A place where I can live, breathe, talk and see

This whole morning I was thinking.. What would be the worst punishment ever given to a passionate designer..?

The answer is, to not to let them design. That is their worst nightmare.

It's like, asking a fish to breathe on air.

And that's exactly what I'm feeling. This morning. I feel like a fish taken out of the water and trying to breathe air. I can't. I can't. I'm desperate. I feel so down and low I'm going to cry. For once I'm so low I doubted myself.

But then, at the afternoon, my luck changed :). And I'm so glad of it.

The only thing that feels right is design. And you feel that you're truly at your elements when you design things. But then, there will be people telling you that you're not good enough.

But how can it be?

While the love and passion for design is still burning like hell's fire, how can the design be not good?

Well there are many many reason. Maybe you're just unlucky. Maybe you're still lacking of experience, but the talent is there. So you'd just have to practice more. Read more. See more.

But the most important thing is, try again. You can't stop everytime there's people telling you you can't, because then, you'll gone nowhere.

You go and do whatever your heart leads you. Ignore negativities, for it will poison and rot you slowly.

Fight for your love. Fight for what you love. Fight for you beliefs. :)

A few days ago I show my online portfolio to a friend. And he saw my little flickr photos slide show attached, at the top right corner.

xx : Are you into photography now?
me : ...
me : Nope. I just love capturing precious moments
xx : wow, your photos are very colorful
me : yeah, well that's how I see the world

This short conversation shows that :

1. I'm afraid of the word photography. Strange as it may seem, but in my head, that word correlates with highly expensive gadgets and whatever special techniques and buttons to press and knobs to turn which obviously I don't have any interest to buy or study. So, no, I'm not into photography. I just love capturing the moments, precious moments, my precious moments. And with my handy dandy pocket camera, I'm trying my best to freeze those moments the way I see it, and put it in my treasure box. And with the fact that I'm a sucker for composition, beauty, colors and photoshop, it makes my pictures has a few nice compositions and angles and colors and whatever. But no techniques, obviously.

2. I definitely love colors. :)) You can see it right away from my streams of pictures. That's why I became so fascinated by Bangkok. It's a damn colorful city and I'm loving every corner of it.

And today, I once again brought my faithful hand dandy pocket camera to the Waterfools show. A French water acrobatic show at Boat Quay, as an opening to the Singapore Art Festival for the whole month. I brought my camera, to capture the moments. The show starts at 8. It was a fascinating show and I enjoy it very very much. Then I took my camera and starts clicking away to capture the moments. But none of the clicks came out good. Maybe because of the lack of light and tripod. :( And then I thought why don't I just record the show on video? So then, I finally am capturing the moments, in videos. Which I think is a better media to capture the moments than photos, as you can see all the movements, and even listen to the music and fireworks play.

But you know what, none of the recording tools can really capture the essence of the show, with all its beauties. Nothing. Honestly!

What we capture on videos, and what we've seen on tv, is only 10% of the actual excitement and beauty. I just realize that fact when I replay the videos and comparing it with the memory of the show in my mind.

It's nothing compared to the real thing.

And on the contrary, a good photographs, can capture the moments really well. Sometimes even better than the actual condition. Which explains how often are we get fooled by jaw-dropping pictures of tourist destinations.

This topic has lingered my mind for quite a while, and I still haven't got the hold of the entire topic, but I thought I'll just blurt it out here. Just so you know. :P

As in the Secret has always said, don't underestimate the power of your mind. Visualize, and make yourself believe that you deserve whatever thing that you want. Be happy about it, and visualize, and you'll attract those things to come to you.

Well, then, explain this.

How can one who has a strong feeling for somebody else (I'm talking about love here) for quite a while, somehow fail to attract the object of one's affection? If our visualization and belief is so strong, the why we have unrequited love and obsession in this world?

* referring to my own experience of unrequited love and crazy infatuation * :D why?

In a book I read, the heroine said (more less), that we can never go wrong with a good book. We can be lost or lonely in foreign places, but with a good book to accompany us we'll always feel.. secure. I couldn't agree more with that. That's so true. And I also think that's why I always feel so happy and secure once I bought books I like.

Now it's getting worse, since I've known this very cool 2nd hand bookshop place which is full of all the titles I like at a very good price. Now it's like an addiction. I have my own rules that I won't buy another book if I haven't finish the one I'm reading right now, unless it's a very very good bargain, or something that has something to do with work or other life's emergencies.

But now, I bought new books once a week, especially when it's the weekend and I've no idea what to do. Once every 2 weeks if I've something else to keep me occupied. But books has always been my last resort. My best friend. Well, a best friend I can get comfort from(by reading it, of course) whenever I wanted and I don't have to give/ do something in return. Maybe books are the best invention for a selfish brat like me. Other than dildos, of course. But then again, I never had nor experience one (yet!), so books has always been on top of my list.

I just realised how much I hate airports.

Maybe I'm just being sentimental, but that's what I feel right now. Taking my baby brother to the airport, and having to say goodbye, it's just the hardest thing. I hate goodbyes, and basically I hate all the places where we should experience it. Especially with those close to our hearts. I always have this lonely, sulky, sinking feeling each time I leave those venues, more often are airports.

And with all those many shopping places, restaurants, executive lounges, are they supposed to make our goodbyes easier? It sure isn't working for me. The designer of these airports should've come up with better ideas you know. They should've known that none of these material things matters when we're separated with those close to our hearts. Maybe instead of more retail spaces, there should be more free world-wide payphones, mosques/ chapels or meditation spaces, or maybe if they really can't do anything to lessen the pain of goodbyes, at the very least they should've made the fastest getaway path out of the building, instead of making me walk through the long, out of proportioned and empty hallways, taking a few minutes sky train rides, went up and down the long escalator.. Instead they should've made a magical glass elevator like Willy Wonka's, that can transport me anywhere in a zap.

Oh well..

This last few weeks I had the craziest infatuation.

I'm about to be married in a year (or less), but here I am, lusting and blushing and get all flipped out over this person I never even talked to! Well, that's if the interview session isn't counted.. It's shameful, I know that. I cannot even talked about it to my friends, so I just let it out here.

The most embarrassing moment is today, at lunch. When we're having lunch with all the Indonesians, then I caught a glimpse of him. And then I pretend not to look at him, while my heart is doing a trapeze dance. And then my friends says hi to him, so I had to look at him and smile. And he smiles back.



...

...



And there.


My face's burning.


My heart stopped beating for a second.


And I couldn't breathe..


:DD *LOL* *sigh*




Jeez, it's been too long since the last time I had this crazy infatuations. The last I can remember is with Boni :D My first is with my brother's friend, the 2nd is also, the 3rd is with this guy at high school, and Boni, and now, 4 years later, HIM.

Oh I'm so ashamed!!!! :(((( My reactions are stupid and crazy, and yet I couldn't helped it! Maybe it's because I've been away from my boyfriend for far too long..?

It's fun, just not to get bored at the office, but I think I get over reacted, and my reaction is very embarrassing.. :(( I feel like a stupid lovesick puppy..

I need to get over this crazy infatuation, although I kind of liked the feeling :D Ah, the desperate girl.. So I searched on Google for his name, but the result is too many.. :P and I just don't have the heart to go browse one by one.

Anyway, I'll be back to update on this. Especially on his availability. :P

I met Surya Paloh today. He's checking out my design in a hair salon, on his gym session break, for a mere minute, shook my hand, tell me it's great, and walked away. Just like that.

After hours of preparations, several commuting routes from the supplier, an hour plus of waiting, and heaps of documents to carry along. Not that I'm complaining, but it's just.. Too much.

Anyway, it's the first time I talked to a celebrity. Not just the usual your everyday infotainment celebrities, but someone of high power and wealth. But then, he's still rank pretty low amongst other rich Indonesians.

Which got me thinking.. Me, who never gets anxious into being at proximity with someone famous, finally gets anxious! :)) So I'm not entirely immune to celebrity-dom after all...

Did you know how people who thought they are at a higher social & economic level than others tends to take others for granted? This act has been done by my boss, just to show (supposedly) me that he's better than me. Well, in age and wealth, that's definitely. He's a good a lot older and richer. And for some people, that kind of act may cause them to give more respect, but not me. I found that act ridiculous. And I've never pay respect for someone who wouldn't respect others.

No, the title isn't some figure of speech. The title clearly telling you that I am dreaming about Soeharto, last night. It's a weird dream, and I woke up instantly, because of the heat and the mosquito bites, of course.

After all it's not a bad dream, definitely not a nightmare, just a weird dream. Why would on earth I dreamt of Soeharto? I could've just dreamt of my late Grandmother, it's far better, and I miss her too.

In my dream, I was his grand daughter. He's sitting on a bench wearing black shirt, and I asked him how is he doing? He looked healthy and younger than he is now, and he told me he's fine. That's all I can remember. But maybe that's all. No more, no less.

Anyway, I looked up at dreamdoctor, and I checked on the dictionary under C, for Celebrity. Yep, Soeharto is a celebrity of his kind, whatever that is. And it said that it's a sign, that I'm going to be elevated into a celebrity level. Or a higher level than I am now. Woww.. I never even thought of it.. It sounds like a good idea though. Let's just hope so, and also hope for the best, that this is going to be a good sign for my new Singapore adventure.. :-D

I feel very weird this last few days.. I feel anxious and weird, and sad and bitter, and insecurity and doubt towards I don't know what..

I guess I'm losing my trust in him, but I don't know why..

I don't know where I went wrong. I don't know does God wants to tell me something, or this is just one of those low days, when I wasn't being myself..

" I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Pardon me for not being able to spot this image up to 10 months after the biggest flood in Jakarta.. I'm trying to, with my limited resorces, but I've tried.

And this is the very first publication of the sumur resapan diagrams I've ever seen.

We should have this picture socialized to the whole community months ago!! This image is do damn important, I wonder why people doesn't even care to apply this simple technique to make our world, our city, a better place.

It's the very least thing we can do...

I wanted to be the Wind, I wanted to be the Sun, I'll run recklessly chasing whatever dreams I got in my life.. I wanted to run up to the top of Everest and shouted to the whole world that I am capable of EVERYTHING.. And I'll be able to do whatever my heart told me, whenever I like.. No pretenses, no fake smiles, no blackened heart. I wanted to be free of everything, I wanted to be free of pain, of misery, of all the bad thought and bad things that poisoned the World. I wanted to be free, I wanted to be pure, I wanted to be sincere. I want to live in a world where no strategies, no lies, no deceit and no hypocrisy.. I wanted to live purely and innocently, in a pure world, with selfless people, kind and considerate as they'd always be..

Suddenly I feel tired of all this. Sick of having to depend so much on money. So I'd have to be either filthy rich, or so carelessly poor in the depth of rain forest in Kalimantan, dedicating myself to save the environment or try stopping the illegal logging, or just trying to educate the uncivilized tribes there, before they ate my flesh and hung my shrunkened head on a stick outside their village.. :))

I need tranquility, I need stability, I need comfort, and I need a peace of mind. I need to take a stroll up to a hill/ forest/ lake.. And just sit there watching the world spinning around me like there'll be no tomorrow.. And probably there won't be any, but at least I've made my peace.

I wanted to sit by my window, watch the sun goes down, blackened the skies, and just listen to the wind gushing and rain drops, doors banging and a distant human noises..

And I'm free.

I just saw the Golden Compass yesterday, and it's interesting that daemons and their humans can't be separated. Daemons are part of the human soul, and if they are to be separated, it'll drive each other crazy and they'd have to endured an excruciating pain to the level of death.

That's exactly how I feel when I don't see or at least talked to him. If we were living in the Golden Compass parallel world, I think I'm becoming his daemon, or he's becoming mine. This fact I learned yesterday, when I got mad at him over a thing, and I decided to ignore him. But the more I try to ignore & hate him, the more my heart aches. I'm trying to hurt him, but the fact that it hurts me also..

And then once again I pray to God, for God to show me the way, and to separate our hearts if we weren't meant to be, and to holds our hearts together if we're meant to be.. And apparently, later that night, the anger has gone and we're lovers again.. ;-)

The war against carbon gasses emissions has gone to an insane level, I think.

Not long ago I read about scientists has found that paddy (yes, our very own paddy, the one plant that Dewi Sri has given her name for) emits quite a significant number of carbon into the atmosphere, and now the scientists are trying to develop an 'environmental friendly' paddy (gee, the term itself disgusts me.. :-P). Can anyone see the weirdness of those lines? I thought the word 'environmental friendly' is only for those things that aren't existed naturally in nature. But PADDY??!?!?! Hmm, well, apparently not.. :-P That's 1 forgiven ridiculousness. And I thought, we can forgive this one. After all, if it's worth for the sake of the whole society, then why not?

But then came the 2nd news that changes my opinion almost entirely. Which is, scientists has done research on cows, and it turns out that their farts emits a 'significant' (I don't know what that word actually means anymore..) carbon gasses to the atmosphere; while kangaroo's fart are more 'environmentally friendly' than cows. And now scientists are doing a research to make cows fart like kangaroos. Now how stupid is THAT??

This war against carbon gasses has gone from denial, skeptical, thriving, supportive to obsessed and ridiculous.

Or maybe it is way easier to make a different kind of paddy, or to make cows farts like kangaroos; than banned capitalists & crazy industrial businesses in countries like USA and China?

The climate crisis and it's derivatives (green living, low carbon emission, alternative energy, horrible disasters, etc) are today's hot issues.

In a way, I feel that this is Mother Nature's way to cleanse her self. Yes, all those disasters, the melting ice caps, the floods, the wild fires, the bursting volcanoes, the hunger, the elongated dry season, even the victims..

Buddha taught us that everything in this world is connected to each other, forming a perfect balance, the perfect equilibrium. And a positive disturbance at one part of the equilibrium will cause a harsh negative disturbance at the other part. And in our beloved earth, human has caused the equilibrium to shake, stir, twist, fold, skew, and almost torn. To keep this balance calmed, and to keep the equilibrium from torn apart, Mother Nature'd have to do a few things. To make things right. I just hope that the past bad karma we're paying off now isn't too devastating..

I accidentally bumped into Steve Pavlina's website (http://www.stevepavlina.com) and found this article titled 'How to Make Money from Your Blog'. It's a very interesting article, and I just realised that we CAN get money from blogging. Gee.. :-D I'm enlightened!!

And this last few days I'm fully mesmerised by my 'new' findings at the blogging world: Google AdSense!! And I FINNALY knows how to put an extra features (shoutbox, google search, ads, etc2) to my blog. I've been wondering for quite a while for that.. I'm never an internet tech junkie, you know..

Now I'm reading a material on how to promote my website, which could be a little difficult. Few tips from Steve Pavlina are to create valuable, original & timeless content. Things that my blog aren't. This could be a little tricky..

Anyway, just wish me goodluck, okay? :-D As my revenue (hopefully) grows I'll keep it posted in the blog. And don't forget to keep on clicking!! *big grin*

Many more interesting thing I read from his blog is this :
"While many entrepreneurs pursue money for the purpose of becoming wealthy, I choose a different route. I sought to earn money for the purpose of increasing my freedom."
and..
"Since the income generation is largely on autopilot, I can focus my time and energy on creating content instead of on doing marketing or trying to sell something."

This is so 100% true!! THIS is the term I've been looking for each time I talked about money and ambition with my friends. My friends took me as ambitious, but I feel more like needing more money to have more freedom in doing things I love. And having an income generation on autopilot, I've always wanted that. Not because I'm lazy, but mainly for me to have more time focusing on things that I like most (that can generates a whole lot of money, of course..)

And another good one is this :
"The funny thing is that the less I rely on money, the more of it I seem to have "
The above sentence might have something to do with the Secret. And again, it's 100% true.

And so, again, wish me all the best in venturing this new world of internet blog money-digging, and hope to see you again in the next post talking about my outstanding revenues ;-)

This morning a read a post at BLDGBLOG, and it's simply terrifying. It discusses the images by artists Pedro Armeste & Mario Gomez for this new new project by Greenpeace. It's images of how the earth landscape will be affected by global warming.

The pics are before and after pics; showing rising sea levels, aerial views of flooded cities with helpless skyscrapers, dry rivers, dry cropfields, and things like that. I've seen images like that before, but seeing it all over again, and reading the naration (please read the complete post on : http://www.bldgblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/climate-change-escapism.html) makes me think again about the world, life, and what really matters in our short, helpless life..

We're small, we're nothing, so why there are egomaniacs in this world with their politics and so-called power, who thinks they can play God? What will they do if all their money, politics and power are helpless against the forces of nature?

Definitely a good read. Thanks BLDGBLOG for sharing! :D

This isn't a political insight whatsoever, this is merely my thoughts. A thought that never seems to be out of my head and so I've share and post it on this blog. It's concerning this one sentence from Hamengku Buwono X on one of Andy Noya's interview session at Kick Andy that said (more or less.. *wink* ), "I don't want to run myself for President. If the people of Indonesia needs me, they'll come for me".

To me, it clarifies the whole 'satrio piningit' term (english: the undisclosed warrior). A real warrior never claimed itself as warrior. This is part of Javanese wisdom which (unfortunately) in this modern capitalist days are considered as the Javanese's lack of competitiveness, which kept us dumb, stupid and underestimated by others...

Oh well.. Anyway, I'm a Javanese too. Altough I'm considered uncompetitive, and always underestimated by others, I'm still proud to be a Javanese. *grin*