Well the person I called stupid in my last entry? Turns out she's an 8 year old girl. I just found out now. WHO THE HELL LET AN 8 YEAR OLD HOST AN RR?? I have nothing against 8 year olds, go play, have fun and go to school, kids. This RR a lot of work, this hobby involves a lot of effort and money. There are so many serious collectors in the forum and an 8 year old is hosting a popular RR?? Like... I don't even... It's so fucking messy, I'm not going to join ever again.

... or more like #postcrossingproblems

I'm stressed out and embarrassed for this RR Group that I'm hosting. THE RR ADMIN IS STUPID. I sent her a U2U and she never responded until like 2 weeks later after I asked about it on the thread. She said she never has gotten my U2U. I sent her again. I wrote in Japanese so that she understand and still she replied to me in English and also she still misunderstood my intention. I WAS NOT OFFERING UNESCO CARDS. I meant it was included in my offers, but anyone is free to choose anything from my neatly organized offer album which I spent a lot of time to put together on. GAAAAAAHHHHH. I said that to the host and she doesn't seem to understand. I wonder if she looked at my offer carefully? I don't want to ask her again. She said my wish is out of season. I understand fully that Daruma is more of a New Year's motif but I also have a lot of other things Japanese in my wishlist and a lot are more common. SHE DID NOT MENTION THAT ON THE FUCKING MASTERPOST.

Now the offer has been there for some time and no one is interested in joining. You might as well delete the thread and spare me from the embarrassment of offering ugly cards that no one wants. BLARGH. I take this hobby very seriously.

On a completely unrelated note, I need to finish the 4th volume of Altair soon before my editor finally disowns me for turning the manuscript late every goddamn volume.

This is yet another entry on postcrossing. Or rant, to be exact. I've been wanting to join one of those travelling notebooks project in the postcrossing forum. Travelling notebook, just like the name suggest, is a project of one note travelling to several places and every member of the group fill in a page of two with their dreams, stories, photos, or anything at all depending on the theme that the group agreed on.

There's this one member who made creativity travelling notebook round robins. Which means instead of one travelling notebook, each member of the group has one notebook that we pass on to other members. In the end we supposed to get a notebook filled with other people's creative entry. I excitedly, ambitiously joined when she started a new group. I made an awesome notebook that I passed on to the next member. It has a good cover with pink rubber elastic cord that I attached to the book using eyelets. It was a good notebook. It was my first ever rather successful handmade notebook:



Everything seems to be going great and in order until half way. In fact, of all the three TN RR that she maintain, this was the fastest, the smoothest one. Now three notebooks has came back to their owner and other three are supposedly still travelling ... except for mine. I think mine is lost somewhere between USA and Germany, because the person in the US sent it out on March 6, which was almost two months ago. And usually postal items don't wander that long before they reach their destination, which made me certain that it is, in fact, lost into the abyss.

The moderator didn't say anything about this, and that makes me sad. As a moderator of the group you have to make sure that the travelling goes smoothly and when it's not, ... you at least can offer some suggestions or options?? Like whether I would like to restart my book or not. I mean ... everyone's getting their notebook back and I'm the only one who doesn't and I'm really sad about this. And I did my best to make my entries for everyone's book.

Does no one care? Maybe I should give up on the idea of a perfect travelling notebook project, no one can guarantee if your postal item gets lost somewhere.

You know, even though the mod asks me if I want to restart or not I might will say no anyway, but it would be nice to have someone care about it, especially after I mentioned to her several times that I wanted to be in the RR and that if she makes another one I really would like to join. After all that hassle and excitement, now everything ended in nothing. What a waste of time and energy. This sucks.

( on postcrossing )

Having an artist's block is frustrating as hell. I want to feel happy by making art, but nothing I made satisfies me and I kept getting frustrated with everything for the last month. It started with a mixed media shopping spree that I did back in February with my birthday-month-discount at a scrapbook store. I purchased a very expensive thing called 'Creative Palette' from Stampendous, in hope of getting something similar to Gelli Art Printing Plate. I kept seeing tutorials on Gelli Art printing and it looks like an awesome tool with gorgeous results which allows tons of fun creativity. The sad thing is, that I can not get it here, and the shipping cost is too crazy if I order it directly from the US. So when I saw the Creative Palette, I was excited and I was so sure that this has the same quality as the Gelli Art one. But no. IT SUCKS. DON'T BUY IT. It dries your paint so fast you don't even have the chance to do anything with it. And when you apply so much paint, it's such a waste of paint! And the papers I used to make my prints stuck on the plate. I've tried so many ways, so many times and this product is just not working the way I need it to be. I've made so many failed prints which ... I'm sure I can incorporate for something in the future somehow, but it was still so frustrating. Yesterday I decided that I'm going to have fun by doing things that don't have anything to do with the monoprinting plate. It worked! I made some cards I thought are decent for sending out to people, I did some other fun techniques I haven't done in a while, and in the end I finally could enjoy art-making process again.

( and another withdrawal )

On other note, I haven't changed my icons in a while and I am desperately needing new ones.

I'm still working on my translation even on a Friday night at the end of a busy week, and there's one thing that bothered me right now and I don't have anyone to talk to so bear with me. So this postcrossing thing. Just like when I'm obsessed with anything, for some range of time, my life was dedicated for it. That was all I focused on. I sent a whole bunch of cards, I participated in different threads and tags, and I received many, too, which is nice. But of course, nothing is ever enough and I still want more. So I volunteered myself, in the middle of all these crazy work, to hold a postcrossing meeting in my city *gasp*. Which is okay! I love organizing things. The thing is, this girl I'm working with, man, I can not like. I've felt iffy about her since the first, and now everything is crystal clear. She's a loud personality who likes to uses other people for her benefit.

Just now she posted a photo on her facebook, tagging me and several other friends reminds us about the meeting (which is next week). The photo shows the meet-up card, meet-up poster, and meet-up stamps. Everyone on her facebook praises her for her effort and she's answering everyone saying 'thank you!' and such. The thing is. THAT WAS MY PHOTO. The card was designed by MY SISTER, which I PRINTED. I went to Jakarta Philately Office ALONE in the middle of a heavy rain to get the stamps printed. The poster was made by me, I made it as a mini advertisement to put at Jakarta Philately Office. The poster, the cards, the stamps, was all my hard work. And it was a photo I carefully arranged and took myself IN MY ROOM. Wow. And now she's getting all the recognition and praises for it, I can't even.

And now I'm done.

Mails!
Last week I got two beautiful portrait art in the mail (♥_____♥)!

One is from Kriss!! (I felt guilty because I thought mine was lost but she received it today, yay!) And I squealed when I saw that it's LUHAN!!! OMG! I love it! I really need to know how you used your gloss, too, because it's always so clear without any trace of brush strokes.


And the other one is from Ksenia whom I exchanged art with from Postcrossing forum. SHE DREW ME, based on my postcrossing profile OMG. And she drew with white charcoal on black paper (was that even it??) and I was so amazed because I've never accepted anything like that. And she put some leaves on the back, it was really nice :)



Water Problem
The reason why I posted this late was because a leak in my apartment room has kept me busy. Man, it was raining SUPER HEAVY on Friday night. I was awake until 2 am trying to dry the pool of water coming into my room, until I decided to just go to bed. I woke up with almost the whole floor covered in water, geez. They said it's because the next door is doing construction work and they probably damaged the other side of my wall which caused the leak. Whatever it is, I hope they can fix it soon (T_____T). You can't see it in the picture but, the whole floor was covered in water. And then I went home to my parents on Saturday but the rain has damaged one of the electrical wire so half of the house had no power. Great.

New Translation!


Finally I got rid off my only private student so that I can focus more on my translation job. I have finished Jiraishin Diablo which was NOT my kind of manga at all, and now my editor has offered me a new title, Shoukoku no Altair! It's exciting to start because the drawing style is pretty ♥. But also a little bit intimidating because it seems to be a popular series which still continues until today. (Usually I got to translate old, boring mangas only, lol)

Ever since I joined postcrossing, I feel like my world evolves around it. One of the things that bothers me so much, is the lack of good quality postcards out there. The cards I can get at my local bookstores are the same things I've seen my whole life. The photos came from the 80's, they are OLD with no design, creativity whatsoever and they need to retire. Sadly, because there are not much choices for us Indonesian postcrossers, we are forced to buy and send those old, ugly postcards. Whenever I visit the postcrossing gallery of cards sent from Indonesia, there are little variety to it and it is sad.

So lately I've been seriously thinking to start my own line of postcards. It could cover a lot of different themes like photography, illustration to vector art. I've been discussing this seriously with my sister who is a graphic designer, and she even started to make drafts and sketches for the project. But we are facing major problems though; 1) the lack of time to focus on the project because we both work full time (and more) 2) the lack of experience. We can't predict how successful this project can be, how much we can make from it, what kind of strategies we need to apply and even simple things like how to get your stuff to be sold in major bookstores and get spotlight.

I have so many ideas, and so little time.

So lately because of postcrossing, I've been sending a lot of postcards - handmade or not - to many other postcrossers. Dhani, my colleague at work said that a lot of people are posting their pics of card they offer on instagram and doing swaps from there. She convinced me to make an account to post my cards, and I did.

I was too naive though, I wrote that I would love swaps and I post my best handmade works, thinking that they would attract people with similar hobby/interest/art style. Turns out, so many people wants to swap with me. But the catch is ... they don't make handmade postcards. I doubt they make handmade anything. One of them even called my cards "DIY cards" which ... is not a term I'd prefer. Now I've abandoned the account and kind of regret making one :/

Different case, but similar - on postcrossing. As a crafter that I am, I feel offended when people say they don't like handmade cards just because we don't spend money buying it at the store. "I spent money buying cards, and I should receive something equal in return". Well here's the deal; handmade cards are far more valuable than your store bought cards because not only the supplies to make it could be very expensive, it also involves time, energy and LOVE to make. It definitely needs more effort to make than just going to your local bookstore to buy some standard touristy postcards. I, for one, would NEVER send anyone a shitty card. I will tailor it according to what the receiver might like, I will spend a whole lot of time trying to think of the design, the concept and the details. And there would be only ONE of them in the world, I just don't get why some people seems to really hate handmade cards.

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!

My boss went out with guests all day yesterday. As a spontaneous, irresponsible worker that I am, I skipped work (for about 1 hour) to go to Jakarta Philately Office for the first time in my life. The place was underwhelming, but it was exciting to see the stamps. Because postage stamps are always exciting. Yes. Even if the designs aren't really good. Yes. I also bought two postcards, they are boring as hell.

Okay I might have gone a little overboard ...

And look! A vintage collection box that is never used anymore and they covered the hole with a tape so that no one puts anything in it!

I went to Central Post Office at Lapangan Banteng which was close to the Philately Office to post my first 4 cards. So excited to get them posted! I hope they reach their destination safely, amen.

I'm so obsessed with postcrossing I need to send my postcards NOW.

I vaguely remember that I still have somewhere at home, a lot of postcards from when I lived in Japan. But I couldn't wait til weekend to try to look for them, so in the end I decided to buy some cards from Scoop and Gramedia I saw yesterday. I got one set of hipster, instagram-ish postcards and another set of deer from Scoop. I also bought two Indonesian scenery postcards from Gramedia. I had to choose from a very bad set of postcards, for in case the person I'm sending to strictly demand a postcard depicting my country.

Back at my apartment, I generated 5 addresses that I'm going to send my first 5 postcards to! This is so exciting!
1. An animal lover from The Netherlands, I'm sending her one of the deer postcards.
2. A girl who lives near the city I was born in Germany! :D I'm giving her one of the instagram-ish ones
3. A young Buddhist nun from Taiwan! OMG. I'm sending her one of the scenery postcard.
4. A Russian girl who asked for mail art! Oh. My. God. I can't wait to go home and make her an awesome one.
5. A music lover from Poland, I'm sending her a postcard of guitar on it.

So excited to send these away tomorrow! :D

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.