Bye Bye 2017, Hello 2018

Don't know why, I always have a fight with my youngest sister on the last day of the year. I should have typed this post this morning when my mood was all good and calm. Anywayyyy

2017 hasn't been too bad actually, I think. Apart from arguing with parents and a colleague of mine being a stubborn smart-ass, everything else is pretty good.

I went on 2 overseas holiday (1 was short though as it was for my friend's wedding), 2 weekend trips, saw a lot of movies, and ate a lot of good food! As a result, I'm on a diet 😐

I guess what I did the most this year was watching drama and learning languages. I did have 2 weeks mandarin practice in Taiwan! And I realised that I am actually better than I thought xD that's another realisation I had this year besides finding out that my drawing is not bad at all XD

I finished around 6 TV series and some of them were LONG! Thanks for being sick so I had to stay home for a few days. Nothing else I could do apart from watching them to sleep. Actually, I just finished season 3 of The 100 last night! Yayyy! 😆

News wise, this year was filled with North Korea sending trial missiles, Ahok was put in jail, gabener and wagabener saying silly stuffs everyday to the point of me getting bored of it, a lot of crazy people crashing trucks to innocent pedestrians, bombs, and of course the gay marriage voting that made me cringe and ran away every time the topic is brought up in lunch room.

Sydney's winter was so cold and summer has so many near or 40 degrees days. This year Sydney's weather is so extreme, I can not choose what to wear without checking the weather forecast first.

Work has been busy but manageable. I did new projects, thanks to tap water. And I did get some help with 1 of my biggest maintenance work, even though it wasn't as much help as I would have. Let's just say that the amount of emotion and argument I've had might have been equal or more than the help I've got on that project. If I wrote every story of it on this blog, you would have been waiting for new story every day. Then, a female version of dudul showed up. Patience... Patience...

Friendship, we get closer and closer with 2 girlfriends from souvenir store. However, we got further and further away with the male friend from the store too. He's currently having anxiety disorder or something, and no matter how much effort we put in to get him to join us for walks, weekend away, movie, etc, he just wouldn't join and just brushed us out. I did have a lot of clashes with him this year. Because, not only he brushed us out when we're arranging get together, even when I just messaged him on whatsapp, this is what I get:
Me: "Hi, how are you? Long time no chat!"
35k: "I'm good, thank you for asking. Have a nice day!"
Me: ...😑

Another one, I was on holiday and just suddenly wanted to chat with him.
Me: "Heyyy how's it going?? "
35k: "I'm good, thanks. Have a great holiday! ".
Me: ...... *patience..... Patience....

The only time we could get him to show up was just Christmas. Well, I guess better than nothing 😕

I did spend a lot of time this year with my cousin in Indo as I stayed at her place in Apr and then she came to Oz for a month. I also met my besties quite a lot, 2 occasions this year: Apr and Sep, that's not bad at all! Even Orihime can only meet her boyfriend once a year 😆. Then, I became a bridesmaid for the first time this year yayyy!! It was fun spending 2 days with my besties, after uni, we couldn't spend time together for long. So it was a great chance to reminisce our friendship. Plus, I caught the bouquet too hohoho 😁 though a week before the wedding I fell and hurt my knee
😓 I just had my first MRI this month too.

So... Yeah, I think 2017 has been pretty good. I just hope 2018 could have more of the good stuffs I had this year, and less of the bad stuff I had this year.

Hope I win the jackpot next year!!

And I hope the world could be slightly a better place next year.

Bye Bye 2017!!! Thank you for everything 😊

And I will see you tomorrow, 2018!!

The Weirdest Compliments I Had

Just happened last Friday after I got changed into a dress for our office Xmas party.
A male colleague:
"You're thinner this year! You wouldn't have fit into that dress last year, would you? "
Me: *Jaw dropped to the ground, speechless* "Err.. I don't know... I think I'm the same, or even heavier this year... "

When I was in Junior High School:
School Girlfriends: "Woahhh, from your back you look like a beautiful girl!!"
Me: "Err.. -_-"

A male friend during Junior High School,
"You know, except that you're smart, there's nothing good about you"
Me: 😐

Tapwater: "A girl can only be either smart or pretty".
Tapwater: "You're smart".
Me: *speechless* "I don't know if I should be happy or not."

Really, what's inside my head at those moments was, "Maksud loe???? "

My Best Friend's Wedding

Last Friday one of my best friends got married!!! The first of Charlie's Angels to get married lol 😂 It was a wonderful day and I'm still reminiscing about it until now. I have never actually understood when people say they are very happy and honoured to be there on someone's wedding day, especially the bridesmaids, considering there are an awful lot of work to do, but now I actually understand.

It was a lot of work to do, I had to prepare the booklets, place cards, pack whatever the bride might need on the day, make sure I will be healthy and can walk on her wedding day (believe me, there was a lot of incidents leading to her wedding day which involved my legs and feet, I had to actually stop going out during lunch to avoid anymore injuries), make sure the bride remembers her vow, learning the steps to walk down the aisle, outsourcing my bridesmaid's duty *cough cough*, etc.

And on the day too! I had to wake up at 6 to have make up and hair done. When my make up done, and make up artist was doing Eva's - with messy hair rollers on my head - I had to do errands and helped the photographer setting up her wedding dress for photos, making tea or getting drink for everyone who needed it, find the stuffs someone needs, clear up the place and pack-up, putting on her veil, and so on. 6 AM to 1 PM literally went in a blink of an eye.

But I was happy to be there. I'm glad I was there and saw the day unfolded. I didn't even mind at all when she was stressing out and started to get cranky. I was genuinely happy to help and be there for her.

Everything went smoothly. We were a bit late for church (though no fault of the bridal party. Her brother went to get take away in Kingsford!!! -_-). But other than that, we were pretty on time and no drama happened on the day. She looked happy, pretty and radiant. Her friends and colleagues put in effort to come to the mass, so it was like a mini reunion. She looked very very happy. Her husband too.

Wedding photos were a bit short, but she's still got over 1000 photos of the day, and they are all lovely photos. The bridesmaids were pretty too *cough cough* 😂

After photoshoots, we went back to hotel for her make up touch up and tea ceremony. The bridesmaids and bridesmaids little helpers 😂 set up the place cards and bonbonieres, and finally could sit for a bit. Then, tea ceremony. I completely forgot about that, and that bride and groom would need people to help with pouring tea etc. This time, I was ready with tissues!! And yep, she needed it big time this time. FYI, I was ready with tissue even at the church, but I wasn't sure if I was allowed to step back to my seat and get it 😐 next time I become a bridesmaid, I would know 😆.

Then, welcoming the guests and dinner time!! You know what? When we were preparing the flowers, cakes, place cards, etc, we didn't really plan on a color scheme or design matching. But in that reception hall, everything worked! The colour was all in sync and even the place cards design and pattern matched the room! It's amazing sometimes how things somehow works perfectly well at the end.

I was seated at the table right in front of the bridal table with our uni friends. It was like reunion and we all had fun joking around. It's always sad remembering how time goes on and life gets in the way and we can't be just like we all were in uni, seeing each other every single day till we were bored. However, things like this brings us back together and reminds me of the good old times, and just how lucky we are to meet each others and be part of one of our happiest time.

I did not give a speech. The bride and groom didn't ask me or Eva to give a speech *phewwwwww... Thank God for that XD the best man and the groom did though. The bride looked teary when she heard her husband's speech. It was moving. Eva and me were teary as well. The best man speech was funny to begin with, but then quite moving at the end too. Our friends at our table kept jokingly asking me to make a speech -_-

After that was cutting the wedding cake. The cake was good BTW and smelled SO GOOD! When we opened the box, a delicious aroma straight away comes out. And when they were put up on the stand, we could smell the nice aroma even from 3 meters away! Our gang then made some noises with our forks and wine glasses asking for a kiss 😆 and as I have guessed, those new husband and wife didn't know that those glass noises meant something! 😐 the MC had to explain to them what it meant 😕 then they kissed 😆 (I was worried the bride would scold us for that, but luckily no haha).

Bouquet throwing was next. All the single ladies were asked to come up to catch the bouquet. I have always thought that it's for single guys and girls. In Indonesia, usually guys come up too and gahar-ly catch the bouquet. I've seen bouquets broke into pieces and they had to see who got the biggest piece of the bouquet to declare the winner 😐

There were only about 7 single ladies in total. FYI, the bride had told me and Eva multiple times, that any one of us MUST catch the bouquet. It is a MUST. She didn't care how, but one of us must catch it (the bouquet was a fake, so she was worried other girl would catch it and be like, Huh? Fake?). So, I straight away went to the center, right behind her. She looked back a couple of times trying to measure, and then she threw. Usually I never put any effort catching it, but this time I went forward, and reach out to catch it. I got it!!! Hip hip hoorayyyyyy 😆😆 🎉🎉 🎊🎊 when the bride turned around and saw me with the bouquet, she broke into a big smile and straight away came over to hug me 😆😆😆

Then the bride and groom had their first dance together. It actually looked alright, considering they can't dance. And for the fact that the bride couldn't move much in her big dress. They only moved left and right together, but they looked lovely. Eva told me to look at the bride's father, he was smiling a little gentle smile, I can't describe it, calm, peaceful, content, glad, serene, kinda smile? Maybe this is the type of smile, the fathers of the bride have when their daughters get married. We hoped it was captured in a photo.

Then you know what? After that, the MC announced, "Would the groomsmen and bridesmaids join the bride and groom on the dance floor please?". "WHAT??? I wasn't told of this??!! Damnnnnnn". Then the best man came up to me and asked me to dance, for the bride and groom he said. I didn't have a choice, did I?

But turned out it wasn't thaaaaaaat bad. Of course we didn't dance, it was just moving left, right, backwards, and forward. But I was surprised on how easy it was. I always wonder, how do you know you're both going left, or right, or forward, or backward? But I just knew, I just followed his lead. And about following his lead too, I watched a lot of dancing competition show on TV, and I didn't get when they said "follow his lead", how would you feel that? I guess you just feel it.

After that it was just photo and selfie sessions and chatting etc. It was a fun wedding. I guess on Oz weddings, you get to spend more time with the newly weds compared to Indonesian weddings. I hardly speak to the couple on that night usually.

The party was over around 11. We packed up our stuff, took them to their hotel room, get changed, helped Helen loosen her dress and said good byes.

The whole wedding preparations up to the wedding day was full of surprises, bad luck and also good luck. The bride was made redundant a month before the wedding, she had to cancel and rebook hair dresser so many times, her make up artist had some attitudes, our make up artist went back to Indo so delaying my trial, I fell in the middle of the street while jaywalking and injured my knee, plus rolling on that ankle few days after, and finally her make up artist got stranded in Melbourne due to strong wind in Sydney the day before her wedding and her assistant had to do her morning make up instead.

The good luck was quite interesting too. When I was trying to hire a room to do bridesmaids make up, I was given a cheaper quote for the room! So, Helen rebooked the apartment and cancelled the old one. And when I checked in, the guy said, "Your booking is 3 bedrooms apartment for 1 night". I thought I heard it wrong, and just whatever. Plus when I signed the paper, the price was right and it was written "1 bedroom". But when we got to the room, it was a 3 bedrooms apartment!!!! Me and Eva were thrilled and straight away called Helen and her hubby asking if this is what she booked? Turned out it wasn't, she only booked 1 bedroom, but she asked for higher level, so it seems that we were upgraded 😆😆😆😆

The luck seemed to run even until midnight of her wedding day. After saying good byes, we went downstairs and wanted to call uber. But we just realised, since it was Friday night, there would be a 1.4x surcharge. The estimate price to go home was $78-112, then it would be like $150?????!!!!!

We were still thinking of what to do, when an old guy next to us asked where we were going. It turned out that he was an uber driver who accidentally just uninstalled his uber app! So he was there for half hour trying to download the app using the hotel Wi-Fi, but still not successful! Long story short, he asked me how much was the estimate, and I said $70 plus surcharge. Then he told us to wait till he's downloaded the app and he would take us home, he'll scrap the surcharge. At the end, he still couldn't download it, and just said, "Let's go, you can pay me with cash or credit card. It's fine. "

So that's how we got a cheap ride even cheaper than uber on a Friday night 😐 Life is funny sometimes, don't you think? Well, his gps set wrong starting point, so we went over the harbour bridge just to get back to our starting point again, but we got home on an Uber black. And we heard Gary's stories about how he used to own a business but then crashed during GFC. How his ex-driver persuaded him to drive after he's lost everything and ended up loving it and still doing it until now. Life is indeed funny. Now he earns as much as before, driving.

We got home around 1, get changed and everything. We were suddenly starving, so snacked a bit, had tea and chatted before going to bed.

It was a very good day indeed. Happy Wedding Helen and Hubby!! 😘 I wish you both a lifelong of great marriage together. I know happily ever after doesn't exist, but as long as you're there for each other, to annoy and please each other, I think that's happiness. Please be patient to my BFF, I know she can be stubborn sometimes 😆 I've seen it during our uni days 😂

My First Thoughts on Barefoot Investor

I'm reading Barefoot Investor now. Its actually againsts my personal rule of not reading personal help books in an attempt to not brainwash myself. Those books sound really scary you know, seems like they can turn you into something completely different. I blame The Secrets to be exact.

But anyway, my colleague Barbie mentioned it to me. Barbie thought I was the one who recommended it last time, but no, it was my first time hearing it. I said to Barbie, I don't read those kind of books. Which Barbie replied, "That's a pity". This is 1 of the reason why I don't like Barbie. The i-know-everything-and-participate-in-anything act. Why should you pity me? I don't read those doesn't mean I don't do things they tell you to do in those books? I just read the early chapters, and you know what? I've done the first steps years ago. I can skip the first Barefoot Date yayy

I didn't plan to read this book really. But after going into library a couple of times last month and seeing the book for the 2nd time in Fast Loan section, I thought, alright, I will read it. The cheapskate/tightarse/thrifty/wanna-be-rich-and-retire-early part of me is a bit intrigued and want to know if there is something I can take out of it. Even if it makes me richer just by $50, it's still free money right? And it's actually written by an Australian, so it is relevant to me. And it's not thick, I should be able to finish it in a week. And, the way it's written is just like the way I write huahhahaha... Can get something unrelated tangled up to make a point lol XD

The first step is to make zero fee savings account and separate accounts for emergency and daily. Checked. Did that years ago and got all those free money for opening up accounts. Emergency... I do have an account, but it's really empty and I don't usually need it as I'm not the type who splurges or accidentally spends all my money in my daily account.

Second step, setting up high interests accounts. Did that years ago and now with a mortgage, my mortgage interests are higher than the highest savings account interests. So nope, not relevant anymore.

Third, superannuation. He's saying to ditch Self managed funds. But I haven't read all the chapters. We'll see.. I know I have investments going on there which is not bad at all, but I did think to change it to be more risky one. I will keep on reading.

A Condemning Society

The other day I saw a comic made by sporean comic writer that tells a story about a youngster who scolds an elderly in a food court. A passerby records a video of it and uploads it onto social media. As a result, a lot of people see and share it and people starts to condemn and verbally abuse her on social media. Not only that, people also gives her death stare and purposely bumped her on the street. Because of it, she's now terrified to go out.

This morning, I saw another comic made by Indonesian comic writer. The story was about a guy riding a motorcycle without wearing a helmet. A police stops her and wants to issue a fine. The biker slaps the police on the head and says, "You dare? I'm in the army! You can't fine me!". A passerby records it and upload it to social media. The head of the army then catches the guy and hands him over to the police.

When I saw the first comic, I felt sorry for the girl. She's still wrong, but she didn't deserve to be treated like that. Not only online, she was abused in real life by people she didn't know too. And she isn't even a murderer.

The second one though, I think was used appropriately. In Indonesian society, some people still believe they are above the law and can just walk their way out of problem either just saying they have certain position, or by bribing.

Both were punished in the end, however, I believe the biker wouldn't have been abused in real life. I think people treated her that way because she was easier to bully. The biker could easily reports anyone bullying him on the street for going against an officer while she can't?

Another thing is, the biker was handed over to police, that will shut people up. But then again, he was breaking the law in the first place. In the girl's case, it was about manners. She didn't break any law. She can't be handed over to police. The most she can do is apologise, and based on the comments on the comic, she already did. But that's not enough and people still abuse her.

In today's society, or maybe I should say even before, people constantly judge other people. Nowadays is more obvious though. Through social media, people are turning into keyboard warriors and condemn others every single second. I might be considered one of them too, I guess, since I'm talking about them now.

The other day there was a post on facebook about a mum who ear pierced her baby daughter. A lot of women strongly condemned her for doing so by saying she has no right to her body, it's cruelty against children, she's hurting the baby just for fashion, and so on. It was bad. Of course, there were other women who came to her defence and said it's better to be done when she's little so her mum could take care of it, they were earpierced when they were babies too and they are OK with it, it doesn't hurt that much, she won't remember it, and so on.

Some even said they were grateful to have theirs done when they were babies. They saw how their friends had ears pierced during teenagers and saw what they had to go through with the infection etc. I'm also one of those babies, my mum pierced my ears when I was 1 or 2 months old. Even then, she regretted it. Saying she had to care for me myself. Next time she gave birth, she asked the hospital to pierce their ears on Day 2.

But yeah, the opposition group is pretty strong. It was like they were condemning a thief.

Society is really weird nowadays... Few weeks ago, a guy was shot by police for holding a florist hostage with scissors and broken bottle for who knows why. I think he had mental issues. Then, people started critiquing the police for shooting him dead. Even though he already hurt the florist' neck!

I thought people would have learned from Lindt Cafe incident 2 years ago. Back then, the police didn't want to have casualties and didn't barge in until they heard shots, as the result 2 people died. Back then, the police were blamed for holding back. And now they didn't hold back, but are still blamed.

It's a weird world we live in 😕

Similar Different Fate - Part 2

One day 3 of us were shopping at Broadway, then Eva went to buy something at Go-Lo. When she returned, she told me and the other bestie the Go-Lo was looking for people for stock take. My response was, "What's stock take?". Neither of them knew what stock take meant either. But even so, I went and put down my details. Eva didn't, because she was going on holiday soon, but the other one did.

Few days after, I received a phone call telling me I got the job. The other friend didn't get it. It was funny, considering she put down her name right after mine, either I was the last person required, or they thought her one was a prank as we put same birthday. That time, I still didn't know what stock take was 😂

So I went, and turned out it was just a one day job to count the stocks in hand. No interview what so ever as it was just that. I was a bit disappointed, but at least I earned money right? It was a long job, I finished at 10. The manager told us, if we didnt mind, he'd pass our details to the other stores just incase they need people. Other store did call me, and I even managed to get the other friend to come work too.

Probably a week after, I received a call from that manager, saying he couldn't find my forms, did I fill them out? I said yes. He said he'd keep searching and would call me if he couldn't find them. Few days after, his phone call woke me up. Sleepily I picked up, and he asked me if I was looking for a job? I said yes, I was. Then he said he needed some casuals and would I be interested? Oh hell I was! He asked me to come in to chat, and I was officially hired 😊

OK, from then on, I became busy. I didn't work over my 20 hours limit, but enough to get me busy. In addition, I got another 1 morning a week handing free paper job. I followed rules closely to the t and made sure I didn't work more than 20 hours. Therefore, a lot of times I had to drop my shifts. Same with exam period, I'd be asking for a week off to study (though the most I got was few days off 😕 After few days off, my manager would call up saying the other girl was sick, could you please come? So I couldn't say no and went to work).

This other bestie however, would be the one asking for more shifts and didn't ask for days off to study. She'd burn the midnight oil to study rather than taking days off work. There was once she had to fake a sickie on an exam day because she didn't finish her study.

Do you see the pattern between me and her now?

Even after uni, she went straight into job hunting while I was scared as hell and didn't apply for anything until 6 months after graduation. Even that, was forced.

She found a full time job pretty soon after graduation. But she still kept her Coles as second job for weekends and sometimes night shifts.

I continued with Go-Lo and 2 mornings handing free papers, then I got a part-time programming job (3 days a week). I kept that up until I changed job 1.5 years after. This time, it's a full time job. However, I still kept my Go-Lo job (around this time, the missing money incident occurred) for a few months for the weekend, and then moved to a souvenir store.

I honestly only planned to stay for a couple of months in that souvenir store. I joined, just because I was invited by the last manager of Go-Lo and curiosity. However, not long after that, my sisters graduated and couldn't find a job. It was GFC again. I had to keep 2 jobs to cover all of our expenses. My parents could support us, of course. But my dad was having depression, asking for money would just add up to his depression. If he's depressed and asked me all those questions, it would stress me out, so it was easier to just earn as much money as I could.

So yeah, if I think about it, me and my friend have pretty similar journey of life. However, in my case, it was not my choice. I don't know if it was luck, coincidence, or just fate. In her case, she chose to do so. It's in her nature to strive and earn money. Back then in uni, if she didn't get shifts for a week, she'd freak out and chasing her manager. For me, I'd just calculate to see if I can survive from last week's pay and I'd be content. I was sure too that someone would call in sick and I'd be called to work. If not, then I could relax. Mind you, her parents could support her too.

I was born at night, which makes me a night rat. They said night rats fate is tiring. It's the time when they need to go out and find food while everyone else is asleep. It's true in my case. I believe my friend was born during day time, and according to the horoscope, she should be the happy rat, sleeping in after eating all the food she's found.

Different Similar Fate

Okayyyy time for my random blabbering. Been wanting to just talk about anything, but haven't got the chance to. But I think this is not completely random.

My best friend, who's getting married in a month, just told me and the other bridesmaid that she had been made redundant yesterday morning. It was a shock for her. Her whole department will be taken over by their UK brand and everyone in her department was pretty much unemployed since yesterday. There was no gossip, no warning, no clues what so ever before she had the conference call yesterday morning.

I guess that's how life is, isn't it? It can suddenly throw something at you, good or bad. You can be having a good life now, and suddenly you don't have a job. Or, you could be doing pretty bad, and suddenly someone helped you and later on you become a millionaire. You just never know.

My friend was pretty depressed yesterday. I don't know how she's feeling really, as I never had the experience, but she sounded pretty stressed. Not surprising, of course. Especially with the wedding coming up, the honeymoon, and all the expenses she had to pay throughout the year. I don't know why, but she does have a lot of expenses this year, I. E. Her mum Permanent Residency fee (which is like 40-50k) and her investment property costs and fees. To make it even worse, she's the type who can't not work. She gets stressed if she doesn't go to work, and can't just sit idle.

Thinking about it, horoscopes divides people into 12 star signs. Meaning people born between 2 dates are in a same category and supposedly have same traits.

This friend and I were born on the same day. Different place and time of the day, but same day, same month, and same year. Though we do share some traits, we are quite different.

She's always been a workaholic. She came to Australia, thinking she's going to study and work. She straight away searched for information on how to apply for working visa and started asking her brother's mates for vacancies. When she turned 18, she applied for visa and started working 2 jobs at the same time.

Me? I remember coming to Australia, thinking I was going to study, but I can work casual during my spare time. I applied my working visa a week after my 18th birthday, dragged my other friend who wanted me to accompany her looking for jobs. She was also very eager to start working. I wasn't too eager, I was a bit scared and not confident as my English wasn't up to standard yet. That day, both of us found a job together.

I didn't last long in that job, only 2 months. I hated it. Then I quit. I found a job handing out free paper in the morning (this job will help me get to where I am now) , once a week, and once in a while I went for 2 hours job of trialling out noise blocking headphones. That went on for a year.

Her, on the other hand, dropped her McDonald job and kept Burger King. She worked a lot. She would be running out the door once tutorials finished to get to her shift. She'd skip some of her lectures and worked instead. She'd take shifts that her team mates couldn't do and she'd ditch me and my bestie when we're going out if Burger King called her asking if she could work.

After a year, 3 of us were shopping at Broadway when Eva saw a vacancy for stock take at Go-Lo...

Continue to part 2

Childhood Not-so-good Memory

Lately, there have been some cases of students bullying in Jakarta. The first one involved an autism university student, while the second one involved a year 6 female students.

I didn't watch the videos, I only read the news and saw some photos. And also of course, the comments made by my old school friends who mostly are parents now. They all commented how they so want to slap those bullies and wish them to have even worse autism kids in the future as their karma. After reading those comments, what came in my mind was, "Didn't you guys kinda do that too back in primary school?".

Back when we were in primary school, every year probably just before Easter and Christmas, the school would arrange some charity collection from the students. Each of us was given an envelope to put money in, and on the front of the envelope, we were supposed to put our name, date and how much we were giving out. I think the idea was to spare some of our pocket money to give for charity.

My mum was pretty stingy in regards to pocket money when we were small. Unlike other kids who got daily pocket money of Rp. 500 a day, I only got Rp 500 for a week. However, if I brought food every day to school, and if there is anything I need e.g. pens, books, or any school little fees here and there, I just had to ask for it and I would get them. Comics and magazines were the same, I just had to say I wanted to buy Bobo magazine, and mum would either go buy it for me, or give me the money. Exact money.

So, getting real cash was hard for me. I remembered I used to steal some coins off my dad's store desk, so I could buy some snacks at school canteens after my friend told me off for always eating her snacks. Now that I think about it, I've always loved snacks, haven't I?

There was once, my school pick up uncle didn't know I came to school that day, so he left without me. I finished my class around 10 that day. My sisters however were in kindergarten and would finish at 12ish. That uncle would pick them up. So, being a smart kid with absolutely 0 money in her pocket, I thought I could just wait for them to go home.

So, I hung around the school. My teacher then saw me and surprised I was still there, she asked me what was I doing. I told her what happened, and she asked if I had eaten anything. I hadn't. Knowing my mum, she might have packed me some biscuits or bread which I should have eaten early in the morning. My teacher asked if I had any money. Nope. Not a cent. She then gave me Rp 500 so I could buy some food. I still remember, receiving that green paper money with the monkey on it was like receiving a stack of money. I was thinking, "wow... I could buy a lot of snacks with this... " really, it wasn't that much. It's just I've never received that much money for pocket money for a day. My pocket money back then was only Rp 200-300 a WEEK. I bought a Chitato chips packet with that money and got Rp 100 change. It's really only worth $2 now, you can only get a pack of small twisties with that money.

Anyhow, back to topic. Now that you know how hard it was to get cash, I could only ask mum for the collection. In year 3, my pocket money would be at most Rp 500 a week. I used to have to save for weeks to buy small inflatable doll for my sisters' bday from the old man in front of my school and bargained with the him to reduce it from rp 2000 to 1500, even had to keep checking for weeks, hoping it didn't get sold. Another thing was, my mum was stingy in regards to this kind of charity too.. She's quick to help people who need money that we know, but for organisational charities, she really wasn't into it.

So yeah... My mum only gave me Rp 200 a week for this charity. Her idea was, since it ran for 5 week, so we donated Rp 1000 in total. I guess she thought, for a kid Rp 1000 is a lot already.

It was okay, until my friends started looking around everybody's envelopes. Most kids gave Rp 500 a week, then they saw mine was Rp 200 a week. Then they started teasing me. Saying things like I was so stingy. At the beginning it was clearly just teasing, mucking around, but then it went on and on to the point that included pushing and shoving. There were quite a few of them, I could only remember 2 people for sure, 1 was my best friend that year, the other one was the boy I had been friends with since kindergarten.

It wasn't scary, but it was so embarrassing. I knew they were joking to begin with, but it went on and on and got physical. Finally I got so upset and couldn't take it anymore. I cried and ran off to the toilet.

My best friend at the time (who was also involved), yuan, chased me to the toilet. She said sorry and that they were all just joking. I'm pretty sure it was only her who came to find me. Especially since 15 min break was over.

Because of that, the next time we had this kind of collection, I saved my weekly pocket money. When my mum gave me Rp 200 for collection, I asked her if I could give some of my saved pocket money to make it Rp 500. I didn't tell her why, but I think she kinda guessed I was embarrassed. Later on, she started giving me Rp 500 for each week collection.

To those friends from my childhood, that extra Rp 300 was more than half of my weekly allowances, you know! For you it might be easy to spare 100 a day, but it took more than half of my weekly! Damn youuuu! You didn't know the story and just made fun of me! Where's that f*** u emoji???

It's just funny seeing them who are now parents making comments about bullying. I'm pretty sure they did some during their childhood though not to that extent. Good thing they turn out to be good, but you know.

When you are unlucky, then you are unlucky for the day. On next lesson after I came back from the toilet, my teacher - a killer one- started telling us to do some exercise from our textbook. I was still thinking about the previous incident and tried to distract my self.

Those days, she's been asking us to do exercises on a blank test paper, instead of exercise book. Those blank test paper had school logo etc and a book of that was quite expensive! You use 1 side on average and then that's it! What a waste of paper and money.

So, when I heard about doing exercise, in my mind was, "Ughhh she's going to ask to do it on test paper again. What a waste!". And I sighed. It wasn't loud, but she was just like a desk away from me. She flipped.

She scolded me for sighing. Saying that lately she's heard me sighing a couple of times already. "Do you not like having me as your teacher?? If you don't like it, you don't need to attend my class!". I tried to explain, but she didn't let me, and kicked me out to stand outside -_-"

See? Udah jatuh, tertimpa tangga. Naseb...

Sometimes I Just Don't Get My Parents

Readers beware! This is kinda gross and involves 💩. Please stop now if you can't deal with it.

Last Sunday at home, my siblings and I were discussing about our upcoming holiday plan upstairs. Our house's sound proofing is pretty bad, so we could hear our parents talking downstairs pretty clearly...

Mum: "Eh? You want to poo too?? "
Dad: "Yeah.. "
Mum: "I was just about to say I wanted to poo... Can you hold it? "
Dad: "Not really"
Mum: *half heartedly* "Umm... Okay... You can go first then... "
My sister: "Why did she let him go first?? It would be very stink if he goes first!"
Me: *shouting from upstairs* "Mummmmmmm!! There are 3 toilets in this house!!!! " 😓😓😓

About a minute after...
*dad went into the toilet*
Mum: *running after him* "Hubbyyyyy... Waitt... I need to go now!! "
Dad: "Can't. I'm already halfway".

3 of us upstairs: 😐😶😓

Superexcited Didn't Want to Lose

Helloooo everybodyyyyy (though from my knowledge there is only 1 person who reads this blog xD). Long time no see! Yeah, I haven't got anything interesting lately at work with superexcited *touch wood*. Even though, I'm kinda glad there is nothing interesting happening, that means life at work is peaceful. Last year in the office was such a drama, I was always anxious and even now, if I see the higher up people go into Lao-er's office, I feel some weight on my chest, worry abour what's happening this time. So touch wood all is good from now on.

Even though, he did make a scene about a week ago :l we were in our usual long meeting (those meetings... *sigh* if you calculate, they actually costs 40hours work/pay per meeting! But you-know-who likes to have them, to have people sit and just listen to him, so yeah... Last week's one probably cost more like 50 hours), Taylor Swift was doing a presentation about how our participants day to day at work is like, how their staff perform their work every day. So, keep in mind that it's about how our participants work.

Then we came across a screen where it showed a snippet of our website reporting page for that client. There was a table with 2 columns. 1 column was titled KPIs, the other was target. You-know-who then interrupted Taylor Swift who was in the middle of her presentation and said, "That table, why is it called KPIs and not Key Performance Indicators? There is enough space in there for it". Everybody was 😶😶😶

He then continued, "Also, this table is not consistent. The first column is left aligned while the second one is center aligned".

😶😶😶 really? You want to ask that question in the middle of How Participants Perform Their Work Everyday Presentation?

Prick answered him, saying that this is just a snippet of the whole table. That there are more columns on the right hand side and they are all center aligned because of blah blah blah, and they do look alright.

Of course superexcited didn't accept it and continued saying that it wasn't professional, it looked amateurish, blah blah blah.

Since it was my site, I then responded to him. I said, "I get what you mean superexcited, however, it is not the whole table. There are 3 months results and also how they are performing quarterly on the right side. The first column being left aligned while the rest are centered actually works, and clearly differentiates which one is target and which ones are results".

Don't know why, the second I finished my sentences, I knew that whatever people say, superexcited won't accept.

I was right. He looked pissed off and said, "So tell me, all you people who work on this website. Is there anything AT ALL that you guys can add value to this table??? "

😑

He's clearly annoyed that no one supported him 😐

In my mind I said, "Of course. But not that" 😆

Prick then said, "Yeah yeah, definitely".

Superexcited: "OK, moving on!"

Err.... You were then one who didn't want to let it go 😒

What's Trending Now?

Dear my future self,

If you're wondering what's been happening/trending around this time this year, it's Ahok.
Honestly, since I don't know when, it's always been about him. I told you about his lost in Jakarta's election right? Not long after that, he was sentenced guilty for blasphemy and was put in jail for 2 years. A sentence that divided Indonesians. It was a surprise, indeed, since the prosecutor was asking for 2 years jail, with 1 year probation or something which really means he won't need go in jail if he behaves well during the probation. However, the judges gave him harsher punishment. I think it was 2 weeks ago.

Shortly after that, the judges who sentenced him were mostly promoted. Doesn't it raise a question mark? Some people believed that it's because they had done their "work" well. It's hard to see on the positive side when you read the news, but I'd prefer it to be a bigger plan has started. But, well, it's hard to believe that.

Right after that, Ahok's supporters hold so many candle light support all over the country and overseas too! They were done spontaneously and within very short time frame. So many people came to each of the event to give their support. All done peacefully, even though there were few occasions where the haters tried to send the crowds home.

Sydney held one too. I nearly went, as my sister wanted to give her support. We thought there won't be many people there, so would like to add the numbers. But it was a cloudy Sunday arvo, so we ended up not going.

Anyway, the organiser was expecting 200 people to turn up. Guess how many turned up? 2000! They gathered in Botanical Garden and made some videos. There were a lot of people, yep. And because of that, the police asked Indonesian embassy in Sydney to tell Indonesians to always follow the rules and regulations of Australia when doing this kind of thing. The organiser didn't apply for permit xP I knew that, some people mentioned it and urged to organisers to ask for permit, however in true Indonesian style, he responded, "There's no time. We have to ask for permit a month before. There's no time!". But yeah, to their defence, they only expected about 200.

Then, yesterday, Ahok's wife spoke during a press conference. She read the letter his husband wrote in jail, which said he was cancelling his appeal and would not go to the higher court. He sent a message to his supporters to thank them, and to tell them to stop the protests, candle light vigil, and so on. He said it's not fair to cause traffic jam and wastes money just for him. His wife cried when she read it. I haven't watched the video yet, but just seeing the news/instagram/facebook posts about it already makes me teary eyed. Imagine how would his family feel.

On the other hand, brisik is still overseas. The guy who did all he could to put Ahok in jail and made jokes about other religions. He's got police summon for pornography, and he ran away overseas to avoid it. He's really a drama king, I tell you. He claims that he's been victimized because of political reasons. Hello??? Are you listening to yourself? That sounds really familiar... Isn't that what you did to Ahok during the campaign? If not because of you bringing thousands of people to Jakarta to protest, would you think he'd me in jail now? Probably the reason his verdict is guilty is to avoid another 3 numbers dates demonstration you sooooo love to do. You will laugh if you read this in few years time, my future me. Brisik wants/wanted to ask for support from the United Nations!!! I'm right, isn't it??? He is a drama king!!!

The last one trending happened about 3 days ago. North Jakarta police had an unannounced visit to a place where LGBT community was having a party. They found 141 people and caught them. It was said they were having a sex party. OK fine, sex party is illegal in Indonesia, however, the police brought them around NAKED! What about their integrity? Not only that, their identity such as names, jobs, religions and their photos while they were moved around naked are widely spread on the internet now! That I think, deserves to be reported to the UN :l

I'm telling you guys, if you're LGBT, don't stay in Indonesia. People are sooooooo against them. In my friend's word, they are hypocrites. They are not free of sins but declare these people worse than anything. Doesn't matter if you have a mistress and involved in corruption, as long as you are straight, you are better than LGBT.

I read the comments on facebook and news, and man... It's like the witch hunt in Europe in whatever century! (I can't remember and I don't have data to google it :/). A lot of people, and I mean a LOT, were actually saying they need/should be destroyed! Or they are sick and will bring people down with them. O.M.G. It's like the majority of them. Their comments are full of hatred and sounds very violent. Unlike Ahok where it was like 50-50 between his supporters and haters, this one is like 90-10. There are some people who responded, "What if he's your brother? Would you still want him 'destroyed'?" or "LGBT are sick, just like drug addicts. Why do we support drug addicts and try our best to bring them back to the right way and into community, but we keep blaming and pushing LGBT away? How would they get better?". Those two were the only good comments I could see out of maybe 20 comments (and I'm pretty generous). The rest of them were demeaning and hatred.

The last one is about the explosion at Ariana Grande's concert in Manchester 2 days ago. It happened just when the concert finished and the audience started to leave. From last news I heard, it was done by a suicide bomber, and about 59 people are affected, at least 20 of them died. They suspect ISIS is behind it, but they haven't claimed their involvement yet. I have a feeling most of them are teenagers. Why would they target teenagers? Girls too! It's clear Ariana Grande's concert will be full of girls teenagers. People really can be so evil :'(

Now that I think about it, UK has been targeted a lot of time recently. I think it's the 3rd time within the last 12 months?

That's all that have been happening lately, my future self. Hope in your time, the world has transformed into a better place.

Hoping For a Better Indonesia

Lately, every news feed I see on Facebook is either about Ahok vs Anies (after Anies won the election), or about conflict of religion. The main purpose of me keeping a blog is for history keeping, like a time capsule, it is written with a hope that when I read it years from now, I could laugh at all the funny stories or be glad that the world is getting better than back then.

Reading all those news, I still can't get my mind to understand the way Anies followers think. Actually, forget that, I don't get how Anies actually thinks. Like yesterday, there was news saying he's reported a guy who claimed his 0% home deposit program is for a chicken coop. I mean, come on...

The other popular news is about Moslem radicalism in Indonesia. There was news about school kids rejecting the student head due to different religion, kids on the street asking their friends'religion and refusing to play with kids who don't have same religion as them, and don't forget about the tactic they used to make people vote for Anies. It was using religion too. Mind you, our country's ideology is diversity, and there are 6 legally recognised religions.

I can't believe I thought Anies was a good guy. I was happy when he was made the minister of education. Oh well, I guess this is what they mean with wolf covered in wool.

The other day, the labourer had demonstration to raise their pay. Guess what their first demand was? To have the you in hall cleared off the flowers that were sent by Jakarta people to say thanks for what Ahok and Jarot did the last few years! What does that have to do with you?! That's clearly jealousy and child's play. Then, they took those flowers and burnt them. Then the rain fell, and they took the other flowers and used them as cover. Huh?? Weren't you so disgusted by them so you burnt them? And then hang on, it rained, so just take some for cover?

I'm speechless 😑

The Day I Flew Home For My Friend's Wedding

Sometimes I don't believe my luck is so... Hmm OK, my best friend describes my luck like this, "when you're lucky, nobody else has ever got that struck of luck. But when you're unlucky, no-one else had ever been that unlucky". But I summarised today as quite a good day :)

This morning I took the bus to go to the station to catch a train to the airport. The bus I took was unusually the old style one. It only had 1 door, narrow aisle and no place for pram/disabled/trolley/luggage. However, the driver was so nice! He actually got off the bus and helped me to load the luggage. When we got to the station, he told me to get off first and he unloaded my luggage! How I love the bus drivers in my area ;)

I had to queue twice when checking in, coz apparently people who have checked in online should go to premium economy counter :/ how would I know? Anyway, so I went to queue again. Then when it got to my turn and I handed my passport, I saw the staff's name tag, and at the same time she saw my name on my passport, we were both surprised! We have the same name! She said it's not often she met people whose name was the same, and usually they are older generation. I personally maybe only met 1 before, and yes she was in older generation. I did meet 1 or 2 who were in the same generation as me, but they were males -_- so yeah, because of that we chatted a bit :)

My passport worked on the first time at that customs machine! First time ever it happened to me! Usually I need to do a couple or true before it worked, or got sent to an officer to process it manually.

The staffs at the duty free were super nice and quite chatty. That was nice 😊

My flight was delayed by an hour due to the aircraft was late to arrive at international airport. Apparently this aircraft is normally used for domestic flight. 1 it was late, 2nd they said something was wrong that it needed to be fixed first and painted. Hence the delay.

However, during the queue to get in to the plane, there was nobody cutting in the queue! 1 think that I'm always worried about when flying home is Indonesian, and their famous culture of cutting in. I so hate those kind of people. Not having that today, really made me relaxed 😆 I did have argument with Indo people before about this issue, that of course ended with them still thinking they did nothing wrong. Let me tell you this, they were educated people.

Oh and while queuing, I had a conversation with a quite nice auntie. So it's good.

Before the flight, one of my friend wished me to get a nice single male seat companion lol. I thought it was nice, but another friend then said, "I wished you get a big guy". I so want to slap his face. It's funny how much a person can change. This friend, I used to be able to talk about anything to him, anything, no matter what topic it is. However nowadays, it seems that almost everything that comes out of his mouth, irritates me.

I got on the plane, and guess what? Nobody was seated next to me! I have 2 seats just for myself! Thank God! This is the second best think I could get for a flight companion hahahaha xD the plane is pretty quiet. That auntie I talked to before did mention that this flight seems quiet, she thought she might be able to sleep then.

I pre-selected my meal online and chose the menu that is only available if you ordered it online. Guess what, 1I had to ask for it, and 2 they don't have it for me. They couldn't explain if it was because it wasn't ordered properly or because they gave it to someone else. See my luck?

To make it even worse, this it the second time it happens to me. Well, not exactly to me to me, I ordered it once for my mum, and she didn't get it too. The flight attendant didn't even say anything about pre-selected menu.

Honestly, I was waiting for this meal. The standard meal options really didn't appeal to me, so I was really looking forward to this grilled barrammundi with lemon herb butter or something. So, I kept questioning the flight attendant. He was SUPER nice, I actually felt sorry for him as it might not even be his fault. But I was so annoyed that I ordered online special menu twice and I've never ever seen it appeared! For people who know me well or not well, you know my face can not hide my feelings (I really think that means I have 0 acting skill).

He was really sympathetic and apologised for it. This is also why I like Australian customer service, they are more human. Yes, you can get the rude ones, any nationalities have rude customer service. And to tell you the truth, you might get more rude Australian ones. However, when they're at fault, or when you tell the story of your life or your issues, they genuinely feel sorry and sympathise with you. This is what I don't see on Indonesian customer service. Their sympathy looks fake and textbook template. And a lot of time, when they are at fault, they don't own up to it.

Back to this story, I mentioned to the flight attendant that this is the second time it happens and questioned the existence of this online only menu. The flight attendant saw how disappointed I was, and asked if I'd like to talk to the supervisor. I didn't even ask for it, he asked me himself. I then said yes.

Considering how busy flight attendants usually are, I expected no supervisor to come. I was thinking to just write an email to complain formally to Qantas. Then, the supervisor came. She made it so casual, just like making a chat. Long story short, she apologised, explained that this thing does happen and unfortunately I'm the unlucky one to experience twice in a row, and assured me that this menu does exist. Wow, I applaud the previous flight attendant, obviously he passed on everything I said 😲 guys don't do that! Don't mention about guys, even call centre people who are supposed to pass on information to whoever they are passing the call to, NEVER do it. I take off my head to you.

Then, she said she's going to give me $50 duty free voucher to use on international Qantas flight. Unfortunately, this flight I'm on doesn't carry duty free. So I can use it next time. She went off to get the voucher. Again I was still sceptical and had low expectation of her ever returning.

But she did return with the voucher! What's even better is, she actually asked more questions, like if I fly with Qantas often. From that conversation, we realised that duty free voucher is not really suitable for me. As my flight home might not carry duty free, and I don't fly Qantas every single time, I might not even have the chance to use it. She then offered frequent flyer points instead. I said yes and she left.

She came back and said she had options for me @_@ duty free, which is not suitable for me, 2000 frequent flyer points (from my quick thought, probably worth $20), international business lounge access - even though she said the one in Jakarta is not the nicest one, domestic business lounge, or free parking at the airport. I think there was more, but the rest wasn't relevant to me. Hearing that, the duty free was actually the best option out of all of them. Too bad there's no guarantee I can use it. So I chose international business lounge access. So she wrote me another voucher and gave it to me.

She was really nice and sympathetic. She really could just give the duty free voucher and left, but she took her time to understand my flight pattern to make sure I would be able to use it. Then gave me all options so I could pick one that I could actually use. THAT is customer service. She made me feel bad for causing her coming back and forth and having to write another voucher. At the end, I said thank you, and she said, "Thank you, for understanding". I might even write a letter to Qantas to praise them both. It was that nice.

Even though the flight was 1 hour delayed, we actually arrived in Jakarta on time! So, yayyyyy 😆 and from then on, I started a week of fun and non-stop eating xD

Sesi Temu Masyarakat Indonesia dengan Presiden Jokowi dan Ibu Negara di Sydney

I met Mr President today. Ya nggak semeter di depanku sih, tp still in the same room. And you know what? I didn't regret even one bit that I voted for him last election.

Based on the speech he gave today, I know he does work really really hard. And he really wants to build Indonesia and help as many people as he can, not just the people living in big cities. IMHO, he really wants to mewujudkan keadilan sosial bagi seluruh rakyat Indonesia, sila ke 5 kita.

Throughout the session, for the first time out of all the presidents that we ever had, I thought, sayang yah... Dia cm bisa memimpin 2 periode.... 10 years max. But then now that I think about it again, it may be a good thing for him. Being a president of Indonesia is really a hard work. It is a 24/7 job for the length of your serving. So if it's 10 years, then it is 24/7 job for the whole 10 years. Of course, he can take a rest and go holiday for a bit, but he can't really let go of all his worries and let all his guard down.

If it's other presidents, maybe they could. But this one, I don't think he could. And with all corruption, Indonesian bureaucracy, politics and power struggles, if he is a good guy, a clean guy, and a good president, he won't be able to rest during his time as President.

His speech, which really was a presentation, showed us what he has done. It is actually surprising considering he only has been in the position since October 2014. He's done a lot!

2 years, cuma dlm 2 tahun, dia sudah menyamaratakan harga bahan bakar di seluruh Indonesia. Dl 1 liter petrol di Jakarta yg cm sekitar 6000, dijual seharga 60ribu di Papua. Harga semen di Jakarta 70ribu per sak, di Papua? 2.5juta per sak. No wonder I was wondering knp mereka dr dulu sampai sekarang masih terbelakang banget 😐 harga semen ini yg dia masih usahakan.

Jalan tol di Indonesia totalnya cm 830km long. Honestly I was never interested in all of these, so I never read about this thing, but I know Indonesia is so big. 830km for the whole archipelago?? Even I was like shit, that's so little! What did the previous government do all those years??? He's now building jalan yg menghubungkan Papua dr utara ke selatan, and even though belum diaspal, tp at least jalannya sudah terbuka dan bisa segera dipakai untuk transport. Jokowi sendiri bakal cobain jalan itu dlm bbrp bulan ke depan. Belum lagi jalan tol yg sedang dibangun di Sumatra. Seriously.. What have they all been doing all this time??
1 lagi. Pos2 perbatasan darat dengan luar negeri, contohnya Entikong (apparently itu di perbatasan Kalimantan Barat dan Malaysia). Jokowi bilang, pertama kali dia ke sana, in his own words, "Jeleknya minta ampun, kayak kantor kelurahan!". Dia langsung bilang ke mereka, "Robohin dlm 2 minggu, dan dia kasih waktu 2 tahun untuk bangun lagi yg bagus. Bikin malu! Orang2 kita aja yg keluar negeri foto2nya di perbatasan Malaysia, bukan di tempat kita". Kata orang2 di sana, sejak Indonesia merdeka tidak pernah diapa2in. OMG... Kl ikutin kata Ahok sih, kemana ajaaaaa pemerintahnya dl??? O.M.G.

Dia jg tahu watak orang Indo. The unspoken ugly truth that we all know tp kl diomongin tersinggung (kadang aku bingung deh sm org Indo. Soal ginian, tersinggung kl dibilang males ato kl dibilang kerjanya gak becus, tp kalo ngomong tuh bisa seenak jidat bilang orang makin jelek lah, makin gendut lah, makin tua lah. Jokes jg, bisa ngata2in orang and kl kita marah, dibilang sensi abis. I don't get it -_- tp kl blg dia males n gak becus padahal emang iya gak becus, gak ada sadar diri sm skl), kl org Indo tuh ya kasarnya males. Kalo gak diawasin bos, ngga kerja. Dia bilang selama 71 tahun ini, Indonesia cm ada 53ribu kw pembangkit listrik. Dia perintahkan membangun 50ribu lagi dlm wkt.. I can't remember, let say 2 years. Dia blg semua komplain, gak mungkin bisa. Dia ngotot harus coba, kalo nggak bisa di akhirnya kan jg bisa diliat kenapa gak bisa, masalahnya di mana, and even kl cm bs tercapai setengahnya pun, itu uda such a groundbreaking achievement! Asal begitu sudah turun perintah, ya harus diawasi. Seperti jalan tol di Sumatra and Papua, itu jg selama ini diawasi, kalau nggak ya bisa bisa.... (dia sering gak selesaiin kalimat dia yg kaya beginian, and we all knew what he meant) .

Now I can see why Jokowi and Ahok work so well together. Mereka ber2 emang maunya works get done and get done correctly. Maybe it is such a shock buat PNS and pemerintah ya, yg selama ini uda dimanja dengan gaji dan fasilitas just for a very minimum effort and work. Both of them know this Indonesian watak and awasin bener2 org2 di bawahnya. Buat org2 rajin kaya aku sih, it's a good thing. Secara waktu dpt bos yg demen dijilat, model org2 rajin and do real work kan biasa gak bisa jilat2 or kiss asses, jd gak diappreciate deh. Maybe malah diketawain temen2 kerja mereka kali, buat rajin kerja. Tp kl buat yg males2 sih, bos model gini mendingan cepet2 dipecat.

It was a good session. I didn't regret coming :) to tell you the truth, I was contemplating if I should go when I got the tickets. But then my friend didn't get the ticket, my dad's friends couldn't get the tickets either, so I thought wow, this is precious then, I should go! XD but I still brought a book with me just incase it got boring hahaha... But nope, I didn't take it out :)

MCnya Sule dan Andre. I didn't know them hahaha... Lucu sih mereka, I might consider watching their talk show if I have time. Tp ya jokes mereka lumayan sadis sih buat oz standard. Tipe bisa ngata2in org gitu deh. But I guess once in a while it's OK, plus bukan aku jg yg jadi bahan ketawaan kan? Anaknya Sule yg nyanyi. I guess he has good voice for lower range, and he can sing, tp suara dia kalah gitu sama bandnya. I struggled to hear his voice.

It was my first time too in the last 14 years singing Indonesia Raya :P I still remember the lyrics *proud* Singing National Anthem always makes me feel something, no matter if it's Indonesia or Australia's National Anthem. I guess there are good things from both countries for me. Too bad I don't have pintu kemana saja.

I recommend you to watch the session from yesterday on YouTube. Especially if you don't follow Indonesian news, this will be a summary of the developments that have been happening in Indonesia. For me, it makes me proud voting for him :)

Calon-calon gubernur and wakil gubernur Jakarta 2017-2022

Sampe around minggu lalu, aku ngga tau kl pilkada tuh serentak di seluruh Indonesia. Secara yg diberitain di kompas and facebook semuanya cm pilgub DKI Jakarta. Kali ini aku ikutin lho semua debat cagub DKI. Plus nonton mata najwa, though cm Ahok doank sih, abisss makin dengerin anies ngomong, aku makin pengen tutup kuping. Itu nada ngomong kenapa ya, rasanya gak enak banget di kupingku 😕

Too bad my loyal blog reader gak ada niat buat ikutin ginian. Kl ngga, kita bisa ngegosip deh. 1-1nya temenku di sini yg ngikutin, uda changed 180degree (in other area, not about pilgub. Gaya ngomong dia aja udah gimanaaa gitu, jd males deh) and I can't stand to argue anymore with him, jd ya sudahlah. Cm bisa gangguin temen2 yg di Indo deh....

Aku kmrn bela2in lho spend my Saturday nonton debat cagub DKI 2.5 jam. Pulang gym, aku lgs angkut laptop ke bawah, coba connect ke TV etc with no success which I cbf to check if it's laptop issue, cable issue or TV issue. Jd ntn di laptop aja deh. Terus ambil cemilan and my planner and novel (kalo2 boring and I need more distractions), and duduk manis ntn debat.

Baru si nomer 1 sebutin visi misinya soal penanggulangan narkoba, aku uda langsung teriakin, "Woiiiii gubernur tuh bukan polisi, mana bisa dia tangkepin orang??? Ini org did his research gak sih?? Jurisdiction gubernur tuh apaan aja??".

Iye, dia blg kalo dia bakal firm menanggulangi narkoba. Pengedar akan ditangkep and dihukum tanpa ampun and tanpa pandang bulu. Ya intinya sih dia bolak balik bilang bakal firm. Bakal dihukum berat pengedarnya. Tp ya umm loe kan bukan polisi? Aku uda lama sih gak di Indo, tp aku yakin gubernur gak bisa tangkepin orang. Kl bisa sih, maybe uda banyak kali yg Ahok tangkep. Cm polisi yg bisa nangkep2in orang neng. Which is weird really, considering si nomer 1 jebolan militer, mustinya dia tau donk gini2an?

On the other hand, nomer 3 anti hukum menghukum. Semua musti direhabilitasi. Yah terserahlah. Though I wonder kalo duitnya cukup.

Tapi, kl soal gusur menggusur, si nomer 1 bolak balik bilang gak bakal gusur, cuma geser aja dikit. Umm... Mas, bukannya sungai2nya perlu dilebarin? Gimana gesernya kl sungainya dilebarin? Ada jg maybe musti gusur yg legally punya tanah. Kl misalnya gak dilebarin, bukannya bakal tetep banjir juga?

Belon lagi cawagub nomer 1 tampangnya jg nyebelin bener. Dunno why, dia nyengir aja keliatannya uda nyebelin bener :l is that because she looks licik? Plus kostum nomer 1 bikin gerah aja liatnya. 1 keliatannya panas. Tangan panjang kan soalnya, plus mereka pake bajunya dobel jg deh kayanya. 2. Warnanya gelap gitu. Somehow ngingetin aku sm SWAT. Gak masalah sih, secara itu baju mereka and aku gak usah pake, tp ya, gerah aja gitu liatnya.

Oh, soal bullying di sekolah juga. Nomer 2 kan bilang hukumannya either gak naek kelas ato dikeluarkan. And again the once upon a time mendikbud bilang, gak bisa apa2 dikeluarkan dikeluarkan, apa2 ditakut2i, harusnya dibimbing. Helloooo kl emang anaknya gak bisa dididik gmn? Apa musti korbannya yg musti keluar? Ato korbannya musti brave themselves and see their bullies every single time di sekolah? Terus terang makin lama aku makin gak heran dia dicopot dr menteri.

Itu nomer 1 and 3 bolak balik nyerang nomer 2. And pertanyaan mrk buat each other jg gak banget deh. Either gak jelas pertanyaannya apa, or ya gak penting deh.

Yg paling lucu sih soal cawagub no 1 yg ribut kl Jakarta gak ramah difabel. Dia blg buktinya gak ada PNS Jakarta yg difabel. Which Ahok replied by saying, "Aduh bu Sylvi kemana ajaaaaaaaa??? PNS Jakarta yg difabel ada 1%, dan kita target tingkatkan jd 2%. Ibu Sylvi ini tipe PNS yg gak mau bergaul sama PNS2 rendahan, jd gak tau kl ada yg difabel". Me: *ketawa berguling2 and lgs whatsapp temen ngegosip* hauhaahahahahaahahaaha xD OMG, you should watch it!

Mrk2 ini keluarin datanya kok ga beres sih? Malu tau kalo smp kaya gitu.

Aku jg musti salahin Ahok jg sih. Mustinya dia prep debatnya lengkap, what they've done so far, how is it going, what they need to improve and how they are going to do it. Kl gitu kan lgs skak mat and yg 2 itu gak bisa buka mulut tanya lagi. Though ngeliatin tipe2 mereka sih, mereka bakal tetep tanya sih, hoping gak ada yg nyadar kl itu ida dijawab sebelonnya.

Abis debat pertama, temen istrinya post di facebook or apa gitu I forgot. Basically blg kl debat itu kaya bapak sama 2 anaknya. Yg sulung idealis tp gak praktikal plus sok tau. Yg bungsu masih gak tau mau ngapain, tp sensi. Itu sih kubilang tepat banget perbandingannya. Tp bininya nomer 1 jd marah and ngelabrak temennya itu di sosmed. Rame dehhhh... Apalagi later on dia minta maaf ke seluruh rakyat Indonesia soalnya uda bikin rame. Hmm... 😕 *towel towel*, why ke rakyat Indonesia neng? mustinya kan ke temen loe itu?? Intinya dia gak ngerasa dia salah, tp kl gak Minta maaf tar image dia jelek, jd ya Uda deh, ga usah minta maaf ke org yg bersangkutan, ke rakyat Indo aja, kan at least dpt maaf Dr ribuan org, jd ga usah pusingin soal 1 org tadi deh.

Terus ada lg yg dipromoin cagub nomer 3. Beli rumah tanpa DP katanya. Honestly aku gak gitu dengerin sih, soalnya my first reaction was, emangnya dia bisa bikin bank2 mau pinjemin tanpa DP apa? Anyway berdasarkan info2 dr sosmed yg gak jelas jg bener apa ngga, kayanya yg mau pinjem disuru nabung dl selama 6 bulan. Kl setelah 6 bulan dievaluasi mrk bisa konsisten bayar, nah duit itu dijadiin DP buat beli rumah. Org2 di sosmed ribut, kl itu bukannya sama aja bayar DP? Terus ada yg hitung2, kl rumah 500juta, musti nabung 6 bulan buat dp which is 10%, kan jd 50 juta, cicil 6 bulan jd 8jutaan sebulan, makan apa 6 bulan itu? Terus ada another group yg nangkepnya 6 bulan itu bayar cicilan harga rumah itu sendiri buat 30 taon, dia itungnya for example 800ribu per bulan, which menurut Dia tetep aja mahal and org gak bisa bayar. Tp kl aku sih mikirnya, balik lg ke bank mana yg mau pinjemin duit 30 taon cm dgn 4.8 juta DP? Plus knowing Indo, yg gampang bener pinjem duit ke temen kerja, ipar, adik kakak or sepupunya ipar, temennya temen dll, kubilang sih bakalan banyak yg pinjem kanan kiri buat 6 bulan itu. And once uda dpt pinjemannya, bakalan mandek deh bayar cicilannya.

Anyway it is really interesting and entertaining. Sayang aku gak bisa ikutan milih dr sini 😞

Easy Resignations

Lately I don't have much appetite to write something, which is a shame because I like writing. But there's no topic I'm so passionate to write about. Superexcited is still playing up, but I don't really care about him anymore much, so it doesn't give me that much kick to write. But this post is still about him haha!

2 people have resigned from my company. Last Friday was Dudul's last day, THANK GOD! I admit I am not a nice person and doesn't like a lot of people, Dudul so far is 1 out of 3 people I truly hate for all my years in this company. I can't really rank if dudul was the most annoying one, but dudul was certainly the dumbest/rockheaded one IMO. But even then, I still put money in to buy dudul's farewell gift and also still showed up to the farewell lunch. I sat at the other end of the table though haha! Even on dudul's last week there, he still managed to get scolded by me *sigh

After all those stories about resignation in our company, you probably are eager to listen and are prepared for an awesome story. But, tell you what, this resignation was pretty easy. Last year the Spice Girls actually laughed about dudul's resignation plan. Dudul said dudul wanted to quit in January this year, and would hand in the resignation in Jan and go for holiday for a month, so it's 2 months notice but 1 month is actually dudul's holiday. We laughed back then and thought you-know-who won't ever let dudul go easily. But fast forward to now, dudul gave his resignation 2 weeks before the planned holiday, giving 2 months notice, but the last day was actually a day before dudul's holiday started! So dudul really only gave 2 weeks notice! I can't believe his luck!

It was easy, but dudul did get a scolding from you-know-who too. Superexcited said dudul wasn't professional by just giving out resignation letter. In superexcited's opinion, professional means by the time dudul had the idea or thought of leaving the company, Dudul should have come to superexcited and discussed.... Really? Dudul wasn't going to marry your daughter mannnnnnn! Dudul was resigning! What dudul did was professional, what superexcited wanted was not professional, that's family thingy! Weird -_- of course I told my friends this story and as usual they all had a speechless and flabbergasted look on them @__@

The other one who resigned was Winnie the Pooh. That one was real easy. Pooh actually got a new job, but because Pooh was so scared of telling superexcited for a reason all of us here know about, Pooh said to him it's due to personal reasons. Superexcited asked her point blank, "Did you get a new job? ". Pooh didn't give away anything, whatever superexcited asked, Pooh said, "Sorry, personal reasons". As the results, superexcited couldn't get anything out. I kinda had a feeling he didn't dare to press on, maybe he's worried that someone is dying or something. He had some family issues, too, few months back, so maybe? Either way, it's good for Pooh 🐻

Pooh gave 1 month notice, but since Pooh had 2 weeks leave not used yet, Pooh really only gave 2 weeks notice. I am still speechless to this day, how could it be that easy @_@ but I'm happy for Pooh. I'm just sad coz I won't have anyone who actually stands up to superexcited instead of just saying yes to everything he says :(

First Office Incident in 2017

Don't you miss superexcited?

So, the other day we had our daily catch-up. This time, Creamer closed the door of the room we had the catch-up in. He usually never closes the door. I was like hmm is there anything happening? But then he picked up the phone and started calling water tap, so I thought oh okay, maybe it's just so it's not too loud for the people outside.

Then he said, "Hello, water tap, how's your morning going? It should be better than my morning". 😮

So apparently you know who went off at him that morning. It was so bad that Creamer warned us, "I've seen him angry before many times. I saw him getting angry on project X, I've seen him angry on project Y, but I've never seen him THIS angry. So, be careful today guys. You've been warned". Oh dear god...

What happened was (according to what I heard, since everything is always hush hush in this company), 1. Creamer went live with a pop up without showing it beforehand to super excited, and 2. Dudul sent a wrong link to the client.

The story goes like this... Creamer went live with a pop up that day. I'm not sure if the other department told him to do it or not, but neither he nor anybody else showed super excited that pop up before going Live. However, on Creamer's defence, the day before he went live, you know who was upset because that pop up couldn't go Live that day! So in Creamer's mind, that pop up has to go Live ASAP. In addition, the text within that pop up was dictated directly by super excited! In super excited mind? He felt everybody went around his back. Talk about being sensitive *rolling my eyes*

Second one was about an email. Apparently an email was sent to the client (by dudul), containing a link to go to Testing site instead of Live site. That email was going to be forwarded by the client to his subordinates. Superexcited was FURIOUS!

You know who: "Who gave Dudul that link? Did you give that to Dudul?".
Creamer: "No, I only gave him the code".
You know who: "Why did you not provide the link to Dudul???? "
Creamer: ???

The thing is, that website has been tested by Dudul and his team. How would they test it if they didn't know the URL? Why should we give them the link again??? The issue was just he didn't think while he did that and putting the Testing site rather than Live site!

The other department had a full half hour eavesdropping (not really, since everyone within 10 meter distance from superexcited's office would have heard it anyway) superexcited's yapping to the other senior people about the incident. Dudul didn't come earlier the next morning, so he was only listening to the last 10 minutes probably.

Our department on the other hand, heard him going off at Creamer and our boss. It was hush hush, but I could still hear bits and pieces of it and still got the full picture. He was saying things like, "If you guys think you can run this place better than I do, then I'm done here. I'm done! ". My 👀 lit up, inside I said, "Do it! Do it!!!" 😆😆

Oh I haven't told you this. That email was sent by Dudul yes. However, prior to sending that email, Dudul and youknowwho sat together reviewing the email!!! So yeppp... You know what I mean right? *wink wink*

As the result of this incident, there's a new rule in the office in regards to sending email containing links to client. IT has to provide the link to the other department to be sent to the client. Not everything, just new development that bla bla bla... I wasn't really listening, they will ask me anyway when they need it later 😗

Oh, and a little birdie told me Dudul has resigned. Not sure if it's true though. But I bet the most of IT Dept would be relieved to hear that news. I know I'm a bad person.

OMG 37 degree today!! Now is not even 8 AM yet, but it's already 34 degree!! And I forgot my lunch. Damn.