Another Victoria's Secrets

"a song that reminds you of somewhere"

... would be Float's Pulang. I heard this first from a guy (whose name I won't mention in this blog ever again) who took me up on the mountain far above my hillside house in Bandung. Moko Daweung was the place, October 2007 was the date. I think that was the most intimate moment I had with him, remembering that he's never my boyfriend (yep, this is the "Blink 182 Guy" on Day 05).

So every time I listen to this song, my mind floats back to that super chilly night I spent with super special people in my life back then. I really miss that moment, but I feel like I'm in a much better place now. Let the memories just be then..

I was collapsed once I got home yesterday. The wedding thing drained most of our energies and the high heels made my feet ached. But after 2-3 hours nap, my body was refreshed and I was ready to hit the town. So I revved my car's engine and wheeled down to Pondok Indah to meet Cheryl and Kireina.

We met at De Hooi, a very cozy bar in the neighborhood, and the girls were coming with Rei, Cheryl's friend. And as the night was getting longer, more people joined us, such as Boy (Ara's friend), and more of Rei's friends: Isdu, Aris, and a couple whose names I forgot. It was another fun night with more new faces to me.


Today I woke up a little too late but made it to the church by 10.30 a.m. with Aunt Dewi. After that I met my aunt's friends for a while, then sped up to Setiabudi One to meet Benedict (Andri's friend) and watched Catatan Harian Si Boy at 2 p.m., a thread to the old movies package by bringing up new casts and fresher ideas.

I love the way Putrama Tuta brought up the movie. The combination of action and drama, about cars, man-to-man rivalry, friendship and love. It's like watching Indonesian movie of Fast & Furious (to mention the drifts and the workshop), and the satisfaction was more or less equal (to be compared with other Indonesian movies).

The story is good, the action looked real, the casts are combination of old faces of original characters and totally new ones (which is very much a plus point, remembering the recent Indonesian movies are usually crowded by few particular actors that made them boring!) and it's far far away from being corny.

5 whys I love this movie:

1. They combined friendship, love, hope, trust and commitment/responsibility theme in a nicely wrapped package.
2. This contains action with car drifting and muscle fight, and it all felt real with maximum effort (the Porsche being smashed, the man-on-man fights..).
3. The actors are not the usual ones such as Tora Sudiro or Lukman Sardi (seemed like they existed in all other high-quality Indonesian movies). The casts here acted naturally and totally.
4. Many great lines we can quote in such perfect moments and many life lesson we can learn from the movie ("to finish what they have started", for example).
5. The movie is delivered lightly with enough drama and wit, and nothing was exaggerated. Just perfect.

I highly praise this one, and gonna watch this over and over again as often as I can. Lol. But before watching this, I suggest you to read this first, for a reminder of the old movie series. Enjoy the movie then!

Yesterday, my cousin, Robert Iwan, got married. He's the closest cousin to me and we share same friends in Jakarta and Bandung. So when he got married, it's something special to me, too. What made it more special is the presence of Kak Grace's family. She and Kung--her Cambodian husband--brought their kids Lance, 11, and Alicia, 2.5, to share the joy and happiness with us.



We gathered for family dinner (or what's called as widodareni for Javanese or rehearsal dinner for Western people) at Somerset Hotel on Friday night and got along with Cassy's family. It was nice, of course, meeting new people, new ambience, new stuff for me. There was one person who made the night much more fun for all of us: Alicia.



The next day, we gathered at St. Theresia Lisieux Chapel at MBK Church for the holy matrimony. Clemy and I got the ushering thing to do, while our other cousins brought fruits, candles, etc to the altar in a procession. Too bad I didn't really follow the whole thing because I sat in the outside of the chapel. By 9 a.m. it was all done and we moved to Seribu Rasa Restaurant at Menteng.


The mass started by 12 p.m. and some of the people I know came too: Mario (Iwan's best man), Lita and Oscar, Rian and Angely, and also from Mom's family. I was having fun with Alicia most of the time there I almost forgot to have lunch. But when they called the singles for the flower throwing, they had a couple teddy bears before the flower bouquet and it happened that Ben and I got both of them. Then we gave them to Alicia who was so glad having new toys to play with.


This was the quickest wedding I've ever been at. Normally for a family it would take a whole day, but this one ended by around 2.30-3.00 p.m. It took less effort too, remembering the reception was at a restaurant, not in a hotel's ballroom. But for me, this was enough for it was packaged nicely and the place was wonderful and the food was great. All of the guests were entertained, and we really wish happiness for the newlywed!

Last night, when I just reached home after a tiring long day on the road, a junior high schoolmate BBM-ed me and we had a little catch up. I knew it'd be something I dislike, because for the last few years he's been annoying me for his shallow talks.

My prediction came true when he started expressing his feelings--poor him--and he asked me for a date. I told him that I don't do dates. My dating life was over years ago and now I just don't have time for such thing (especially with someone not worth it at all).

He started giving arguments on how would I get married if I don't date, so I told him that I don't get married, to cut some chats. Then he said the exclaimed this "what's wrong with you" that made me laughing cynically at him. Truly, I pitied him despite of being offended.

He then lecturing me with some stuff, about "I know your life is now harder that your father had died. But you don't have to be that frustrated, too" thing. Geez, now he knows everything about me? Maybe he did thought so. Oh, I so pitied him!

Finally I said, "You know nothing about me, so don't judge. I don't need it." He said sorry, but then he deleted me from his contact. Weird. But I completely understand his position. I'm just way further too far from him, there are no way for him to get near me.

I'm not being proud here, but our "life-lesson understanding" level are just way too different, and it's really hard for me to find a guy on the same 'level' who can balance me, especially here in Indonesia. How can I be with people who think there's something wrong with how I choose my path of life? *sigh*

"a song that reminds you of someone"

Actually I'm not in a mood to remembering anyone in particular recently, so this should be quite hard (the case: a song that reminds you of someone). I don't even have any special someone on my mind!

Well maybe--of all of the guys that had been entered and exited my life--I'd pick this Blink 182's The Rock Show for one guy that has been wandering around my world for the past 10 years. We liked each other for the first time on summer 2001 and we both loved Blink 182 so much, each and every song of theirs!

So, maybe this one is for that guy who was never my boyfriend nor will ever be--for someone so special I can't get myself off too far from his circle. Weird love story between me and this guy tho, but this is sadly true T__T

"a song that makes you sad"

... would be Celine Dion's Dance With My Father. We sang this on 40 days' prayer for Daddy, and every time I listen to this, I just feel like crying. I also like Ada Band ft. Gita Gutawa's Ayah due to the occasion, also Luther Vandross' version of Dance With My Father. I miss my Daddy so much! :(

I am still adapting on living in my aunt's house. She and Grandma are a real clean freak to me and my siblings. This house is extremely clean and tidy and they are sweeping the floor like every hour! This cleaning stuff annoys us big time, for having lived in a small apartment of our own--which was treated like our own rooms back in home with a housemaid get it clean every morning without us having to clean up anything... only in the apartment there weren't any housemaid so the room remained as how it was left: messy and unclean until we had time to clean it up or until the room was intolerably unclean--unless Mom was coming from Bandung. She is as a clean-freak as her sister and mother. Thank God they're still just clean-freaks, not an OCD.

So having to clean up everything on schedule is quite a big change for us. I need to be able to work or having a pleasure time at home while also doing homework like washing, ironing, and sweeping. I have to share my focus on work and also homework. It's reducing quite some time of my day, but after getting used to it, it feels nice to live in a clean and tidy home after all.

At the office, there is a messy girl who tends to forget things--especially about where did she put stuff, although those are still all around her. It annoys us to see her messy desk and kills us to know that she lost a thing again. So it all started from home. Clean and tidy is never a bad habit, so there is no loss to start making it a habit now.

"your least favorite song"

I skipped a day to make this for I had no time on my Mac yesterday. So here is my day-two stuff:
My least favorite songs are actually all those Indonesian melancholy songs we call them here as 'alay'. But to pick one to be specific, I'll just pick an international-known song: I Know You Want Me by Pitbull. For me the song is pointless and the video clip is somehow like a pervert. LOL. Sorry to Pitbull's fans, but I'm not liking it..


While for the drawing, my favorite animal is owl. Maybe I fell in love with it more since there was Hedwig (thanks to J.K. Rowling). It's the symbol of wisdom and it 'lives' at night time (which is also mostly my time of a day). So I tried drawing an owl here and adding a children nursery rhyme to it. I wish I can be as wise as an old owl ;)

"your favorite song"

Apparently, this challenge is harder to play than it looked. I got plenty of favorite songs, so this needed a serious thinking. But for the past one year, I have been loving this one particular song by God Help The Girl, with self-titled song: God Help The Girl. It's just sooo 'me', especially the first few lines: There is no way I'm looking for a boyfriend... I'm a working girl you know... You have been warned, I'm born to be contrary... Fits me just.

For the very late the other 30 days challenge, I'm making it up today by making an image of me (day 01: yourself). I made the sketch by hand and color them on Photoshop. This is my first time doing it, since I left my visual communication design major after just a year. I also hope the image describes me enough: short haired, fair skin, leather postman bag, a book in the hand. And I still can't decide which I love the most between all of the stuff named in the direction pole. Lol.

I blogwalked thru Oen's blog and found this new challenge about song (the last one was drawing and I hadn't even start it. Lol.) I guess this one is just much easier to follow through, so here's the list and I'm gonna start tomorrow.


day 01 - your favorite song
day 02 - your least favorite song
day 03 - a song that makes you happy 
day 04 - a song that makes you sad
day 05 - a song that reminds you of someone
day 06 - a song that reminds you of somewhere
day 07 - a song that reminds you of a certain event 
day 08 - a song that you know all the words to
day 09 - a song that you can dance to
day 10 - a song that makes you fall asleep 
day 11 - a song from your favorite band 
day 12 - a song from a band you hate 
day 13 - a song that is a guilty pleasure 
day 14 - a song that no one would expect you to love 
day 15 - a song that describes you 
day 16 - a song that you used to love but now hate 
day 17 - a song that you hear often on the radio
day 18 - a song that you wish you heard on the radio
day 19 - a song from your favorite album
day 20 - a song that you listen to when you’re angry 
day 21 - a song that you listen to when you’re happy
day 22 - a song that you listen to when you’re sad
day 23 - a song that you want to play at your wedding
day 24 - a song that you want to play at your funeral
day 25 - a song that makes you laugh
day 26 - a song that you can play on an instrument
day 27 - a song that you wish you could play
day 28 - a song that makes you feel guilty
day 29 - a song from your childhood 
day 30 - your favorite song at this time last year

I've been thinking hard about life and love lately. I've becoming more and more cynical about love and marriage now, seeing how things are turning just as ugly everywhere I turn. All around me, people are experiencing bad luck for love, name it for it is not a good year for love, or it's just it.

Yesterday a friend called me and said she was having an argument with her fiancé so I hurried up coming her way and be the 'trash can' for about 30 minutes. Then this came to me: most of people (maybe especially here in Indonesia) are getting married because they are curious about something.

Some get married because they want to have kids and raise a family, some because they want to experience sex. Some other because they want to have freedom (only to get none) and some to know how it feels like to get out of the house. Others because of any other needs I'm not familiar with: to have money, to gain power, to be accompanied, and so on... These people usually don't really care who they are marrying--as long as they have the same destination.

Not many of the couples I met who get married because of their own will, with the person of their decision and because they decided so, and NOT regretting it for the next 30-40 years of marriage. Most people I met, regretted their vows even in their few first years. That's pathetic. They thought marriage was the key to escape, the answer of all questions... They just got it wrong in the first place.

For myself, given horrible experiences around lately, I hardly can give positive advices to couples who are suffering in pre-marital problems. I would force them, if not too pushy, to rethink about the big plan over and over again because I simply can't deal with stuff I've dealt with years ago. When I saw someone in the same position as I was with my exs, all I wanted to shout was "Run away!"

But that's all the life as I know it. That's how life is happening around me. I'm absorbing things and learnt from them, keeping it in my memory and recalled the trauma when someone was in that situation. Surely I don't know all things already now--to know whether there are more happily married couples than those who aren't--but that's the life as I know it.

I got an invitation to the Esmod Jakarta Graduate Fashion Festival 2011: Ground Zero. It was held in Pacific Place last Thursday, June 23rd, after my second visit to Indo Build Tech 2011 at JCC (and hurt both of my arms for holding bags filled with so many catalogues, brochures, pamphlets, business cards and other bonuses like pens, agenda, and material samples. Even two days weren't enough to collect them all!)




It was my turn to bring car that night, so I dropped everyone home and fetched Oma at Aunt Magda's place before coming home. I was super tired for sure, but also excited for the new things I experienced that day, and also to find at least 10 goodie bags filled with many stuff (of course, only the goodie bag from Esmod contained three bottles of You C-1000, Natur-E tablets, Soyjoy biscuits, magazines and vouchers, while other bags filled with images of materials. Lol.) I sure did enjoyed the day, thank God!

When I went hang out with Lita yesterday, we discussed about life and its philosophy as usual. Then I told her about this guy I thought "I couldn't lose", and I found this quote on tumblr, and we agreed that there are special someone to everyone.

To me, I have more than few special people to myself. One of them is Lita, of course, who had been my best friend for the last decade. I have quite many best friends around me and for me, Lita is someone I always run to when I'm in the middle of a crisis, or when I'm excited about a guy, or when to discuss a serious matter. She's all I can depend on.

When it comes to art, music and design, I have Rachelle to share my ideas with, who is always supportive to whatever I'm doing. We definitely share the same taste in music, fashion, design, style, hobby, and--what seems like too bizarre--love story. It's funny tho, but we enjoy this a lot. Thankfully, we never set eyes upon the same guy. Lol.

Cheryl and I share more or less the same interest and ideology, and quite the same humor and wit, which are also similar to Rachelle's. Maybe that's what unite the three of us together and made our friendship solid with one another.

The other thing that I discussed with Lita was about this friendship. I told her that among all of my friends, the two latter girls are the ones who are fit in the most with me. Lita couldn't understand what I was talking about, remembering how many other girl friends I have all my life, including my old besties Ester, Irma and Livia.

They are still my best friends and I love them all just the same. It just that things changed, and we all have different destinations and paths now. It's not that I forget about them, and tho I love them all still, we have different "world"--the word I found hard to explain to Lita. Maybe it's more about the soul. I found Rachelle and Cheryl have pretty much similar souls with mine. That's why they're my soul mates--in a way.

But the other thing about soul mate is, of course, to find a life partner. Lita and I agreed, that after some trials and errors, we need someone we can talk to, share with, and rely on--more than what meets the eye. Well, I guess in time we need to lower our standards anyway. Looks aren't the most important anymore, tho for me it's still so hard to deal with.

Of course, meeting my standards is one difficult thing, and I need to deal with the consequences. When I rethink about this, well I have to be agree with Lita and the quote above: if I ever meet a guy who can make me feel comfortable and also reliable, I guess I'd lower my standards too, and would never let him go ;)

I'm super excited today, mainly for two reasons: First, Lita asked me to hang out at Gandaria City with her today and we spent hours in Eat & Eat and Roppan, talking about her pre-wedding preparations and other girl's stuff, and it had been months since we had this kind of thing together, so it's pretty much excite me, plus that we met Rian (Lita's brother) and wife, Angely there.


The second thing is that Rachelle and I just officially purchased tickets to Java Rocking Land next month that we had been wanting for weeks since The Cranberries is planned to perform on Saturday. Dolores O'Riordan's illustration above was made by my most talented artistic friend, Met Mangindaan, illustrator and now an interior designer. So to all of Cranberries' fans, see y'all next month then!

P.S. Dolores' image above is for sale in A3 print, limited for 10 prints worldwide. You can ask me about it in comment box or contact the artist here.

I actually dunno what to post here since my days are filled with work, work and work. Even at home and on weekends I'm still doing my work, and--of course--housework stuff. But today my siblings and Auntie Dewi went to MBK church for 11.30 a.m. mass which was served by brothers from St. Paul Seminary, Kentungan, Yogyakarta. It was beautiful.


After the mass we went to Sarang Oci at Jl. Panjang for Manadonese lunch. I just started to like this kind of food recently, and I'm definitely go for it than Padang food. I think it's much healthier than Padang's coconut milk and all high-cholesterol stuff in it. Manadonese food has its unique spicy and hot flavor but still serving many healthy fish and vegetables in the dish. Me likey!