Oh God today was a mess. It started in the morning when I was rushing through everything trying to come to the office without being late like I almost always do when my phone rang. Goodness gracious, who the hell would be callin' when it's not even 8 in the morning?? Seriously, super early morning calls pisses me off. Plus I'm always cranky in the morning. I was ready to drop some serious temper if it was from the bank offering me loans or something but turned out it was ... STEFAN a.k.a the super annoying person from my Korean Language class. Oh my God I really wish he'd leave me alone! I told him that I skipped the last two classes because I was sick, and that there's no use of him trying to ask me what the lesson was last week. In the end of his call he said "I'll give you a lift again tonight after class" And I was like "yeah whatever." Actually he has a really nice car and he always pass by Thamrin street, and he has offered me a lift every time. I never know how to handle him. HE IS SUPER ANNOYING IN THE CLASS, NOT TO MENTION VERY SLOW. Bad humor taste, just. blergh. Oh and for the record, he's not hitting on me, he has a girlfriend. IDK, maybe he's just trying to be nice. Or make friends. Because he has none.

Anyway! I managed to get to the office without being late today, going through my newly discovered elevator which gives me a shortcut to the office building. Work though, blah. One of my colleagues was sick and took the day off. Which resulted in my work being doubled than usual! It was insane! I wasn't even finished with one task when my boss came with more. I thought I would have time to do some postcard-y stuff and prepares for my Korean class because I have skipped the last two classes. But NO. I didn't even had the time to have lunch. I ate bread on my desk while working. I was documenting some cards when my boss came and gave me more things to do. ON MY LUNCH BREAK. I could not reach the number my boss told me to call, the hotel reservation was for the wrong name, there were more articles to translate, everything was just WRONG. I was seriously on the verge of a breakdown.

In the middle of my frustration, I got a really cute message from a girl on postcrossing. She asked whether I was the owner of a blog (it was my old blog) because she was a fan. She was in middle school back then, and she loves to saves pages of my blog (!!!). Awww that was so sweet!! Back then I used to blog about life in Japan, and in the first phase I was much more cheerful and less depressed, and the blog was funny! Even if I read it again now I would still laugh (it's gone now along with the blogging platform though).

I rushed through my last translation task to get off work before I was late to my Korean class. I just couldn't skip another class! Next week is going to be the last week of our class, and we'll have a test on next Thursday. I made the call to get on Transjakarta instead of Kopaja as I usually do after looking at the crowded street and the non existence of Kopajas. Turned out, it was great. I used my flash card for the first time :D There's nothing to note about the ride itself. It was okay.

In the class I was really nervous. I was sure I'm going to have a lot of trouble following the lesson because I skipped the last not one but TWO classes in a row. Turned out, the sonsengnim was just as cheerful and funny as usual, and fortunately I could follow the lesson just fine. Phew. Going home, Ali wasn't there so I had to go home just alone with Stefan. Which. I wouldn't choose normally. And Gatot Subroto was jammed! Argh. Had I went home by bus, I would already be home instead of suffering the traffic jam with the annoying Stefan. Anyway I do think he is kind, actually, maybe. But ... still annoying.

On my way home, I saw a Putu seller walking away from the alley my boarding house is in. I hesitated, but Putu cakes are my favorite and it has been forever since I had them last time! So I changed my direction and chased him. I never chased anyone on the street before. I bought 10 cakes, ... just because I like them and I pity the seller if I buy too little. In the end I ate 4 of them and shared the rest for the guards. It felt good to do that.

I also! Got an Alice in The Wonderland postcard from Belarus \o/ I didn't expect anything to arrive so early so it was a nice surprise. It was the cute Chesire cat from the movie!

Work was so busy in September with the President Director coming and all ... Thank God it was over!

I've started my Korean lessons since last week. I'm so excited to learn a new language! I've learned the language before when I was in college (which was ... forever ago) and started to practice the pronunciation and characters by my own before the classes started. Plus of course, I consume a lot of Korean media even if I don't understand the meaning. It all helped me a lot, because the classes are quite fast and the teacher can not speak Indonesian very well. I bet anyone who come to the class without any basics is going to have a hard time keeping up. 2 hours, 2 times a week is kind a lot, for someone with a full time job like me, but I fully realize that I'll never master another language without intensive learning (and this is not even that intensive). Now I really really want a good Korean-Japanese-English electric dictionary.

On other news, I'm taking more translation jobs and this time it's a manga called "Jiraishin Diablo". The story is very serious and dark, which ... is not my type at all but hey, it's a job and I'll take it. However I do think the cover art is beautiful and inspirational.

Well we're having some relatives coming for Eid greetings. This annoys me because we're having an Eid party later tonight, we're working our hardest cleaning and setting up our house since early in the morning, WHY ARE YOU COMING NOW? CAN YOU NOT COME LATER?

Oh okay by the way, my dad, who is OBSESSED with Indonesian X-Factor winner started bragging about how Indonesia don't have a young notable female singer since Nike Ardilla, and that he's proud of this winner girl (I'm not even going to say her name, blargh). Man, WHO FUCKING CARES. He also bashed me for liking Korean things. What. This is a totally different thing. Besides, when my cousin in law said his daughter loves Korean drama, my dad immediately said "It's the same! She is too! Everything Korean!" *points at me*. EXCUSE ME, I'm only in SOME K-Pop fandoms and an observer of the K-Pop world in general. Never watched a Korean Movie/drama in my life.

Granted, I'm learning Korean, my phone and my laptop are Samsung, but it's not the same. Fandom is fandom, you're just too old to grasp the concept of fandom you don't even realize that you're in one. ALSO, STOP RUBBING YOUR FANDOM PREFERENCES TO OTHER PEOPLE'S FACES. My dad is crazy! He listens to this girl's live performance all the time all day with loud volume, talks about her ALL THE TIME, searches videos and interviews of her on youtube and watches it over and over again, he's driving us NUTS. It is okay to be obsessed with things you love but PLEASE, don't drag us in this and stop rubbing it on our faces. We get it, you like her. We don't.

Finally I got my postcard exchange mail from krissasaur! \o/


I LOVE IT! I think this is the first time I've ever received real art in my life! And I just realized that I supposed to write on the card instead of on a separate letter sheet since this is a postcard exchange, hahaha. And the envelope is my favorite kind of pink, it matches the pink of my phone case and pencil case <3

Kriss, thank you so much! Art exchange is so much fun, I'm willing to swap again haha.

And I got other mails I've been waiting from postcrossing as well!!


I don't know if the postman postponed delivering my mails or they all are just coincidentally arrived at the same time (umm, yea probably the first).

On Thursday I got to meet my cousins whom I haven't met for 15 years! They live in New York, and are now visiting Indonesia for the Ramadan and Eid. Can't wait to meet them again at grandma's house in my parents' hometown a week after Eid :)


This week was a little crazy. Just when I thought I could be a little free near the holidays ... my boss just gave me holidays presents which is a stack of things to do (-___-;). Not to mention the traffic going home each day was HELL. It's only a week away from Eid, and I'm so tired.

This whole week we were also working on a video project for our boss in Hong Kong Branch who just got promoted and is moving to Head Office. It was exhausting, but also so much fun. The result wasn't the best, we only got one confetti and the take was a fail, lol. But the imperfections were making the video much more heartfelt and fun, I think.


I really really need some days off work, can't wait for Eid holidays next week!

Remember how I accidentally broke my very old laptop and bought a new one in a rush? Well I sold that one and got myself this sleek baby!



( blah blah blah )

I LOVE IT. I just love it. My dad said not to buy a Samsung laptop because Samsung is not known for their laptops. Clearly my dad lives in the past so I ignored his advice and went with my guts. My guts said it is time for a pink laptop in my life. It is not that expensive, about $680, so I don't expect too much from this laptop, but it is definitely MUCH BETTER than my old bulky ASUS. And it is so much better looking, too.

I got a lot of bonuses from buying this (I'm such a marketing strategy victim, I know but still!). I got a licensed Microsoft Office pre-installed, a laptop pouch (wanted the pink one but they ran out so I got the black one), a mouse (which I chose to upgrade to a wireless one with extra $10), and a cashback of $5. Look at that tiny matching cute pink mouse. I just can not handle this cuteness!

( one more pic and a note on my toshiba laptop )

Today I woke up not wanting to go to the office. It felt so hard to leave home on Sunday night after being so high on dopamine working on different art projects the whole weekend.

I haven't been making anything art-y for a while, except for that one time I did a scrapbook workshop for Christine back in March. I was so inspired by postcrossing and mail arts, and the art exchange I was going to do with krissaur, that I NEEDED to be with my art supplies immediately. I worked on my card for Kriss first, and in an instant my room went from tidy to looking like a plane crash site.

My mom came in to show me something and ...
Mom : Hey look at this picture of your aunt, she did a very cute hijab style and - OH MY GOD! What are you doing??
Me : I was making a card! (I was finished and was in front of my computer when this conversation took place)
Mom : Your room looks like this for a card?
Me : Well I need different supplies to make one card ...

( To think about it ... )

Earlier I was so excited to go straight home from work. I usually don't do that, because of the horrible traffic of Friday night. Normally I go home to my tiny apartment room, and go home to my parents' very early on Saturday morning. Peaceful and free of traffic jams. But this I week I just couldn't wait anymore. I want to go home. I want to be home, I want to start working on my art projects and be lost in my own imagination. I want to be surrounded by things that triggers my creativity.

So there I went, half-running to the taxi queue at the west gate of Plaza Indonesia, hoping that the line isn't so long, and the traffic isn't so bad. It took me 2 hours to finally reach home. I was so so so happy to be home, to talk with my parents and sister, to eat home cooked foods, to sleep in my bed. I was just so happy to be home, the 2 hours and 7 dollars trip was worth it.

Lately I am hooked with swapping things with people around the globe.

Rando
At first I was crazy about this application called Rando, what it does is that you send one picture to a random person all over the world, and you'll get one back in return. You can only send a real time photo from your phone, no saved photos, no filters, no zooms. Sometimes you get unique, interesting photos from different countries, but many of the times you get mediocre photos from South Korea, lol. (No, seriously like more than half of the users are from South Korea)

Here are some of my favorites that I got from all over the world!


Art Swap
krissaur saw my post about distress inks and she asked me if I want to do art exchange with her. OMG! The last time I did art exchange was sometime in 2009, I was so excited when she asked. Sadly I don't have all of my art stuff with me at my apartment room, so I have to wait til weekend to do it.

Postcrossing
I saw Esti tweeted about postcrossing the other day, and I was intrigued. In this digital era when people talk to each other online, snail mail has became a rare thing. Postcrossing's concept is that you send one postcard to a person, and get one random postcard in return. I went to several stationery and book stores near my office yesterday, but there are no good Indonesian-themed postcards out there. I live in Jakarta and I wish to find anything that depicts Jakarta but alas, the ones available is a photo of Bunderan HI from 20 years ago with a bad quality print. Seriously, this concerns me.

1. Was the Spaghetti Aglio Olio of Ninety-nine restaurant aka my dinner yesterday
2. I started to save my 20Ks again. I did before with my sister (she used our saving to buy a PS3 in the end lol).
3. Have I ever told you about my precious Distress Inks collection being lost in the process of sending them from Japan to Jakarta? Well this, was my revenge to get them back in my life.
4. Oolong Tea I bought at Breadtalk, had it for lunch today along with some breads from Breadtalk.
5. My Ceci arrived on Tuesday!! LOVE.
6. More Distress Inks and Stains from today (... I know, I have a problem)
7. If I have told you that I have all colors of Sarasa pen there is, would you believe me? (The answer is you shouldn't because I don't have the dark blue)
8. My work table yesterday
9. When I passed by Periplus on Wed I couldn't help but noticed that they have Wreck This Journal on their shelf! I've been wanting this journal I even made a stupid version of it myself when I was still in Japan. I grabbed it and I'm excited to start journaling in it! :D

Also my XOXO package came in the mail when I got home today!

Oh and the most important event of the week! IS! That my best friend fe came back from Japan and I had a fun dinner and a visit to her room on Monday :D I'm going to Bandung tomorrow with my parents, hopefully it will be a good trip and the traffic is not so stressful.