About the Dino

"When I was a kid, i loved to draw a dinosaur!" he said.

He went on and pen the creature on her calendar. While tracing his ink strokes she was reminded about her own habit of drawing two fat fingers on her book covers.






Pinching her eyes and trying to find what's so Dino in the Dinosaur, she smiled and giggled thinking how funny it is, that now the Dinosaur has found his Peace.








And that now her fat fingers have found their use as to what they want to keep.

About hardships

Things get tough
And you curl on your bed
Wishing nobody was looking for you
Wishing you were a piece of crayon,
safe and sound inside the crayon box,
at least until the bullies come and rip you apart

Things get hard
You pray that you can stand tomorrow
Then you remember that you prayed the same thing yesterday
So now you add,
that you don't wanna pray tomorrow,
at least not the same thing

Things get messy
And you try so hard to keep it all together
You try so hard to make it count
Upon which you start wonder
how these tiny hands can hold so much,
at least until they break

About The Lunchbox (2013)

I recently watched "The Lunchbox" on DVD, in Singapore, after purchasing it at Mustafa. For those of you who don't know what Mustafa is, please, please, pleaseeeeeee do yourself a favor: google "Mustafa Centre Singapore" and put it as one of your go-to place when you go to Singapore.

You'll be amazed. This shopping centre opens 24 hours, and carries everything, I repeat: everything, you can think of. Clothes. Soaps. Medicines. Electronic goods. Footwear. Watches. Foreign exchange. even JEWELRY. Yes, they sell gold. At one point, they even sell cars. Like, yeah, cars.....

Anyway, not going to talk about Mustafa, even though if I had a chance to interview the owner, I would build a dedicated post website for them, more like a Mustafa fan club, complete with a how-to-find-x guide ebook. We can call ourselves: Mustafan.

About The Lunchbox (2013) now...
This film won so many awards, and I can understand the appeal. The premise of the film is whether you can fall in love with someone you have never met. First of all, if you like 50 Shades of Grey type of thing, move over. The Lunchbox is a love story that shows no physical interaction whatsoever in its 104-min running time. The only interaction that the two "lovers" have is through the lunchbox, that was mistakenly delivered to one of them.

"I think we forget things if we have no one to tell them to," said one of the lines in the lunchbox note exchanges.

Is it really true? When we were a kid, we were told to repeat stuff mainly so (I assume) we could stick it to our head. As we are growing older, the process of remembering stays the same, but what about the process of forgetting?

Forgetting is such a paradox. When we want to forget something, we need to first remember what it is we want to forget. And guess what? Sometimes we are stuck with remembering that we need to forget about X, rather than actually forgetting X. Confusing...

#spoileralert
In The Lunchbox, one of the lovers chose to leave. I think at the end of the day, separation is the first step of forgetting. Like some unsuccessful LDR doers say, "It's the distance."

Here's my unapologetically-amateur rating for The Lunchbox: 8/10
Directing: 9/10
Cinematography: 8/10
Editing: 8/10
Wardrobe/Make-up/Hair-do: 7/10
Acting: 8/10
Script: 9/10
Production Design: 7/10


Let me know what you think if you watch it by any chance :)

About the science of falling in love

This is how I fell in love

Exactly this

And I know it because I did it before. I've read about the experiment in a few articles before. Having an experience as a research assistant on Emotional Intelligence, I know a thing or two about Interpersonal Relationship and how openness can affect your relationship with (who you thought is) a stranger.

I don't know how to fall out of love with someone though. Can the reverse be true? Like you just need to not share? You just need to not care enough.

Anyways. It's also interesting if repetition can work just as effective. If this is what you need to fall in love, can you, say, do it again with a different person and fall in love again, just as much? Or will you then be reminded of how you fell in love with your previous partner (whom you fell in love with, by the very same process) and go back rerouting to that person? After all, romanticization is a powerful thing. If everything is as easy as it is though, I'll open a love clinic and prepare my troops of strangers to connect with you and make you fall in love all over again.

We love science, don't we all?

About rejection

You can smell a rejection from a mile away, yet it stinks, so much, that you cover your nose and make sure it doesn't go through your nostril and it catches you off-guard when you run out of breath and are forced to sniff it when it's right in front of you. That's when you kinda have to inhale, involuntarily, the bad gulp of air, at once.

In short: it sucks.

About Thanksgiving!

It's been a while since I feel like writing something with lots of meat in it, so this post will be it. #punintended

Last weekend, as a part of our plan to recreate Thanksgiving-in-the-U.S. in Indonesia, my friends and I rent a service apartment in Kuningan Area (***w**d) where we can get together, bring lots of food, booze, games, and as I mentioned earlier in this entry, have our very own Thanksgiving dinner brouhaha...

and if brouhaha isn't the right word to describe it, I don't know what else will be.

As a start, our menu is something like: turkey . gravy . cranberry sauce . pizza . charcoal pizza . kfc bucket . lamb kabob . baked pastel . crab rangoon . brie cheese with fig jam . filled egg with fancy stuff . lasagna . macaroni schotel . risoles . sausages . salad . martabak manis . martabak asin . raspberry pretzel pie . nutella pie . apple crumble . wine (cab) . wine (cab + merlot) . wine (merlot) . grey goose . 2x24 bintang beer . 2x24 bintang radler beer . 

... yeah, something like that. I might have forgotten a couple, because who wouldn't after stuffing all sort of food into one's mouth like that?

We dined before playing more than one drinking game because everybody got bored pretty easily. At first, we played "heads up" in teams. Some teams are pretty good even though there are more than one occurrences where this happened:

A: *acting this one out, literally, minus the hotness*



B: BADMINTON!


...


We then named our cups to move on to cup games. Mine was named "alcoholic" because, you know, they just have the most baseless assumption that I drink a lot. We also chose a loser song to be played everytime one had to drink. Our loser song of the night was this.

We played King's Cup, Flip Cup, and countless card games to finish the liquor. Apparently that's the goal of the night (re: to finish the liquor).

At the end of everything, we feel pretty hollow about the fact that we need to get back to reality. Everybody misses those times we spent in our apartment in the U.S. with/without friends coming over. Everybody misses having our own "space" at a certain age when life doesn't seem too much cluttered with, well, lives, of us and other people, who suddenly pop in the way, saying "Hi, btw, you should think about us too. Nope, you don't have any choice and you can't bail right now..."

Regardless, two days are too long to be a Negative Nancy and should be too short to be a Hopeful Hillary1. We must remain grateful that we have each other, at least.

To remind myself of the fabulous 2015, this is the list of what I've been thankful for:
- a chance to travel more than I've ever had in years. 
- an elementary family who started to learn that I don't need to be available in every family business (and that I have needs to go out more than I used to).
- a brother who just earned his private pilot license.
- more than one accountability partner who gladly will slap me in my face when I'm acting less like a rational person and more like a douchebag.
- more than one BFF for life who gladly will act douchey with me when we feel like we need to.
- a job that can keep up with my moody self.
- alcohol.
- instagram filters.
- a not-so-bad transition to my 25-year-old self. I had a couple2 of good-cry days and stuff... I also had a breakout, which is not a normal quarter-life crisis reaction after I did my research (What am I? A certified late-bloomer?) but I think it could have been worse.
- a good mood that encourages me to start writing again...

And now, as promised...

Brouhaha Pictures!

these two boxes of pizza is the earlier food that arrived, so we happened to take a picture of them, before everything else came and we ate everything voraciously.

the eating group at the dinner table, the cooking group was at the back, in the kitchen, cooking...

big elisa's head and half of the squad

the girls.

nope, the one i was holding was not liquor, guys. It was a bottle of chili because, uum, i need to get hotter?

the guys.

nope, they weren't drunk. this is their usual selves.

candidly taken *seriously*

the complete pack

me and my cute love

May we keep the thankful attitude way beyond the thanksgiving weekend, and may being thankful doesn't stop us from being hungry young blood who chase our dreams and what-not. 





1 I made that up

2 Well, more than a couple.

About wasting 10 minutes of my day

and feeling good about it

About DJ Snake's Middle (or not)

Never mind the popping, beamy dots...

I know, they're pretty annoying.

I hope it's okay with you; in the middle of this post, I'm putting DJ Snake's Middle link for all of us to enjoy!

Lying down beside you, was going through your head
The silence in the air felt like my soul froze
Am I just overthinking feelings? I can't tell.
This gut feeling I'm tryna gain, I feel it well
I hope we find our missing pieces, I'm just --chill
We're gonna sweep it under the carpet...

This song has been on repeat for--I don't know, a couple of hundred times?--in the past 24 hours. I've learned how to do a good mandolin cover for it so here you go, DJ Snake's Middle, mandolin cover, by me! #roundofapplause #takeabow #pickupparker*

JUST KIDDING. Not there yet, guys. Not there, yet.

It's a thanksgiving week now, in the U.S. I bet lots of you are putting Turkey in the middle of the table as we speak, and I would like to wish you all a happy, thankful, Thanksgiving! My friends and I are planning a thanksgiving dinner tonight, with Turkey and booze, so I'm very excited. These guys are literally bringing the tradition to 8,972 miles away** and putting a new spin on "Thanksgiving Dinner" --Turkey + Martabak Manis, anyone?

I'll post the pics and brouhaha next.

Well, I hope you're having a good Thanksgiving weekend in the middle of your crazy schedule / closing-the-book period / life in general. I will close with these wise words from a wise man out there:

"May your stuffing be tasty; may your turkey plump

May your potatoes and gravy have nary a lump

May your yams be delicious and your pies take the prize

May your Thanksgiving dinner stay off of your thighs"

GOBBLE GOBBLE

*Parker is my mandolin's name. He's awesome.

**This is exact LA-Jakarta distance, according to Google

About the things you're not supposed to say when you *only* moderately like a girl

That you can't stop thinking about her.

That you fall for her and feel like you're willing to give everything for her.

That you weep for her, once, or twice.

That you can imagine being 40 and waking up next to her.

That you would spend the rest of your life with her, given a different circumstance in life.

That you want her to be around because you need her and she could just be the one.

That you question the universe about the meaning of your meet-cute story.

That if things were different, you would kneel down and ride off into the sunset with her.

That she's different and you think of her in a different way, so she should think of you in a different way too, and that you both would have been perfect together.

That you love her, and she should not forget about that, when clearly you're just not there yet.



Because she might have taken them a little bit too seriously, and because she might fall in love with you for what she thought you really feel.

Because she masturbates to those words, and because they please her more than she thought they would.

Because she doesn't expect anything, but the fact that those words matter and are true.

Because later when she finds out that they are not, she will be torn and as always, the blame will be on her for believing too much, for caring too much, for giving too much.

And later when she becomes a woman, she will remember you as a lesson, not to play with fire because fire burns, and it sure does hurt a lot.

About coping and finding answers

So... ---> the worst way to start a post.

After a month losing one of the relationships I've treasured the most, I realize that I have a really good coping mechanism. I don't know what it is, and I don't know how I really do it, or I might be in a big river called denial (The Nile, got it? Old pun, I know...) which means I'm not yet outdone my grief yet, but yes, I'm fine now.

Here is a list of things that I did/do to pamper myself after:
1. Watching Imagine Dragons concert.
Alone. I don't care. They did well. The live concert was very much entertaining.

2. Eating lots of chicken.
I know it should be chocolate, but I can't afford to gain more pounds. In fact, I should lose some to get back in the game pretty soon.

3. Working, working, and working.
I take on some responsibilities in some organizations, involve in some secret projects, and I literally work too, so I'm busy. I always love having something to do.

4. Doing some late-night walking around downtown.
Seeing city lights is a good remedy. I take Journey's advice, "Don't stop... believing! Hold on to that feeeeeeeeliiiing. Street lights! Peopleeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" But that's street lights, and not city? Oh well, I got to see both during my late-night strolling time.

5. Abusing my digital piano.
What's better than watching live shows? Pretending that you are the star.

6. Having me time and turning my cellphone off.
I don't wanna know what happens out there. I have the rights to enjoy myself, and I can choose not to talk to people when I don't want to or not to explain what happened. I have never really done this before just because I have never found an appropriate excuse to do so.

7. Attending The L.A. Ultimate Women's Expo
Excuse me? Let me revise: The L.A. VERY ULTIMATE Women's Expo. Keynote speakers! Get my nail done! Wine tasting! Felicity Huffman! Awesome booths! <--- that can easily make me broke......

8. Splurge, on basically anything I want.
It should be over soon. I have my deadline approaching. But now I don't feel guilty because I fully sustain myself financially.

9. I'm fine.

10. I really am so fine.




"You know what happens when someone lets go of your hand? You get it back. It's a good thing. They're all still there. They all still love you. But it means you get your hand back. It means you have time. Not to wash the dishes. To do something with. To get out there. To find diseases to cure. To take it to the next level. To invent the Bailey method. You gotta get out there. Do something. And don't look back."
-Chief Webber, to Miranda Bailey, Grey's Anatomy Season 9 Episode 3-


Now I gotta get out there, find Siera method, and don't look back.

About acceptance

I saw a movie last year, and I forgot what the title was. I do remember though, there was a part in the movie where the lead actress went through her divorce and had to look through herself in the mirror and said, "I'm a widow. I'm a widow. I... am... a... widow...." (followed by heartbreaking crying scene, the world ended, everybody moved to Mars)

Acceptance is hard. I was tempted to do such a drama, looked at myself in the mirror and said, "I'm ... (you know, whatever I was in at that moment)" Is it that hard to accept things that you can't explain? Or is it that easy that you can actually make it through just by saying a couple of words to yourself in the mirror and you're ready to go afterwards?

Turning Tables

I won't let you close enough to hurt me,
I can't give you, the heart you think you gave me,
It's time to say goodbye to turning tables

Next time I'll be braver, I'll be my own savior,
Standing on my own 5-size feet...

So after listening to the ultimate break-up album,
and while crossing the street of Grand View and Venice on my way home from work,
I think I'm ready to let you go accept the fact that I have to let you go.

About discontentment

She stood there, seeing her own life in pieces
In flashes, like a shadow dragged by misfortunes

She sat quietly, wondering what just happened
So quiet, that she could hear her own thoughts
Or not? Were they actually hers?
She didn't know
Competing a full-speed train, her mind rushed unwillingly fast

For every moments passed, she didn't know why she was here
Hollow, she was
And what could possibly be the meaning of life, but a passion to survive?

About everything in this blog

Brainiacs,

Don't try to decode whatever I write here. Sometimes I don't even know what it means. I do have to straighten things up a bit.

1. On the contrary of popular belief, my world doesn't revolve around me and as much as I hate to admit, I don't love myself that much. Everything in this blog ISN'T always about me. I try to be a little bit bogus-ish by sometimes assuming myself as another person, with a set of emotions, and write what I think as the person. So yes, that post about falling in love might not be about me falling in love. It might be about how someone feels when he/she is falling in love.

2. I try to keep things universal by not defining "you." In my posts, "you" could be a teddy bear, a book, a lover, the weather, etc. I have fun writing for different random objects and you should have fun imagining too.

3. Needless to say, *literally, I don't have anything here, I just put it so I have a good rendition of "three things that need attention," Rule-of-three rules! <--- oh that's redundant* I LOVE YOU. I know some people do read my blog *blush* even though they don't want to comment on the posts. You know what, I don't care. I write for the sake of my own satisfaction. Of course my satisfaction goes up if some people do appreciate what I write. Appreciation could be in the form of closeted readers, or not-so-closeted ones. I LOVE YOU ALL.

About the magic of three

Three times the charm
Next time we met, we could talk about the weather
Because last night was the third time, and nothing happened
If there was something, it was me
and my stupid forbearance

You might not remember the first and second time we met
It hadn't come to my attention before yesterday
But yesterday was different

And what makes it different now seems like nothing

Yes, next time we met, we could talk about the weather
You would not remember
Neither would I
about what happened the third time we met
The weather would be more interesting than any other matters
Just like strangers

I guess we would start all over again
From the weather, shall we?

About a bittersweet ending

So this is it. This is how empty it feels after everything is done:




Yeah, it's the above. It's like an unfinished clause after a colon without period. People never told you that? Lemme do the honor. Ladies and gentlemen, GRADUATING SUCKS.

Whatttt? Sorry for being anti-Gabriel here. *Gabriel: the angel that brought the good news in the gospel*
Yes, I hereby declare that after-graduation is another chapter in your life where you wake up and realize that instead of your routine, you are now exposed to a mountain of uncertainties. Be it trying to find a job, getting your ass to move from its place (bed) even though you don't really know what you want to do, or making coffee just because that's what people do in the movie when they wake up in the morning, right?

Never in my life, I don't know where else to go or what else to do. That maybe because I have always been in school and I L.O.V.E. that. I LOVE staying in school. However, that's the state I'm in now: I don't know where else to go or what else to do. Actually, I don't know exactly where to go or exactly what to do. There are too many options and I want to do everything. A type-A like me, I want to get a job, make some money and get drown in it (in an ocean of money, of course). Another side of me telling this stubborn fresh graduate to, as cliche as it is, just find experience, make mistakes, and try everything I might be interested in. There is always the betrayer, a voice in the secret, dark, place, telling me to specifically do what I know what I'm passionate about and neither wasting time trying everything nor thinking about the financial aspect of whatever I want to do. Then, here she comes, the adventurer, the one that persuades me to do some crazy stuff like grad trip for a year or just go back home and have my never-ending-after-graduation-pause.

As they keep on debating, I'm left behind, more confuse than ever before.

Hush! Enough for the anti-Gabriel session. Now, why skipping the best moments of graduation? The actual day of commencement!

I'm extremely happy for the chance to meet these people from the beginning, to share with them one of the most important steps in my life, and for their willingness to take part in my journey. These people will always be acknowledged.

Mom. and she brings with her (can't you see it? It's in her heart!): My Daddy and Billy.

Yeah, you know him...

and of course my Wilshire Warriors!

My lovely CG Sesuatu and my soul sisters...

 My ISA!

                                 

I even write my "remarks". I don't know when to say it, so I just put it here.

Thank God for giving me life to live, hope to endure, and blessings to enjoy. I wanna thank papi, mami for being democratic parents. For asking me questions and letting me think for myself, and for giving me answers to decide what exactly black and white are. I’d like to thank Billy for telling me that you don’t need to be older to rebuke your sister. And also noenoe for his endless support. Last but certainly not the least, I would especially thank you guys, my beloved friends, in Wilshire, Sesuatu, ISA and others for teaching me that friends are not those you got, but those you keep. Thank you.

For other reasons that will never ever be enough to be expressed with words,

twas nice seeing you.

I'm so very blessed.

About contradictory power of love

Poison and Wine - The civil wars

This song must have some kind of additives. I've been listening to this over and over and over again, and I still can't get my mind over it. It's POISONous, in a sense that it kills my love for other songs, yet just like WINE, it calms my nerves. *See what I did there?*


In all seriousness, who named their band "The civil wars?" Kudos to Joy Williams and John Paul White. No, I didn't know them because of The Hunger Games or Taylor Swift. I knew them way back before they win Grammy Awards.


About the song: JW (Joy Williams) – Love has a way of ripping you apart just as much as it has a way of holding you together, and this piece is a gut-level-honest tug and pull of affection and affliction felt between two lovers. 


Love is not just about affection. It's a choice of being present in the circle of affection, even though it burns out. Being in love is falling out of love with someone, yet deliberately choosing to stay. It's not a commitment, because commitment is based on understanding what ones are signed up for. It's love when you don't even know how to weigh the costs and benefits. It's intuitive, not predictable. While commitment is a pledge, love gives you options.


That's why Best-Friend-A didn't say anything when Best-Friend-B decided to date C even though A liked B so damn much. B and C loved each other after all.
That's why my mom didn't kick me out when I said I wanted a whole different direction in life.
That's why my dad works hard to provide.


Love rips you apart, and pull you back together. All in all, it proves its abilities to attract more opportunities and possibilities. Love never shuts you down.

About being productive

This, when you have tons of work to do, yet you choose to update your blog instead, is called unproductive, or at least a failure in prioritization. Being an acknowledged writer (by myself, that is--a self-acknowledged writer slash a narcissist), I constantly find writers' flow when I don't need to. On the other side, I have writers' block when I need to write the most. It might be counter-intuitive though. I have writers' block caused by the need to write, and it turns into an ugly, vicious cycle. Let's not get into that.

I want to emphasize that the definition of being productive varies. I wonder what ADHD peeps think about being productive? Some people say productivity has a lot to do with focus/concentration, but having ADHD means inability to concentrate right? Does that mean ADHD peeps will never be productive? Okay, I'm throwing out questions that I do not know the answer. Maybe I have ADHD... or a little bit. I ramble a lot. My mind jumps off from one thing to another in almost every second.

ANYWAY

Why is there no song written about being productive? is it not important? No, it is! I should make one.
I'll try...

P.R...P.R.O.D.U.C.
P.R.O.D.U.C.T.I.V.I.T.Y
Productivity is you and I with P.R.D.C.T.V.and Y thrown in.
It's nothing without you and I.
Because it would be just Pr Dc Tv and Y.
PR... Public Relations
DC... District of Columbia
TV... Television
and Y...
But why
Why does it need you and I
Why does it need.......
Cause baby I need you.
To stay sane
To be in an express lane
With all the smiles and laughs
With all the silly bluff
You make me productive
Effective
Creative
Inventive, yeah...
Productivity...
(to be continued...)

About unofficially missing you

Is it my fault if I miss you?
Is it my fault if I am reluctant to these changes?
to your changes, to the different words that you whisper in the air?
It feels distant, like a slow motion of "help" in a thriller movie
Like a 70 in a metronome, slow, waiting for the next note to be played
A note that might never come because the song might be over
Should I blame the song?
Should I blame the air for carrying such bad news?
Should I blame the heart for having this big hole that it can't explain?

Should I blame you for leaving and not coming back?
Should I blame you for leaving before proclaiming that you were even there?
Should I blame myself for expecting different words, more songs, and more of you?