Green Festival

Today I visited the Green Festival, an event to raise awareness regarding our suffering Earth. The overall event, design and management were quite pleasant, as hinted by the entrance gate:

It was however Benny & Mice that attracted my attention in the first place. They were in the main picture of the festival's headline reportage in Kompas, our nation's leading [and my personal favourite] newspaper. I never miss the cartoon every Sunday! They're pretty much the only Indonesian I'm a fan of. Witty, wacky, and funny, they poke fun on anything in Indonesian culture. And they do it oh so precisely!! They're the epitome of Sunday morning to me - still hazy eyed, sipping warm coffee and unshowered, reading Benny & Mice before everything else on Sunday edition of Kompas. Here I am with my heroes:

The green exhibition itself is arranged in a one-way multiple rooms, divided in sections as a house would. Each room describes things we could do to save energy in our bedroom, bathroom, etc. It's all neat and interesting:

Finally, I of course HAD to take a picture with the mascot, despite having to wait in line with just about everyone else:

There's even Starbucks there!

Graduation Day

I feel really overwhelmed about my students' Graduation Day right now. It's 7 weeks away, and I feel like I'm not going to finish the preparations on time. Everytime I finish something, something else would come up for me to worry about. Right now I'm really nervous about the decoration. What would I do to spice up the plain multifunction hall? It seems like a lot of work, and quite frankly I didn't think much about it before. I was too busy preparing the ceremony, music, photo slideshows, souvenirs, costumes, and it scares me because new things keep popping up!! Is this a kind of a panic attack? Not to mention that I actually don't want to let them go, since I've come to love them so much!

If any of you knows any good, fun, or unique graduation ideas/songs/whatever, please don't hesitate to comment here!

Work Hard, Play Harder

Everyday I feel tired and worn out at the end of the day. Weekend's my time to relax and rejuvenate, so that I can come back fresh on Monday. Right?

Wrong! Every weekend's end I feel that I've wronged my body. Today was the worst - I still felt exhausted when time forced me to leave my bed and go to school. I barely could open my eyes, let alone concentrate on anything. Hangover from the weekend is a killer! I was literally dying, I could just drop and fall asleep in the middle of the school. My kids gave me energy to go on, but my whole body complained. My legs hurt - that uncomfortable feeling that doesn't get better even when you relax your legs - I lacked of focus, having headache, and longing for a nap so badly.

Perhaps I'm just getting old, or getting overboard... well what can I do? I've only got 2 weekend days in a week!

Mallhopping

There's a plethora of malls in Jakarta. In fact, we don't seem to have much choice to spend our holidays! Want to eat? Go to the mall. The cinema's in the mall. Shop, in the mall, obviously. There are even play arenas and art exhibitions in the mall. Everything you want, conveniently located in 1 luxurious building.

I went with my family to the newly opened Pacific Place, to make use of their 25% off food promotion [with ANZ card, until early May]. The design is much like Senayan City, some corners look exactly the same, I felt like I was lost in a fabricated heaven. I mean I love these places for being so comfortable and luxurious, but with malls popping up here and there looking identical, I feel like I'm being swept away in an uncontrollable spiral downward the hedonistically consumptive lifestyle.

Then we went to Citraland to find a new faucet. That's right, our kitchen sink's faucet was broken this morning. It's also packed, I couldn't believe that there are so many people in each mall every weekend! Not much else to do - no nice parks to stroll through, no stylish museums to visit, no public libraries to enjoy... there's virtually nothing to do. Nothing nice anyway.

Then off with my friends, to eat dinner and watch Three Kingdoms. We went to eX and it's crowded once again! We almost didn't get seats for the show, but managed - although it was a bit too close to the screen for comfort. Luckily the film was enjoyable.

But hell, I spent the day mallhopping.

Seinfeld

I never get the jokes of stand-up comics, hence I don't really find Seinfeld funny. But it's on every weeknight right at the time I need to relax [i.e. just finished working], so inevitably I often end up watching it.

I still don't laugh much, but a striking thought hit me - their group is exactly like my own group of friends! Elaine with her 3 male friends - how they tend to take care of her, how laid back and relaxed their friendship is without any politics and hidden agendas attached, and - oh dearie me, the whole thing just resembles our group so much!! Except that we're not that crazy. Perhaps.

Fasting

Fasting does our body good in so many ways. I actually feel better for eating less, and I feel lighter. It saves lunch money. It gives much more time to do things instead of eating. [I always multitask while I eat anyway]. I feel so much grateful for my food when it's time to break the fast, instead of taking them for granted. It's all good.

Just My Luck

A store heir. An unemployed architect. A factory co-owner. A kindergarten teacher.
What do members of this group have in common?
"Everyone in this car is single!" One of us pointed out, and the bland truth hit us for a moment before we roared in laughter. Half amused, half confused, there's an unsaid question eternally looming among us: Why? It seems like there's a curse spreading around our group - but, perhaps it's the other way around, it's the curse that binds us together.
We're not really looking, let alone being desperate or anything, but still, it's an ironically amusing thought.
I've got this senseless fear that a certain someone might be gay. "God can't be that cruel!" I thought. But then - I looked back and realised that I've been living a cruel joke anyway, and based on my luck, I'm actually going to be surprised if he's straight. I'm writing this in the most lighthearted way possible, smirking, but oh God if You would, please let me out of this joke.
Don't let him be gay.

Just a Day Off

Finished filling out report books.
Women fighting for sale items are scarier than a bull running festival.
Manic Street Preachers make Rihanna's Umbrella sound good.
Somewhere Over The Rainbow is tough to sing.
Bonbon is sweet, Panpan is spicy, Dingding is neither.
Danny Noriega got voted off... pff.
Buy 1 get 1 at Starbucks.
My Sims want to go on a vacation.

Short on Money, Long on Time

In the eye of modern capitalist lifestyle, the phrase may seem like a lazy excuse for underachiever buggers. In an age where money is everything and jobs seem to be the main ingredient of life, God forbid that individuals other than studying youngters would still rejoice over being short on money and long on time.

Today's the first day of me having an unplanned cutback from 14 hours of work to roughly 11-12 hours a day. It's depressing, obviously, since I make slightly less money than previous months - but, dear God, how sweet it is to have time to actually do things. To take it slow, to enjoy not having to rush in the restriction of time.
To live.
How sweet it is to experience what Paolo Nutini sang in 'New Shoes':
Oh, short on money,
but long on time,
slowly strolling in the sweet sunshine,
and i'm running late,
and i don't need an excuse

I already plan to fill back those hours with paid work, and soon I will be back on 'long on money, short on time' - but in the mean time, I'm just going to enjoy the sweet sunshine - or in my case these days, the comfortably beautiful rain.

Secret Garden

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is one of my favourite books of all time. I like reading stories where the main characters are children, and I love English country gardens/mansions. Children story books are often more beautiful and pure - with limitless imaginations, earnestly charming personalities, and big appreciation of many things in life that adults often take for granted... or just don't notice anymore.

On top of all that, the idea of having a personal secret garden is extremely fascinating to me. It'd be heavenly to have a beautiful, fragrant, and tranquil enclosure that nobody else knows about, in the middle of a beautiful English country garden.

I thought it'd be a bit weird to call this blog a secret garden, when it's online on the worldwide web - but, upon further pondering, I thought it's still a secret in the sense that nobody will see it anyway unless I give them the link. Which is the purpose in the first place, where I and some closest friends plan to keep each other updated with each others' lives. So, here we go....