Sanctuary

Do you agree when someone tell you that imagination is the same thing as a dream? So if you imagine about stuffs, it means you're a dreamer. Well I like to be dreamer and I like to dream. It could takes me to thousand places, even to places that exist only in our imagination.

I dream about a lot of things and I've been traveled to many places in my mind. But one of the best places I've traveled to is a fields of gold. This imaginative place of mine is different than your imagination if you're trying to imagine my imaginative place right now. Like I said, it's the only me who can tell it exactly like I imagine it and I am the only one who can go there.

My imaginative place is more and less like this: it has a beautiful fields of barley surround the village. I imagine myself standing between the barley and I feel the wind slowly blowing through my hair and body and I close my eyes. It's evening and the sun will be set soon, the red sky is the most prettiest thing there. It make me praise the mighty Lord for His spectacular creation.

I imagine myself having a company and I prefer it's a man. We sit there in the middle of the filed, trying to listen what the wind have to say. I feel loose and I feel freedom. No need fancy outfit, no need shoes, no need to tidy up my hair.

More than that, I imagine myself living in a simple life in a simple house, simple neighborhood, simple job, simple relationship, simple in everything. I imagine that everyday after I finish my work, I go to the fields of gold and just sit there enjoying the life given by Him.

It may sound too much for you, but in my imagination..it's beautiful and I love it there.

I am a women living in a big crowded city. Living in a big city is great but perhaps that's why I choose to create a simple imagination. Because I don't want to lose the balance between where am I right now and what I really want inside.

It's my sanctuary.

Even A Joke Has A Limit

Have you ever joked by someone or a group of people who you never had any thought of doing it? I just did. And it felt horrible until I cried about it. Even worse, it was done by some people and it obviously took me by surprise. I am hurt until right now and I can't believe that situation made me so much uncomfortable and ended up with my tears..even until now.

It about my weight and how people see it as an overweight. I am fatter than when I was in college and yes I admit it. The situation in my office which is always sit behind my desk and almost do nothing make me lose the balance between foods I eat and the calories I actually needed. But for the record, if you imagine what am I look

like, I am DEFINITELY not like this:

or not even close to this:

I mean I am a little bit overweight compared to my actual ideal weight but I am not like them (the pictures).

All I am saying is even a joke has a limit, and if the joke is already over the limit, you'll see it on those people you make a joke of. Or at least you have to be a little bit more sensitive about what you're joking about. Not everyone take a joke as funny as you think it is.

In my case, the reason why I cried when I was joked about my weight is I am trying to lose my weight. And for some people, it's not that easy. I tried and I have the effort to lose my weight. I tried and yet they still joked me about it. How ironic.

This is a silly matter really. For them, maybe it's just a joke and they will probably think that I am over sensitive. Yeah, wait until they got in a position where I am standing right now. Maybe not about they weight. Maybe it's about your economical situation, it's about your skin tone, it's about how skeleton-ly thin you are.

Oh ya, about the thin stuff. I don't understand why people LOVE to make joke about fat people but not the THIN one, like this:

See? For me, that girl is the beautiful version of this:

But then I came out with a thought. I should not care about what the say. In the end, a joke or not a joke, it wasn't funny at all for me. I think about those who acknowledge about my over weight problem but not make joke about it in front of me. Instead, they suggest, they recommend a solution, they try to help me - not make joke about it.

They are my true friends and family and boyfriend. Especially my boyfriend who acknowledge the problem but he still accept me for who I am, not in what weight I am.

Is it too much to appreciate those who treat me well and make a BOLD line between those who make me cry just because of my weight? Is it a sin to be overweight? Because for me, it's okay to be a little bit overweight as long as you're happy and it doesn't take effect on anybody.

I am happy with what I am and what I have right now. Why should some people even think to mess that up?

Happy Endings

Weeks ago I had a long nice chat with one of my long lost friend and we ended up chat about those ex who will get married. She heard the news from her friend that her first love and also her ex boyfriend will get married soon. She told me that no matter the situation is and how long you've been break up with him already, she will always feel something weird inside her the time she heard the news.

Does it always apply that way?

If you feel something like my friend felt about her soon-to-be married ex boyfriend, is it the sign that someway and somehow you do still love the person? Is it possible to be okay to heard the news if you completely do not feel anything for the particular person? Or the real question is, is it possible to not feel anything for your ex? People said that once you love someone, you can't get rid of the feeling from your heart. Even if you're breaking up with them and they leave from your life, the feeling is still there somehow and somewhere. You just don't realize it.

That could explain much of the mystery. In my friend's case, it's clear that she somehow still feel something for her ex boyfriend. She said that the ex is her first love and I exactly know how hard to erase the strong feeling you once had for someone.

I can't imagine myself in her position at that time because I haven't experience it yet. But I tell myself if one day it comes along, I would be happy to feel happy for my ex. I might still feel the weird feeling inside me, but that's it. I will feel it, understand it, and let go of it. Then I'll be happy like I said earlier.

Me and him, we tried to work the relationship but it didn't work out anyway. So if we work the relationship out with someone else, so it means that we aren't meant to be together. It also meant that we both deserve to be happy with someone else but each other.

If he found one and he is happy, I'll be happy too.

Because I know someday the vice versa will apply :)

My Own Version of Human Lifespan

Earlier today, I listened to my mother's complaint about my younger brother who is still 17 year old teenage. And like any other teenage, they are all still searching for their identity and their place in this world. The complaint, though, do give me an insight thought about a new human life stages or human lifespan. All we know about human life stages is more and less like this:

taken from: mortology.org

The picture I attached above is an example of ordinary human lifespan. I have another opinion about this human lifespan. For me and at least this applied for myself as I flash back to my past, a specific human lifespan is like this:

First we are born into this world. We are so fragile and cute and funny. Everyone love us and dying to kiss, cuddle, and carry us.

Then we're growing up become a teenager. This is the phase where we usually intend to choose our own way to solve our teenage problems. In my teenage life years ago, I was quite a rebellion. I intended to choose my own way in almost every problems I had and sometimes it led me to be a selfish person, especially for my family. In that time, my friends and my teenage love life had a higher priority than my family. That's something that I regret these days. But life back then is much more simple than today. All I need to think is my study (and my teenage love life and friendship). Breaking rules were a fun thing to do, so do messing up with the teachers and else. The most extreme consequences you might get is maybe a detention. It's obviously doesn't apply to my life stage these days, I'll get fired haha. But it's funny sometimes when I flash back to my teenage life right now, I kinda miss it. You know what they say, a teenage life is the most memorable time of our life :)

After teenage, we become youth. Well you can compare youth with college time. In this period, we are trying to be more independent and dealing with consequences by ourself. We choose our own subjects, we take care of our own assignments and tests, and we take responsibility for our grade. In this stage, my mother never asked me about my assignments, schedule, tests, and grades. Not because she wasn't care, it was because she handed over all those responsibilities to myself. All she knew was paid for my tuition and saw me graduated.

The next stage is Active Life which is where I am right now. I'm 24 years old and I am a professional in a Financial Consultant. Everything is different right now compared with my previous life stages. I now handle a higher responsibility that I can't mess up with it. But more important is the way I grow up not only physically but also in my mind. Quick and precise example is about my younger brother. I picture myself like him years ago with my mother complaint about me all the time. Sometimes I get mad at him because of his irresponsibility and rebel, but hey that was me back then too. But most of all, in this life stage which is now, my family is having a higher priority than my friends :)

All I'm saying is we are all once a rebel and irresponsible. But over time, I believe that those rebel and irresponsible side of ours won't last forever. I believe if my brother is now suck a pain in the ass to my mother, he'll learn to be a better person years later. I believe in every everyone's life have their own way to learn something to become better. I believe God has a billion ways to shape one person to become what He want them to be.

I don't know what person I become when I move forward to my next life stage, maturity-seniority-death. But I insist to learn to be a better person. Everyone is going to face death sooner or later. So I put this thought in my mind as often as possible that I don't want to regret a thing when I reach my finish line. I want everything beautiful when I get there.

It's not too late to start a fresh start from my today's life stage. I am giving thanks for everything even they are not perfect. My family is not perfect - I lost my father when I was 13 and sometimes I have a fight with my family's members. But I am thankful for them because they are the very persons who will be there when you need help the most. My job is not perfect - sometimes I get boring and not feel the challenge anymore. But I have the funniest, greatest, craziest colleagues and the nicest boss ever. My boyfriend is not perfect. He is not the most handsome boy in high school and he can't give me everything in this world. But he is a guy who want to wait for me and catch me everytime I fall.He loves me for the way I am and that's what I need the most from him. I am not one of the famous and richest person in my society - I'm just an ordinary person. But I am proud to be ordinary as long as I am free. I'm free to do what I want and what I become. I give thanks to God for a good health I have since a good health is the most valuable God ever gave me, beyond money and wealth.

I guess that can make me one of the richest person on earth, right? :)

Writing Is My Talent

I miss writing. I do miss it very much. But somehow I don't know why, everytime my head is fill up with thoughts and I try to keep it for later at home, it is like evaporating and leave me nothing but blank page. It's maybe because I'm too busy and because I'm busy I might have no time to open my laptop and start typing. Or maybe because I get bored of writing. Could it be? Can you be boring to do something that you do (probably) best?

I remember back then when a Singaporean Indian pastor prayed for me and in his prayer he said that "writing is your talent from God so use it well" even though he never met me before, and ti was actually right. I love writing and in my opinion, writing is what I do best among almost all. I love to play with words and I love to explore and describe one thing, so those who read my writing understand what I'm trying to say. So in the time he said that sentence, all I know is one thing. God recognize me and He really really know me so well.

And as a thank you, I want to use this talent He given me for goodness, especially for the glory of His name. That is why, as you can see, in my previous blog entries I sometimes speak about how amazing He is in my life and how He works in my life over and over again. I can't be thankful enough to Him.

I lost my passionate to write until last night I prayed to Him to give me answer. I said if this talent is your gift for me and if this true is my talent, please use me, give me something so I can make it a powerful weapon to influence people about You. Make this talent of mine useful.

I want my passionate back, I want to write a lot. I want to convert my mind into words and I want that words become something worth reading. Should I stop writing for a while and take some break or something? *(almost) hopeless*

I Miss You

Just listen to Darren Hayes' I Miss You song and this is one of my favorite songs. The lyric is just super romantic. I think gay people can make more romantic song than the normal one :p

Anyway, this song is about a guy who miss a girl so much and at the end of the song, he said that he think that he maybe fall in love with the girl. This song make me flash back to the time when I was younger than I am today, especially when I was in high school when love (or puppy love, whatever) was more simple than love is today. In high school, when you have a crush with someone, and when you miss someone, the feeling is more and less like Darren Hayes' I Miss You song. "Because I miss you, and this all I wanna say. I guess I miss you beautiful, these three words have said it all. You know I miss you, I think about you when you're gone. I guess I miss you nothing's wrong. I don't mean to carry on."

Everything is different now that I am in "grown up" relationship. In a "grown up" relationship, all you want is a steady strong relationship, not just the feeling you feel or about the butterfly on your stomach. What I mean about the butterfly in your stomach is the feeling you feel when you nervous because you're near with someone you long for or you have feeling with and all you feel is transform to some reaction in your stomach because of that nervous feeling. I used to have that back then, but it's all gone now. I know I can't turn back the time, so this Darren Hayes' song is really helping me to rendezvous my old sweet yet stupid memories about missing someone so bad until you want to sing it to them. This song is good and most of Darren Hayes' Spin album are good, at least for me. The lyrics are deep.

And one of my favorite quoted lyric of him from this song is this:

" It's such a hard life and most of the time I;m just surviving. That's why I want you to know, in a world where sincerity has lost its meaning, you fill my world with so much hope"

Love has a powerful impact, you know, if you're using it right. Vice versa, it can be damaging to some people. So take a good care of it and appreciate its presence. Because sometimes, once it's gone, it won't be back for good :)

Logic And Feeling

Let me ask you a question, when it comes to love..what do you prefer: feeling or logic? The answers may be vary but allow me to break down my answer of that question.

Love, for me, is a condition when two people care too much about each other and they are willing to alternately give and take from each other. It means love is more than just a feeling. You need action to complete it. When your heart is being hurt by someone you love or when your heart doesn't sure about what you want and what you feel, that's the time your head start to work its function: to think what's right for you, objectively.

I am a logic person, no matter what I do and what I feel, my head goes up first. But there was a time when my head overly lost its power and it got me really down...almost in hell.

I was loved someone I knew for a long time. I didn't plan to love him and I didn't plan to be in a relationship with him at the first place. All I felt for him was care as a good friend, as a brother. But it turned out that the feeling was grew up unexpectedly.

We've been in a long distance relationship for a little while and it didn't turned out good. We broke up and for almost four years, we were silent to each other.

After that, things changed..sometimes we were good again and all I know the next day we were in silent again. It happened several times until at one point I realized.. we weren't meant to be together.

I realized that no matter how hard I try to hold on to him and no matter how long I wait for him , he never fought enough for me. That's the time my head speak louder than my heart. That's the time to move on. I let my head take the decision and take over everything.

So I move on and walk on forward, not backward. It may feel hard at the first steps, but it gets better in the end.

Don't get me wrong, I still care for him. I still care for him as a friend and even now we are in silent again, I still wish and I always wish that he is happy with his life and he someday find the love of his life.

That's how you know when you have to use your feeling or your logic: when you don't feel happiness in your heart, that must be a good reason to start using your head :)

Yesterday morning I went to the cemetary for an annual ritual for most chinese people in Indonesia called "cingbing-an". We usually do this on april month but this year, my family was a little bit late. We went there to visit my great grandparents, my grandparents, and my father who died almost 10 years ago. I never knew or met my great grandparents (I wasn't born yet at that time) and I never had a chance to know my grandmother from my mom.. She died when I was a little. My grandpa died when I was about 10. Both my grandparents died when I was young and still didn't know how to appreciate well.

Just like I said on the previous previous post, I don't fear death. When you're gone, you won't feel anything and you won't bring anything at all with you. You just leave to somewhere and I hope that's a better place to go. The most tragic part from death is the feeling of losing that felt by
the people who still lives.

And when I visit my grandparents' graveyard and my dad's, I missed them. When my grandfather still alive years ago, me and my family went to his house at Lawang every sunday. I played with my cousins and of course my mom visited his father. But I was very little back then so I kinda "ignored" my grandpa. All I thought at that time and what I thought everytime we went there was just like a daily routine and nothing special. I rarely talked to my grandpa and that's what I regret the most today.

What I'm trying to say is I wish I could turn back the time. I wish God gave him a little more time to live, wait until I realize what and how to appreciate things I have before it's too late. And now I miss those who loved and already left me. I miss having a grandpa and grandma. I miss having a dad.

I wish I have a chance to show how much I love them too.

Appreciate what remains in your life. Appreciate and give thanks for every little tiny things. Appreciate your good boyfriend even he's boring, for example. Appreciate your loving husband even he has a lot of weaknesses. Appreciate your parents because they are the only ones and irreplacable. Appreciate your family because they're your home. Appreciate your good friends becauae they might become a place your share your akward jokes and they're still going to laugh about it. Appreciate your income or salary, that's a share God want to give you. Most of all, appreciate yourself becauae by doibg it so, you're actuakly appreciate Him who created you from the very beginning :)

That's how you defeat the sad feeling you felt from death: by appreciating what you have remains.



- Posted from my iPhone

Fairly Fair

I recently watched this new american tv series called Fairly Legal. I knew this series from a friend and then I downloaded the first pilot episode. The story is good, the actresses and actor are pretty and handsome (I like those who played Lauren Reed and Justin :$), but what catch my attention the most is Kate Reed's job as a mediator. And being a mediator is different than being a lawyer. Being a lawyer, you have to take side. Being a mediator, you take no side but make sure both sides being the winner in some way. You can't say it's an easy task, everyone have their own story, ego and need to be win. And as a mediator, you have to break them all and start over.

As I watched this show, I started to think that the job Kate Reed have is a fun job to do. It sort of describe me in the way I control a problem between two parties. In facing a problem and find a solution, first and above all, seek for the truth. What happened back then, ask from all the parties and ask them to tell their version. After you get the clearer view of what really happened, start asking them what each party want from this case, what they expect to have or to get from this. It will help you to 'read' their mind to see where their mind leads to.

After that, you can make a conclusion of what really happened here then offer them the solution that you think is the best and fit and proper for everyone. Like a win-win solution..

I believe in the power of negotiating. If you have talent in negotiating or if you like to negotiating (simple example: you like to bargain when you buy something :p), you should give it to practice. Negotiation skill is practicable, it's have to be practicable...not just a theory based on the book. Sometimes you have to bluff, yes. But in order to do the bluffing, remember that you have to know something they don't, see what they don't, predict what they don't.

I had a negotiation class back in university but I already forgot it right now. I'm not an expert too but I like to negotiate for goodness. I like to be a mediator even just for simple case.

Remember this: before and during the negotiation process, setup your highest expectation and your lowest level of standard. Your highest expectation means your ultimate goal to be achieved and your lowest level of standard means the the ugly result you will probably get and you won't go deeper on a negotiation if you already reached that level. Simple example: the seller offer you something for 10 dollars. You set your highest expectation to 4 dollars and your lowest level of standard to 8 dollars. It means you actually want to buy that thing from the seller in 4 dollars. But if the seller give you the thing for 9 dollars, you won't buy it because it's more that your lowest standard which is 8 dollars.

Well that's what I learnt from my negotiation class.

Negotiation is kinda fun, if you know the rules and how to play the game.

But negotiation is more fun if everyone in the room is go out happy..just like in Fairly Legal.

Boss' Birthday

Yesterday is my boss' birthday and we celebrated it with a simple birthday lunch at La Rucola along with his wife and my colleagues. And since its the second birthday of my boss since I worked here, all the brilliant surprise ideas we used to have just..gone. So we planned a simple surprise this time: we bring over the birthday cake to the restaurant and we simply celebrate it there.

The birthday cake is probably the most "wow" thing yesterday because we brought an ipad cake with sudoku and finance application icons. A cake like this is pretty and cute, too bad we can't eat the icing since it's too sweet and can cause you diabetic.

The food I ordered at La Rucola is the other "wow" thing. One of my friend told me that La Rucola has the best black squid ink pasta. So I ordered and tried it. The taste is not bad, but it cost me all my lips. My lips are instantly black. For the complete review of this dish and the restaurant, visit myfoodism.blog