Rad Sujanto

Why.

2012-02-24T20:27:00.010+07:00

Why I've been busier.
School has been keeping me super busy.

Why I chose to study Management of Communication.
Because, I think, it is important to know how to have a well managed and organized communication system in most aspects in life.

Why I redecorated my room completely.
I wanted to have my own space that would be relaxing and full of things that I would feel comfortable around. I wanted to create my own happy space in my own world!

Why I'm afraid I will spend less time in the blogsphere.
I think I will have a lot to do related to school e.g papers, essays, or presentations. Yikes!

Why I'm worried at the moment.
I love blogging(!) but I may need to have to focus on my study and work! I don't wanna lose the spirit of blogging and abandon this website of mine!

Why I'm worried even more.
I'm afraid I won't be able to keep up with you guys' posts due to tiredness. So, I might just check out the very most recent post on the top of your page when I pay a visit. Sorry!

Why I'm grateful.
You guys are awesome!

Why I might post a new post in less than 24hrs.
Because I might be wrong about everything I've said above! Hahaha! Amen!

Why I said so.
Because I hope to be able to succeed in organizing my whole life schedule (family, school, work, social life) well so I will have time for this, that, this, and that.

Why I said all this.
So you guys can wish me luck! ;))

[Leave your wish :p]
Why this was so boring.
My mind is exhausted from studying and thinking. Plus I have a sore throat! OMG! Seriously need to have a real good sleep. With who, though? Ahahahahhahahaha (oh, God...)

Post Scriptum

Thanks, guys, for the wish for my Japanese exam a few days ago! I got the highest score in the class! I was really sure (I mean it), at least, 2 classmates of mine would get the achievement! They were very smart and clever.
\((^__^))/

Back to school

2012-02-21T21:14:00.003+07:00

You know it! It's always exciting when it comes to going back to school. There is this excitement just before the school starts when you feel like there is a serious need to get some stuff necessary for school. Well, I just got back from a book/stationery store Gramedia to get my school stuff.

Here they are:
(Hint: there are a couple of cute stuff!)

Notebooks.
It was a little tricky to find the right notebooks that I wanted in the store even though I had had the imagination of what type of notebook would be perfect for me. I wanted spiral un-additionable notebooks. I wanted thin, simple, yet very interesting. I wanted to make sure that when I opened the noted book I would not get bored of reading my note so quickly.

Here they are. I got six notebooks because this semester I have six lectures. I wish they came with more choices of colors, though. They feel great in my hand. Not too big or too small.
Document file case.
There are a lot of options of file case out there. I remember using a very similar one back during my undergraduate. And, I liked it.

It's a hard case type with two snappers on one side and a sorta clipper in the inside, instead of a thin envelope felt and shaped like file case -which I think would be a waste after a few months of use. They don't last long.
Pens. Highlight. Type-ex. Ruler. Sticky notes
Here they are.

I got two different pens. One is a 0.3mm pointed. The other one is, I think, a set of standard 0.5mm colored pens. I also got a 15cm ruler which, I think, is super convenient for its mini size.
Agenda.
I've never had a proper agenda book before. I do use my iPhone as a sorta agenda. Or, I would write down what I wanted/needed to do the next day in a piece of paper.

So, I got one. It was also quite tricky to find it because most of the agendas they had were more notes, addresses, and diary oriented. I'm glad I finally found one that I needed although it was a little pricey and over my expectation. I'll make best use of it. It should help me become more organized.
BTW, I like it that it's pretty compact so that I can carry it in my bag all the time and take it out in the class without getting so much attention for it looking like a notebook.

Cool pencil case.
This is really cute.

So, it is made of jeans like fabric. Even the color is like blue jeans. It's super practical for its skinny and just-right size. Everything fits in the case including all the pens, highlight, type-ex, and ruler. And, if you noticed, there is that dog metal badge sort of thing. There are actually three difference choices of color. A black one would have a cat badge. A brown one would have a bird badge.
Even cooler!
This is a pen that is called iPen! Just check it out!

You know what I'm sayin'?! Gotta get it. And, it also happens to be 0.3mm. I don't really fancy using 0.5mm pens -that's why.
SUPER UBER cute Hair Man Plant.
This is beyond what I expected to see in the store.

It's literally a plant on a man's hair. It's grass, real growing grass. So, the instruction says to take out the seeded bag out of the man's head and soak in water for an hour, put the bag in, water it everyday, and in 4-8 days the grass should grow. How freaking COOL is that!?! ;))

There were other "mans" with a kid on his back, with his girlfriend kissing, and with his partner laying next to each other. You probably have seen such decorative living thing before. I just haven't!
Done.
Okay, that was all it. I will have two classes tomorrow and will start using most of the items that I bought this evening.

You have a good night sleep or great day ahead!

Nite nite.

[Leave your comment(s)]

Post Scriptum

Tomorrow is the last Japanese class and also the final exam. I will try to take time to study as much as I can tonight after refreshing and cleansing shower and before bed. Bad news is I don't think I will continue on taking the Second Grade. I really need to focus on my study and work. Besides, I normally have other things to do to keep my busy when I'm not busy. Do simple things like doing a room decor -as some of you know it.

I finally replaced my painting with a cutout letter R shaped dalmatian fabric I use as my rug.

Stuff stuff

2012-02-18T23:35:00.008+07:00

Okay, so, I just got back from Carrefour because I was too bored at home and my regular hang-out buddies, separately, had dinner already, were out of town, and didn't reply to my texts. I wasn't planning to go shopping but I did! Sigh! ;))

I'm going to try to keep it short and to the point as I need to shower!

Here are some stuff that I use and just got from tonight.

New favorite drink
I've recently been crazy about drinking Pocari Sweat (Japanese product) because their latest TV commercial was quite fun to watch! Ahahha. That's REALLY how it all started :p :p

Only got a bundle of 4 @500ml bottles.
I've been looking to buy a box containing 24 bottles because I will get a squeeze bottle! I saw the promotion online. I really think the squeeze all blue bottle looks really cool for me to carry around the uni! Ahahaha :p

Body
For the past few months I've been into using soap bars. Instead of liquid body wash. I don't know why. When I started it I had to experiment with different brands and products of soap bar. Now I have some favorites already.

When I shower I use different soaps. Normally this is what I do...

1) If I feel dirty on my skin after a hot dusty day outside, I would use the one from Nivea that comes with oatmeal in it. It obviously helps with exfoliation. In the photo it's the white naked one.

2) Before I go to bed, I would use the cucumber one (green one in the photo) or the green tea scented one (the one wrapped in light blue paper). If I happen to feel dirty on the skin, I would use the exfoliating one too. I love the green tea and apple scents. I hate so much the flowery scent. I think it relaxes me while in the shower and while in bed after shower to smell the scent from using the soap.

3) I just bought a rather pricey soap bar for face. Okay, maybe it's not that pricey. It's just more expensive than the other soap bars. It's from Extraderm It has NO smell at all. I find it quite weird for that. Let's see if it's going to do any good to my face! ;))

I do use these two products when I feel that my face is dang dirty! :p
Hair
Since I was 12 I've used hair gel. Many different ones. I used my mom's hairspray too to keep my hair styled throughout the day. But I only did it for a short while and went back to hair gel. Back then it was not easy to find hair wax. Most of hair styling products were gel. Although I did use one hair wax product which stunk(!) and was SUPER sticky! I remember it was a Chinese product. It was almost like skin balm, only much much thicker and heavier.

Here are the three products that I currently use.

The most used one is the red one which is Gatsby Wax (strong). Gatsby is a great product, to me, when it comes to wax. The disappointing one is the L'Oreal one in the back. The product just doesn't last long at all. And, the Gatsby wet look one is also a bit disappointing. But, I sometimes use a bit of it after applying the wax to give it a shiny look -because the wax product is matte.
So, I do look after my hair. I have some favorite brands already.

1) For the shampoo and conditioner I love Dove (preferably Daily Shine). I use them daily. Almost every time I shower. Oh, there is a bonus that comes with the conditioner that I bought today. It's a skin whitening product. I'll give it to dad. He uses such product, I know.

2) For when my hair is dirty from the wax and gel, I use the Body Shop banana shampoo because it works to cleanse the hair. I normally use it in my shower before bed because I wanna make sure that my hair is clean so that it won't dirty my white pillow cases.

3) The red products are actually new. I have never used them ever before. I'm curious, though. Let's see.

Good smelling green!
This is the most exciting part of all.

So, I bought these three items out of my expectation at all.
I was checking out the store's racks and stopped by the candle section. At that point I knew what I had to look for. Scented candles! I have always been curious about these scented candles. So, I found a perfect one! Perfect because it was cheap, apple scented(!) and small enough in size for each of ten of them in the box! I think each of them only lasts an hour or two max.

And then I thought I wouldn't just put one on my desk. I needed a proper container. It was right there on the shelf above where the candle was. But, it was bloody expensive for a simple candle holder made of clay! NO WAY I would get it. It also looked pretty tacky. So, I thought fast and bam(!) a glass! I went looking for a glass and found a cheap one (less than a 1USD).

And, then I thought I couldn't just put the candle in the glass. So, I thought I needed decorative pebbles that are normally used for fish tanks or aquariums. So, I went to the animal section in the store, and found exactly what I had in my mind, only better! White, very small sized pebbles. Couldn't get more perfect.

So, voila!

It's going to sit right there on the corner of my desk closest to my bed.

As I said before, I adore the smell of apple and green tea. I actually have this room or air freshener. However, I don't have the proper place to place it. Besides, using the apple scented candle will give a boost of scent in to my room ;) I will try to burn it tonight for a bit.
Phew, okay, I have written a lot for a blog post that I thought I'd have a bit to say when I started it. Ahaha.

Overall, let's invest in something good! ;))

Good night!
Shower time!

[Leave your comment(s)]

Post Scriptum

Tomorrow the guy who will remake my headboard will come to the house to talk with me about what I want for the headboard. I have bought most of the materials that will be needed for the remake. Hopefully in a week after tomorrow it will be ready to be installed! Exciting!

Oh! Did you notice the dalmatian print?
Check out what it really is in this very short vlog of mine:

00:51AM, Feb 19: It's been an hour since I burnt the candle. It turns out to not provide my room with any significant smell. I could smell a bit of the apple scent when I placed my nose 20cm away above the burning wick. Nawww!! I'm rather disappointed!

02:16AM, Feb 19: I'm still awake! ;))
Here's a video of me taken just now while the candle was still burning after two hours:

Green. Butterfly. Gekko

2012-02-16T22:31:00.001+07:00

Wokay, so, I have a few things to talk about. Nothing serious or super exciting, though. You can easily tell what I'm going to talk about by the title of the post.

Green.
I wanna quickly show you how I take care of my zodia in my room, to keep it green and fresh looking most of the time.

Every now and then I pinch off any leaf that is dying and looking slightly imperfect. My reason why I do such thing to the plant is so that the plant will make use of the nutrition not to fix or repair the damage on the leaves but instead to grow new and fresher leaves.

I regularly spray water all over the leaves and make sure I do it evenly.

When the leaves are dry from the sprayed water, I give random leaves a wipe using my finger. I learned that a gentle touch on a leaf can stimulate better or faster growth. A gentle blow also does the same job.

I love it that it stays fresh and green! Besides, the plant produces this natural scent that smells like something that insects or mosquito won't like to be around.
Next week I might bring in a new, different plant (flower one) that has been sitting downstairs in the terrace. I have trimmed most of the old, damaged leaves. It looks pretty bald at the moment.

Butterfly.
Today I saw a butterfly in the house on my way taking the steps towards downstairs. It was resting on a hanging light that I couldn't reach with hand. But, as I went back upstairs, I noticed it had moved to the wall of the steps. I slowly approached my finger towards it, and it didn't mind a ride to my room.

I took it out in my balcony and released it after I took some photos using my iPhone.

It was quite cute.

Gekko.
This big gecko, locally called tokek for the sound it makes, was found on the ceiling of one of our terraces downstairs. It just stood there doing nothing. I guess it was resting.

Actually, this photo was taken on the 8th of Feb, not today. I had wanted to talk about it in my blog but I kept forgetting it.
There are maybe more than one gekko in or around our house as we are already used to hearing their calling from inside the house. But, it was the first time one of them showed itself with no fear of us.

That's all it!

Enjoy your night or day! I will enjoy my night :)

Nite nite!

[Leave your comment(s)]

It was okay

2012-02-14T00:22:00.005+07:00

I could fall asleep quite easily in my chair right this second. I will not let that happen for the next 10-15mins as I need to write a bit about how my day went today. It's like exactly midnight, by the way, which means it's the Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to "you"!
You know who you are.

-------------------------

BTW, the orientation was just okay. Met with other new students. I managed to talk to some of them and find the students that are also taking the same sub study or concentration as me. So, basically, the Masters program of Communication in the faculty is divided by three sub studies or concentrations that the students are free to choose from, which are Study of Political Sciences, Management of Communication, and International Relations. Mine is Management of Communication.

The day started at 8 and just a bit over an hour ago was when I called it a day. Here's a video that I made this morning just after I was done getting ready for the orientation:

The first class will be on Monday next week.

-------------------------

The Japanesse class last night was quite fun yet a bit confusing because we are learning a new grammatical structure that is quite complicated for me to figure out how it can make sense. I managed to understand the most part of it, eventually, though. Let's see how I do at the end of the lesson about the new grammar structure.

If you're curious what exactly this grammar structure that I'm talking about is, in English it's super simple. We are learning how to say "Tokyo is bigger than Osaka". In Japanese, though, it's a little bit (for now) complicated for me. In Japanese, that sentence would be translated to "Tokyo wa Osaka yori ôkii desu". Oh... I'm not gonna explain the confusion by trying to break down that simple looking sentence.

-------------------------

I really got to go. You guys have a good day or night!
Tomorrow is all about work all day and night up until Wednesday! OMG! Money, you're hard to get sometimes! Ahahaha

Okay, seriously, I'm gonna stop complaining and let my eyes rest in my oh-comfy bed! I'm glad that it's paying off great now that I took dedication to decorate my bedroom for super tiring nights like now !^_^

[Leave your comment(s)]

Post Scriptum

8:29AM: Still waking up. Now that I look back at the Japanese sentence that I wrote last night in this post, it is actually not that complicated or confusing! Ahahaha! "Tokyo was Osaka yori okii desu" is actually a simple sentence! AHAHahahah! I guess I was too tired last night during the Japanese class so the new grammatical structure may have seemed confusing to me!

Busy weekend!

2012-02-12T23:59:00.000+07:00

Oh, so it's midnight and we just got back from our weekend trip to Semarang where my brother lives. The city is about 3 hours away from Yogyakarta by car.

I'm super tired right now. I'm forcing myself a little bit to write this blog post right now because I have sooooo much work to do. I was still working a bit in the weekend. Tomorrow is going to be super busy. Morning will be spent at the uni for a freshman orientation. The rest of the day will be spent for werkz! Yikes!

I will just write and post photos taken over the last weekend. It was all fun, for sure! Don't worry I'll keep it short!

Enjoy!

Saturday 11

11PM In the morning I was busy working until 11, and we all went to a wedding. Really, we took advantage of the joyous event so we could fill our stomach before we went on the road later the day towards Semarang.

2PM We left the house for Semarang. I forgot to pack!! ;)) I threw random clothes into my backpack and made sure I had my phone and iPad in the back too, of course. I knew I would have to do some work.

3:30PM We lunched at this favorite stop-by restaurant of ours called Iwak Kali. They have two branches. This is the big(gest) one. They have this large farm behind the restaurant.

Juuump!!

Sunday 12

7:30AM I was invited by my brother to a photography event held by a local newspaper company (Suara Merdeka). The event was called Suara Merdeka Photo Rally. Basically the participants were given three themes/topics of photos that they needed to capture.

Long story short, among places we went to, one of them was Kota Lama (lit. old town).

Me standing beside an old looking window.
1PM My brother and I agreed with everybody else to meet at the mall Paragon not far from where the photography event was. We only had lunch. And, finally!! Ahahahaha! After a long while, I had sushi! I had to order from the two outlets because it's not everyday I can have sushi!

I was quite full already so I only ordered two portions.
5:30PM I did as much work as possible using my iPad. And, I realized I almost forgot to make a vlog of the day! I don't know what reminded me! Here's the video: video

9PM We began our journey back home to Yogyakarta.

Basically that was it. It was not even two full days. Such a short trip but super hectic to me, at least.

Have a good day or night ahead!

Arrrghhh need to sleep and wake up quite early for the orientation!
Nite nite!

[Leave your comment(s)]

This is confusing me!

2012-02-09T17:03:00.012+07:00

Since the last post I've been hesitating to want to make another painting that would suit my painting frame perfectly. The reason is because I have no idea what might be perfect for the frame.

Here's my painting in the frame.

A lot of you, kind readers, thought, in the previous post, that the frame didn't really compliment the painting -which I agreed, totally.

Just an hour ago, while on Facebook, I stumbled into a picture that my brother took. He named it "Alone". Here's the picture.

I kind of found it quite interesting. It's a bit cliche because there are just simply too many 'alone' or 'lonely' themed photo shots out there! Nevertheless I think my brother is a great, talented learning photographer. He owns one of those over a thousand dollars expensive DSLRs and lenses! He's been so much into this thing just quite recently.

Back to the photo...

Regardless of the cliche-ness... I found a good kinda spot in the picture. I then asked my brother to email me a copy of the original picture so I can do anything to it using Photoshop.

I cropped it. Blackandwhite-ed it. Level-ed it. And everything else.

Hence this.

Hang on a second. I know. You're probably like "What the...", "Feet?", or "Mkaaaay...".

I found this cropped spot in the picture quite interesting. Not merely the feet, though. It is more of the fabric of the skirt that the girl's wearing. I like how the fabric is waved, how the fabric creates different tones of color, and how the feet are somehow just there out of the fabric. I thought the center of focus was the fabric rather than the feet.

Okay, basically, I found this cropped picture quite great to my standards. I could have a quite lame sense of art, you know! LOL

However....... here is the only hesitation why I'm still cooking the idea in my head whether I should print the picture and put it in the frame. I don't really care that much whether the frame is going to go along with the picture because I really do want to have the picture on my wall.

The Problem

Okay, so my only hesitation is, I feel uncomfortable to imagine that I am going to sleep every single night with feet above my head.

Ew.

I dislike the imagination. And, to make it even worse, it's some stranger's feet. Not some, ummm, Barrack Obama's feet. Okay that was not a good example either. I mean... if they were my mom's, I wouldn't mind having a picture of them above my head in my sleep.

So... I need you guys' vote again. Tell me if it is okay and not a big deal, or you agree with me.

The Question

Is it just a silly discomfort or fear of mine that's not a big deal at all? Or, the discomfort is reasonable?

[Leave your vote]

Too simple?

2012-02-07T21:59:00.002+07:00

Errr... I made this painting last night and just got it framed today.

I love the painting. I love the frame.

But...

Together, the painting in the frame, me doesn't like!

It's a tree with white leaves. In real life, the canvas doesn't look as bright as it is in the photo. Imagine an old crusty white paper. That's the color of the canvas.
I have a feeling it is the color of the canvas which is sort of creamy. I think if it was slightly brighter, it would be much better looking.

I hope you agree with me! I wanna hear from you. Because I can always make a new painting on a brighter canvas... if such thing exists(!). Hehehe.

Oh, and, you think the painting is too simple?

BTW, here's the vlog of the day since this post was too short(!). In the video I showed where I'm planning to place the painting.

[Leave your vote for the painting!]

Cap Go Meh

2012-02-05T23:24:00.006+07:00

I'm not actually sure if that's a local spelling for the festival post the Chinese New Year. Correct me if I'm wrong. But, please, don't punish me if I'm wrong! Ahaha :p

So..... yes, I just got back from the festival. Was it a festival? It felt like one to me. Although it only reminded me of the typical China Town in Singapore at night time.

BTW, I took mom out to the festival. I was actually the one more enthusiastic about the event. But, I did try to cheer her up in the festival by buying her some supposedly localized Chinese snacks (I think).

Here's the two snacks that we got.

Chicken tofu fritters. Spicy!

Got the fritters from Boli Boli. It highligted the possible fact that it was a branch from Singapore. Errrrr... maybe true, maybe not. Only Singaporeans should judge.
Second snack was more of a dessert. It was just a... hmmm... what would you call a sweet tasting porridge like snack that's slimy and mixed with crushed Taiwanese roast peanuts and some cooked gel acting like flour? God! What a messy description! Possibly the worst written description since Shakespeare!
Nothing else is so interesting to talk about. I'm gonna show you several more photos taken during the fest. I did enjoy it, though. I do miss Singapore for the Chinese ambiance... if that makes sense to you, guys? I mean I enjoyed having my dinner at Chinese food stalls and talking with the staff. I also enjoyed trying to blend in(!) by saying some Chinese words like sie sie... or, ni hao ma or just ni hao. Hahaha fun times!

Me at the cool dragon-y entrance!

The whole entrance... without me(!) :p

I know, right. What a cutie!... the dragon is.

Some red stage.

In case you have never seen humans before.

Here are some more humans
BTW, The event ends tomorrow night. Since the location is very close to the frequently busy road of Malioboro, finding a parking spot was quite struggling as everywhere was quite full of other parked vehicles of visitors of both Malioboro and the festival.

Good nighty!

[Leave your comment(s)]

Post Scriptum

If you read my yesterday's blog post about the white curtains and a rack, you might want to see them in this video.

See my other videos: youtube.com/RadVlogsEveryday

Rainy Day

2012-02-04T20:38:00.004+07:00

Tacky curtains...
So, I've not been busy but there's been nothing much going on lately apart from my focus on the room decor. A few minutes ago I just replaced my old tacky curtains with the new ones that I had ordered two days ago. The material of the new curtains is a little bit pearl like shiny. Just a little bit. I like it that way because it can play with the lighting.

Slim rack...
Today I bought a white wooden slim rack at Lotte Mart for in front of my window where I place some books and other stuff that used to sit on a low dark wooden table which I didn't like so much being in my room.

Smells good...
My room is getting even much more comfortable now. It also smells real good as I have a room deodorant hanging at one corner. I also ordered a couple of more custom pillow cases which are in white color(!) I'm a huge fan of white color, you know.

Painting frame...
While at Lotte Mart I also found a perfect painting frame measuring 50cm x 60cm -that is for the actual area for the painting, and another 10cm for the actual white wooden frame. I will get one and will take time next week to make a simple painting. I'm planning on hanging the painting up against the wall where the head part of my bed is laying.

Custom rug...
The only part of the whole episode of this room decoration that has been very struggling for me to accomplish is the flooring. I have not been able to find a perfect custom rug that simply comes in white-ish color. All of the rugs I've encountered at different stores have been patterned and of several colors. However, I know that I will get the rug that I need for the room someday! Ahaha sounds like I'm in an adventure of finding a mysterious treasure.

Beddddd...
Tomorrow, I will order a custom bed cover. I want it fat and comfy, oh, and in white! Hehe. I don't like thin, skinny, blanket like bed covers. And, also, I hope to be able to find a good store that sells beds. I just found out that the bed that's been sitting in this room measures 100cm x 200cm. I need a 120cm x 200cm one instead to fit the room perfectly. Besides, my new bed sheet measures the same length and width as the latter specification.

Yikes!
So, basically, I am getting closer to having my room finally redecorated completely. I cannot wait. It's been exciting. And, quite pricey too! Yikes! I will need to stop using my money in the bank accounts and also my credit card for a while after I'm done with all of this. I will need to.

Motivation...
The whole purpose of this room redecoration thing is that I will want to be able to have a little home that I'll always be excited to stay in and look forward to when I'm out in the hot sunny days. I will want a more motivational room when I'm studying, doing my work, resting, and sleeping. I have noticed a difference at night in my sleep with this so-far decoration that I have in this room. So, I cannot wait to feel even much more comfortable being in this room.

....................

Bull sh*tting...
So, yea, how were your days lately?

Self advertisement...
Oh, here's a little peek of what my room is currently like. In this very short video you will not see the new curtains because they were not arrived yet by the time I was making the video. But, you will kind of be able to see the new rack and my bed corner and stuff.

I make a video everyday! You can see other videos here: youtube.com/RadVlogsEveryday
Oh, Gosh, finally!
Hope you enjoyed your day!

Cheers!

[Leave your comment(s)]

Post Scriptum

Ooh, I don't mean to brag... oh, well, maybe a little bit hehe (sorry!)... I took the Japanese test today and got 92 of 100! Woohoo! I was the only one taking the test because everybody else had taken it on Wednesday. Oh, it only took me 10mins to finish it. I guess I should thank you who wished me luck for the test! \(^_^)/

Oh, it's been raining all day hence the title! Hehe

Let's Basic your Japanese!

2012-02-01T16:47:00.005+07:00

This is going to be interesting -obviously, only for those of you who actually are curious about Japanese language. I've always been interested in linguistics and loved to share with everyone else.

Let's just start.
I'm going to stick with the Present tense for all of the examples I'm gonna use down below.

I/me/my is watashi (read: /wuh-tuh-see/ NOT /wuh-tuh-she/)

is/are is wa

Therefore I am = watashi wa

If that simple phrase is followed by an adjective or a noun, the sentence MUST be ended with desu (read: dass NOT dassoo).

Here are some examples:

I am Rad = watashi wa Rad desu. (read: /wuh-tuh-see wuh Rad dass/)
I am John = watashi wa John desu.

Take a look at these slightly more complicated sentences, and try to see the structure.

I am Rad from Indonesia = watashi wa Indoneshia no Rad desu.
I am Tanaka from Japan = watashi wa Nihon no Tanaka desu.

no is an article that belongs to the word before it and is used for possessions and origins. Here's another use of the article.

My name is Rad = watashi no namae wa Rad desu
My name is John = watashi no namae wa John desu

Where name = namae (read: /nuh-muh-eh/)

More examples

my house = watashi no uchi [wuh-tuh-see no oo-chi]
my friend = watashi no tomodachi [wuh-tuh-see no to-mo-duh-chi]
my mom = watashi no haha

So...

My mom's house = watashi no haha no uchi
My mom's friend = watashi no haha no tomodachi

My friend's house = watashi no tomodachi no uchi
My friend's mother = watashi no tomodachi no haha

Even more complicated ...

My mom's friend's name =
watashi no haha no tomodachi no namae

Now, if you have understood the structure, give me the right translation of these phrases:

My friend's mother's name.

My friend's house's name is John.

Or, you simply have an option to say in the comment that you're not so much interested in Japanese or learning a new language. Ahaha. That would be totally fine. I'm just going to have to come up with a good topic to talk about next. :p

[Leave your comment(s)]

Post Scriptum

There will be a test this evening in the Japanese class today. But, I don't think I will be able to go because I'm scheduled for dinner out with family. If I don't go to the class today (which is fine as the teacher told us yesterday), I will have two extra days to study until Friday when the next class is going to be held.

I don't think I will actually make a sequel to this boring lesson thing. I honestly was just in the right mood of sharing with you guys what I learned in the early lessons. It's gotten more advanced where we are in the class now. So, if I was to share the entire lessons over here, it would take you dying of boredom reading the post. Or, you might just skip the post right away... as some of you may have done with this one. Hehe

Stuff stuff

2012-01-31T15:27:00.013+07:00

It is really one of those times when you have so much going on in your life but you just get too busy that you can't share it through your blog post. I admit the past week has been very busy for me. Last Sunday was mom's birthday and all her sisters and brothers came visiting us in town to celebrate it. We were all kept busy welcoming them, catching up, cooking, etc. On the D-Day we had a table full of different kinds of dishes that ranged from tiramisus to heavy, big meals. It was a fun gathering. I thought of writing about the day and celebration but it felt too much, even until now it still does, to write about. It was a little bit overwhelming, the past week.
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New plant...
Today I went to get a jar for a new plant for my room. I repotted it and now the plant is sitting behind the 'dead' terrarium on the table at my window. It's a ~~lavender~~ zodia. I actually went for the plant because I like the shape of the leaf, the stem, and also the flowers which are white and small. However, the flowers have gone now. The plant is going through the post flower phase.

I didn't edit/enhance the color in this picture. The leaves are truthfully fresh green. Actually I have been taking care of this plant for weeks now. It's been sitting on the terrace downstairs in its original pot. I regularly pinch off dying leaves so that the nutrition can be used to focus on growing new ones and branches. I also pinched off the peak of each branch so that, instead of growing much taller, it actually grows wider in a bushier way.

In this picture, the leaves may look yellow-ish. It is because I had to enhance the color/brightness so that the plant wouldn't look shaded. BTW, I use the lid of the jar as a little chair for the jar so it can provide an extra inch of height.

I believe this picture would look better if I had replaced the curtains with white ones -which what I've been trying to realise(!)
And, I happened to talk about the plant in today's daily vlog.

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Japanese test...
Tomorrow I will have a mid-test for my Japanese class. If I am in the mood tonight, I will study. I would like to talk about the language in a proper blog post, actually. Perhaps there are some people who would like to learn the language a little bit out there. I am generally also interested in linguistics (study of language -structurally) so I will enjoy writing about it, for sure. I might actually make the post tonight after I study as I suddenly feel in the mood right now(!) ;)
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Room decor...
Yesterday I went to a store to ask about curtains and a sheet for the lower part of my spring bed. I have actually made my order for a new bed sheet just over a week ago. It should be ready to pick up at the store in a couple of days. It should be a good quality one which is hopefully worth the price.

The curtains. The store suggested me some choices which, obviously, only caused confusion. I was asking for a simple, white design. There were several options that were actually quite difficult to choose from. They were also quite pricey. I might actually, eventually, go for the cheapest option as I only look for the white color. Let's see...
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Headboard...
I have another little project. I just found out that mom still keeps the headboard for the bed that I've been using. I will take the headboard out of the storage room and cover it to hide the flowery tacky pattern with something much simpler. The only problem is I feel a little lazy to actually climb to the storage room above our garage. I might do it tomorrow.
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Hmmm... what else to talk about?

Custom mirror...
Oh, yesterday, on my way to the curtain store, I stopped by a place that specialized in making custom frames for paintings, mirrors, or photos. I was asking for a price for a 70cm x 150 cm framed mirror. It was quite expensive for a mirror. So, I said to the guy I would come back after rethinking about it. I don't feel 100% sure anymore if it is necessary to get such pricey custom mirror. Again, let's see...
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Room decor again(!)...
I'm lightly thinking about getting a couple of custom cloths for my table and desk, and also a chenille rug for underneath my bed and desk so I will be able to keep my feet warm while working. I'm thinking white color for all of them. Let's see... because I know custom stuff tend to be more expensive even though they also tend to be worth it as they can live up to my expectation.

Yup. I think that was all. Nothing else really interesting going on.

It's one of those days.

You have a good day and I will try myself to have one as well!

'Till next time!

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Post Scriptum

5:26 PM: I just found out that the plant shown and mentioned above isn't actually a lavender. I hesitated a bit when I thought it was a lavender. The actual name of the plant is zodia (Evodia suaveolens) which is believed to be able to repel mosquito due to the mild smell the plant produces. The plant is originally from Papua, Indonesia. This article might be able to help you understand more of the plant: Evodia Suaveolens aka Zodia.

There is life in my dead terrarium

2012-01-26T19:41:00.005+07:00

Again, the title says it all. Ahaha. I need to be more creative with my blog post titles.

Okay, so, yes, there is life in my dead terrarium. Three days ago I mentioned in one of my daily vlogs (click here for the video) that my only terrarium died. It was caused by the sunlight. I didn't know that this new room that I just moved in to a week ago was apparently more exposed to sunlight than the other room was. So, it just died.

BTW, here's a link to when I wrote about how I made the terrarium back in November.

I was planning on emptying the jar but hadn't had time to do it. But, today I found out that there is life that I didn't really notice before. I will show you some photos that I took today.

Here's how it looks right now. It's dead.

You are looking at a mold growing on a small rock. Not only that it looks green and healthy but there is this finger sticking up which shows that the mold is growing.

Then I noticed this baby plant too. The fact that the leaves face the direction from which the sun comes convinces me that the plant is alive.

There are actually baby molds all over the surface of the 'dead' soil that look green. They look like green tiny spots all over the surface among dead brown leaves. Obviously I couldn't notice them before because they were too tiny among the other much bigger plants that used to live.

This is even more exciting. I noticed this tiny snail! It was moving around. I don't know what it's feeding but the end of its transparent shell looks like it carries dirt in the inside. Could it survive by consuming dead leaves? Let's see.

And, this is even much more exciting! I did not even expect to see this at all. It was like finding a Bigfoot by accident in the Alaskan jungle. I saw this rather 'big' mini millipede. I'm pree sure there is a proper scientific name for this animal! I think the dirt that I dug back in November when I made the terrarium carried an egg of a millipede. And, it got so big so I guess there has been enough food in the terrarium.
Well, coincidentally, I made a video this midnight for my daily vlog in which I mentioned a textbook that I was downloading on my iPad. There is this new feature on iBook app called iBook 2 Textbook or something which basically allows you to download school textbooks. And, obviously the books are interactive complete with buffered ready to watch videos, 3D animation photos that you can move around, and stuff. Here's the video.

Ummm, yea. So, I am definitely not going to do anything to my 'dead' terrarium for now. I'm looking forward to seeing what's growing or living.

Oh, I remember watching this video on YouTube. It was about whether plants are intelligent living creatures. The so-far theory says that, in a simple way, plants survive by adapting to their environment instead of using their 'brain' to figure out what they want to do or not want to do. Here is the video if you have some minutes to waste.

Okay, it really is the sound affect that makes watching this video interesting. Ahah
So, yea, I'm looking forward to what might be growing in my closed terrarium. I'm actually a little worried about the animals living inside it because there is not much oxygen in the terrarium as the big plants are all dead. Again, I wanna know if the plants and animals might be able to adapt to a different environment.

Oh, God, this post was so planty!

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The wind is crazy like hell

2012-01-25T15:35:00.005+07:00

So, okay, you won't find any more information since the title is very self explanatory. ;))

You can watch this short video as I recorded when the wind was pretty strong earlier today.

My everyday vlog: YouTube.com/RadVlogsEveryday
I just googled, and apparently the area between the Celebes Sea and Afafura Sea is where the strong winds are found. That is according to Badan Meteorologi Klimatologi dan Geofisika (BMKG) based here in Indonesia.

So, I will try to pay much more attention when driving outside, especially if there are big tall trees by the road.

I hope the weather will get more stable soon! Some say it will end on the 26th this month, so let's see how it goes tomorrow.

Cheers!

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Post Scriptum

After two weeks the Japanese class will resume this evening. Problem is I haven't finished the homework! Ahahah! It's half done, though! It's crazily too many! ;))

Halloweened wall

2012-01-22T23:00:00.005+07:00

Today was quite a long day. Now I'm pretty tired as it's getting closer to midnight. You can watch this one min long video of me telling you what I was gonna do today.

For those of you who are not aware of my little project, I might need to explain one more time. So, everyday I make a video that lasts under one minute. Today is my third day so, yea, I just started two days ago. You can visit this link if you're interested in seeing other videos: YouTube.com/RadVlogsEveryday. The project should end on January 20th, 2013.

In the video I mentioned that one of the things that I would do today was sticking stickers on to my wall. So, I did. These stickers, I've had them since 2002, I believe. I didn't live in this island of Java yet. I bought them at a toy store. I was so much interested in them because they were Halloween themed. At that time I was so mad about Harry Potter and anything that was related to witches and stuff. Yea, I gotta admit, I was one of those weirdos that didn't pay attention to school instead(?)

However, we then moved house and island, really. So, I had to keep them back in their box. We then moved house again so I didn't have time to actually settle in one room. But, now I have my own room. I decorated it. Painted the wall. And, today I decided to use the stickers again for the second time after almost 10 freaking years. To me that's crazy. I didn't think I would still keep the stickers for so long.

By the way, as usual, I'm just gonna show you some photos of me and the kids with the stickers and my painted wall.

Here's my painted wall. Made this painting back in 2005. This is a before picture.

Also a before picture.

The stickers. As you may be able to see (sorry that they may seem too small), there are flying witches, haunted houses, Dracula, lots of bats, etc. They certainly can look pretty creepy ;))

Me sticking another sticker on to the wall. Yup, I needed a ladder.

Voila! Done.

Some crazy guy in an awkward position.

My two helpers. Thanks, kids!

You know who.

Another you know who.

Oooh, did I mention that they glow in the dark? ;) They are quite bright in the dark! Awesome!

Ooooooh! Happy New Year!! Gong Xi Fat Cai! :D

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Post Scriptum

Ooh, for the Chinese New Year, I got this candy. I've known the candy since I was in the 5th grade or younger. Although I never know what it's called since it only has that Chinese writing which I can't read at all ;))
Oh, no, wait, that's weird. I just noticed that that's actually some Japanese writing in white ink... hmmm confusing.

Garage cat. Day 1

2012-01-20T22:20:00.006+07:00

Hi! OMG my previous post was only 5 days ago but it felt like 2 months. Hehe.

Lately I've been much busier (which was good) with work. I had a lot more to write than usual. I was at a point where I had to write 40 articles within 24 hours -which wasn't as hard as it might sound. Mainly because I really liked writing about the topic so it really felt like rambling while making money. Hehe. Kidding there a bit. Seriously, it was actually tiring and challenging. I survived!

Anyway, we have this visitor who has been staying in our garage since three weeks ago or maybe a bit longer than that. It's a cute cat. When it first time came in to our garage it was so scared and would run away as fast as it could as soon as it saw or heard anyone walking near by. We learned it was looking for shelter. Dad wasn't happy, neither was mom. I was fine with it. The reason why everyone else was not accepting its visit was because there had been this different cat that kept trying to look for food in our back-kitchen (we have clean kitchen inside the house and back kitchen where cooking is happening).

Two weeks after its visit and approved stay, I decided to feed it for the first time. I fed it some crashed crackers. I could tell it was hungry.

Long story short, now it lets me feed and pet. It's female, by the way. She has started showing comfort around me. She would not run away -although she still doesn't have full confidence yet. She would look for my foot to snuggle around and would lay on her back when my fingers try to tickle her and chew my fingers.

Here are some photos.

If I can't come up with a good name for her, I might as well just call her Garage Cat. Not that I would ever really call her that name, anyway. Hahaha.

So, yea, that's it about the cat. And, now I just wanna share a tiny bit about a for-fun project that I'm gonna try (very hard) to do. You can watch this 55 second long video.

Assuming you have just finished watching the video and understood what I said, if I happen to not have an internet connection for a whole day, I will still make a video on that day but post it when I can even if it's on a different day. I hope this is going to be fun. And, no, I will not post every video that I post on YouTube every day on to my blog.

This is the YouTube channel where you can follow/see the uploaded videos: YouTube.com/RadVlogsEveryday

More brief info of the vlogging project: I will use my iPhone to make a video, edit the video right on the phone using the iMovie app, and finally upload it to YouTube from the app. Therefore the quality won't be any much different from the video you've just seen above.

BTW, I hope you had a great day or night and will have a better one!

Night night!

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New hat for Prambanan

2012-01-15T23:05:00.004+07:00

So, last Saturday (like, just yesterday actually!) was spent by us visiting Prambanan temple. It had been a long while since our last trip to the temple. I don't really have much to say right now because everything about the temple is available on this Wikipedia page which I'm pretty sure only a few of you will actually click ;))

Anyway... we went there to meet some relatives who were on a different vehicle and from a different direction. Our car arrived first so we had to wait. Mom spotted this market within the area of the temple right after we passed the main gate where we paid for the parking. So, mom and I decided to check out the market. I also thought I should wear a hat because it was around midday even though the sky was rather cloudy -which was good.

Obviously, just like most markets in touristic places, this particular one mostly had souvenirs that were related to the temple. I wasn't interested in them but a hat. A cool looking one. I thought I wanted to try to look more like a tourist. Ahaha.

So, I got the hat. Love it!
We went back to the car to wait a little bit longer. And, the vehicle carrying our relatives arrived. We chatted a bit and stuff, and headed to the ticketing post.

Ummm... what else should I say? I mean, obviously we walked to the temple and stuff.

Oh, we were welcome by a small fountain which wasn't really that interesting to talk about actually... errr.

Well, the environment was clean and well maintained, I noticed. And, ummm... here are some photos of ~~me!~~ the temple.

Say peeeeace!

Ahem. The temple architect. Except not.

Inside the main area of the temple

And, of course, I didn't forget to make our jumps! Weeeeeee

She had fun, too!

I was running. Kind of. Actually, I was pose-running.

That says Candi Brahma. Candi means temple in Indonesian language. And, there are numerous candi in the temple area.

Inside Candi Brahma
On our way back to the Exit, we walked by a big group of deer surrounded by fences. There was this man selling vegetable (kangkung) to feed the animal. I have the photos in my brother's camera which I forgot to transfer and now he's back in the other town already! D'uh! LOL. I'll update this blog post with the missing photos some time next week.

Nothing else was interesting to share here after the deer.

We then had lunch at Candi Sari restaurant not far from the temple area. I had fried chicken. Yuuuuuuummmm!!! We brought some home! Even yummmmmmmmm-errrrrr! ;))

Okay. Basically, it was not a bad day at all.

Hope you had a good day or night and will have another one!

Night night!

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Post Scriptum

The Japanese class will resume in two weeks. Bummer. Sensei has to be in her howntown for a while. Hence... loads of homework! ;))

Room tour (video)

2012-01-14T21:45:00.003+07:00

So, I made a promise that I would talk about my new room. Here's a video of me explaining to you of the room. I'm a lil' lazy to take photos and write today (again!) ;p

Anyway, excuse the quality of the video. I seriously need to get a new camera. I'm currently using a Canon IXUS 130. I'm thinking Canon PowerShot S100. But, it's still pretty expensive so I'm gonna have to wait.

Enjoy the video:

Notes regarding stuff that are forgotten to be mentioned in the video:
- The room still looks pretty boring. I'm adding a bookshelf and a mirror.
- The childish/girly patterned boxes are going to be covered with plain colored papers. I really dislike the patterns, but I had no option. The store only had them for sale.
- The video of a woman with two vaginas was in the most viewed list of videos of the day. Hahaha. So, I wasn't like searching for such topic!
- The shower stuff table is used because it's glass which is easy to be cleaned just by wiping it with a wet piece of cloth.
- The painting that I'm thinking of making is going to be on a canvas, not painted on the wall.
- The Halloween themed wall stains covering stickers glow in the dark.
- Stickers on the front side of my door are years old and are super random.

Thanks for reading and watching -if you actually did! Hahah
Do have a good night or day! ;)

Cheers!

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Sweaters and room related stuff

2012-01-10T20:58:00.010+07:00

The past week has kept me a little bit busier with my brother in town over the weekend, me finding out that I got accepted to the university for my Masters hence re-registration and everything necessary to do to become a legit student, work as always, and ummm that's all it, really. Yikes, that doesn't sound like a busy week at all, ya?

Well, well, I've also been a little bit mood-less to write a blog post. If you want the truth, it is really because my job is all about writing. I write about 10-15 articles per day. So, I can get bored of writing sometimes. Although it doesn't always take me a whole day to finish my work. I use the time post-work to hang with my family and do other things, like, shopping, hanging out with friends, taking fun classes. So, normally I update my blog in the evening or even at midnight time when I'm all relaxed and have nothing else to do.

So, I'm just going to share with you what I got in the past week.

The other day all of us went to Ambarukmo Plaza to shop clothes. My mum got hers. My brother got his. Everyone else got theirs. And, I got these cool sweaters.

So, recently (like, the past month), I've been in the mood to wear warm clothing. Remember when I wrote about me showing you how I wore my scarf? That's part of the mood -which is very obvious. So, I got three sweaters of the same brand, Ambrogio -which is not an expensive brand. But, they tend have cool items that attract me a lot. Like, my dad got me a blazer and a black formal shirt from the brand, that, when worn, makes me look like a pastor -which is pretty cool 'cause I'm a Moslem. And, I also got a shirt from Giorgio Armani which I like so much.

Here I'm gonna show you a photo of me wearing each of the three items (two sweaters and a shirt).

This was taken at SuperIndo when we went grocery shopping last Saturday. That's the Giorgio Armani shirt.

This was taken in the Ambarukmo Plaza mall, Sunday. It was actually pretty funny. So, my brother asked me to walk as if I didn't know I was having my photos taken but I couldn't help laughing because there were people around me, and I was, like, walking alone while, in front of me, my brother was busy taking several shots of me. And, in the photo, I'm wearing one of the sweaters. I'm in love with the red color and the classical look of the sweater with the big buttons.

And, this was taken on Monday when we were looking for a hotel for our visiting relatives and I was wearing one of my other sweaters. I was sitting on the couch with mom while dad and my brother were asking about the rooms.
Speaking of clothing, my all time favorite brand when it comes to casual clothing is Topman. They're very affordable. I have quite a lot of Topman stuff including underwear(!)

So, that's all about clothing. And, now, I'm going to show one more photo of these little boxes that I got just today at Progo.

I actually got these for helping me organize my stuff. These little gift boxes are very useful to categorize and keep stuff that are mostly on my desk well organized. Of course, after I tidy up my desk, it gets messy so fast. I hate that. So, I decided to get these boxes.
There is actually one particular box, which is the biggest one on the bottom of the stack that comes with a cartoon-y patterned lid, that I, honestly, don't like at all. It's too kid-ish. The store didn't have any other boxes of that size with a lid that has the same color/pattern as the box. But, I need a box of that size.

I like the other smaller boxes. They are simple and lovely.

I'm gonna use these five boxes to keep my banking related items (billing reports, important receipts, installment reports I've paid), important certificates, etc. And, the smallest box actually keeps most used items that are on my desk. So, instead of spreading them all on my desk, I'm going to keep them in that box and place the box somewhere on the desk.

Those boxes weren't expensive. Around USD11 for five of them.

I still have to get two or three more bigger and deeper boxes for other stuff, like, my old book collection, cables, chargers, etc.

I'm actually planning on blogging about my new room which will include a little room tour and organizations. I'm moving to the new room tomorrow. It's my old room which is smaller and has a single sized bed. The room I've been sleeping in every night since the past over a year since I got back from Singapore has a double sized bed.

I hope you, I-don't-know-if-it's-even-possible, learned something from this post. Hahaha. Oh, well, I actually wrote this blog post so, in the future, I will know what was going on a day before I moved back to my old room :)

It's 8PM now. Had my dinner. Done with work this afternoon. Hung with family. Now, I'm going to do my Japanese homework!

Night night!

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Post Scriptum

OMG. I went to LotteMart to look for boxes and brought home one of the papers where they advertise items that are on sale. I saw this chicken on the cover page. I mean, look at the position of the legs and head! Poor little chicken.

11:49PM: Two things I've been obsessed with recently: Carex hand sanitizer (not other brands because I've tried different ones) -I bought this one like a few days ago and I've already used more than a half of it, and Gery crackers (oh, I'm more of a salty freak when it comes to snacks. And, dad bought like hundreds of this little package for the kids because they were on a promo price).

There's a rainbow behind me

2012-01-06T23:33:00.003+07:00

I got to admit that some events happen weirdly for a positive unexpected reason. Okay, so, today my mom asked me to pick up her medicines at this particular pharmacy which, if I gave you the specific name and place, you wouldn't have any idea where it was anyway. So, I wasn't really excited to do it as much as I care about her health condition and stuff. I was just being a little lazy and had some work to do even though it was that much at all. You know, one of those days. Oh, well, I said to her to give me an hour or two.

Much later, I decided to go about an hour before my Japanese class just so I could kill the time. I rode my bike. And, only about 200 meters away from home on the way I realized I was on a wrong road that I wouldn't normally take if I headed towards the direction where the pharmacy was located. I realized it, like, after I turned right instead of left and it was only 3 meters away from the right turn. So, basically, I could have done a U turn quickly. But, I didn't. I was "Erh, what the heck I'm taking this way this time". It was just a little further and going around a little bit.

M'kaaay, too long and boring for an intro. Let's just get to the point already!

About 200 meters from where I realized I was on a wrong road, I noticed these people standing on the sides of the bridge looking up to the darkening sky. Obviously, I looked up to the same direction. And, WOW! There was this huge, beautiful, amazing, wonderful looking rainbow in the clear sky. It wasn't raining. No trees blocked the view. It was wow-ing all the passerby-s.

I parked my bike aside and allow myself to admire the decorated clear sky.

Here are some footage (taken using my iPhone 4, so, excuse the quality):

I realized it was actually a double rainbow!

You can see very clearly Merapi mountain as the tallest one back there. How beautiful and rare this view was!

It was either AirAsia or LionAir.

And, this is the other end of the rainbow.

Of course, I made sure that I had a photo of me taken with the rainbow in the background. Only problem was the rainbow was already starting to disappear by the time I had this photo taken. But, you can still see a small bit of it back there in the photo, can't you? Well, I can! :D
I had to slightly darken all the photos just so the rainbow became more obvious. The original photos are pretty bright. It was quite difficult to pick up the details on the rainbow bit.

I don't know about you but this was, like, my very first time to be photographed with a rainbow. In my life, that is pretty rare. Of course, I've seen many rainbows since I was a kid but never before been photographed with one. So, yea, I'm pretty happy.

And, speaking of happy, *if*(!) I didn't delay the time and took the usual road, I swear I would not have experienced the rare event! So, hell yeah, I was so happy that it happened! I kept thinking to myself on my way to the pharmacy "Oh my God, I was meant to witness that. I was meant to take the wrong road. I was meant to delay the time. That was awesome!"

So, yeah, that's basically what I had to share today.
Oh, and I made it safe to the pharmacy and returned safe as well :D That's another happiness because I lost the tiny bit of grumpiness that I had had :D

Bueno! Mucho beuno! ;))

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Post Scriptum

The other day we went out to get some snacks from a local warung and found this very cool tree trunk! It was like a huge key hole.

Slingshot for another project

2012-01-04T23:59:00.014+07:00

About two weeks ago during the school holidays, my niece asked me to help her make a slingshot. I was half excited about the school project mainly because I'm into making stuff. And, the reason for the half excitement was because it was merely a slingshot, supposedly made out of a cut piece of wood that had a letter Y like shape.

So, last week we began the search for this Y like shape wood thingy. Actually I had been delaying it because it was either raining or not the right situation because I had so much work to do. Last week when I had more free time off work I brought all the kids (three kids) out to walk around in the neighborhood. We started looking at our mango trees but the branches were either too big or too thin. We went slightly further away on that beautiful afternoon.

Of course, we didn't forget to play around a bit.

I found this cassava tree, and there was just a right Y shaped branch of the right size. But, then, I realized we'd left our saw at the house. I asked my nephew to get it for us. While he was running as fast as he could to get the saw, the rest of us went hiding. He came back to where he left off to find we weren't there. He walked back home asking if my mom knew where we left. We saw that. We went back to the cassava tree and shouted to him who was still at the house talking to my mom, to come back to us. I know, right, how evil was that! But, after, I promised him Marbles -his favorite candy. So, yea, it was fair enough ;p

BTW, this is what we got.
There was a problem. I noticed that the wood didn't feel so strong as it was also pretty dried from being dead. It was actually from a dead branch.

So, I decided not to return home yet and give it another go to see if there was a much better branch that could offer more strength. Obviously, I wasn't looking for the same type of tree or plant.

The search for the second option was not easy. Most of the mango trees grow so tall so there was no way we could reach the branch that we needed.

We thought we should just be happy with the one that we only got from the cassava tree and spent a little bit more time enjoying the surroundings. Here are some photos of what was around us:

Look at that little corn farm. We thought it was so cute that it was located right on the corner between two houses.

Just across from where the corn farm was located, was this another farm. I didn't actually pay attention to finding out what was growing. Not that I wasn't curious. Probably because there wasn't really anything growing yet.

And, just behind the second farm there were those rice fields. Actually, the rice fields are quite long that one of the ends was right behind our house. We can view it from one of our windows upstairs and also from the balcony of my room. Oh, speaking of my room, take a look at the P.S. (Post Scriptum) at the end of the post ;)
Out of our expectation, my niece randomly said to me after finding something on the ground, "Hey, we might be able to get something out of this burned branches."

And, I quickly noticed they were actually branches of a mango tree by the shape and type of the leaves.
FYI, there have been strong winds over the last... I can't recall when it all started. So, a lot of people cut down some big branches of their big trees so that the trees won't collapse from having too much weight due to the branches and leaves when there are strong winds.

BTW, the one on the left is the new one. We decided to work on it instead of the first one simply for the strength that it had.

Once home, we cleansed it and peeled off the rough skin. Here's how it looked. Clean, white, smooth, and sexy! ;))
On a different day and evening (which was just yesterday!), we continued working on the catapult.

Earlier on the day I went out to get these colorful rubber bands. We didn't have and were too lazy to get one of those flexible spaghetti sized and shaped rubber thingy to be used as the ummm shooter? sling? what's the word for that stretchable part of a slingshot. LOL. You know what I'm being so clueless about(!).

So, yea, here's after we tied the rubbers and stuff.

Afterwards, I didn't want to leave it all smooth and boring. So, I decided to draw my niece's name and mine including the date of the making, using a pencil.

I then layered the drawn surface with PVA glue so that the pencil details wouldn't get smudged. The PVA glue would work to not only cover the details but also give a nice glassy effect on the surface. I've been using the glue for those two reasons for some of my art works.

We hung the 'wet' slingshot on to my niece's bed frame and left it overnight before she brought it to her school in the next morning.

And, here's us with the slingshot!
Well, that's it what I had to share with you all.

Good night!
It's like the middle of the night over here right now.

[Leave your comment(s)]

Post Scriptum

Here's, I believe, our first blogged project. We made a car out of ice cream sticks: click here for the post.

Today I just finished painting the second coat on my walls. I've been quite slow working on the renovation of my room due to work and, obviously, laziness/tiredness. I had a different color on the walls for many, many years before, and this time I wanted white for the sake of cleaner look. I'm also going to place a couple of furniture and decorate the room a bit. I'll make a post about it once it's all done and clean.

Oh, today's Japanese class went so cool! We learnt a lot today. Well, now we know how to differentiate "this is my book", "that bag over there is mine", and "here is an office".

Note for myself

2012-01-02T11:28:00.006+07:00

It is a new year which is still a couple of days old. If you feel happy about the new year, stay happy. Don't let people around you who don't celebrate the new year and are not so happy about it let your happy spirit down. Stay happy until the year ends. Try.

I was on Facebook on the last new year's eve and noticed some people being bitter about the fireworks and hanging out on the eve and basically celebrating the moment. As much as they have reasons for being bitter about all of that, don't let them let you down. Every moment is worth capturing. If you want, take your camera with you most of the time. Nothing happens twice exactly in the same way. Capture the moment. Avoid people who would usually turn you down. This new year should be the right time for a good change. Being always happy is not an easy thing to do. But, try. I will myself.

I posted this post because I've met people who keep saying that another year is just another year, and I was often influenced by them by simply agreeing. No, keep the good spirit. Nothing is ever the same. Nothing is really just another. Make a change. Make it not boring at all. Once again, try.

Try to think of needing to stay happy if you face negative people trying to turn you down.

Keep the good celebrating spirit. We certainly need more happy people. Avoid wars.

Perhaps another good reason why I'm making this post is so that I will feel embarrassed if I ever feel let down by someone or something and not try to take the good side out of a negative or bad situation. Last year was admittedly one of the toughest years I had to go through. A lot of lessons I could learn from it. The silver lining is I am able to say all this.

This should be one of a few of my new year's resolutions. Simply become a happier person.

And, just because you want to always be happy doesn't mean you always need to smile and look smiley all the time 'cause that'd be just plain weird! Hahahaha. Point is stay happy in the most appropriate way.

Stay happy by taking the best side out of every situation.
Stay happy by taking a deep breath and taking a few seconds thinking before you get all mad and angry.
Stay happy by doing things with your heart.
Stay happy by making other people happy.
Stay happy by being yourself in the most positive way.

Show your friends and others a good example even though it sounds or feels very awkward. You never know they will remember the example and have a less hesitation to do it to other people. I remember very well several moments with my brother where I recently showed him a few good examples and later he tried to be more comfortable doing them which used to be things that he was too shy to do. I noticed. I had a proud smile in my head.

And, obviously, I'm being very cheesy right now with this post and pretty dang sure tomorrow when I re-read this post I will be tempted to want to remove it ;))
But, no, I never will.
Because I want to try to make a happy year this time.

[Leave me with your thought(s)]

Post Scriptum

Later addition: This post was made to mainly motivate myself in the future if I ever feel down about something. If you feel motivated to want to stay happy, I will be happy for you. I'm not trying to make anyone happy unless they want to be happy. And... I might need to count how many times the word Happy has been mentioned ;))

12:26PM: I just found out that I passed the acceptance test for the Masters Degree I applied for :D

5:44PM: Sensei texted to inform today's class has been cancelled. Bummer. Hahaha. You can never get away from bad news, I guess ;))

HNY 2012!

2012-01-01T02:21:00.004+07:00

Happy New Year 2012 from us!
2-0-1-2
We only had pizza (big thanks to my brother) and some fireworks. We went outside just before midnight to celebrate the new year. And, we were all laughing out loud before, at, and just after midnight, and I was aware that that was all only acceptable at that particular time in a year.

Once again, have a happier new year!
My new year's resolution? I guess, it's to keep these old man's sayings in mind throughout the year: "Every cloud has a silver lining" and "Live life to the fullest" -as much as they sound cheesy, I have actually just learnt to apply them in my life recently. So, I certainly plan to be happier and, of course, make people around me happy, too! ;))

[Lemme know your thought of the new year! :D]

Post Scriptum:

The Japanese classes resumed this morning after a break because Sensei had headed to her hometown for over a week. She was kind enough thinking of us by bringing us a local snack from the town. It was certainly a light, unique breakfast. However, we were actually locked out because the key to the room was with the man in charge of looking after the building. Therefore we had our eighth lesson outside in the terrace -which was much more fun! ;D

Here is our last year's Happy New Year post: HNY'11.

How to wear a scarf (7 styles)

2011-12-29T09:12:00.009+07:00

Here's another how-to blog post. My first how-to was about making a terrarium. Hope they help, somehow :D

At least I came up with 7 ways/styles. I am aware of many people out there who have shown you how to wear a scarf and I just wanted to join the club ;)) I was also pretty bored last night!

Well, honestly, I just got a new blazer and have been in the mood to wear a scarf since I got back from Semarang because my brother bought one from NatGeo -African production- and I thought it was so cool. And, it is the wet season this time of year so my mood matches the situation. I will not wear a scarf on a freaking hot, sunny day, obviously! Evening hangouts or classes would be the perfect times.

By the way, I'm not going to say much this time but show you a video of me showing you how I wear my scarf, and also still photos of how I look wearing it.

My compact camera is pretty old. I've been thinking of getting a new one but it's not on the top of my priority list of things I wanna have at the moment as much as I do like taking pictures -still and videos. The point is the pictures look pretty crappy. I couldn't and didn't want to over enhance them using Photoshop 'cause this time I wanted to keep them as close as possible to the original ones.

Here's the video (sorry for the repetitive music. It was midnight!!) followed by still photos:

Style 1 [favorite]:

Style 2:

Style 3:

Style 4:

Style 5 [favorite]:

Style 6:

Style 7:

I showed some of the styles to my brother and he was quite surprised by them. Normally, he would just wrap a scarf around his neck a few times in the conventional or typical simple way without a tie. Although I don't think I will ever show him this post and the video ;)) Quite embarrassing!

Hope you enjoyed! :D
This post happens to be posted during Christmas week. Some countries are also having the winter season so yea... although for the purpose of cold evening hangouts, these styles can be worn throughout the year.

[Leave your comment(s)]

Festive "Cake" (Christmas)

2011-12-25T23:05:00.008+07:00

Well, I made a promise to the kids that I would make a festive "cake" for Christmas just like what we did for the Halloween this year. To be honest, this time I was out of ideas of what to go for -general design-wise. I looked for cool ideas on the internet but couldn't find any one that caught my attention... until it was a few days before the 25th. I was a lil' panicking. So, basically, the cake turned out to be not so interesting. It was merely for the promise that I had made. Well, to my opinion, I liked my Halloween cake way much better... and, actually the kids told me the same thing, too. Hahaha... (!-__-)

Alright, alright, live life with no regrets. Here, I present a lot of mess involving process of our Christmas themed cake.

I went to Gardena to get all of these snacks which would be used for the decorations. As you can see, I got a couple of white Oreos, heart shaped Yupi candy, Fullos, Marbels, Roma cream crackers, Nissin milk wafers, and sticky sort of snack in the back of the group. I actually had a few other things that are not in the photo like sugar powder and condensed milk.

Here's the cake which was really just a wheat bread from Parsley. I know... how not so tasty. There's a reason for the choice of the bread, though. I thought it'd be cool to create an island like cake. So... I drew a pretty crappy quality drawing to help my niece get the idea that I wanted to realize.

I know... like, a random kid out in the corner of the street could make a much better looking drawing, like, so easily! -blindfolded.
Any who... I wasn't really in the same mood as when I made the Halloween cake for the reason of not being so sure about the idea of the cake that I was going for. I wasn't so excited about it. Like, I was rushed by my own promise. I was in the wrong mood. And, to be honest, I hated that feeling at that time. It was like the cheapest idea I could ever come up with for the cake. Again, I did it for the promise I'd made to the kids. I didn't want to let them down by being a jerk for breaking the promise. It wouldn't be a good thing at all for them to learn from.

... Hence no mood for taking lots of photos either despite my iPhone in the pocket. Arrghh.

I started with building the house on the top of the bread. It was *the* most difficult part of all process. I had never built a house out of cracky crackers. I cracked several of them. The most challenging part was finding the right way to make sure that the roof would stay. What you see in the photo was not the first version of the roof. I went for the typical triangle shape by meeting one end of two crackers on the very top to create a peak. I tried supporting the roof using sticks standing besides the house but they weren't strong enough. So, I ended up with the Pyramid-like design which was much safer and easier to do. The white paste in the photo of the house above was actually the white cream of the Oreo which I used as glue. It actually kind of worked.

And, here's a complete basic design of the cake based on the drawing that I made and picture that I had in my head. So, as you can see, I covered the cracker house with white wafers, like, all over the sides. That's a chimney which *obviously* failed. It was like disconnected from the house. I also made steps on the island leading to the house. You can see wood fence. And, what was really interesting about the bread was that it had these seeds sticking all over it which created a more natural look of what an island should have looked like with all the stones and rocks. That's why I went for the bread.

Here's the island after the snow fell off the white sky. Yea, right...
Decorated, here's the final look.

Merry Christmas from us!

[Leave your comment(s)]

Post Scriptum:

We have harvested the cempedak tree! :D
I actually talked about the time when the fruit
was still so small a couple of months ago.
Click here for the post: "Gorgeous Day"

Cakes I got for mom for Mom's Day

Episode 2: Sam Poo Kong

2011-12-22T00:56:00.008+07:00

Last Sunday we went to visit this Chinese temple in Semarang called Sam Poo Kong. I certainly don't have anything much to say right now because it was my first visit to the temple so I don't know much about the place. My brother and dad told me some stories about the temple like what it was built for, etc. To be honest I wasn't really interested in the stories but more in the experience of having been there.

Here's a quote taken from Wikipedia explaining a little bit about Sam Poo Kong:

"As a result of its large ethnically Chinese population, the city boasts several Chinese temples. These include Sam Po Kong (Gedung Batu), built in honour of the Chinese Great Admiral Zheng He who visited the area in 1405. A 10.7 meter-tall bronze statue about Rp.1 billion ($115,000) with four languages (Indonesian language, English, Chinese and Japanese) of his brief history will be complemented the temple."

Something like that...

Now photos time!

The entrance. I don't know why I had to jump like that for the photo.

Ummm... and I thought wearing my dad's shades (which I was forced to wear!) would make a "better" photo... what a total failure. I mean, I hate the shades.

And, there was this Chinese writing which I have no idea what it says or means, and I was too bothered to ask. Bad tourist, me was!

Ummm... some statue? :-s

And, this is the big statue that was mentioned in the quote above. It was actually quite impressive.

And, there was this gigantic red door which I have no idea what's behind it. This wasn't the entrance. In fact, this was the opposite side of the temple complex from the entrance gate. I thought it was really cool to stand against it.

Behind me was the biggest temple in the complex which I went in to eventually... for more photos, of course.

A smaller temple right next to the big one.

Same (smaller) temple, just slightly different angle. Just for you to know, I wasn't standing in the pool (-__-)

Me and my brother standing in front of a small warehouse just right after we paid for the tickets. They kept equipment and tools in the warehouse for prayer purposes... I guess. :-S

This was like where the prayers and temple staff burned the 'papers'. :-S
Please correct me if I just gave a wrong explanation. All I saw inside it was ashes from papers.

Me in the big temple I mentioned earlier.

Same temple. I was posing and my brother took advantage of the reflection on the floor.

Stories about the temple as shown on the carved wall.

Showing the front side of the (big) temple. There were actually people having their prayers so we knew we had to be respectful.

I could have worked out the expression better!! :(

This was the third temple which had this cute looking statue of a turtle in front of it. This particular temple actually kept the anchor of the ship that the Chinese Great Admiral Zheng He was in. Oh, I touched the anchor... errr it was pretty awesome for me to think that I touched something so old and had a deep, serious history for an ancient civilization especially in Semarang.
That's it.

We left the temple for the mall to meet up with everyone else for lunch and everything else. The kids went to the mall to see Dora the Explorer sort of show where a man wore a Dora costume. It was boring for me so I went to Body Shop to get my current favorite shampoo(!) I got myself a Banana scented shampoo from them. Smells saw-gewd! Yes, it's that good. Definitely will get the conditioner of the same scent and the Green Apple body wash. My brothers have a bottle and I used it a couple of times and it smelled very refreshing.

[Leave your comment(s)]

Post Scriptum:

The Japanese class has been postponed until the 31st. Sensei headed back to her hometown for holiday. How I miss the classes already! Seriously! :(

I still haven't come up with a good idea for the Christmas cake for the kids! Yikes! :-S I have this idea but it requires marshmallows which are not anywhere to be found in any store in the town!

Click here for Episode 1: Our Journey towards Semarang.

Episode 1: Our journey towards Semarang

2011-12-19T23:25:00.013+07:00

Last Saturday we all left for Semarang to visit my brother, and uncle and his whole family -it was like our hundredth time. I'm going to split the trip in Semarang into, at least, two parts or episodes, or maybe three. It will be helpful for me in the future to find the specific posts in the archive. And, also to keep the posts short.

In this particular post I'm going to talk about our journey before we reached Semarang. BTW, Semarang is about 3 hours from where we live -by car.

We left at 9. I didn't have breakfast yet. No, wait, I guess, I did. A bit of milk. The reason for no proper breakfast was because we were planning on getting brunch at this restaurant that my (other) brother was so excited to show us. Apparently, it impressed him a lot!

The journey to the restaurant took a couple of hours. It wasn't really the distance but some roads were closed due to renovation so we had to take the alternative roads. The problem was we had never really taken them before! The GPS, obviously(!), didn't know about the renovated roads. We had to ask people around.

I took some photos of what the journey to finding the restaurant was mostly about, and here's one.
Long story short, we found the restaurant -called Progosari. It is (hopefully it hasn't moved!) located very near the famous Borobudur temple, in the district of Magelang. But, since we've been to the temple quite often, we weren't interested in stopping by. Our stomachs were more 'interesting'.

A little bit about the restaurant: it had a similar idea to Rumah Makan Timbul Roso (click here for my experience in the restaurant). Progosari restaurant offers a nature theme with lots of healthy looking plants and trees, and also ponds with living fish. If I had to choose which of the two restaurants (Progosari and Timbul Roso) I would like to go back to, my most definite answer would be Progosari. Food was much better, so was the ambiance. Everything was more organized, clean, refreshing, and also fun (you will understand why in a few secs). Progosari offers mostly fish and avian in the menu. Price was so cheap! We even thought it was too cheap!

For evidence, here are some captioned photos (all taken using my phone) of the place:

One of the long huts that the restaurant had to offer.

Same hut, slightly different angle.

Check that out! The small park in between the huts was clean and felt under very good maintenance.

Stone path to another hut in the back of the restaurant area.

Some more plants.

Smaller huts. We actually ate at the opposite of these. So, the huts were right above a big pond of fish. Right next to these was rice or padi fields.

Oh, my favorite part! This is the view right behind the restaurant. No fence.
Ay-May-Zing
And... here is Rad time. Peace! I didn't wanna get bored waiting for our orders by doing nothing and not enjoying whatever was there in the area!

Like, I said, peace! I was taking a poo... not. I know, what an awkward position ('-_-)

Hold on to the tree!... how classy!

The area also had these rainbow swings.
More fun parts...

On a different type of swing, I pretended like I was in a roller coaster(!) Hope it looks like I really was!

Whoaaaaaa....

Woooooooo...

Weeeeee...

.....
Mum with her proud son at the entrance.
Super full stomached, we continued our journey. On the way, my nephew needed to empty his urgent bladder. We had to stop, like, immediately, because he's known to pee his pants. For a sample story click here.

Obviously... I took advantage of the moment to get out of the car to take a couple of photos of me with a beautiful, soothing view in the background.

Zoomed in! Dayum! I can look pretty kool, too! Bahahaha... :p *mouth shut*
Tick... tock... tick... tock... (^_^)

Time was coffee time. The driver which was my very own brother needed to stop for coffee. We also needed to stop for the midday "Zuhr" prayer.

Banaran 9 Coffee and Tea. Where we had our coffees. Quite expensive but worth the price. Oh, well, it was like the only trustworthy looking coffee shop/restaurant. This place is located in Banaran area hence the name.
And, here is a sample photo of the view that we mostly had during the journey toward Semarang city. I absolutely never get bored of such views! I mean, like... I was so excited to get out of the car when my nephew took a pee, d'uh! :D
Oh oh, our last stop was for these spiked boobies!

5 seconds of ouch!! Not only durians are spiky but also *very, very* spiky! :p
...
Episode 2 of the series will be about what we did in Semarang on our first day alone which should be up in a couple of days. I need to catch up on work! :[

[Leave your comment(s)]

Post Scriptum:

Today's Japanese class was soooo much (more) fun! I made some jokes which made everyone laugh :)) We definitely have learnt a lot just on our sixth lesson thus far! Our sensei is nice and patient. My classmates are also fun! \(^0^)/

ラド・スジャント

2011-12-14T23:00:00.005+07:00

That's how my name is written in Katakana! :D

So, today at the fourth lesson of the (exciting) Japanese class we learnt how to write in Katakana. Obviously, I couldn't use my own writing over here therefore I copied the letters from Wikipedia: Katakana.

The other day we learnt Hiragana. And, I'm going to show some of what we have undergone in the first four classes.

First time writing in Hiragana and I made only slight mistakes(!) which were already corrected as soon as I noticed them. It was like just a letter that should have been a u instead of an o :D

My notebook showing the first three lessons

First homework which was to convert the Romaji conversation to Hiragana

How I did

The mistakes are mostly because there are words that should only be written in Katakana which are basically foreign words. I just got it checked this evening so I will correct the mistakes tomorrow during a break in the day
I like it that the classes are in the evening so I can attend them after work. And, the first class was just last week which was just over one week after I did the registration. It got me so excited even more(!)

The other day, I went for a quick dinner at this Japanese restaurant. I was expecting sushi but they still hadn't had them ready. Pity. How I miss sushi. They actually had misconcepted-sushi-onigiri. I just learnt that onigiri is not sushi but the cook kept saying that they had sushi onigiri. BTW, so, I ordered tepanyaki chicken, matcha, and ice lemon tea. I actually took a photo of the matcha but I thought it wouldn't be so interesting as it was only green tea ice cream with some chocolate flakes all over it.

I'm the biggest fan of (cooked!) chicken.

Sat right in front of where the cook made my dish.

Me upside down. The phone's camera didn't quickly auto-adjust, and I'm too lazy to edit.
I wanted one onigiri but it was out. I went to the restaurant after the Japanese class. So, yea, learning the language seems to make me wanna eat the ~~people~~ food.

And... the point of this post is actually that I had a good day today and it made me *finally* happy -for a reason that only family and very close friends know.

I quickly took a snapshot using the laptop's camera to show you how happy I felt today
And... *not* speaking of Christmas (at all), I thought I should make a Christmas themed cake for the kids, again. And, by again I mean I made one for Halloween for the kids. Click this entire ridiculously unnecessarily long sentence to see the photos of the cake.

What's the point of the point of this post? Future me will probably wonder what the hell happened on a random date like the 14th of Dec, 2011?! LOL. I just really needed to make this post for myself for the record for what happened today and what had made me happy today because it was super special involving over ten years of something.

[Leave your comment(s)]

12:27 PM

2011-12-12T11:27:00.002+07:00

I wish for every single ~~good~~ better thing that could happen to me at least for the next one year until I make another wish.

Career wise.
Family wise.

And, love wise.

[Say what you wanna say :)]

[scheduled post]

Birdie Bird

2011-12-08T23:53:00.006+07:00

I just wanted to quickly share with you what happened this early morning.

I was still waking up in my bed when I turned my head to the window due to a noise that was made by something that hit the wooden window. Then I heard a bird. I opened the window to find this little bird. I brought it in.

It was a sparrow. Not an usual one, though. Its beak didn't seem to develop well. The upper beak bent down and inwards while the other one grew as normal. As much as I believed the bird suffered from a physical defect, it wouldn't have grown so big if it had problems with feeding. I was glad to know it could survive this big despite possible defect -although the bird was still an almost-grown-up baby. I did do a research on Google on sparrows and none of the pictures of the birds showed a similarity to this bird's beak.

BTW, I played with it for about half an hour (by play I mean ~~breakfast~~ take photos) and let it go. It flew high and fast. It didn't seem weak at all. Which made me wonder how it could hit the window
Here are some edited photos of the bird. Even if it was a defect, the bird wouldn't be so unique in an interesting way without it.

...
And, of course, shit happens. Literally.

[Leave your comment(s)]

Bad day today

2011-12-06T23:00:00.007+07:00

It's work related. But, now I wanna learn not to deal with pointless down feeling or stress. Here's what I decided to do this afternoon. With the kids.

When the weather and the mood are right I normally take my bike out of the garage and bike around my neighborhood. Oftentimes I do it with my niece not for being scared of doing it on my own but more for teaching her the world is out there to enjoy, not in the house. Today I asked my nephew to join us, too. Problem with him is he can't ride. I told him to walk.

As always, we didn't plan where to go. Despite big houses, there are so many cool things in our neighborhood which are mostly nature related. That's my definition of cool.

Because I will attach quite a lot of photos, as usual I will leave a caption underneath the photo instead of saying too much in the intro. And, I rarely want to leave my iPhone at home when I'm out for the great camera that it carries. I knew I would have some things interesting to capture.

I wanted to go to a place that we had never been before in the neighborhood.

Here's the first place we stopped by. We certainly had been a block away from this side of the neighborhood but it might have not been so interesting to us back then as we noticed this afternoon that the houses and environment were still under construction. Some time ago, this place might have been full of bushes.
We actually named this discovered playground "Playground Dead Rat" for this reason (link to a photo of a dried out dead rat found in the playground and that my niece ran over by accident). I'm sure you've seen worse.

We'll certainly come back to this playground for the sake of being proud of having discovered and named it.
We had enough fun at the playground. Saw this and that. Did this and that.

We continued biking.

On our way to our unknown next destination, we saw this rambutan (hairy fruit) tree. I wanted the fruit but couldn't reach them. The tree was behind a brick fence that was quite tall. I tried standing on my bike's paddles but still couldn't reach the branch that had three rambutan fruit hanging. Still insisting, I lifted my nephew and he got the fruit for us. No photo for that tiny bit of fun. Unfortunately.

I let my niece lead the journey. She took us to this area that we certainly had been before a lot of times. However, the area felt and looked different.

The place is now much greener due to the plants including grasses and trees that have started growing their confident fresh green leaves. Rain didn't happen until just over a month ago after many, long months of complete dryness.

Oh. We noticed my nephew peed his pants which I never know when it happened.

I let the kids play around a bit and explore the place. I always know it is important to go out and enjoy nature. I love nature. When I was around their age I had gone in to the forest and spent a lot of times on the beach.
They need to play with dirt, get wet in the rain, dig the ground to discover something, lift small rocks to find hiding insects, sit on the grassy ground, taste the grass, swallow a bit of rain water, climb a tree, pick fruit off the tree, get dirty, try to catch living chicken, get close to animals, handfish fish, feed animals, get close to a beehive, get stunk by bees, etc. That's what I did when I was around their age and do until to date sometimes -although I can't do as much. Otherwise they will miss out the real fun of childhood when they get too old to not be able to do all those things mostly due to work and stress of life.

There are tall trees, too.
I noticed another rambutan tree but it was surrounded by very bushy bushes.

And, for the tall trees, grasses and bushes that all looked green and fresh, we named the place "Playground Jungle".

We moved on.

On our way to our possibly next destination, still in the Playground Jungle, I noticed this pathway which I actually had used a couple of times before as a shortcut to the big main road just a block away from Playground Jungle.
And... I wanted to have fun a bit more. I said to my nephew, "hey, go to the end of the pathway. I want you to see if there is a way for us to reach the rambutan tree without having to go through the bushes".

He obeyed and left.

Winked at my niece. And...

Of course, we rode our bike as quick as possible leaving him behind.
No bikes were hurt during the scene.

At last, as the sky was getting darker, we discovered another new place that, we believe, didn't exist until a few weeks ago or something.

We thought it was really cool to find this small farm/garden in the middle of our neighborhood!
I immediately knew what was growing by the leave: chili plants.

Hmmm... I was a bit confused what we could do for fun now.

Okay, maybe some photos of us with the farm in the background...

Hmmm... a bit boring.
Let's try with different models.

Okay but still boring.
Different position, maybe?

Again, just okay.
I honestly ran out of ideas. I told the kids to be very careful making steps in the farm because the last thing that we wanted to do was to step on the bumpy soil.

Okay, so I thought taking a photo of the tall trees around the farm would be cool, too.

More than one photo of this would be boring.
But... something happened. A fun idea came across my mind.
I gave some careful instructions to my niece about what she was going to need to do.

Count up to three out loud. I will jump. Wait for a half second and tap the shutter

Hence...

Quite cool. Very shaky. But, not bad as a second attempt.

Her turn was not bad.

My nephew rocked it!
I wanted(needed) more fun.

Duo... instead of solo.

For the farm/garden and our jumps, we named the place "Garden of Jumps"

Fun ended. We had enough of it. The kids needed to study in the evening. I was aware of not letting them too tired for the evening.

...
Just on the other corner of our house, I turned my head for this.

This is what is left after our favorite tree collapsed. It's almost entirely covered with wild vine. I was hoping it'd grow back but I'm glad enough they didn't take everything from the collapsed tree and left the root with a bit of the trunk left where it had grown for many years.
Later in the evening edit: We talked about our next adventure involving a big river separating big main roads further outside our neighborhood but very reachable. Cannot wait.

Good night.

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P.S.:
- Tomorrow is my first Japanese class...
- Just in case you were wondering I didn't re-order the timeline of the photos or the story. The photos were ordered in this post as the time they were taken.

Very late post...

2011-12-03T20:43:00.005+07:00

Here is a blog post that I wanted to write I-don't-remember-exactly-how-many days ago and I'm not keen to want to remember it -Ok, now I just thought about it; it was last Sunday. It's going to be about our excursion to a traditional village themed quite isolated, just-okay restaurant. Wow, ok, that just explains everything about the restaurant!

Oh, well, it doesn't feel so exciting now to write about the restaurant and the trip. But, if I didn't write it, somehow I would feel guilty. Let's just start it.

So, it was basically my dad's idea that made us excited to try this restaurant. He said he'd been there with his friends before. Meaning our excitement was entirely based on his story about how interesting the place was going to be for the rest of us (7 people) who had no idea of the place at all.

We left home at almost midday towards the volcano. We weren't actually told where exactly the restaurant was located because my dad was not so sure either! LOL. Oh, well, we found it in the end. To be honest, the restaurant would not be something that you would find or notice by the road or know by watching the signs by the road. I mean, I was sitting next to my brother driving and since my dad didn't remember the exact location and the name of the restaurant(!) I had to look out for signs that said restaurants as we entered the area called Pakem (still about 15KM away from volcano Merapi) where *the* restaurant should have been located. There weren't any significant signs. The car turned right, left, and stuff, went past healthy looking rice fields, and there was this restaurant in the middle of almost nowhere with its rather big sign by the road that said RM Timbul Roso or something like that. I was (we were!) just hungry!

A much smaller sign in the restaurant
I am always fascinated by restaurants that come village themed and offer tranquility by their location that is far away from the main, busy road. And, Timbul Roso was one of those restaurants. So, I felt cool about it and excited to want to get deeper in what they had behind the entrance.

I noticed that everything was about low budget as we were entering the restaurant. The roofs were typical traditional house roofs made of clay. Walls were either bricks or not existing(!). Floor was either concrete or bamboo. Chairs were either wooden or not existing(!).

LOL.

Well, in the Javanese culture, we do not always eat on chairs but also on the floor. There are many such tradition themed eating places here that offer people the unique experience. Of course, for people who are from Java, such experience is not so unique in a special way. It is what they (we) do. -BTW, I do have chairs and a proper dining table in my house! LOL. By the way, this tradition of eating on the floor chair-less is commonly known as lesehan. Leseh is basically to sit on your butt on the floor relaxing.

Back to the restaurant. As you can see in the photo, we were seated in one of the huts made of bamboo and wall-less.
Click the panorama photo to view the enlarged version

What was cool about being in one of the huts was that we could feel the breeze from the river down right next to the restaurant. It wasn't scary at all, actually -even though the restaurant was about 50 meters above right by the river. And, the river was Kali Kuning (lit. yellow river) which I visited and talked about in this blog post.
Here's the river ... that you can't see at all (!). I used Panorama360 app on my iPhone and the brightness level wouldn't auto-adjust as the photo clips were being taken. You know how a panorama photo is made!

Surrounding the huts are trees and plants, and ponds with gigantic cat fishes. It's not exaggerated. They were big, as big as they could be! Trust me. I wish I had their photos. Big as BIG can be!

The ponds are right under some huts, too!
Well, basically, environment wise, the restaurant wasn't so bad. It wasn't completely nice either. Just okay. But, if you're disgusted by dirt on the paths, scared of ponds with living monsters hungry for food, tall trees, a big river just by where you eat, and unhappy with the idea of eating on a raised bamboo floor, let's go to sleep now. But, you have to be my type.

HAHAHA just joking. Sighs... *desperate*.

Back to the topic(!).
Food.

Food was okay. Nothing special. We ordered two whole gurames (more common name in English: tilapia, I guess?) that were grilled. Actually, we ordered two and a half. The half was grilled with honey (and fire, too, of course). But, honestly, we had had slightly better tasting grilled gurames from a different restaurant in the town (500 meters away from our house).

Now I forget what else we ordered. Nothing was special, anyway.
Oh, we were disappointed with the cah kangkung because it tasted boring from not having enough spices. We agreed that they needed garlic. We ordered two plates of it and, badly, left them barely untouched.

Abandoned kangkung
Bla, bla, bla. We went back home rather full and ready to take a nap.

Now, I need to go get dinner out which by the time this post is published is sitting in my stomach.

More fotos:

When I saw this I thought it was quite interesting

The toilet was out of sight! We're not in it!

Tall trees and some muggles

Me in front of a random hut with a pond underneath it

Me peace-signing
Cheers!

(BTW, I wanna try to earn money from blogging, and I just signed up for PayPerPost and need to paste this random sentence: How will your filled film house the apparent clause?) LOL!

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Experience

2011-12-03T20:30:00.014+07:00

Pedicure Bowls
I have sent the company feedback.

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Laptop is being repaired

2011-11-28T23:19:00.006+07:00

Hence my first blog post from the iPad.

Today sucked. Yesterday didn't.
Today I woke up to finding my laptop still not working properly. Yesterday we had a nice excursion towards the volcano for lunch.

The owner of Rumah Makan Timbul Roso. Yeah, right!
Tomorrow should be fine.
Tomorrow by evening the laptop should be able to be used again.

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How to make my first (moss) terrarium

2011-11-25T22:47:00.008+07:00

About two weeks ago or less I got interested in having a terrarium in my room. I knew at the time it wouldn't be fun if I purchased one from a store and it would be so much more fun to make one. Almost everyday I did a lot of research on how to make a proper terrarium. Read a lot of articles and watched a lot of videos -like, a lot a lot(!)- on tutorials of how to make one, how to care for one, and how to choose the right plants and stuff. I had to do all of that because I had never made one ever before. I did, however, many times when still a kid, grow a bean in a glass using wet cotton puffs. But, that's not even close to what a terrarium should be like even though the basic idea is the same -which is to grow plant(s) in a glass container.

It's like making a mini garden in a glass container.

I'm not gonna say much up here as there will be lots of captioned photos following down below.

What to prepare:

Since I was going for a moss terrarium I went around in the neighborhood today with my two nephews who helped me out find the moss. I wanted different types of moss so that the terrarium wouldn't look boring. That's a tip you can take. If you want to go for a moss terrarium, you want at least two different types of moss which have different colors or different shapes. So, I found these two types of moss that grew on a brick fence. You can find moss mostly in a shaded area or right under a rather big tree that has lots of leaves.

This is another type of moss. I found it also on a brick fence but the area was more exposed to the sun hence the brown/orange-ish color. This is perfect to be used as a separator (will be explained a bit later) -rhymed!

This may look strange. It is actually baked dried out roots which are normally used to keep the soil away from getting clumped together. Actually, I was looking for charcoal because having charcoal in a terrarium can be important. Charcoal is basically to keep the soil away from possible odors and, in a closed environment, charcoal can filter the air and keep it fresh. I went for the roots because they were also baked in the process of making them to be the way they are.

Obviously, you need soil. Preferably potting soil that you can buy at any garden oriented store (lol. what do you call such store?)

Depending on the size of the container you can pick any plants that you want to grow in the terrarium. Since I was aware of the exact size of my container I knew that this plant was perfect. And also, more importantly, when choosing the plant, you wanna make sure that it grows in the same or in a very similar environment as the other plants in the terrarium. I found this little plant under a big shading tree and it was wet, and... it didn't grow on plain soil but on concrete ground with a thin layer of soil. You don't need to clean the roots from the sticking soil because it's better that way to help it grow in the terrarium more naturally.

I totally forgot to take a picture of the most important part of making a terrarium. You need pebbles/small rocks. You wanna use them for drainage so that the water won't gather on the bottom together with the soil. You want the water to evaporate in the terrarium so that it goes back up.

Second layer is the baked roots or charcoal.

Third layer is the dry moss as the separator between the drainage section and the soil. You need this separator because you do not want the soil to go straight down to the pebbles when watering or misting the plants. You can actually use a proper filter which actually works better. Mosquito net will do, too.

Fourth layer is the soil.

Here comes the fun part. It's time to arrange where you want to put the plants and everything else. You may want to use a stick to help you dig in the soil and arrange whatever you put in or on it if your container has a small opening which doesn't allow your hand to get in.
That's the end of the steps. You can always add decorative items that, you think, will look appropriate in the terrarium. I didn't put anything fancy but a couple of thin rocks in between the mosses.

What to know:
When it comes to caring for a terrarium, generally it requires low maintenance.
1. You do not always need to water the plants. This can be fatal if you do it wrong. Note: if you have a closed terrarium, you only want to water it once in the beginning before you put the lid on. You may leave it without getting watered for many days and even weeks. Why? It is because the water evaporates and does not go out. It self-mists. However, you may want to open the lid every week or so just to refresh the air. If you do notice that the soil looks dry, you can mist it. Make sure you don't over mist it.
2. You don't want to place the terrarium in direct sunlight. You need to place it in a bright place, though.
3. Use a stick or your fingers if possible to take out the dead leaves.
4. You may want to wipe using paper the inner side of the terrarium right above the soil line because the mineral may dry out and leave white mark. This is just to make the terrarium clean looking all the time.

I believe there are more things that you need to know of how to care for a terrarium but I could only give you some of them for now. I'm not an expert to begin with, anyway. Hehe!

By the way, here are some pictures of my finished first terrarium for you to enjoy! :)

Let me know if you feel inspired to wanna make one as well! :D

If I did something wrong in the steps of making the terrarium, let me know because this was my first time -although I did a lot of rather careful research.

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Black Christmas

2011-11-24T16:10:00.008+07:00

tree.
I was at this store yesterday taking my mom because she had to return the chairs that she had bought earlier on the day which were apparently too short so she wanted much taller ones. I wasn't expecting much from the trip as I knew which store we were heading off to (I had been there before once some years ago), and it wasn't a mall or a supermarket where I could have got some things for myself. But(!), once we got there I was wrong about the store. They might have changed or I lost my memory about it. Either way, they were not only selling chairs. In fact, the chairs were only like a tiny bit of what they actually have for sale in the store. Mostly they sell hundreds of different types of plates, glasses, vases, jars, and other stuff including Christmas trees. So, the area where the chairs were placed was literally a very small area in the corner next to the registers.

Obviously, I didn't just stand there bored. While my mom was picking up some plates and bowls, I went around and noticed these shelves full of different types and sizes of jars. OK, so my plan last week was to make a terrarium so I was sent to this store!

So, I found a perfect jar which didn't cost expensive for my terrarium which I'm going to prepare today. It's gonna be fun! I'm also going to involve the kids so they will know how to make one.

So, we were ready to pay at the register and while my mom was doing that I noticed these three tall shelves full of figures. They were basically ornaments that you would place on your book shelf or on the fireplace. I don't know what they're exactly called but you'll see what I mean through the photos below.

I don't think I will get any of the figures as much as I found them interesting. I just think they're too old-fashioned for me, and having them in my room would be pretty creepy.

BTW, it has been raining like every afternoon for the past two weeks or so. I noticed this little frog yesterday that seemed to want to escape the rain. I don't get it, though. I thought frogs loved rain and to get wet? It was clear that this frog was trying to find a higher surface... even though it wasn't flooding at all. Being preventive? Maybe.

This photo is pretty funny. So, the frog was trying to jump forward to hit a solid wall it wasn't aware of and flipped over as I pressed the shutter button. I clearly didn't know until I went through the photos on my computer. I was like "WHAT THE HELL is that? Oh, it's the frog!"
That's pretty much what I wanted to share with y'all today.

Have a nice day!
I'm gonna finish work quickly and will start preparing my terrarium before it gets dark or rains or I won't be able to get the moss and small plants out there around in the neighborhood.

Oh, Happy Thanksgiving!

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Went close to volcano Merapi

2011-11-15T23:09:00.006+07:00

My brother and I went to the volcano Merapi this morning. We left at 6. Actually, the sky just couldn't get any cloudier the whole morning but we thought we would just give it a try in hoping that the sky would turn clear once we reached the volcano. Well, it didn't! It turned out worse. It was super foggy and slightly rained. Don't get it wrong, though, 'cause we still had a bit of fun out of it!

I'll let these photos help you get the idea of how foggy it was up there. They'll be pretty self-explanatory. We went to two different places which you will find out in the photos below. And, when I said that we went to the volcano, it didn't mean we went to the peak of the volcano and tried to kill ourselves! We wouldn't do such thing! Well, at least, I would never.

Me standing by a river which was the way down of the lahar from the volcano.

The river is now full of volcanic sand.

Volcanic sand is a very good material if mixed with cement to build buildings.

Ya-taaa!!

Those trucks are being filled with the sand scooped from the river by the workers.

We then went to a much higher place which was obviously much closer to the volcano. In this picture, I am not standing against a wall. That's thick fog (crazy!), and behind me was a steep valley.

The steep valley whose end was invisible. It was quite scary!

Like I said, it was slightly raining. Fortunately, there were several shelters like this one.

It was just so foggy and wet
I'm just a bad story teller when I feel so tired like right now. I had a looong day today and feel really tired. I had to make this blog post right now so that tomorrow I can focus on work more.

Me and my brother will definitely go back up there if the sky is clear.

By the way... completely out of topic, I now wear glasses. Bought them today. They are DNKY. I was going for another brand which was Austin Reed but everyone thought the DNKY ones looked much better, so yea...

Will get the lens tomorrow
What's so cool about the glasses (apart from the glasses themselves) is the case. The case reminded me and my brother very much of Apple. If you have seen the iPod Touch box, you must agree with us! LOL

And, it's all just white and glassy. Plus, the logo comes silvery. How could it be any more Apple-y?

Nite nite!

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I wanna live in a fish tank full of flying birds

2011-11-12T12:13:00.001+07:00

The fun idea of eating snakes which can talk to growing plants is like cleaning the sky with little men's shoes. This life is all about coins spread on the surface of the ocean full of army ants that are ready to take a bath in the most beautiful drawer full of forks and fake toes. The walls are so bright that the electric fans can no longer fish the fish in the fullest plate of elephant tusks. The desperate penguins look at the man watering the river full of giants walking towards the Christmas trees. The woods start to drive down the beach sand to find the most powerful sunglasses case. Thrown away to an empty wine glass full of burning candy, the cat is smiling at the flaming flamingos. Tears and worms are writing their favorite towers on a cat that smiles. The ice cream sticks cart is longer typing the most beautiful driving woods. Those talking books have stopped watering the blood ocean of giants. The pink men start barking and filling the walls with crying electric fans. Thinking empty cans keep blinking until the ground is exhausted from being happy about the empty ocean full of army ants. There is fun behind the jumping snakes talking to the sad growing plants. That is why I wanna live in a fish tank full of flying birds.

Dinosaur

2011-11-03T21:47:00.006+07:00

What's up! I'm a little bored. Finished work. Showered. Did my weightlifting tasks of the day. Had dinner. Drank much water. Bed after this.

I'm just gonna quickly talk about what happened today. Nothing spectacular. Just another day with a flying gecko.

So, I was fetching my nephew at his school and, I don't know why, I looked down to see this gecko at the school gate near the concrete ground. It was sitting there not trying to run or bite. I was worried that the school kids would see it and play with it. So, I picked it up and put it in my jacket pocket. Ok, I actually just came up with that reason about the school kids and stuff. I just knew it wasn't a typical gecko which is why I wanted to bring it home with me.

Here are some pictures of the animal.

I, the king.

"I know! The movie was great!"
I did finally let it go just outside my window. I hope to see it again some time.

That's all it!

Btw, last night I went to this new small restaurant called Asagaya that had Japanese food to serve.

I knew about the place a couple of weeks ago, and asked some friends to join me to see what the restaurant had to offer.

I had this chicken bento. The other guys ordered ramen, soyu and udon. They took a bit of my dish just for a taste but didn't offer me theirs. I know, I'm too kind sometimes! Hehe. BTW, most of their foods are cheap. So, please note that I'm not going to compare the foods from this restaurant with the foods from a real Japanese restaurant run by a Japanese, whose foods are cooked by a Japanese, and probably whose ingredients are also imported from Japan. The taste was obviously worth the price.

It's totally worth going back to both for the food and super friendly service from everyone working there! So, basically food was good and service was the best. We even got a voucher which not everyone could get on their first visit! How cool is that! They probably just wanna see me more! Haha! Kidding. Oh, oh, they said they would have sushi by the end of this month -which is super exciting 'cause I love sushi! What's even cooler is that the restaurant's located only about 300 meters away from where I live :))

Nite nite!

The tree collapsed

2011-11-01T23:30:00.020+07:00

Remember when I talked about how I enjoyed my day because it was cloudy and just gorgeous? Click here to go to the post. Well, at that time I thought it was gonna rain. It didn't. A few weeks later, it started to rain. The wet season started yesterday, but today was really the day when it rained cats and dogs. As a result, my favorite tree collapsed.

Sad day, it was.

Here are some photos of the tree after the heavy rain today.

As soon as I saw from my room that the tree collapsed, I ran outside not forgetting to take my phone and took some photos. I didn't want to miss the last moment the tree was still on that ground because who knows tomorrow or later this week, it will be gone out of the area for ever. I do miss the tree already.
Much later after the rain stopped, I forced my mom to go outside to take some photos of me standing near the tree with the kids.
This tree produced sweet fruit. I love eating the fruit. Back then when I was a kid in my hometown, I already liked the fruit. I don't really know what the plant is called scientifically or locally here, but back in my hometown we called it seri tree. I suppose it's because the fruit look a bit similar to cherry and taste so sweet.
And, here are some photos of the tree back in 2009.

The trunk is still thin.
That's me! I do like climbing trees! I'm an ape! There was actually a small tree house which wasn't a house really. Some school kids built it. When the tree collapsed today, some parts of the 'tree house' were still there.
That's my niece.
Me again! LOL
I kept telling my mom today if we could just let the trunk lay there on the ground and let the people who would clean up the area cut off the small branches and leaves. I hope that the trunk will grow as some of the roots are still in the ground.

I guess that the tree collapsed because the weather had been super hot and dry for the past many, many months, and that the soil became so dry so that the roots didn't have a strong hold to support the entire weight of the tree when strong winds came today.

The problem is I almost always stopped by right under the tree every time I walked by it on my way to visit my neighbor or to get something at the store, or simply to enjoy a beautiful day. I just liked standing near the tree.

Well, what happened happened. There's actually a smaller tree of the same type about ten meters away from the one I talked about but it kinda has a different feel to it as it doesn't grow up so tall but towards the side -which is weird, actually.

Night all! I'm tired. I found a lot of flying ants in my room which I've got rid of. You do know when the wet season comes, all these bugs go out to look for shelter. I do clean up my room so the ants were in my room not because I piled stuff that might attract them to come in. Hehe.

Night night!

Happy Halloween 2011!

2011-10-29T23:13:00.006+07:00

I'm not going to say much in this blog post, 'cause I have tons of photos to share. The kids and I just finished making our Halloween cake! I thought about this some time last week when I saw this YouTube video about how to make a Halloween cake, and was so much inspired by it. I wanted something special for this Halloween especially for the kids. I'm sure that they know about Halloween from TV so why the heck not celebrate it a little bit!

Us interrupting my mom who was watching TV in her room to take this photo for us. I'm not even kidding but there are probably almost a hundred photos in the camera roll on my iPhone just from tonight alone! My mom's just not good at taking pictures! But, this one was considered very good!
And, here are some more photos of how the cake was prepared.

I decided to buy a Brownie from SuperIndo because I couldn't bother my mom to help me bake a new cake.
These are for the decorations. There were actually three other things that we bought later at a different store but forgot to include them with these ones in the photo.
First step was to separate the vanilla cream from the Oreo biscuits one by one because we only needed the biscuits.
We crushed the biscuits. We also wanted to keep them a little rough instead of too powdery.
I melted some blocks of chocolate in the microwave. I actually put a bit of water so that it wouldn't be too condensed.
I smeared the melted chocolate all over the cake. Actually, it didn't cover the entire area of the cake. So, the back side of the cake, which can't be seen in this photo, was not really covered with chocolate.
We then fairly spread the crushed Oreo on the cake to create the dirt. And, BTW, Oreo is perfect for the dirt because the biscuits are not brown but deep black.
Next step was to decorate the dirt. We placed some ChaCha chocolate balls around so they'd look like small dirt stones.

And by the way, I wanted to create a graveyard themed cake so I thought there had to be gravestones. But, I stupidly forgot to take a photo of how we made the gravestones -which is very simple actually. So, for the gravestones, we used vanilla cream flavored TimTam and wrote RIP using the leftover melted chocolate. That's it! And, it wasn't so easy for my niece to write using the chocolate but it was totally fine as we were going for a sort of messy look of a cake anyway!
Then, we added some worms using worm candy from Yupi and fences in the back using those stick-crackers. We also made a couple of ghosts using lollipops covered with tissue.

Voila! We wanted the worms to look as if they were real and alive and coming out of the dirt! How cool is that?!

That's it! It was easy, MESSY for sure!, and very successful! :) I think we're all happy with how it turned out in the end. Just can't wait to actually eat the cake tomorrow! My niece actually said a few times, "Oh, we shouldn't eat the cake 'cause that's gonna ruin everything". I replied, "That's why I've been taking photos of it, with us too!"

Happy Halloween!
Wish you scary night!

What's on my iPhone

2011-10-27T23:49:00.005+07:00

The title says it all. Here are apps that are on my iPhone to date. I honestly don't really have a lot of apps on my phone unlike many iPhone users out there, and that is because I'm quite selective with the apps. So, if I don't find an app pretty useful, I just delete it right away. Or, if I finish a game, I remove it -unless I want to replay it from the beginning.

So, here are the screenshots.

First page contains utility apps.

Here are my most used apps of the page:
1. Reminders. Although this is a new app officially launched by Apple, I find it very useful and use it every day to remind me of things that I need to do of the day.
2. ShopListFree. I use the app when I have a list of things that I wanna get in the shop. Like, it's so obvious what the app is for just by the name.
I use the rest of the apps occasionally. I don't use Newsstand at all, actually, but it's not possible to remove it or move it to a folder.

Second page contains mostly photography related apps.

And, my most used apps of the page are:
1. Facebook. It should be on a different page but since I use it very often I decided to keep it on the second page. Besides, I like to post mobile photos to my Facebook when I'm not on my computer or don't have my compact camera with me.
2. Snapseed. This is so far the best photo editing app. I like how easy and fun it is to operate the editing options. Totally recommended for people who enjoy doing photo editing.
Again, I use the rest of the apps occasionally. I might actually need to remove Photoshop since I have Snapseed.

Third page contains games.

Here are my most played games:
1. Bejeweled 2. My brother introduced me to this game. Even before that, I actually liked playing this sort of game. It's classical and never really gets old.
2. SuperRope. This game is super fun. Basically, you want to get to the highest point by climbing the rope. You also want to collect the coins which are actually not really useful.
3. iSlash. This is also a fun game to play to kill time. Basically, you cut a plat containing moving ninja spikes into smaller parts until you reach the minimal size to move on to the next level.
4. Zenonia 3. This was one of the first adventure games that I played on my phone. The journey on the game is super long, and you can always go back to the previous stages if you want. You can also see how far you have gone by looking at the sort of world map. I'm stuck in a certain stage actually.
5. Sprinkle. I've actually gone through all the levels. I still keep the game because I want to redo all the levels with more stars.

Fourth page contains more utility/random apps.

Here are the most used apps of the page:
1. Bump. This is a perfect app if you wanna share your photos with another iPhone or iPod or iPad user. You basically bump your iDevice into the other person's iDevice, and the file is transferred right away.
2. iFML. I quite often use this app when in bed trying to sleep. The app gathers select FML stories from people who submit them. Some friends say the stories are made-up, but I honestly don't really care 'cause most of them are still funny to read.
3. Flashlight. This app has several more apps in it. However, I only use one app within this app which is the flashlight. It uses the iPhone flash on the back to, obviously, help you see in the dark.
Among the rest of the apps, PiP is the silliest one. I actually knew this app from iJustine from Youtube. If I tell you what the app is, I might just be embarrassed by it. It stands for Places I've Pooped. Haha. It's rather pointless for sure but it's fun that you can sort of check-in every time you poop in a new place. It uses the GPS technology to know where you're located.

The last page contains social networking apps. And, I use Skype the most.

So, that's all the apps that I've got on my iPhone to date. I definitely will have new apps in the future and remove some mentioned above. I actually have many more apps on my iPad because some apps are just better to use on a bigger screen like the Mail, IM+, Safari, Twitter, and many more.

BTW, the four apps on the dashboard are obviously the most of the most used apps. LOL.

It's almost midnight and I'm pretty tired. I went out to meet some friends for a cup of tea and a chocolate cake. The tea was arrghh... yucky! I had three cups of Masala Chai. Now, every time I burp, I can smell the strong smell from the spices :-(

Nite!

What you need to know

2011-10-24T20:02:00.008+07:00

I have just spent almost two days working on this new layout design. Now, I feel pretty tired. My eyes have gotten red from starring at the computer screen since yesterday. I worked on the layout until quite late at night, did quite a lot of work this morning, and finished the layout just now. There is one bit of the whole part of the design that I actually haven't finished yet which I will tell you a bit later. It's not going to be a long post, anyway, as I seriously need some ice for my eyes and rest them through the night.

I hope you can see pretty obviously that it is a blueprint inspired design. Yesterday, I stumbled into a link to an iPhone wallpaper image that was blueprint themed. As I had been looking for the right inspiration for my new website layout at that time, that wallpaper, which is now my current one on my iPhone, was like a kick. I liked it, and I felt so much inspired by it.

Without further a due -again, I'm pushing myself a little bit to write this, here are screenshots of the old and new layout design for the sake of comparison. You can click to enlarge.

Then
Now
Now is time for 'what you need to know'.
There are at least five buttons on the layout. They may be a little hidden in a way that they do not really appear as links or buttons.

Home button. This button, if clicked, will bring you to www.RadSujanto.com. Located above the blog post, right underneath the google ad banner on the top.

Archive button. Located on the same row as the Home button. However, this is the bit that I haven't finished yet, as I said earlier. I'll work on it this week.

Three social links: Facebook, Twitter, and Quantter. Located on the sidebar just below the note and google ad.

And... if you enjoy my website, please leave your comment or feedback, "Like" my website by clicking the "Like" button on the top, and click the google ads around this website because I'd honestly like to earn money from getting clicks on the ads. I hope it didn't sound like a force. I'm just being realistic. Hehe.

I'm gon' to take a break now. I might add some more info or take a look back at what I just wrote to see if I made errors in the spelling or gave false info.

Cheers!
Thanks for your visit!
Enjoy my website even more!

Rad

Muscle it up

2011-10-22T19:59:00.007+07:00

I've had this 8-kilogram barbell for quite a long time now but have never really used it. Yesterday, I saw it in the house and decided to want to start using it regularly. I'd like to have bigger biceps. And, I thought I don't want to do the barbell lift at any random time only when I feel like doing it. So, what I did was using a new official app by Apple on my iPhone called Reminder and setting a reminder at five different times in a day everyday.

As you can see that I do my first weightlift of the day at 10AM and do the last one of the day at 10PM. And, each arm lifts 30 times
On the list, you can see and tell that I have done most of today's tasks. Basically, if it says 'tomorrow', it means that that specific task of the day has been done. By the time this blog post is published, I will have done the 7PM weightlist task.

That was the first category of my new healthy-ish everyday routine. Yes, Reminder allows you to separate what you need to be reminded of in different categories. That is why I find the app very useful.

The next category has something to do with diet. You do know diet does not always have to do with wanting to become slim. It's more of living a healthy lifestyle through what we consume everyday. Now, I'm just gonna show you some more screenshots.

In my previous post, I talked about why drinking tea is good for health. So, I have set two reminders separately for the morning and for the evening. In the list above, you can see that I wanna have my morning tea at 8AM. That is because I start working around that time everyday unless I'm super duper lazy or need to do what I'm told to by my parents. The second tea time was set at 10PM because I want to feel relaxed around that time so that hopefully I can fall asleep soon after.

This list contains when I should take a break from work and what I should consume.

Breakfast. I set 9AM in the morning for breakfast because I tend to work before I have my breakfast. So, I wanna stick with that tradition by waking up before or at 8AM and drinking my tea, and starting working. Normally (since the last two months), what I have for breakfast is five scoops of muesli mixed with milk, Skippy peanut butter and a tablespoon of honey. I really wanna try adding small slices of fresh strawberry to it sometimes just for the kick.

After-lunch. The second break is not considered as lunch because normally around midday time I have to pick up my niece from school and I have lunch either before or after. I wanna have an after-lunch break by having wheat biscuits and maybe some milk too.

Before-bed. This last break is meant to be for the last meal of the day. I decided that I wanna have milk and TimTam because I need the cream and sugar from them to help me fall asleep. I'm also aware that I'm pretty thin so I'd like to gain some weight by having full cream milk right before bed. I also wanna have the meal at five past ten which is right after my last weightlift of the day because I want all the good stuff goes to the building muscles. I know, I know, that's probably not how that works, but hey that sounds pretty working enough for me! Hahaha.

Can't wait to have bigger biceps! Whoop!
BTW, all of these apply only when I'm home, not when travelling or on the move.

Healthy stuff

2011-10-20T21:39:00.012+07:00

So, I just got back from shoppen! (shopping). It wasn't really planned but when I was done with work earlier today I felt like I needed to go out a bit so I went for shopping. I went to Carrefour and Superindo. This is going to be a rather pointless blog post. LOL

First of all, I'd like to let you know that I have a favorite app for iPhone that I always use every time I wanna go shopping. It's called ShopListFree. The app is very, very useful and easy to use. I recommend you install and use the app if you have an iPhone. I'm not sure if the app is also available for other brands of smart phones.

What I got and didn't get from the stores
First thing that I got is TimTam! Everybody should like TimTam! I actually just got hooked up to the cheese flavor.

It actually says 'special edition' which, I think, will be out of production some time soon! That scares me because I really like the cheese one. I also got a choco vanilla one
Next. I was looking for my favorite muesli but I couldn't find any in Carrefour. Instead, still in the cereal section, I saw this cereal sort of product. I honestly never saw it before. It's called KukiZereal (Cookie Cereal) produced by Vitagen. The reason why I wanted to try it is because it says Tiramisu flavor! I think, it's like cereal type of biscuit/cookie, so, I think, I can have it without milk?? ...I don't know, really, but I will find out when I actually try it -which is I'm looking forward to! (EDIT: I just tasted it, and it's damn good! Not kidding! Will get three or four of them next time I hit Carrefour)

There are other flavors, too: chocolate and strawberry. But, I thought Tiramisu had a more unique and more interesting taste. The ingredients listed on the package are wheat flour, sugar, full cream milk, soya lecithine, cocoa powder, vegetable oil, vitamin A, C, B12 and calcium. Sounds pretty healthy to me! :D
The next thing I got is teas! I'm in the sudden mood of teas. I learned that drinking tea in the morning can help wake you up with a better mood. Of course, it's not just any tea because there are ingredients in the tea that work to wake you up like caffeine. Since I don't drink coffee, tea is a good option for me. Tea is good for lots of reasons. It has fluoride good for your teeth. Tea, especially white and green, has a ton of anti-oxidant which is really, really good for your, basically, everything for your body. It can also prevent a lot of cancers, and helps with the immune system. However, tea can dehydrate you, so don't count your tea as one of your eight cups of water of the day. You still need to drink lots of water.

BTW, I bought several different teas from different brands.

Tong Tji. It's a rather big bag of tea. I don't think it comes with any flavor. I got this one because it says SUPER. Hahaha. Superman has to drink super tea!
Sari Wangi Gold Selection. I'm very curious with the orange flavor! It actually says that it contains black tea, orange, orange flavor, and derived soya beans. Whatever that’s gonna taste like!!
Goalpara. I bought green tea not because I like the taste of it. But, I think, sometimes, I kinda need that boost
Sometimes, I have bad mornings when I just don't feel like working at all! I don't drink Coke nor coffee, so I hope drinking tea can help me wake up and feel better on mornings. And also, it's always good to have some warm or hot liquid at night before you head to bed to help you feel relaxed. But, do remember, when it comes to drinking tea before bed, drink one that doesn't have caffeine in it. However, caffeine is a mild stimulant which is also good to have to help prevent your blood vessels from hardening, so drink tea for the caffeine, too! :D BTW, I'm gonna try to drink my tea without sugar. I might put a bit of sugar in my tea if I need a boost of sweetness.

Before heading home, I stopped by Superindo to get my favorite muesli that only they have. It actually doesn't have any brand printed on the package. I reckon they do their own packaging so that they can lower down the price. I got a one kilogram one.

I always have my muesli as breakfast with peanut butter that comes with some rough nuts in it, and a table spoon of honey!
While I was still at the cereal section, I noticed this new product which was again packaged in the same way as the muesli. So, again, they do it in order to sell it at a lower price... which is awesome!

It's just cornflakes. The box is super big (750gram)! I couldn't believe how big it was yet how cheap it was! It only took me two seconds to think of putting it in my hand off the shelf
And, lastly, I got some other basic stuff like milk and shampoo. As you can see in the shopping list above, headphones and hair gel are not checked. I didn't really go to the right place to look for headphones, and I couldn't get the hair gel that I was looking for. So, yea.

-----

A few weeks ago, I got a rather big box sent to my house for me. It was from my bank.

It says on the box something like "thanks for using your Danamon credit card". So, I thought it was a thank you present. Cool!

Basically, inside the box, there are these small air-tight containers from Lock&Lock. Now I finally know what to use them for!
So... I'm going to be using them to keep my teas. It is important to keep the tea leaves in air-tight containers so that the flavors or scents last much longer. I guess they go bad if they're exposed to the air for too long. It's also good to keep the teas in these containers so that I won't get them mixed.

"Raise your glasses to tea tonight and drink a glass!"

Cheers!

The Royal Wedding of Keraton Yogyakarta

2011-10-18T20:39:00.024+07:00

Today was the wedding day of the Prince and Princess of the province of Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta has its own kingdom called Keraton run by the king called Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono (current king: Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono X). The princess is the youngest daughter of the king. The ceremony was unbelievably insane! Almost the entire population of Yogyakarta gathered along the famous street of Malioboro where the Prince and Princess passed to wave to the citizens. And, I was one of the citizens waving back to them!! Hahaha I was so excited! I waved as if they saw me and waved at me!

Kanjeng Pangeran Haryo Yudanegara (the Prince) and Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Bendara (the Princess)
Photo from: Republika
I wasn't alone but with my parents and sister.

We left at 2PM and got back home at 6PM. It was super duper crowded. I could hardly move at some points because of the crowd wanting to stand as close as they could be to the main road where the Prince and Princess would pass by.

The crowd!! You can't see the road!

Everybody everywhere just to see a better view
There were soldiers before and after the couple passed by.

First group of soldiers in red
We thought the couple would go out at 3.30PM but turned out to be at 5PM. So, I almost wanted to go home already because I was basically too tired from standing for too long waiting. I moved around. First, I stood by the street so I could see people gathering in the middle of the street. I then moved to the center of the crowd and that was when I could hardly move. I knew I had to keep my one hand holding my wallet while the other hand holding my camera.

Me trying to survive! It felt like I was getting raped from every direction! Hahaha! Well, not really.
I'm actually too tired right now to explain everything plus I have some work left to do for today -arghhhhh!!. I might add more information later tomorrow or after I'm done with work later tonight. For now, I'm just letting the photos speak for themselves.

The couple in the cart! That guy in red was the cart driver! Can you see the face of the Prince wearing a rather tall hat waving just under the cart's umbrella? And, I actually yelled, "Stand up!". Some people repeated me but the couple didn't do as I said. Hehe!
Nooooo!!! I could have gotten a slightly clearer photo of the Prince waving if my *dad*'s hand was not covering the view!!! Yes, that's my dad in his checkered shirt and black hat also yelling, "stand up!"
I'm just so glad that I actually saw the Prince and Princess even though I couldn't get a very clear photo of them with my camera -darn it!. I'm glad because they have been on TV lately talking about their wedding. It felt like meeting real celebrities! Yes, I'm lame like that! :)) No, I'm not lame. I'm proud to have witnessed a history!

The Queen-Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Hemas-'s sister waving in green
Thanks, mom, for having encouraged us (with slight force) to wanna see the event! It was too hot today and I almost changed my mind to just wanna stay at home.

With mom
BTW, the President of Indonesia was there too... but, nobody seemed to care because he was in one of the cars. We all basically left for home after the couple went by and did the wave.

More footages:

Superman!
A photographer brought a ladder from home so he could get a better view. How devoted!

Tired, having a seat in a police car. How criminal is that?! LOL
"I wanna see. I wanna see"
With my sister
Dumb person... hahaha

How will your filled film house the apparent clause?

What's the weather like ATM?

2011-10-13T16:18:00.024+07:00

Ask iOS 5 for the answer!

(Notification Center)
The weather is super warm right now!
So, I just upgraded my iOS 4.35 to iOS 5 today! So far so good! However, I thought there would be an individual app called iMessage. I was wrong. On the iPhone, the app is under the typical Message app, while on the iPad and iPod Touch running the iOS 5, there is an individual new app called iMessage. So, basically, if I send a message to my brother who also has an iPhone running the iOS 5, the text message will be for free -as long as both phones are connected to an active WiFi. If I sent a text message to my brother with his phone not connected to the WiFi, it would be charged as normal whose cost would depend on how much my phone carrier charged. Is this app going to kill famously used WhatsApp? I don't think so. iMessage will not kill WhatsApp because both have advantages to offer.

WhatsApp offers smartphone users an ability to send free text messages to other smartphone users who also have WhatsApp installed on their phones, regardless of the brand of the phone (iPhone, Blackberry, Nokia, Samsung, etc) and the operating system (iOS, RIM, Android, Symbian, etc).

iMessage may offer a very similar free text messaging service (WhatsApp) to iOS device users only, but it is more convenient. First, there are no two different apps for iPhone users running the iOS 5, so they can keep the message thread in the same place as the normal text messages. Second, you don't have to have an iPhone to be able to send text messages to your friends who use an iPhone, an iPod Touch and/or an iPad. Down side of it is that iMessage only works on WiFi connection, not 3G (yet). In addition, to tell the difference between normal text messages and iMessage messages is by seeing the color of the chat balloon. If it's green, that means the message that you just sent was a normal charged text message. If the balloon is blue, that means you just sent an iMessage message. You don't have to send a message just to want to see the color of the chat balloon, actually. You just need to see the color of the Send button. Green means it's going to be a normal text message. Blue means the iMessage feature is active. On iMessage, you can also know whether the message has been sent or not, and if the person on the other line is typing a reply to you. Again, it's very similar to WhatsApp.

Another thing that I like about the new iOS is the notification center that you can pull down from the top of the screen. It is very, very similar to the one on Android OS as far as how to make it appear on the screen goes. I like it because I can read a bit of a message that I just received when I'm in the middle of reading an article or playing a game, or chatting with a friend on Skype -without getting distracted so much.

The quick access to the camera button is also super convenient! Just by pressing the home button twice on the lock screen mode, the camera button will appear at the bottom right of the screen. The photos or videos that are taken will be kept in a different folder called Photo Stream which you can access without the need of unlocking the phone. The use of the volume-up button as an alternative to the shutter button even makes it much more convenient. And, then you can pinch to zoom in and out while the camera is on; you can crop a photo and edit it a bit; you can even now create a new album to help categorize some photos in the camera roll folder. It's just convenient!

I haven't tried iCloud, though. I will upgrade my iPad's iOS tonight and I will be able to try this awesome-sounding feature.

Will I miss the 'Close/View' pop-out text message notification which is typically iPhone? Maybe I will... not. Because you have an option to bring that sort of conventional iPhone-y text message notification back if you don't like the new banner type notification that appears on the top of the screen, through the Settings.

Cheers!
Now I need to get back to work! Oh my gawd! LOL

Edit/Correction: (October 18)
- iMessage service works both on WiFi and 3G connections.
- Photos and videos saved in Photo Stream are those able to be shared with other iDevices on the same account using iCloud.

Quick thoughts

2011-10-12T23:28:00.000+07:00

This is just going to be a kind of reminder to myself. So, apart from a(nother) project that my niece has to do with me, I actually have a couple of projects of my own (not related to work or earning money). It's projects for fun.

First project is to re-design the layout of my website. For the past several weeks, I've been looking for some good inspirations on the internet by visiting many different websites or blogs. I have a few-by a few I mean two really- websites that I really like as far as the layout design goes. I have one of the websites open right now, but I don't think I should share it with you as I don't wanna spoil the surprise -if it's going to ever be one once done and published. And, no, it's not that I'm going to copy the website designs from the two websites and combine them. I will take some of the design ideas. I might also send them an email to let them know that they have inspired me. Don't get me wrong, though! The reason for the website layout change idea is not because I dislike the layout that I have had on right now for the past almost-one year.

Second project is to continue writing my novel. This is actually more like a one year or two long sort of project! I've only written like 5 or 6 pages so far. Just a little hint: the story's about two adults living with an adopted young girl taking place in the year of 1800s; they are unusual family that is fun to know more about. What I want from my readers is them being surprised by how these people in the family do things and how normal it is for them.

As much as I feel excited to want to continue writing the story, my brain gets pretty tired already after work. Well, what I do every day is writing many articles whose ideas are not from anywhere but my own mind. I just get tired in the evening and cannot really get the right mood to continue my novel. Writing a blog like this one is nothing compared to writing a novel because I don't always need to make up ideas for my blog posts while when writing my novel it requires new imaginative ideas.

So... I hope I can take some time off work some time next week to start sketching for my new website layout design. Wish I could do it this weekend but I'm gonna be out of town.

Night all!

Flag was a sweet short memory in my life

2011-10-10T11:36:00.008+07:00

I knew it when I didn't hear her cry this morning. She died. And, I might have killed her, too.

Miss you already, Flag (Day 4)
I'm sorry you had to die, Flag. I hope you and everybody else know that I wanted to rescue you so that you wouldn't die like what happened to your siblings after you all fell off the tree.

It might have been my fault. I knew you were crying all night long, but I was too sleepy in my bed so I couldn't provide you with warmth that you needed.

Just for you to know, I was very touched when I saw you sleeping after I fed you yesterday. You were definitely a sweet 3-day short memory in my life.

You were sleeping because, I knew, you were full and well fed. You were not even crying (Day 3)
I really wanted to see you grow up as a beautiful mature bird. I really, really did. I imagined that when grown mature you would always follow me, sleep in my drawer, and we would have fun in my room while I was working.

R.I.P, Flag.
Funny, as I finished reading the novel last night (The Yearling), Flag the deer in story also died at the end of the story. Jody the keeper was horribly sad and was not home for three days.

Please read these too:
Day 1: I found the bird
Day 2: I named her Flag
Day 3: The day before she died

I met real Flag the Deer from The Yearling

2011-10-09T17:37:00.013+07:00

I've been reading The Yearling by Majorie Kinnan Rawlings, and there are 25 pages left until the end of the book. I really enjoyed the story. No wonder that the book won a Politzer Price in 1939. By the way, the reason why I mentioned the book is because there is a deer in the story called Flag -after which I named my little bird pet. Today, I actually went to see some deer with my mom. All that I was thinking of in my head was Flag from the book. It felt like I was meeting him.

In the story, Flag is supposed to grow up just exactly like this deer -with the white spots, according to the description in the story
I fed him young bamboo leaves as, I think, I read in the story that the deer loved eating young bamboo leaves

Now that I'm at the end of the book, I'm thinking of getting another novel and, I think, I'm gonna get one from the same author since I liked how the story was told in The Yearling. I'll probably go tomorrow as I also need to get a new shaver, more body washes, a body butter, and some other related stuff. And, perhaps a new shirt for a wedding that we're attending next weekend. So, I'm excited about that.

BTW, my bird Flag is doing ok. So, I'm pretty happy with that too.

Flag: Day 3

New (exciting) project. Power outage. Flag

2011-10-08T22:14:00.008+07:00

I feel excited that my niece just got another project from her school! After the Popsicle car project, this time's project involves carton paper. If I tell you what we're gonna make, you probably won't think that it's going to be more exciting or interesting than the Popsicle car. Well, I'm gonna tell you anyway. We are going to make a drawer!

It's hard to say that I actually feel more excited about this project. Some of the reasons are (1) it's easy, (2) it won't take many days to finish, and (3) the fact that it's easy and simple allows me and my niece to be even more creative-which may surprise her teacher and friends with the finished product! We have thought about the ideas this evening of what we want to do in this project. All I can tell you for now is that it's going to be beautiful! :D

After we made the plan and gathered the creative ideas, we relaxed in my parent's room watching TV with my mom and nephew. All of a sudden, the power went out. Bam!

We waited in bed in the dark and thought of just going to sleep already. Everyone was in the room trying to sleep. My niece, nephew, and I weren't sleepy yet, so we decided to play Smurf game on my dad's iPad. We had fun, really! We laughed because I did silly things on the game, etc. While the fun was still there and the power was not back on yet, I decided to turn on my iPhone and place it in front of three of us with the front facing camera on. Here's how it turned out:

I tried looking slightly toothless. LOL -just to get the kids laughing! It did!

Haha, as we were having so much fun being crazy to the camera, the power went back on! God blessed us! LOL -although that also meant that the fun had to end ;(
Embarrassing! I just wanted to share the fun that we truly had despite power outage. There are still many other pictures we took, actually. They're just worse than what I can share here :))

Last thing that I wanted to share with you is Flag! It's day 2 now since I found the bird. I obviously can't know whether it's male or female and I thought Flag was a neutral name. And, I actually managed to film the mother using my iPhone. I'm thinking of uploading the videos on YouTube so I can share with you from here.

Flag: Day 2

Please, survive!

2011-10-07T14:40:00.006+07:00

Today is Friday. So, as usual, around midday time, I went to the mosque for a Friday prayer. As I was walking out the house and closing the gate I heard a sound of a crying bird chick. Actually, I immediately knew what bird it was going to be. Well, we've had these water birds that live in the bamboo trees for years now, and almost every time the eggs hatch the bird chicks would be found on the ground. We don't know if that's supposed to happen naturally, or the birds just often fall off the nest. We never know what to do to the fallen birds, and they always end up dead.

This time I found the crying bird in a big flower pot that my dad put outside a few days ago. I was wondering why she was alone because normally there would be three or four other chicks. I looked around and found two dead birds not far from where the surviving bird was crying.

I took the chick and put it in a basket, and left for the mosque. After the prayer, I checked that the bird was still in the basket. At that time, I decided to look after her. At least, I wouldn't leave her to die alone.

I took a small flower pot and a few tissues to prepare a bed for the bird. I brought her in my room and put her bed with her in it under a lamp just to keep her warm as if she was in her real nest with her mother.

She kept crying. I guessed she was hungry.

I didn't know what to feed her. The first thing that came to my mind was worm. But, it's difficult to find worm around my house. And, there has not been rain still.

I decided to feed her cooked rice. Just a tiny bit. She didn't refuse, or was too weak to refuse(?) :(

Since I knew that it was a water bird, I thought about giving her a water pool. And, she was happy! I could tell! She bent her neck down to reach the water and drank it. She did it many times. Perhaps, she was just thirsty.

Her drinking
After I noticed that she was either bored or full, I put her back in her bed.

You may think that she's not going to be a very interesting looking bird judging from the color of her fur which is plain black, but, I've seen the mature birds in person and they have colorful fur.

I hope she can survive so I have a playmate in my room while working! :D

*fingers-crossed*

And, by the way, I have prepared a name for her :p

How I will remember Steve.

2011-10-06T09:30:00.015+07:00

I was shocked when I heard the sad news. I knew he had cancer. And, I think he knew he was going to die very soon when he decided to quit Apple as the CEO and give it to Tim Cook. I just wasn't expecting that he would be gone for ever today. Only two days ago, Apple launched their latest products, and now we all had to hear very sad news. It didn't even feel the same because Steve wasn't there. And, maybe the people in the presentation all knew Steve was very close to dying.

Quoted from a website (the site is taken down already: ~~www.stevejobsfuneral.com~~):
Looking gaunt and frail, this was a photo of Steve Jobs seen just after his unexpected departure from Apple in late August 2011.
This picture, taken outside the technology mogul’s California home, fuelled fears that Jobs was nearing the end in his eight-year battle with pancreatic cancer.
...
The 56-year-old Apple founder looked even thinner than he did during his last public appearance two months prior.
Jobs, who founded Apple in his garage in 1976, seemed almost too weak to hold himself up as he prepared to get into a waiting car in Palo Alto, northern California.
He wore a black long-sleeved T-shirt, black shorts and sandals instead of his familiar turtleneck and jeans for the trip to nearby San Francisco, the city where he was born.
I have to admit before I knew Apple, I didn't have so much interest in technology in general. I have a close friend to prove that to you who was there when I got my first Apple gadget. It was an iPod Touch. I have been an Apple fan boy since 2008. Since then I've always followed news on technology and, I have to admit, more specifically on Apple. Since then also, I have admired the work of Steve Jobs with his team in building more and more surprising advanced technology with the Apple's products. Now I've become such a huge tech fan and I blame Apple for that.

It is hard to deny, as much as you probably dislike Apple for some reason, that we would not have had touch screen smart phones like what we have today if Apple did not initiate with their first iPhone. We would have not seen Android phones like what we have seen today.

Steve Jobs was known for his stubborn mind and some people just hated him for that. But, we all know without his stubbornness Apple may have never been known as how we know it today.

And, how will I remember Steve? I will always keep the Apple products that I have now and will take care of them even more because they are part of the most brilliant ideas of Steve's. And, every time I use my iDevices I will always remember him. Without him, you wouldn't see the technology that you can see today.

Today will always be remembered. I've always admired him and Apple.
Thank you, Steve, for having changed the world of technology.
Goodbye.
Rest in peace.
Apple will never be the same.

Siri is also for the iPhone 4, or only for the iPhone 4S?

2011-10-05T09:54:00.025+07:00

Apple had their event of the year just yesterday. The iPhone 4S comes with some new great features that the old yet so new iPhone 4 doesn't have. What I like about the iPhone 4S are that

(1) It has Siri. Here's a video embedded from the Apple's YouTube channel.

Siri is basically going to be an assistant that can listen to and understand what you will say to "her" and finally do the tasks for you using the voice recognition technology. I remember using the voice recognition on my iPhone 3GS (somehow with my current iPhone 4, I never use the feature anymore) to make a phone call, and Siri is just more advanced than that.

(2) It has a much better camera (now 8MP) which comes with new optics (a wider aperture and a fifth lens) and shoots 1080p HD video quality. I love using my iPhone 4 for taking pictures and they look great! So, yea, I would love to use the new more advanced camera on the iPhone 4S.

And, (3) it has 7x faster graphics and a better processor (dual core, A5 chip). That means it gets much faster to load a website on Safari and to play graphics heavy games.

I only hope that Telkomsel (one of the top carriers here in Indonesia) will have an upgrade program for its customers who bought an iPhone from them within the last 6 months. If not, well, I will be happy with my iPhone 4 when the new iOS 5 is ready to download and install. Just can't wait to experience the 200 new features that will come with the new iOS!

Oh, one thing that I'm also very glad about is that the iPhone 4S has exactly the same model/design as the iPhone 4! :D

Car's finished... kinda.

2011-10-04T21:18:00.008+07:00

Actually, it is finished. Again, kinda. You'll know in a second why I can't say it's finished finished.

If you need a reference to what I'm talking about, please click on this link [anything in these square brackets is a link. lol]

So, tomorrow is the day when my niece and all the students in her class have to submit the car to the teacher. So, I told her, "we got to get it done quickly!". We were kind of in a rush to finish the car by simply adding the wheels. We were in a rush because if we did it later in the evening, the glue wouldn't be dry enough in the morning and it would be a mess to bring the car to the school.

Well, here's a picture of the finished car.

The wheels were actually empty condensed milk cans. And, I created a hole in the center of both ends for the wire to come in through.

It's finished but the glue is still wet. That's why I have to keep the car upside down until the glue hardens and can hold the wheels strongly enough so that they can stand and be the main support for the car.

I could take a picture of the car when it's done done in the morning, but my niece leaves for school very early in the morning when I'm usually still sleeping. So, yea.

BTW, here's how the car should look when it's one hundred percent done.

HAHA!We're just happy that it's all done!

EDIT (October 5): This picture was taken when my niece got back from her school. She brought the car back so we can keep it! :D

Gorgeous day

2011-10-02T15:56:00.011+07:00

You may be surprised by how I define gorgeous when it comes to weather. Today has been cloudy. The air feels cool. And, it's slightly been windy. I love it. Everybody also seems happy in the house today. That's another prove. And, if you're wondering why cloudy day can be such a happy day to us, it is because for the last 7-8 months there has not been any single rain at all. The air has been extremely dry during the day. Although, for a month or so between July and August, the air got super cold during the night. We were informed that it was due to the winter wind from Australia. It was really cold and many got sick actually. That's all over now. No more extreme heat during the day, and the night gets normal.

I took a quick picture of the sky today just after midday time.

On top of that, most fruit in our yard are almost ready to harvest! We grow lots of plants in our narrow, small yard. Like there's almost no more space for another tree or plant. Although we can still walk between them because my dad left just enough space for a pathway. We grow mango trees, an avocado tree, passion fruit vines, a cempedak tree (explanation of this fruit will be added to when I show you the picture later in this post), and many, many others.

The first fruit that came first ripe and ready to harvest was the mango. We have enjoyed the sweet fruit for several times since last week and the fruit keeps coming on the trees. We do love mango so this has been and will be really good!

Here's a raw mango still hanging on the branch.

You can see in the picture above a couple of groups of the fruit from different branches. Sometimes, my dad wraps the fruit in a plastic bag like that white one just to keep it away from the fruit bats which like to chew on the mango at night and leave them rotten while still hanging on the branches.

The next fruit that is very ready to harvest is the passion fruit. We actually have some already picked yesterday and that we keep in a small basket to wait until they get ripe enough for us to juice up.

Here's a raw one. The vine grows in our balcony like crazy.
It's their season, and there's nothing we can do about it because they grow SUPER fast. I can't even tell you. So, basically, there are seasons when the vine grows very slow and becomes very non-productive at all, and when the vine grows SUPER fast and the leaves and everything looks super healthy and green and fresh. I wish you were here to see what I'm talking about. I'm not even joking :D

And, here's a picture of the passion fruit flower before it becomes the fruit.
The last fruit that is going to be ready to harvest is called cempedak. I have not found the English word for the fruit, or it may not even exist in English because it's a local fruit. Basically, it is from the same family as the jack fruit. Cempedak is much more narrow and actually tastes different. If you don't like the smell that jack fruit produces, you just don't want to know more of cempedak. The fruit tree itself does not really grow in this region where I live. My dad actually brought the seed to Java from Borneo/Kalimantan where we used to live like 7 years ago. So, this will be the first harvest for this fruit from the tree!

Here's a picture of a baby cempedak at a few days old. There are actually many other much bigger/older ones, but they are all wrapped in plastic bags for the same reason as the mango.
Here's an example of a wrapped one.

I asked my mom when we can actually enjoy the fruit, and she said "I think, in January or December". I was a little disappointed right there. But, it's ok. It's going to take some time for us to finish the mango and passion fruit until December. It's actually going to be the right timing so we won't run out of fruit until early next year!

***

The last thing that I wanted to talk about is what I cooked with my mom on this rather happy day. We made... ummm what should I call this dish?... mushroom noodles? Well, the two main ingredients were rice noodles and ear-mushrooms. Absolutely delicious! I might have nothing left for everybody else tonight. Hehe.

Alright, I think that's all that I wanted to share with you today.

Hope you had a good day today if you're reading this in your bed ready to fall asleep, or have a good day if it's just starting :)

Stuff stuff

2011-09-26T18:53:00.009+07:00

Ok, so, this is going to be a super strange kind of blog post as I've never made such post in my blogs. Like ever. So, I went taking my mom and nephew to see a doctor a few hours ago because he can't stop coughing. It was a very long wait (3 hours) at the doctor and couldn't have got more boring. I decided to drive to the nearest supermarket to get some stuff for myself. So... the stuff that I got are those in the picture above.

That's it! That's all that I wanted to tell you guys.

Well, I guess I can try to make it slightly longer than this. Just slightly. Which means not more than a half than what I've written.

Ok.

I bought a Dove shampoo and a conditioner. The reason why I chose them among other brands is because it says "Daily Shine". So, if my hair won't shine, I will have a prove to sue the company by taking the bottle to the court, and hopefully they will send me some of their products for free.

Next.

One thing that I kind of regret buying is the Dream body wash. It says "honey and shea butter" which was pretty attractive. But, I was too stupid that I didn't give it a sniff when I was in the store. I guess I was too attracted by the bottle and how the golden liquid looked. Not that I'm into brown slimy sort of liquid. Ew. I actually hate the smell. So, I opened it when I was back home. It smells like... the cheapest soap bar you can get in a supermarket. However... I'm glad that that came with the "papaya" one as a bonus because I love the smell of that one. It does smell like real papaya. So, I think I'm gonna use that one first before the bigger one.

Moving on.

The last thing that I got from the store was a L'Oreal face wash. This product was not the only one from L'Oreal. There were like two others. I chose this one because I knew how great this stuff is. I've used it before, and it was when my brother asked me to give it a try when he got one for himself some time ago. So, basically, the clay scrub feels so great on the skin. It feels like the finest sand when you're rubbing it on your face skin. It's almost like pure liquid but when you actually rub it, you can feel the texture of the clay. It's just so good.

Wow, so I broke my promise. I wrote a lot more than I thought I would.

BTW, this post has not been sponsored by any of the brands mentioned above; although I wish it was! Hey, I would like it if I could receive some free stuff from those brands if I could just talk about them in my blog.

LOL
Sorry, I was too bored!

Ice cream stick car in process

2011-09-24T22:11:00.008+07:00

So, just over three weeks ago my niece asked me to help her with her school project. She was given an assignment by her teacher to make a sort of cart out of ice cream sticks. Obviously, she wasn't told to buy hundreds of popsicle just for the sticks! That would have only been fun if the project was sponsored by the school! So, since we needed to use our own money (my niece's, not mine) we had to go rather economical as a way of teaching her to spend her money wisely. I went to the store for the ice cream sticks, a refill pack of PVA glue, and a brush. The next day, we started with a drawing of the cart's design that she wanted to make and was actually told to make. And, of course, I said to her 'no, you don't have to make exactly the same design... give it to me!'. So, with my artsy fingers, I made slight changes to the design of the original design that was instructed by the teacher.

First real step was to glue different parts of the cart one part by one part. First part that we made was the base of the cart's frame. Second one was the window/door frame followed by the two bumpers (or, was it the roof first before the bumpers? ummm). And, of course, we let each part of the cart that we created dry out first before gluing them all together into one whole piece. I taught my niece how to use the PVA glue. The glue that the teacher told her to use was actually the yellow smelly one which often reminds me of snot(!). And, to harden the glued sticks, we layered and glued two thin layers of tissue.

And, by the way, it is always fun for me to create something like this. I'm not claiming that this is what I am the best at doing, but I'm pretty good at art and design. Just saying... :))

The roof

We needed to press down the roof using a pile of books to the window/door frame so that it wouldn't bend
So, next step was to add some more minor details like the back cover of the cart and the faux cart's registration number on the front side using a marker.

Two weeks later, we thought of adding some colors to the unfinished cart. So, we went back to the store to buy another brush and some paints. However, we haven't done anything to the cart since then.

Another thing that we will need to work on is the wheels. We will use two empty cans of condensed milk and do whatever we can to make them roll.

Even though it has been three weeks now, I'm not hoping that we will not finish the project! So, just watch for an update blog post that will announce that we're done with it! :D

It won't be anything spectacular, though! :))

EDIT (October 5): The car's done, and here's a link to the picture: click!

IMY

2011-09-22T12:44:00.007+07:00

If I had to lie about something, I would say that I have gotten over wanting and thinking of you.

Hari Raya

2011-09-17T23:47:00.006+07:00

Back at the end of August was a celebration time for all Moslems for Hari Raya. Hari Raya, or also commonly called Eid Day, took place on the 30th. As usual, every year, everyone gathers in the house, goes to the mosque in the morning for the Eid prayer and returns home to enjoy the dishes cooked one or two nights before. Somehow, I don't really know what to say here right now, but maybe if I was writing this blog post on the D-Day I would have had more ideas of what to talk about and been more excited.

I will show you a picture of all of us. You will see me *barely* sitting on one side of the gigantic "chair" that fits tens of ~~small~~ people. And, there are also some of my relatives from Jakarta and from the southern part of the town. And, lots of kids !!

This photo was taken using my phone. We actually have the clean version because we used two different cameras. The other camera is a proper Sony camera. I just never get the photo from my sister!

Some of my memories has gone

2011-09-14T09:44:00.006+07:00

Alright, this isn't really the first thing that I normally do in the morning after I wake up. But, today I realized that I owed several blog posts to write, so, here is one for today.

I'm gonna talk to you about evil termites. Since high school, I have been interested in reading novels. Since then, I have been collecting novels written by different authors. Because we moved house (and island, too!), I had to pack all my novels in carton boxes. I then realized that I couldn't keep the books in the boxes all the time or for a long time. In the new house, I took them out of the boxes and organized them. A year later, we moved house again, only this time it was in the same city.

And, of course, I had to pack all the books again plus new collection that I had bought during the year.

In the new house where I live now, I had my own room. I took the books out and organized them well. Some years later as I went to college and stuff, I got a job offer in Papua that I actually took. I left for a couple of months. After that, I returned to my parents' house.

Then, only a couple of weeks since my return from Papua, I went to Singapore and stayed there for just about two years(!). Of course, I still visited my parents once a month or so.

So, basically, since I wasn't in the house for quite a long time, my parents decided to rent out my room. I wasn't happy at all with the idea but I was too far away that I couldn't stop them and there was no real reason why I would stop them.

When I paid my parents a visit just before the room was occupied by a tenant, I had to pack my stuff including my books. At that time, we didn't have small boxes where I could have put my books. Instead, I used a big suitcase. I organized the books in the suitcase and zip it off tightly so no bugs or anything would have access to getting inside it.

All done, I went back to Singapore.

A couple of years later when I was back home already with my parents, at one time just earlier this year, I had a talk with my niece about me having written a novel. I told her that I had written a novel and wanted to show it to her. So, I was looking for the novel and the first place I went to was my book suitcase. I opened the suitcase and the novel wasn't there. I then looked at other places in the house. I think I've lost it.

Long story short, on August 20th this year (I remember the exact date because I posted a status on my Facebook wall), we had a leak in the storage room where I'd always had the book suitcase placed there! I was worried about my books. I checked the outer part of the suitcase and it wasn't wet, so pheww.

While the leak was being fixed, I then thought about looking inside the suitcase again in case I could find my missing novel. Maybe it was always there but I wasn't paying so much attention when I was looking for it a couple months back.

And, what happened next shocked me to death!

I'm not going to freak out here right now because I already did for a couple of days when I opened the suitcase on that day.

Basically, most of my precious books were eaten by termites.

...................................................... there, my soul dies for a moment.

I was speechless, sad, VERY sad, and wanted to cry. I had collected and bought the books with my money since I was in high school. There was too much memory to let go by throwing away the damaged, unrecognizable books. I remember we had this Harry Potter club in high school. There were me and three friends of mine in the group. And, every time I bought a Harry Potter book, I would write a note on the very first page after the cover about when I bought the book, what my friends in the group thought about the story, and other stuff that I would never want in my life to forget.

All of that has gone now into ashes. My mom had to burn the damaged pages in the fire. Nobody will ever understand how I felt at that time. My soul died.

I wish I could put all the feelings that I had at that time into words here right now. Instead, I'm just gonna show you some pictures and I will write something underneath each picture to help you know what's going on in the picture.

This is the first moment when I found the termites were still eating my books with their sharp most evil, heartless teeth

Look at those termites who have also eaten my soul alive!

It used to be a Harry Potter book

Another used-to-be Harry Potter book

The rest of the books that both survived and *kind of survived* are for now kept in these small boxes
And, by the way, I still keep the covers of the damaged Harry Potter books shown in the pictures above. Some day, when I am much older, I may find this horrible event sweet (as a memory) when looking at the surviving covers.

If I ever get married...

2011-09-13T22:35:00.004+07:00

I would like to play this song in the morning after my wedding waking up next to the love of my life. I have one person in mind whom I've known for almost a year now. Although we don't seem to be happening right now despite my best effort. Unfortunately. If the wedding will only happen in my dream, then let it be that way. I'm happy with idea already.

Waw! I have a lot to update!

2011-09-06T23:55:00.003+07:00

Since the last time I posted a proper blog post on this website, I've had a lot going on in my life. Nothing has been that fantastic or anything like that, but some events were pretty dramatic in a real way. So, what I'm gonna do tonight, right now, is making a short list of what I need to update this website with -as a sort of reminder so that I will know what I should talk about in my next blog posts.

The hints:

1. Termites

2. Neko + Burumun

3. Hari Raya

4. Niece' school project

Umm, that's all it? Haha! That doesn't look a lot at all! In my mind, they are like overwhelming right now! Perhaps I'm just a little panicking right now because of me keeping delaying to blog about those things that they have become such a weight on my shoulder that I need to release.

See you in the next blog post! Hopefully, tomorrow! :D

Cheers!

My cat 猫

2011-07-28T00:11:00.007+07:00

猫, or Neko in Romanji, means cat in Japanese. That is the name that I gave to my white cat. I bought the cat at the local animal market three days ago. I'd been looking for an all-white short-haired cat, but didn't want a domesticated or feral cat. It was a little bit difficult to find the cat that I had wanted. Fortunately, when I paid a visit to the market last Sunday I found what I'd been looking for. She was there caged with other two cats of different hair patterns. I asked the seller about the white cat, and she told me that it was half Persian, half feral. Perfect!

Neko
I've wanted to keep an all-white short-haired cat because the local or feral cats here in my country do not come with all-white hair. Normally, they come with patterns on the hair.

Neko is only 3 months old. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing her grow older and bigger. And, I have a thought that I will try to mate her with an all-white Maine Coon when she is old enough for delivering kittens, so that hopefully one of the kittens will come with all-white short hair and can grow as big as a mature Maine Coon. I picked a photo from this site to give you an idea how big a Maine Coon cat can be.

An announcement I need to make

2011-07-13T22:50:00.006+07:00

Chill out! I'm not pregnant! It's actually more of a more exciting news. So, I can finally use Instagram on my phone! ...Get it? You don't? Ok, how about this? I tried FaceTime and it worked!

That's it, really. Ha ha ha!

Ok, ok, not really. So, I finally bought one of my top dream gadgets. White iPhone 4. Got a 16 gig one. Also got a pretty cool transparent back case which came in the box with a cool kickstand, a case, and a screen protector -although I wish it was an anti-glare one.

It was supposed to be 2 months ago when the White iPhone 4 was finally released, as far as I can remember. As usual, I did a lot researches on the phone before deciding to make a purchase. I watched a lot of YouTube videos of people either unboxing or giving a review of the phone. I even briefly talked to a YouTube user who also just got his White iPhone 4 a few days before I got mine. He ended his message by saying "You won't regret it!".

So, why the long wait of two months since the release date?
Well, two days ago I finally got a most-anticipated mail from my bank and it was my approved credit card. Before, I used a credit card that was owned by my dad even though I had my name on the card. But now, it's purely mine and that also means I need to be more careful using the card. And, of course, I handed my old credit card to my dad to be cut at the bank.

As much as I feel good right now for the phone, I actually wish that I could still use my old number. Well, I could. But I wouldn't get the free data as much as 1 gig per month for the next year, and free SMS and voice calls. So, I'm still confused what I should do to my old number and my old phone too. Well, that's also another problem. The old phone, which is Samsung Wave 551 is actually still pretty new. It's only 5 months old. I'm planning on selling it but at the same time I don't want to have the old number inactive. But, if I keep delaying to sell it, the sale price will get lower. I'll figure out what I will do to the old phone, or I might just keep it?

Cheers!

ps:
Here's a couple of sample photos that I took today.

I took this elephant-man photo using the Instagram app that I mentioned earlier

I know, I know, I know. It's a rather ugly photo. Let's say, ~~it's almost midnight~~ I just look like that unattractive no matter when or what! On a serious note, this photo was taken using the phone's camera app.

Take me there! Take my phone!

2011-07-02T23:48:00.014+07:00

I'm a big fan of Perfume's, and just a few minutes ago I stumbled into a video of their most recent concert held at Tokyo Dome (東京ドーム), Japan. I will try to have the video embedded in this post (YouTube is acting weird at the moment 'cause somehow right now I can't get the embed code for the video) so you will be amazed and wish you could have gotten a chance to go to the concert just like I do!

In exchange, you could choose to take my iPad (maybe), Acer laptop (ok!), Canon camera (maybe) or my Samsung phone (take it!) if you could take me to any of their future concerts in Japan! I particularly wanna dance to one of their latest songs to date called レーザービーム (Laser Beam). I bet there will be lots of laser beam involved in the concert!

I can imagine I would probably cry for being elated if I were in the concert and joined the crowd who enjoyed the song in the video above (if I successfully have it embedded). Love the dancing song (it's called ポリリズム (Polyrhythm))! Love the surprise fireworks! Love the lasers! Love the crowd! and love Perfume!

Edit:
Here are a few PrintScreen shots of the video played on YouTube since the publisher doesn't allow anyone to embed their videos. See the video (please!) by clicking on this link: THIS IS A LINK.

Found him!

2011-06-20T23:46:00.002+07:00

Something reminded me of his full name and I tried searching for his facebook using the full name as the keyword... and he appeared on the top of the list! I recognized his face - which seriously hasn't changed a lot!

I've found Wanda's, my closest friend from childhood, facebook!

If he still lives where he moved to many years ago, I can definitely pay him a visit as I have a very close friend living in the same city too! Actually I'm really looking forward to meeting Wanda!

Woohoo!

I asked a stupid question

2011-05-25T18:09:00.002+07:00

One morning when I was in Singapore hanging out with someone I asked this question:
"Wow! You seem to be VERY familiar with this station, ya?"
The reply:
"Hmm... I live here?"
And I was like: "Damn it! Stupid question!" by saying:
"Oh yea, of course... hehe"

But you know what, it wasn't the question that mattered but me finding a topic so I could talk to you.

IMY.

Wish U were here, Wanda

2011-03-02T00:29:00.024+07:00

Wanda, he is (was?) my closest/best childhood friend -a very, very close friend of mine.

Yesterday I went out with a couple of new friends I made in Singapore to East Coast Park. It was my first time to be at the park and I just loved it. We went cycling and chilled out. I kept telling them how I wanted to return to the park and I did today.

Left to right: me, Keph, Haqeem
I went back to the park on my own today. I just thought since this is my last week in Singapore I should have a bit more fun by getting to know better of the country. It was pretty struggling for me to figure out the right route to the beach from where I stay. I ended up going about 3 kilometers too far by bus from the right turn towards the beach. I changed my mind by cabbing. It took me one hour until I reached the beach (normally by cab it should take only about 15 minutes). At least next time I will know which bus stop I should get off at.

On the quite long bus journey, I just thought to myself how I was excited to go to the beach and what I would do there on my own. Suddenly, I remembered Wanda.

I met him when I was at 4th grade and he was at 5th grade. Not based on my vivid memory, I think we met first time at a mosque during either Friday prayer or Ramadhan month. I found out he lived just behind my house [I just moved house at the time]. I don't think I can say everything about how we spent our time together over here because there are just too much details. But basically, we were very, very close.

Here are only a few of things that we used to do together:
- We would go down to the sewer in the neighborhood to catch small fish and other animals from the water. We would do it almost everyday after school, although we didn't go to the same school. And the 'fun' part is we often saw some random man took shit in the small tunnel under the road. We would NOT touch the water that day!
- We would screw the goats away from our yard by throwing stuff to them -goats in our hometown were set free and they would go back to their owner by evening. They were not wild goats.
- We would go up to the hill behind his very house and slide down using a carton board by sitting on it.
- We would shout on the top of the small hill to people we thought we knew from the neighborhood by calling their name.
- I would ask him to enter an empty abandoned house on the top of the hill -although he often refused because he was scared by the house keeper (who was not always there to keep the house since the gate was always locked)
- We would cycle with other friends of ours.

... and here are a few things that probably made us so close and why he meant to me as my very close friend -who I've missed a lot:
- We would always go to the beach near my school every Friday just after midday to catch the tide before it went up to cover the sand. We would lay down on the sand and catch trapped fishes in the puddles, and some other animals in shell. We would also try to catch what we called 'flying fish' (they hop on the water surface as their way of escaping). We would spend the whole afternoon there before we went back home.
- We actually found my very first cat from that beach and he named it for me.
- When we got home from the beach we would bath together in his large bathroom. Not totally naked but we were quite shy. [Of course, nothing sexual at all!!]
- We would get confused where to keep the animals (mostly crab kinds) that we caught from the beach because our parents would not like to see them in the house! So, we often put them in a bucket and hid it somewhere. They always died (sorry, PETA)
- We then would spend some more time before evening by playing with his so many cats, playing badminton or going up to the hill.
- He taught me how to cycle. It was at a small badminton court.
- I saw my first porn with him and some other friends in his house.
- I had my first and last cigarette with him. It is cute how I remember we were so scared as if there were a lot of people that we had to hide behind someone's backyard fence.
- I played my first Atari and PlayStation with him in his house.
- We caught someone in his backyard trying to steal his bird pets IN the cage! -very big cage where 5 people could fit in it. We were so scared because we were only kids and it was an adult. Wanda saw the guy first and then he told me about it. I think I then told him to get inside the house and let the person go. We waited and the person went away. It was scary. Even now remembering it gives me slight goosebumps.

There are many, many other things that we used to do together in details.

Unfortunately, a few years later he left for another town and island where his sister lived to move school. I was shocked and upset. We didn't talk and I didn't even take him to the airport or visit his house before he left. I was at school when he left. Basically, we never really said goodbye.

One or two years after that, I thought I would give him a call. I got his home number from his mother who at the time still lived in my neighborhood. I called him and we talked. Of course, I missed him at the time. We talked quite long and enjoyed it. Very sadly... when the phone bill arrived at the end of the month, my father was shocked to see one phone call that stood out in the bill. The call I made cost about US$5. It is not much at all but somehow back then it was such a very expensive call, and I did feel bad for it because I was not aware of how much it would cost to make the phone call. Handphones and internet were not popular yet at the time. My father got really mad that he took a pen and wrote on the wall with very big letters "NO MORE PHONE CALLS". Basically, that was my last phone call with Wanda.

Many years flew. I went to uni. At the time I had a Friendster account. I actually found Wanda's profile. However, he wasn't an active member so he didn't reply to my messages. But I did see his photos in Singapore. I guess he was on holiday.

That was it. I never talk to him anymore. I don't even know where he lives now. But today I do miss him.

So, when I was on my way to the beach I thought about all these things. I would definitely take him to East Coast park beach and have fun with him again. We loved going to the beach. We loved it so much.

So, the first thing that I did on the beach today was this (using my very index finger):

I really wish he could have joined me to the beach today. We would cycle for hours again. We would find fish and other small animals. We would lay on the sand. We would laugh.

Yea, if I can find him on Facebook I will show him this very dedicated blog post.

Feels good to have written down all the thoughts that had been in my mind all day today.

I may not have so many friends like most people do but I do keep best friends -even there are only one or two.

Good night!

2011th First Holiday in Singapore

2011-02-11T14:32:00.009+07:00

Last week I had a thought that I needed to get away from home for a while and the first place I thought of was Singapore. So, I went online to book the air tickets. I flew on AirAsia (because AirAsia is the only airline company that serves direct flights from Yogyakarta to Singapore, vice versa).

I arrived here in Singapore two days ago and have been quite busy catching up on work and meeting a couple of friends. The picture above was taken last night when I was having a visit to a friend's condo in Mountbatten area (well, the closest MRT (train) station was called Mountbatten).

That is actually a view of CBD of Singapore -mainly in Marina Bay area. You can (try really, really, really, really, really hard) see the Marina Sands towers where the Marina Sands Casino is, Singapore flyer and some landmarks over there.

By the way, I just thought I should make a post about me being in Singapore. I really hope everything goes very well for me here.

Cheers!

Featured on Quantter

2011-02-04T17:33:00.009+07:00

Just a few minutes ago I read a tweet from @Quantter in which it said that I am featured as one of Quantter users. I feel honored to have been featured on their blog. A few days ago the co-founder of Quantter.com @francis_dierick sent me a DM on twitter to write about myself and what I think about Quantter. It was very easy because I've genuinely loved using it. I can track my work everyday which helps me notice whether I do good or bad at work by watching how many words and articles I write, and how many hours I work (read About Me to know what I actually do).

Basically Quantter is like an engine that works to motivate you to do better at whatever you like doing as long as it is positive. In my case I like writing (since I was in high school) -in fact, I wrote an unpublished novel for myself at that time. And, how does the engine motivate me? Well, like I said earlier, since I always track my work everyday by updating my Quantter grid I can easily see if, for example, today I did better than yesterday or I did worse than yesterday. If I did better I would be just happy about it. But if I did worse I would automatically be motivated to work better the next day. There is also something else that 'positively forces' me to do better -it is because everyone can simply see my work progress from my Quantter page. I don't want to do so bad in front of people!

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you probably should see my Quantter page right now. The link will take you to see my Quantter grid last month (January 2011).

By the way, Quantter or anyone did not ask me to write this post. This post is dedicated to Quantter that has featured me today and made my day. Speaking of today, I decided not to do any work today because I had a long visit (4 hours) at the dentist this morning to get my teeth bleached and until this evening I am feeling a bit unwell.

Social Bar

2011-02-01T01:12:00.008+07:00

I just wanted to make a quick update especially on my website layout. I just added what I'd like to call a social bar where you can (1) follow me on Twitter, (2) be my friends on Facebook and (3) watch my work progress every single day on Quantter (someday I'd like to explain more of Quantter).

Now I'm gonna go downstairs to get some oatmeal for my after-supper. My stomach just won't stop growling!

BTW, briefly back to the website layout topic, I will slowly clean up or tidy up the codes (HTML, CSS, etc) - I'm still a nooby noob. You may think this layout looks nice but if you view the page source you'll be like what was nice again?

Need to try to sleep now (1:26AM!)! I've been a bit too down that I've not slept well for the last few days.

Good night! :)

Regards to you

2011-01-28T22:13:00.003+07:00

I'm sorry I can't be good enough for you. But you are good enough for me, and you know that.

First crop circle in Yogyakarta

2011-01-24T23:49:00.006+07:00

Today people in Yogyakarta were surprised by the appearance of a crop circle on a rice field located in Sleman (exactly at Desa Jogotirto, Berbah, Sleman -Google map here). I didn't see the news until I got back from my IT class at 6.30pm when my dad showed me what was on TV. Even then I had to go straight to my room to finish my work. I am just finishing it right now, and it is just midnight (dang, I work too hard!)

I went Google-ing and read some news from different sources about the truth of the crop circle that happened today. I am honestly into this kind of thing. I always find it interesting, who might be it?

I found a pretty good picture of the crop circle:

I just sent a text to a friend if he could take me to the place some time tomorrow as I live in Sleman, Yogyakarta too. I hope that I can take a few pictures of the circle (if it's still good enough to take picture of).

On the side note, I've been busier with work recently. I feel bad that I couldn't update this website more often. But hey it's for a good reason, eh?

Good night!

HNY'11!

2011-01-01T22:44:00.008+07:00

I have been gladly very busy with new work hence forgotten blog. I am actually forcing myself a bit to stay awake to write this post -just because I thought I should write something on the first day of the new year 2011.

Here are two pictures of me with my niece and nephew outside our house about an hour before New Year, and in the kitchen enjoying the NY's eve pizza.

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And here are two more pictures of me with good friends having our last lunch together in 2010 (taken December 28th).

Happy New Year 2011 to everyone!

Morning Biking

2010-12-24T22:45:00.004+07:00

This morning I woke up to my niece asking me to go biking around the neighborhood. It was probably 8AM and I was still sleepy. I said to her to give me 15 minutes to be awake. In the picture above we were at our favorite spot. I'm not sure if you can see it but there is actually a quite big circle framing inside the field. I had my camera with me this time hence the picture.

By the way, today was quite crowded with work -which was good. And, to be honest, writing this short post feels like a challenge. Ha! I just can't really stay awake right now.

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The PHP class yesterday was pretty fun. I could follow the lesson pretty well and asked, as usual, a lot of questions. Just looking forward to our next class on Monday morning! Yay!

Learning to Read

2010-12-21T21:57:00.012+07:00

I am such a noob in the world of Javascript. Reading the complex language is very struggling. The picture below is a simple example of Javascript language that is written to present a drop down menu. To me it is as complex as it looks. I find it difficult to read it -for example, the circled line.
Just how on Earth should you read that? Note: I know it must sound like a stupid joke for you who are very good at Javascripting, but, once again, I am a noob so bear with it, OK? Can you help me, Javascripters or, maybe, Javascriptians?

Yesterday was our fourth and last Javascript class, unfortunately. Tomorrow we will start to learn PHP. Hummm... I hope I can follow the lessons and actually be excellent at it.

Nini!

Weather I Love

2010-12-19T11:22:00.015+07:00

Not knowing where to go this morning I asked my mom if she needed anything from the supermarket. She knew I was bored hence a box of spaghetti to buy. As I rode my bike out I immediately loved the weather. It wasn't sunny but cloudy as if it was going to rain -which it didn't, and quite windy. I rode my bike more slowly than I would on a sunny day. I do personally prefer a cloudy, windy day to a hot sunny day. The fact that I've been living in a tropical country must be the only reason.

On a side note, the nice day I spent with hanging around my family and watching Ancient Aliens season 2 produced by History. I watched the first season many months ago I can't recall exactly.

In case you were wondering, the picture above was taken from the front of my house. If you are a plantologist you must ~~know~~ be able to guess what plants are in the picture. In case none of you are one, they are bamboos (left) and mango trees (right).

Have a good day!

Image Test

2010-12-18T14:20:00.018+07:00

Here I am just testing an image to see how it ~~looks~~ should look on the new layout. I took the picture when I was in Kowloon City, Hong Kong, some months ago. It was quite early in the morning so no hustle yet going on at that time.

Hello! I'm Rad.

2010-12-17T23:58:00.004+07:00

Welcome to my website. For the last 5 hours I have been designing the layout for this website and frankly enough I am very happy with it. Unfortunately, there are links that don't work yet, which are located on the right side of the main body - where the folders are. They are "clickable" but they won't lead you to the supposed page. Tomorrow I will take care of them.

Just today I decided to return to Blogger from Wordpress. I don't like the fact that I couldn't customize my Wordpress blog's layout. I wanted to customize the design but there was no way it could happen. I did some research online and ask friends about it to remind myself that there was nothing to do to make it happen. I will keep posting on my Wordpress blog until the end of this month and year because there is a challenge I need to finish and cannot abandon which ends by next month and year.

Thanks for your first visit!