old acquaintance was congratulating me for the Good Friday.
I haven't talked to her in a while and I was still in the research period to build the article, so chatting with her was not a disturbance.

It started to disturb me, however, when she knew that I was writing for Aquila, she said:
"Sorry to ask this, but have you converted to Islam?"

I said, "Did I have to? If tomorrow I wrote about Balinese Hindu, would you think I'd converted to Hindu?"

She replied, "Well, no, but last time I checked, you were still Christian."

Me: "AND?"

She: "Well, why would a Christian write about or for Muslims? You know that they are anti-Christians!"

Me: "Says who? You? Obviously you don't know too many Muslims."

She: "Most of the Muslims in Surabaya are anti-Christians!"

Me: "That proves it again that you don't know anything about them. I have a lot of Muslim friends, since I should remind you that unlike you, I'd always gone to public schools before university that 90% of the students were Muslims. And hardly 5% of them had extreme belief in their religion. I must even say that over 50% are moderate and the rest doesn't even practise it at all. And even the ones who do practise it (praying 5 times a day and fast without interruption during Ramadhan) do NOT hate Christians."

She: "Really?"

Me: "Of course! It is so unfair for you, or anyone else to stereotype Muslims as such just because of what a few of them did. Give it some thought and DO mingle and befriend some of them. You'll see that what I say has a lot of truth in it."

--

If you think the way she does, it is time for you to go out and find some Muslims and see if they are Christian haters like what you think.

religion

4:59 pm