A Little Flashback for 2013

• 1:What did you do in 2013 that you’d never done before?
• I live on my own
• 2:Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
• I did not  :( and I will. 
• 3:Did anyone close to you give birth?
• My friend's sister did.
• 4:Did anyone close to you die?
• Thank God, no. 
• 5:What countries did you visit?
• Australia, Singapore, Indonesia
• 6:What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013
• I would like to have the flipping will and motivation to do things
• 7:What dates from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
• Feb 8: the first day in Australia, Aug 8 to 18: my first musical experience as a performer, Aug 22: mid year ball and the man I met after that, Winter break: meeting my best friends and Summer break: meeting my chums
• 8:What was your biggest achievement of the year?
• Surviving a year of living alone, a year in uni and performing in a musical
• 9:What was your biggest failure?
• Not getting the marks I wanted 
• 10:Did you suffer illness or injury?
• I fell from my bike
• 11:What was the best thing you bought?
• This year? tickets to home
• 12:Whose behaviour merited celebration?
• What?
• 13:Whose behaviour made you appalled?
• That guy who broke my heart
• 14:Where did most of your money go?
• food and tickets to home
• 15:What did you get really, really, really excited about?
• Anything about the musical, coming home, meeting family and friends
• 16:What song will always remind you of 2013?
• Any Macklemore songs will do
• 17:Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer?
• a) sadder than usual but happier too at times b) thinner until mid year then fatter c) relative
• 18:What do you wish you’d done more of?
• Studying. 
• 19:What do you wish you’d done less of?
• Doing nonsense, watching youtube videos
• 20:How did you spend Christmas?
• Spent it with my family back home. 
• 21:Did you fall in love in 2013?
• I did not
• 22:What was your favourite TV program?
• Bones, the classic American version of Whose Line Is It
• 23:Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
• Definitely 
• 24:What was the best book you read?
• I re-read Titanium, that. 
• 25:What was your greatest musical discovery?
• Justin Timberlake's new album tbh
• 26:What did you want and get?
• New friends, chance to go home
• 27:What did you want and not get?
• Great grades, a job
• 28:What was your favourite film of this year?
• Iron Man 3, Thor The Dark World
• 29:What one thing made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
• CATS The Musical!
• 30:How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
• Wear all things you see first
• 31:What kept you sane?
• My best friends and my chums, TV shows
• 32:Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
• Benedict Cumberbatch, David Tennant, Beyonce, Justin Timberlake and Macklemore
• 33:What political issue stirred you the most?
• The Indonesian political situation
• 34:Who did you miss?
• All my friends and my family
• 35:Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013.
• You can and able. Don't hang around people who don't value your effort or trust. 
• 36:Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
• "When the dawn comes, tonight will be a memory too. Look! A new day has begun..."

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What Happen to 2013?!

Hey guys! It's the 1st of July and I'm doing a challenge from ultimateblogchallenge and I will be posting everyday of the month so I hope you guys will be enjoying everything with me (X)

Seriously, it is already the first of July, which means the half of 2013 has already gone! This is really mad considering we only have 6 months left to a new year, to 2014. It feels like it was just a month ago we were freaking out about the apocalypse.

When I look back a the first half of this wonderful year, I realised it went by really really fast. Pretty much like, I don't know, a flash of light. And I'm very very unsatisfied.

I don't think I did anything up-to-standard. Or even did anything. I just felt like the last 6 months is the period for me to explore and try new things and open up to a new beginning. Then, this upcoming 6 months will be me re-evaluating my life and getting it all back on track.

I have a valid reason but I am not going to use that to slack around some more because 6 months of doing absolute nothing last year (you'll know if you read previous posts) and 6 months of "exploration" is enough slacking for my 19 years of existence.

So, there it is, my July wish and goal: to get back on track and get back in life :)

Hope you guys have a great month ahead!

Please join me in the journey this month and tell me your hopes/wishes/goals in the comment xx 

Welcome Back to The Real World

Have you ever slip into your own imagination?

Most of the time, you imagine yourself in different situation and make everything as realistic as possible. You would imagine all the good things that you want to happen to you.

You do that because you want to believe that you can achieve what you want. You will be able to achieve what you dream. You have hope, you dream and you believe in it. And then the dream will come true.

But sometimes you can't help it when a little nudge of reality slips in the way of your imagination. See, in this case you're not being truly pessimistic about anything but you consider other alternatives. Being a realist, you would consider all the possible alternative, good or bad.

And then you just realise that the negative things that you imagine might come true. No, you don't want it to be true. But you acknowledge the chance of those happening.

Then your imagination just slips away because you don't want anything ruin your so called "perfect world".

Welcome back to the real world.

Life Happens, Life Begins, Life is...

Life happens when you are busy making other plans. Life begins when you are 21, or 16, or 18, or even 40. Life happens when you appreciate little things in life. When did life begin?

Life begins when you open your eyes in the morning. Be it on your own or with someone you love the most. It continues as you drag your feet to the bathroom and through until you reach your workplace or your school.

It begins when you realize you have to do this everyday, doing something that you do not enjoy. However, it happens when you see the faces of your significant other, your children, or your parents. At that moment you realize that you are doing this not only for yourself but also for them. For the people you love the most, to put that beautiful smile on them. It happens when you smile at the thought of them and the thought of them drives you, on and on.

It begins when you come back home. To the arms of the people you love and arms of people who love you. You realize that they will always be there for you. They will accept you in any condition; your best and your worst and everything in between. They will support you to do what is right and they will guide you to the light. That is the moment when your life begins.

It happens when you are tired and fed up with all the routines, all the problems and obstacles that will never go away from your sight or your mind. It happens when you are annoyed with your schoolmate, dorm mate, or fellow workers. It happens when you are rejected and down. You realize that life will never be pretty with flowers and unicorns all the time. You realize that movies will not be real life, even the ones based on true stories and such.

That is when life begins and when life happens. Life is every time you open your eyes and it will never stop even when you close your eyes every night.

Life is present, life is now;

It is Okay

I'm writing this down not because I want to be inspirational or anything. In my 19 years of life, I've been in the same situation for lots and lots of time and I always feel uncomfortable about this.

As you probably know, I'm in a family with loads of males. I have female cousins from my dad's side but they all live so far away that I don't get to see them very often.

Being the only girl in the family and having 5 other male cousins and an older brother is very very amazing. I am very grateful and I wouldn't wish for anything else to happen. Anyway... This pretty much makes me a lot like them, like a guy.

I really don't want to explain myself to find justice but in a nutshell, I'm not that girly. Yes, sure, I know and like stuffs about make up and fashion, but it stops there. I don't really dress up or plan my outfit just to go to school. I don't really wear make up (I still wear it sometimes). I don't have a ladylike curve/figure. And, I wear glasses.

All these were never a problem until I move away from home. I did not expect people's view about girls is that twisted...

It was really annoying when people ask me why I wear glasses and lecture me about how uncomfortable it is to wear glasses. Told me to lose the glasses and wear contacts and whatever. Excuse me. It's not like I devote my life and try hard to wear glasses. I wear it because I have to, my eyesight is not healthy thus I wear glasses. And I'm still scared to wear contacts, but I will try hard because I really have to in a few months from now.

I have scars on my face from acne. It is annoying when people say why not cover it up with make up, why don't you want to wear make up, come here and I'll make your face up, and I will not let you get away with no make up to this event. I don't know why I don't want to cover my scars up with make up. I wear make up when I feel like it. And sometimes I just don't think I need to hide my scars. It's not like I spray blood from my face, anyway.

I have a wavy/curly/thick hair. And let me tell you, it is annoying when people told me to straightened my hair, "you look better with straight hair", "why don't you straightened your hair", "let me straightened your hair" and all the stuffs. No, you don't know how I looked like with straight hair. No, I  don't want you to straightened my hair and I do not want to do it myself. This is my hair, I like it natural, get over it.

I'm a medium size and you would not believe how annoyed I am when people start to compare figures, telling me that I'm so lucky I'm skinny, I have small this small that (while sometimes the person who said this are smaller than I am). Despite this, I eat a lot. And I don't appreciate when people starts telling me about how much fat/sugar/carbohydrate are in the food that I eat, keep asking "why do you eat that? It's so unhealthy" and then coming back to the first comment about body figure. I have been called anorexic for many times and you have no idea how much I wanted to throw a rack full of shoes.

And (probably) you don't know how much it hurts when you hear those comments from people you know, people you love, or even people whom you just met.

Enough of me rambling, the point is I do not see anything wrong with wearing glasses, having a wavy/curly hair or acne scars on my face. It was never a problem, why is it a problem now? Do you judge people from their size? From their outfit and make up? NO.

In the end, nobody is perfect. If anything, I am totally unfit in all the ways you could ever think of. I don't do sports anymore. The only thing I do now is walk or cycle to and fro campus. And IT IS OKAY to have imperfections because every single person in this world have at least one. IT IS OKAY to wear comfortable clothes or not to wear make up or glasses as long as you look presentable as a human being (not like wearing underwear outside and all that crap).

I don't like to be a standard for anything. As long as you are healthy, you feel good about yourself, you fulfil your needs, and you are not bothering other people, IT IS OKAY.

Day 1

Day 1 - Seven things that crosses your mind a lot.

Why people do what people do
I like to find that out, what justify people's action, what causes reaction, why some things are okay to do for some people or in some culture and some things aren't.

University
I'm going to one next year, and to be honest I don't know whether I should be excited, happy or nervous and scared, or all at once.

My family
The last time we got together was 3-4 years ago when my uncle got married, and some members couldn't come for important reasons. I would love to get together with everyone sometime soon.

My friends
Some of my best friends are now all over the country and the world and I can't see them everyday. And I miss them so much. It's a good thing I guess that I handle it better now than I was 3 years ago.

Music
I would love to do more of this forever. But I know I'm not oh-so-wonderfully-amazing at this, so yeah..

Memories from school
Especially the ones that I went through at home. I learnt a lot from them, I miss them. Sometimes, I become really mean and wish that I could redo everything all over again because now what I love and cherish are just memories. It wasn't perfect but that made it beautiful. It was special and full of special people and I met the ones I want to be with forever in my life if I have the chance.

Things I should've said or done but I didn't

I just couldn't help it. I do this all the time.

Oh wow, I don't think I'm aware of these until I write it down for the world to see..

Otaknya Lagi Berisik (Pt. 1?)

"Karena 'sekarang, selalu, dan sepanjang segala abad' sejatinya hanyalah ada dalam doa."

Berat, saudara-saudaraku. Hahahaha. Entah gimana ceritanya, waktu malem-malem lagi naik bis umum pulang kerumah, kalimat ini melintas sedemikian rupa di otak gue. Mungkin karena belakangan ini, orang-orang di sekeliling gue agak lebih sering bilang kalau mereka capek, entah batin atau fisik. Kebawa suasananya juga pada akhirnya, pikiran pun mulai pesimis-pesimis sedikit.

Apa sih di bumi ini yang abadi? Harta benda bisa berubah - bertambah, berkurang, bahkan hilang dalam sekejap mata karena banyak hal yang mungkin terjadi. Kesempurnaan fisik bisa diubah-ubah dengan kecanggihan teknologi zaman sekarang.

Nama dan prestasi... Mungkin bisa bertahan sangat lama, tapi ada dua kemungkinan. Antara ada yang pada akhirnya mengalahkan prestasi yang sudah tercatat atau memang orang-orang tidak pernah peduli untuk mengingat.

Pengetahuan? Bisa dibilang sih cukup abadi. Contohnya, tulisan-tulisan Plato masih dicetak, diterbitkan dan dibaca oleh banyak orang di tahun 2012 ini. Tapi pemikiran manusia berkembang, konsep-konsep akan selalu dipertanyakan dan besar kemungkinan konsepnya berubah. Kalau pengetahuan yang kita punya, bisa aja kan tiba-tiba hilang kalau kena penyakit? *amit-amit lari cari kayu buat diketok-ketok*

Sempet gue tanya sama temen waktu ngobrol. Karena kita cuma nyebutin hal-hal yang ngasal, ujung-ujungnya ada juga yang bilang hal yang satu ini - perasaan. Entah gimana ceritanya. Hahahaha. Begitu kita denger, langsung diem mendadak. Lalu, tawa-tawa bermuntahan dari semuanya. Memang terdengar klise (alasan kenapa harus dilanjut dengan tawa), tapi yang ini mirip dengan pengetahuan, bisa dibilang sih cukup abadi.

Tapi, ya itu tadi... Ujung-ujungnya semua hal itu penuh ketergantungan. Ada yang hartanya abadi, ada yang cuma sekedip mata. Ada yang cantik tampannya abadi, ada yang diubah-ubah. Ada yang pemikiran, prestasi dan pengetahuannya dikenang lama, ada yang sebentar. Ada yang perasaannya selalu sama, ada yang setiap detik berubah.

Terus, terus, apa iya kalau kejadian 'sekarang, selalu, dan sepanjang segala abad' berarti selama itu semuanya selalu bahagia? Hidup ada dua sisi, kan? Tapi orang kan maunya bahagia terus? Jadi, gimana? *tarik nafas*

Tadinya sih masih mau bahas banyak. Tapi masih kecil ah, takut. *indecisive-pisces-quality kicks in*

Ada yang kepikiran skenario 'sekarang, selalu, dan sepanjang segala abad' yang beneran kejadian?

Slogtember 27 - Contradiction

How many times have you contradict yourself?

For me personally, in my 18 years 6 months of existence, the answer would be a lot, a lot of times. I might do it right now as I’m writing this. It’s not that I already have a fixed ideals and principles about life. My view is still changing constantly almost everyday of my life. One day I would say that I would not sleep to late at night but the other day I would say just live in the moment and screw that. How about you? Maybe, never?

Is it wrong to contradict yourself?

Well, I really don’t know. People do it, we all do it. If you say you have never ever contradict yourself in any matter in you life, I can say that you’re lying. I might be right as well about that. Just think about how many promises you have made to your parents? How many of them you did not break? Or maybe the promises you made to your ex(es). Nah, I won’t start on that.

Some people might say because everyone does it then it’s okay to do it. It’s a common practice, a public secret. What the hell is that anyway? Is it true when people do it almost every time then it becomes the right thing to do? No. Just because so many people kill each other nowadays doesn’t make the act of killing other human being a right thing to do. It still is wrong. But is this wrong? Coming back to my first sentence, I don’t know because I do it too sometimes.

Why do we do it?

We? Okay. If you think you have never contradict yourself or your own promises, principles or sayings, with all due respect, please go away and don’t read this.

Oh reasons, fun. We could go on forever listing all the reasons we can come up with. Probably, because we want to know what happen on the other side? Curiosity. We want to know what would happen. We want to answer all what ifs that come up every night before we go to sleep. Maybe it’s because we want to change the principles in the first place and change the way you live (despite being good or bad, that’s not my concern anyway). In the end, curiosity kills the cat. Well, you’re not a cat so nyan that. Sure…

Maybe it’s because you want to comfort yourself or maybe you want to comfort other people. You don’t want to hurt them so you lie to yourself. Or you don't want to hurt yourself so you lie to people. Who wins?

Maybe… Well there will be a lot of maybes that I can’t write one by one but I’m sure people have their own reasons to justify whatever it is they decide to do.

So?

Everything depends on you and whatever you decide. Whatever your ideal is. It’s your decision; it’s your life. It’s not wrong but no one has ever said it is right. I’m still figuring things out. Isn’t that the reason why we live?

Slogtember 23 - Best Quote Ever

Following up my yesterday's post. Let me tell you Tina Fey is awesomeee :D

“Every girl is expected to have caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama and doll tits.

The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes. Everyone else is struggling.”

- Tina Fey

Slogtember 22 - Self

Advertisements are so provocative. Unconsciously, they change they way people see the world, the way people think and in the end they always win the mind-battle. They can also affect the society in every single way possible.

I’m home right now. Since I don’t have much to do, I watch TV majority of the time for the past 2 days. I can’t help but to look at the TV ads too (and there are loadssss of them).

As a teenager, there are certain types of ads that catch my attention. One is beauty stuff and another is ad of products targeted to teenage girls or women. And I have some examples too.

One of the ads that I hate the most is the whitening beauty product ads. I hate how the ads is trying so hard to set people’s mind to think that beauty is white skin. They seriously have to stop this. I mean this is Indonesia. If you’re not half something else or you’re the majority of Indonesian, you will have brown skin. That’s just the way it is. It is genetic and it’s going to happen, you’re going to have it. 

So, why do the advertisements trying so hard to sell “white skin”? It bugs me that they’re trying so often to tell people that white skin is the thing and brown skin is so last year? Is it because brown skin is so mainstream? I mean look at foreigners trying so hard to tan their skin to make it looks brown. They even have a machine that exposes their skin directly to the UV even though it is super dangerous. And here we are, thinking that white skin is the “thing” and trying so hard to make our skin looks so white and deleting our identity (kind of).

The same thing goes to the slimming products. There are so many advertisements about slimming products from milk, supplement, medicine and so on. They’re trying to make people think that beauty is slim, or to the extreme end, skinny.  Not trying to be hypocrite, I don’t always feel happy about the way I look. But whenever I think about it, at the same time I realize there are only very few girls who have the skinny figures. That’s not me. And that’s not how most girls’ bodies are. So many people strive to be skinny and hating themselves from young age. That’s NOT healthy both physically and mentally. There are so many beautiful people and talented people who are not skinny and they are successful and in the end the society thinks that they are pretty. And yes, I agree it’s not easy to not to feel self-conscious when the media is pestering us with the image of this perfect skinny white-skinned girl. But you’ve got to try to rise above the stereotypes.

The people around you also contribute on how you think, consciously and unconsciously. I have been in that situation. I’ve never had friends who talks about make up or fashion or anything related to beauty at home. My friends are guys or girls who behave like guys. When I moved away, girls are girls. They talk about fashion, beauty, make up, and clothes (amongst other things too you know, not saying this is a negative thing). More than just talking about it, they actually do something about it. For the first time ever I have people around me feeling self-conscious about their eyebrows and do stuffs like plucking, waxing or threading. Meanwhile, I’m here standing not knowing which kind of eyebrow is ugly and which one is good. Shame on me, right?

On the bottom line, I’m not saying if you’re skinny, white-skinned or if you care about how you look like is wrong. I don’t think that way. It is very good to take care and look after your self. But please do not hate yourself if you are not the same as those girls on TV or magazine. Just make sure that you are healthy and happy. Love yourself the way you are because if you are doing things the right way, you’ll hopefully feel beautiful. I’m trying to and I’m sure lots of other girls are doing the same thing too J