Rediscovering What My 15 Year Old Self Were Up To

Tonight while preparing some transit visa documents for my parents, suddenly I got a notification from my email. It's a reminder from my other email notifying inactivity. That email was registered for my class back in junior high school! Junior high!

It's been ages since I heard "8D"

Then I naturally wanted to regain access which I did. I saw the inbox that was filled with emails from Wordpress.

It literally slipped my mind completely that I used to do this back then. During my time in junior high and senior high, I am quite obsessed with handling social media for my classes. I started this when I was in 8th grade, then I remember somehow the school admin thought the dynamic was so good they miraculously did not reshuffle the students for the 9th grade, so I got to keep the same account. The account is still there on twitter btw 😂 @9binfo. The bio OMG, was updated last when we were in high school and now it's been ten fucking years since we graduated high school!

Back then, you know BBM groups or WhatsApp groups were not that hit, but people did use twitter. So I used that twitter account to update about school tasks or even funny things that happen during the day. I was sooo into journalism wasn't I, now that I think about it?!

Another thing that I am soooo amazed at my old self was.. that I managed to have a blog for my classes guys.... Haha yes I was the admin of https://9binfo.wordpress.com/ 😳

I looked at the blog and dang I was so surprised at how much time I had back then.. or how flowy I was with expressing things. I don't even know if anyone's reading the blog, but I remember (slightly) writing it and then seeing the posts posted brought so much joy to me. To be honest I think if I were raised like in the US or something, I would have gone into journalism or had a career as some series' writer. Or if my life were any more exciting, I would probably launch a book like Raditya Dika or poconggg! Hahaha.

I literally made a comic using Paint guys......

Missing those old times!

2025 Autumn Trip: Jordan, it's one for the books!

Hello again :) Gotta give it to me for being able to quell the will to write much more than I did the years before haha. Human memory is always the weakest memory holder of them all, and that's precisely why civilizations never progressed much until humans found out how to write out their minds and expertise into stories and preserve them.. I don't want this memory to fade away anytime soon, so let's write it out while it's fresh! :)

Earlier this week, I just ended one of the most fun trips I've had in a while. I went to Turkiye and Jordan with dear friends of mine, Sarah and Leona!

Someone asked me if I went with my work friends, and to be honest, it might sound degrading to label them just as my work colleagues. I'd like to say I went with a group of friends who grew together with me, are experiencing the same vulnerabilities and life journeys that shape us to who we are now, and definitely, a good travelmate haha.

We made the plan quite abruptly! You know I am stationed in UAE right now. At first it was just me and Nico (who's in Kuwait) making plans to visit Jason (who's in Jordan). I thought it would just be a middle-eastern STAs trip since well, we're kinda far from anywhere and to be honest if I'm anywhere else, probably the plan would sound less interesting. However, suddenly I heard that Leona was also interested to come! I thank God that Leona talked about this to Nico so he invited her to our "Tipping Point" group chat--which reminds me I should really finish that book OMG I haven't even opened it!

The chat that started everything

The book that I haven't even started

So, we created that group called "The Tipping Point" hoping to kickstart the planning of it all. When Leona joined, I suddenly think about that trip Leona wanted to make with Sarah so I also reached out to her. She said yes and then we were 5!

We set a date for Jordan trip, but Sarah could fly earlier from Indonesia after she finished the Commercial Conference. Leona and Sarah will have another destination first for the pre-trip, sadly I couldn't join for full because there's something in the office :(

HOWEVER, after all the discussions and all the visa problem that we have, this is what we decided on:

• 17 - 19 Oct    : Nana, Leona, Sarah in Izmir, Turkiye
• 20 - 23 Oct    : Leona and Sarah somewhere (they haven't decided or booked any tix, crazy)
• 24 - 27 Oct    : Us three + Nico and Jason in Jordan!

I pondered btw what I should write first. Jordan definitely currently has much more stories and fresh vivid memory so it will be easier to write, so shall I write about Turkiye first? But then I said to myself, I don't believe in me. If I postpone Jordan I would postpone in for a loooooong time so I need to just start writing it while I have the fire in me!

2025 Summer Trip till Stockholm

This post might be 'violating' the timeliness structure because I'm supposed to post about my Europe trip in 2024 first, but oh well.. I think I need to write as soon as possible to catch all the emotion in its freshest stage.

After being amazed that in 2024 I finally made it to the European mainland, I never thought that I would do it again so soon. I just returned from my very short 5-day getaway in Stockholm, Sweden. The visit was so short but never intended to be so. I was supposed to pass by Sweden for like 3 days, and then leave for Italy and France with my parents. Sadly, my parents' visa got rejected. I already got my flight ticket to Europe, so might as well just extend them longer. I always wanted to go for a laid-back visit anyways and get myself really immersed with a city. This accident kinda gave me the perfect excuse for me to delve around Stockholm!

I did not have any specific itinerary or wishlist in Stockholm. It even didn't really occur to me that I will be in Stockholm, just that I will be visiting Leona in Sweden.

Why are we reading for?

Beware for another random thoughts.

As I was packing my stuffs to go back home to Jakarta for a shortwhile during summer, I packed several of my finished books to put in Dubai. Did so so that when I need to move back later on, at least I've got rid of several unused stuffs.

And then I started to think.. all these books I've read, but none of them really stuck to me. I cannot remember a memorable lines, I mean I can tell you how it made me feel reading the books, but I can barely retell you the story or the content. I read The Cultural Map. But what I can tell you about it?? Other than people came from different background and stories and how I became more 'aware' on how we say direct and indirect things, I think..

A Trip Through Time: Labuan Bajo May 2022

Moyahoo~

I've been postponing this post for months already, every week swearing that I would write this on weekend yet I did not, again and again. So here I am today! On a Sunday night finally gathering enough will to write something. If I did not, this would be like my trip in London.. which you haven't seen at all here, right? Hahaha.

(Note: Writing this again in January 31... yep, I've postponed this post for FIVE MONTHS I'm sorry)

(Pandemic came and just when I thought I'd have an abundance of time, came TWICE with their 5-year worth of videos for me to keep up 😄)

SO in early 2022, somehow Novi and I had an idea of going to Labuan Bajo. It seemed so wacana-ish the first time. I haven't gone with a friend just traveling on our own expense so it just didn't seem very real tbh. Then Novi posted the idea to her close friends hoping for someone else to want to join the club, and we have Lilian in!

Lilian joining our group trip is really a boost in the probability of actually making this trip happens (sorry, Nov ahaha). I don't know if it's us feeling wary because we are now having an ACTUAL PERSON that actually wanted to go or if Lilian is a certified adventurous traveler, but I felt that at that moment, we really needed to go.

Around April, Garuda Travel Fair was held. What makes traveling or other things become just a plan is, I deduce, the feeling of no deadline, that there is no timeline to follow. GATF added that sense of urgency to our plan and we quickly decided on a date.

A finality to the plan

There was no going back after. The tickets were booked, then we finally booked a tour for living on board in Labuan Bajo.

Life Update from The Pearl of the Persian Gulf

Hello, there!

Believe me when I say that on the back of my mind, writing a blog post always pops out as 'things-I-would-do-in-my-leisure-y-time-to-feel-productive'. However, I also know that I still have a draft post for 2022 (my Labuan Bajo trip) and 2023 (a year with too much TWICE). I even planned on writing my first Europe mainland trip in 2024, but duh, I procrastinate too much!

So as to not let this one be too outdated, let me just put it out in the air: I am now residing in Dubai!

Well, at least for the next remaining 8 months to go! :)

It's been something out of my imagination, honestly. I grow up being not very used to flying or visiting places far away from where I live. I cherish every flying experience so much, I still remember my very first experience of flying on a place (that one was also my very first experience of missing a flight, though hahaha).

I feel lucky to be an avid reader. I read a lot of books growing up. Despite having read lots of English books now, actually those that really touch young Nana are Indonesian books. I wonder do we still have strong Indonesian writers out there publishing new works?

My two most favorite books of all time are: Laskar Pelangi (Andrea Hirata) and Negeri 5 Menara (A. Fuadi). Both I read from the humble library of LIA Kalimalang, my sanctuary as a very quiet LIA student back then haha. Laskar Pelangi was a very big hit movie back then, but reading the 'heavy' novel brought a different level of richness in terms of story and value. Negeri 5 Menara was also a book that I didn't know I would enjoy reading. I remember picking up the book because I knew of a movie titled the same.

Both books inspired me so much. They basically told a story of someone from a very humble background, who through education are able to actually experience living abroad. Obviously the stories were wayyyy more meaningful than that, but that was the thing that stuck out to me the most.

I read through all the series of Laskar Pelangi, following Ikal's stories in his humble Muhammadiyah school in Belitung, to him going to IPB, and then going to Sorbonne in Paris. I swear when I visited Paris last week, I was ecstatic to find that I was staying near Sorbonne area! After all these years the story is still stuck to me. 

I didn't read the other series of Negeri 5 Menara (but I bought all 3 and gifted them to Clement hoping that he feels as inspired as I do), yet I am really fascinated with how Gontor shaped its students and emphasized the importance of learning foreign languages. I know after that Alif managed to be a journalist in the US.

Wow that was a long intro. But to cut to the chase.. now I am doing it. Thirteen years later I found myself experiencing what I read in those amazing novels. I don't know if this is the power of manifesting, longing, or whatever.. but I am very grateful at where life has taken me.

I started living in Dubai per March 2025. It was such a big move to me. I, who never once lived faraway from my family, am now living alone! In Dubai nonetheless! Honestly what made the move easier was that moving to the regional office meant there were a lot of Indonesians here who I know I can rely on. As someone who actually likes to talk and mingle when I feel like it, being able to destress by not speaking English all the time is so precious to me!

Dubai, who before I moved here sounded fancy and money money money, now sounds like home to me. Before the move, I didn't even know that Dubai hosts the Emirates airline for example, or knew that it was part of the United Arab Emirates. My knowledge about the middle east countries was practically zero I know haha.

I moved here during the chilly and okay-ish weather of spring. But not long after, the weather started to get hot. It wasn't until these recent weeks though that it has became quite hot and humid. Thankfully the very heavy AC environment is very reliable. Not thankfully, I understand that there were very few months of the year in Dubai in which the city would be a nice walkable city.

Now my empty kitchen feels like my kitchen, with the IKEA kitchen racks that I assembled myself and the sauces and spices that I bought from the asian supermarkets. Cooking is not as simple though, somehow the utensils are not easy to wash and I hateee having soapy feel leftover in the utensils. But I make do, now I know the soap dishes brand that I like and also the sponge that is good to use. And also, because washing takes half the effort in cooking, I don't cook as often as I imagined I would be haha.

Work life is also okay. There were lots of things that I haven't done and I should, I will get to it I promise.. (talking to self). But the work is interesting, I get to see things from a helicopter view. I could get more clarity, but I think this is a good start. I have a good team and a supportive boss, so all is well to me.

On weekends, thankfully I am also able to keep myself busy and productive! We are now able to rent cars and drive here (I also can drive!). We were taking trips to the other emirates of the UAE, to the beaches (never knew Dubai was such a beach city before), even during long weekends we've taken trips to Kazakhstan! Now we are also planning trips to more countries nearby, such as Georgia and Oman. More countries are coming definitely to the to-go list!

I have so much to feel and experience here. Hopefully my future self would reember that I only need 30 friggin minutes to write this piece, and this post would break my cycle of procrastination. I hope to release new posts soon! Til next time!

Random Info: Wrong name at the JR pass exchange order?

A week ago, I received the exchange order for JR Hokuriku Arch Pass and I was shocked because I found that I have input the wrong name! :( I tried to google for any resolve to my story but none seem to answer clearly. Two of my friends offered me these two answers: 1) it’s fine as the exchange order can be refunded anyway if you ended up not using it and 2) it’s fine and you can still exchange the order into actual pass.

I’d like to also offer you who may stumble upon this blog for my own resolve.

I reached out to the travel agent whom I bought the exchange order from, and it’s quite simple: I need to send the physical XO back to them, pay a little admin fee, and they sent the right exchange order back to me.

I also have asked the JR office directly via email.. the response came too late after I have resolved all my problem, but it also supported my 2nd friend’s solution: it’s fine. You can still exchange them anyways.

Hope this helps!

yes i do the cooking yes i do the cleaning

I just spent nearly 2 hours picking basil leaves, washing them, processing them, cooking pasta, washing all the utensils, eating the pasta, and then putting back all the utensils. I did that much effort just to eat a home-made pasta, guys!

harvesting my home-grown basil

blendering the basil in mixture of: olive oil, garlic, salt, pine nuts, and parmesan cheese

pesto fusilli with mushroom is done!

While preparing this after closing off work at 7.30 pm, I realized that I liked cooking so much. (Well no actually this realization has come way before this, and I already wanted to blog about my cooking but I just haven't got the time yet!)

Me and cooking

I knew that I always liked cooking. This post here is one of the example, back in 2012 I would spend my free time during school holidays to cook! The stories always ended with bad ending, though. Take that fried rice as my very first ever dish, I've made that too salty, too oily, too dry. I also tried making garlic bread, it ended up too soggy because I used too many melted butter. Also tried making fried eggs too back then and it was a trial and error too, I've always had problem with nailing the oil ratio as I was quite anti-oil haha.

If I ask myself, what do I like about cooking? Why do I cook? Maybe the answer lies in my innate pickiness towards food, but contradictively, I also like to eat a lot. I love to eat good food! I think it is a gift for me to be able to find happiness in eating good food. I'm not a big spender, but I do spend A LOT on food.

My very first experience with cooking during high school was because 1) I had too much spare time and I wanted to do something productive and 2) there was nothing to eat (that I liked) so I wanted to make the dishes myself. I asked my grandmom then to teach me how to fry eggs and make fried rice. It was tricky at first, with me being afraid with oil splashes etc but I kept on getting better!

Then came college days where I was super busy with school. The 4 years I spent at UI were undoubtedly my most productive years ever in life. There was no days without me having to do school work or internship or extracurricular work.

Then the pandemic hits.

With the pandemic, suddenly I had too much time on my plate. It was very healing for me too, because the weeks towards the pandemic, I was actually quite stressed with always having something to do on weekends. It honestly felt like my time was stolen away from me. I wanted to just laze around on weekend, but somehow the norms I had during college days had made me think that my weekend time can and should be spent on other people. The lockdown was a blessing in disguise for me because after finally realizing that my weekend time is mine and mine only to govern, I also found out that I now (then) had so much free time for ME!

All people back then did something new and tried to learn exciting things everyday. I remember that time tiktok is rising and people were making cooking videos on tiktok. I wanted to jump in the wagon! I know I like eating, I've established myself in office as a pasta lover back then, so I wanted to learn how to cook pasta on my own.

Now the reason why I didn't continue cooking after high school, aside from not having enough time, is actually about me not having the proper ingredients lol. I found that the available ingredients at my home couldn't quite cater to my aspirational menu: pasta and western food in general. During the pandemic, I've worked for a few months already and got some savings in my account. Therefore, I went straight to happyfresh (like most people did that time) and ordered my first ever groceries!

My groceries spending on happyfresh was quite hefty lol. I realized after doing the groceries, that there was reason my you should buy from traditional markets if you want to save as the price difference is quite significant. Also my very first cooking experience was basically a trial and error and I tried to follow everything the chef on youtube told me they used.

My very first experience ever (post high school)

I remember trying to replicate Willgoz's carbonara pasta back then. It was a weird fusion menu I'd say (from my 2023 quite expert perspective HAHA) as he boiled the pasta using milk while adding beef stock too. It's quite accurate in telling us to use eggs though for the sauce. I followed the recipe even to the minutes. I learned lesson 1 in cooking the hard way: always taste your cooking first.

Willgoz is using brand A pasta and he said to cook it for 7 minutes for al dente. However, I used an imported pasta so 7 minutes was too quick and my pasta was way half-cooked :) In an effort to salvage the pasta, my grandma made me reboil the pasta.. right after I've already mixed the pasta with my carbonara egg sauce... So my pasta was then al dente, but it was bland to the core as all the sauce was washed out! :(

Second try

This is quite phenomenal too. I tried making aglio olio this time. Alas, I also got it wrong this time with the pasta cooking time... I used fresh pasta and I didn't know that fresh pasta cooks way faster than the usual pasta, dammit. It should have been cooked at TWO MINUTES :))))) Since obviously the previous experience had made me worry over not cooking the pasta enough, this time I cooked it for way too long. My fettucine was super mushy and it felt like eating mushy noodles with too much black pepper T_T

After that

With my very disastrous experience in cooking pasta, I kinda gave up with creating the sauce on my own. Cooking was super tiring back then for me. I remember realizing that I clenched my jaw way too much when I was stressed, and I found that because of this cooking experience! For the few first times, after cooking I literally had trouble eating because I couldn't open my mouth properly as my jaws would get stuck. I noticed too that I would get super tired after cooking that I had to take quick naps, which would turn to hours of napping.

So I decided not to cook the sauce again on my own and turned into ready-made sauce. I like this store called Little Maria on Tokopedia and they sells various pasta cooking ingredients including the sauces. At first I bought the mushroom sauce from them, but then realizing that mushroom tend to expire quickly on sauces, I only bought their pesto sauce. To date, I still love their pesto sauce so much! However, it started to be so expensive when you think about how I needed to buy 60k a bottle sauce for 2-3 portions of pasta, when my very first reason to cooking (other than because I love doing it and I love eating) is that I wanted to save money hahaha.

So after that, I discovered three things on my cooking journey:

1. Pasta can be simple. I no longer need to buy fancy ingredients, aglio olio is very doable with just garlic, aglio olio, chilli flakes, and mushroom. Well, packaged parsley can also be added to add greenish look. These days I also like to inject more protein to my dishes by adding chicken breasts, more mushroom, or even scallops. I like prawns too but they are too frightening to process with the skin lol.
2. After learning how to make the OG pasta like aglio olio and carbonara, I became a huge fanatics of Italian original pasta. That's what you became when you watched too many "how to cook pasta as an italian" videos LOL. But I can't deny, those videos of Italian chefs sharing their grandma pasta taught me how to cook pasta way more effectively than any Willgoz/chef Arnold videos can. Back to the first sentence, so me being a purist meant I detest adding cheese to my pasta 🤣 It was fine when it's carbonara, but I super can't adding it when I'm eating aglio olio because it's just garlic + oil, just that. Now I don't give a fuck anymore and just add cheese however the fuck I want!
3. Home-grown everything! To be twice as rich (by not spending!)! Remember the price of pesto sauce per bottle I mentioned? To save on delivery fee, I usually bought up to 6 bottles per purchase. In bulk, the spending amount was quite heart-shattering. I could spend 400k just to buy pesto sauce! 🫠 I did savor the usage and they can last me a few months, but it would make me dependent on them forever. So given my now added expertise in cooking, I decided to grow the ingredients for pesto on my own! At first I tried growing basil plants from seed but it didn't work well and the basil that grows is just not the type that I wanted. Luckily, youtube introduces me to basil propagation. I knew then that basil can be easily replicated from its stems! Therefore, I tried to look for genovese basil (the type that Italians actually use!) on Tokopedia. I luckily got a very good one and currently in my home, there are probably 3 other pots of mature genovese basil + 6 new small plants! :D Yep, the one you saw first on this post are the basil leaves that I grew on my own. Mind you, the result is very very good!

Other than pasta

I obviously try to cook other things aside from pasta. But to me, pasta is just the simplest and quickest delectable dish that I can make! And yes, from only cooking pasta during the weekends, now I sometimes cook pasta during dinner for the healing part and the eating good part, and I even dare to cook it during my short 1-hour lunch break.

Other than pasta, I also learned how to cook steak. I tried cooking several high grade steaks, I always buy MB6 above btw. But the result was just always so so to me. I thought it would be very economical as usually the one we bought on resto on 400k IDR was probably just an MB2 wagyu, but in reality making a high grade pasta tasty is so difficult. I am yet to nail the secret, is it my stove? Is it my pan? Steak is tricky because every video tells you different tricks. I fell to the same rabbit hole as with my very first experience with cooking pasta: believing blindly at what the youtuber told you. I was told to cook like 30 seconds per side for medium result etc etc etc but in reality you have to really know visually what does a good steak looks like etc etc.

So I haven't nailed steak and would like to just buy steak in a high-end restaurant lol, just wanna see if it's my taste buds that just can't accept steak or if it's my cooking skills. Hoping for the latter because I want to know what's good with steaks!

Me cooking thin sliced beefs + saikoro meltique is a different story by the way. They tasted good! I think the sauce is: oyster sauce, kikkoman, garlic, saori teriyaki, and honey. It tasted superb!

Also tried chicken katsu + japanese curry rice. Tasted superb but I'm yet to nail the water level consistency to make it into the right thickness.

I once made fried rice with dashi powder topped with runny omelette added with cheese. It was one of the most delicious fried rice I've ever cooked and eaten in my entire life... but again I've yet to make another perfect one! Fried rice is quite tricky because I need to prepare the refrigerated leftover rice from even the night before.

Yes i do the cooking yes i do the cleaning

I made this post late at night because I wanted to actually publish something on this blog after a long time not being able to. My friend posted a blog of his the other day and wow I was baffled at how he really managed to write that long ass blog post despite being busy with travelling etc (he ran a travelling blog and had just came home). Maybe he wrote that during the time he spent on airport/plane? Either way, I should also just write and let the mood lead me instead of postponing and daydreaming all day hahaha.

I realized I love cooking so much and despite the challenges it brought me in the beginning (the wasted ingredients, the TMD with my jaw, the failed dishes etc), it brings me so much joy. It became the thing I'm willing to do after a busy day at work just because I like it. And I would even do the cooking even when my sister (aka helper lol) is away and I got no one to do the cleaning for me.

To think that until a year ago, I still needed to watch a youtube video before cooking (bcs I'm afraid I'd mess up the recipe! lol) and now I'm the pan-flipping cook who can create (MAINLY PASTA) dishes however I want them to be, I'm immensely proud of myself. HEHE.

(Will add pics when I have the time! I always have pics because I've made it a personal commitment to always document the food I eat and we're talking about the food I cook myself here! haha)

Review Asal 2021

Buset ya bun udah mau 2022 aja.. Kayanya baru kemaren gue bikin post 1 Januari 2021 terus mikir, "Nanti mau update lagi ah buat 2022.." eh udah 2022 besok!!! Wkwkwk.

Lagi males nulis yang gimana-gimana jadi ini review asal 2021 aja buat jadi pengingat ke diri gue sendiri kalo gue nanti buka blog ini.

Hmm 2021 tuh.. definisi kaga berasa sih. Sebenernya berasa-berasa aja, tapi ya cepet banget aja gitu? Tiba-tiba gue udah presentasi lagi, gue gajian lagi, TWICE udah comeback lagi, gue gajian lagi, gue presentasi lagi, udah gajian lagi, TWICE comeback lagi, ya gitu aja terus.. Gue pernah dengerin podcast dan emang alasan waktu berlalu cepet banget bagi kita-kita (yang gue asumsikan udah seumuran gue atau lebih haha) tuh karena hidup kita sekarang udah monoton aja. Udah dikit hal baru yang dialami, jadi otak kita ga punya banyak check point. Bayangin aja dulu pas masih kecil, kayanya gue nunggu-nungguinnn banget ulang tahun lagi dsb dan berasa lama banget, tapi ya sekarang bhay aja ya kakk..

In General
Secara umum gue ga punya kesan yang mencolok banget sama 2021, karena cenderung gak ada bedanya sama 2020 dengan masih adanya Covid. 2020 was personally quite tough for me so in 2021 I learned to really manage my expectation and.. that's it. Kalo dibikin KPI, bisa dibilang 2021 ini KPI-nya mepet-mepet di atas target lah ya. So I'm quite content with 2021. Things got better. Things got answered. I was not a huge recluse like back in 2020, I gained some new acquaintances who I now dare call as friends. Meeting people like you is a huge blessing and I'm really thanking them for it. Love you lotssssss guys!

Sleep
I am proud to say that now I get better at managing my sleep teehee. Gue sekarang bisa kayak tidur jam 10 malem gitu dan ga berasa guilty (damn work pressure, I miss college!) dan bisa bangun lebih pagi. Kalo lagi niat gue bener-bener bisa buka mata jam 6 pagi!

Going Outside
Man I miss going outside. Gue ada pergi 1-2 kali sebelum delta melanda Indonesia di Juli 2021 gitu (btw Juli juga pas banget keluarga gue ada yang positif.. so yeah). Setelah itu gue sempet hiatus beberapa bulan dari pergi-pergi ke luar dan akhirnya baru keluar lagi sekitar di bulan September? Huweee I really miss going out, meeting friends, etc. Gue merasa banget gue tuh introvert yang tetep butuh human interaction sih, lol. Gue sekarang punya jadwal main badminton rutin (buat jadi alasan ketemu aja sih wkwk but still), starting to say yes to meet-up invitation, etc. Though gue juga maintain untuk gak pake semua hari weekend gue ya, cape browww hahaha. Gue juga udah mulai pergi ke kantor seminggu sekali dan ini cukup clearing up so much confusions yang gue miliki. EYY gue juga ke Bali di pertengahan Desember kemarin, dapet tiket gratis dari DNA Pro lmao!

Songs
I'm still a big big big Koreaboo like in 2020 lol. Gue seperti sempat ada momen-momen rediscover lagu Indo yang oke, tapi urghhh the ONCE in me is too dominating guys. Hahaha. Di 2021 ini gue malah jadi being extra fond of some old albums of TWICE. Gue jadi menemukan lagu-lagu lama mereka yang sekarang jadi all time favorite gue. I don't think I will ever cease over TWICE, at least not anytime soon sih. TWICE kemarin abis online concert di tanggal 26 Desember 2021 dan KEREN BANGET!!! Sumpah gue pengen banget nonton offline concertnya dan gue akan mengusahakan banget sih kalo muncul di SEA. Meskipun begitu tetep akan complicated banget sekarang untuk international flight, jadi gue harap TWICE bisa ke Indo sih :')

Hobby
I'm back to reading again. I joined this book club dan gue mulai baca-baca lagi to-read-list gue yang terbengkalai itu. I'm still cooking though gue sekarang lagi agak males untuk explore resep-resep baru. Gue masih belom berhasil bikin cacio e pepe btw hahaha susah banget itu menu! But I find that I actually enjoy cooking (not doing the dishes one!!!) dan yah ini cukup healing sih. Gue sekarang udah di posisi di mana gue nyaman dengan masak sehingga udah gak jaw-clenching berlebihan lagi huahaha (itu tanda-tanda kalo aku stress guys lmao). Eh iyaa, gue abis banget nyobain resepnya Chaeng yang Strawberry Santa. Gue berasa kena pelet karena udah bahannya mahal, gue kaga demen bahan2nya dan bagi gue ini kayak lo makan McFlurry pake kentang pula. I'm not a sweet tooth! But I will try anyway for Chaeng haha aku merasa harus banget meramaikan hashtag dia, I'm making this my personal mission LOL.

I think that's all for now???? Gak banyak mikir emang gue pas nulis ini hahahaha. I just wish 2022 will be a greater year. I don't have any particular goal for 2022 honestly buttttt I will try to be a more organized person.

See you!

To Judge Less

Hi again in yet another year! We have finally reached 2021!

I know I should've probably blogged about this on the last day of 2020, but I just couldn't find the time yesterday hehe so let me have it now. In this post, I will do a brief recap on how 2020 went for me.

2020 is indeed a weird year. So many bizarre and unthinkable things happened in 2020, it's almost hard to believe. Covid-19 suddenly happened in 2020 (and is still so real until now..) and it has a huge impact on everyone's life.

Personally, I have been on the luckier side of Covid-19 impact. My company has kindly let us do work from home with almost no benefit-cut. Although we were on quarantine, I am also basically a homebody who loves to stay too much. In this pandemic, somehow I also got another distraction (in the form of TWICE LOL). This might seem tone-deaf, but I think I am, personally, happier. Sure, I miss lots of things such as dining out, but those things are outweighed by other things I gained.

That's why, I honestly have a much more neutral view on how I see our new-normal (not normal because this isn't how we are supposed to do normal, but you get what I mean).

In the first months of Covid, people were divided between those who could stay at home and those who couldn't because of some reason. In the months after, however, the segregation is mostly those who decided to go out, and those who called them idiots hahaha.. and I think.. we need to understand other's shoes better.

As someone who mostly is just lazy to go out but giving out Covid reason when rejecting people's invitation to go out, I totally feel it is out of place to call people out for going out. People do have their limits and when so many need to go out just because they have to work, it's hard to live under the impression that going out is as taboo as it was months before. Therefore, I really have nothing against people going out, tbh.. But what I'm most upset is when people don't treat 'going out' as if there is still a very real pandemic going on! There were one or two instances in which I go out with car, and wow the number of people going out without masks is so frightening. They didn't even care about social distancing which is very worrisome.. While I agree that some people can't stand to not go out, but please, wear masks!!! --> this is something you can't bargain.

Another lesson on not to judge people I got from.. kpop. LMAO this is quite self-explanatory so I won't go too long about this. I could not understand before how people can love someone so remotely unavailable for them, but I do now. LOL.

Never judge people until you were in their shoes and may we live 2021 with even less prejudice with each other.

(I know this post is such a blabber hahaha it was intended to be deeper but I got distracted so I can only write this much)

Finding good inspiring talks is like fate! Another side of my naïve life, ride-hailing loyalty, to life lessons.

So, hello!

This would be my first ever blog post written on a whole new Blogger interface. I have been getting the prompts about the update being rolled out soon and it kept on asking me whether I want to try first or not. And I kept on ignoring it too! I've been on this platform for too long and I think they did make changes several times but nothing has been significant enough to confuse me. I gotta say, this newest change that they make is by far the most significant. The interface is much simpler and probably cleaner (thus it should be more aesthetically pleasing?); however, I think the thing with the back-end is that sometimes functionality rules over aesthetic.. And with the new massive simplicity that is being offered at the table, I just miss the old-school complexity where I just knew which to click when I need something. Basically what they removed (and I can't seem to find how to reverse/show this feature) is the HTML part.. now it's weird for me to embed videos from YouTube on posts because the code won't work and I need to copy-paste the video frame, which works too but it's more unreliable on the UX.. okay enough with the ramble.

Basically I'm sharing you guys another video from YouTube! Only this time, it's not a K-pop song recommendation, though I would definitely still have a lot on my hand to give you hehe.

Tonight, on a random event of YouTube-ing (and I gotta say, fate!) I stumbled upon this inspirational video:

I say fate too because I wouldn't have gotten the recommendation to this video and would never click on it if I didn't read my friends' tweet on the other day. On that tweet, he was complimenting on Pak Gita's presentation skill. I was intrigued and did a quick look on his videos on YouTube. At some point, it got me to a video of Sacha (a Youtube) who did review on Pak Gita's English. I think people's good English pronunciation has always been my weak points.. hahah so I did watch the video and wow he is one of the most fluent Indonesian I have ever seen!

On that video, Pak Gita was moderating a talk with Nadeim Makarim. Nadiem is also a cool person that I kinda look up to. He is intelligent, he is eloquent with words, and he is (from what I perceive) quite sincere too. In this (what I planned out as a short reflectional writing), I will try to lay out several key take-aways that might be useful for me to read again and for you to know :)

#Random 18: I'm a sucker for good K-pop songs!!!

By this time, I think I know what kind of songs that can move me (duh dramatic me). I like songs that convey certain melancholy to the songs, that make me feel joyous yet sad? at the same time. They are most certainly not sad songs so that's what makes them special. Listening to these songs make we want to scream the lyrics out loud due to the melancholy. It makes inner me scream lololol have you ever felt that?

Note: there were actually many K-pop songs that become my personal favorite, so this list may be biased since it's heavily influenced by my state of mind as per writing hahaha. E.g., once in my life I also like BTS's Best Of Me, Wanna One's Energectic, BTS's dimple, but I guess I don't really feel like listening to them right now?

So...

SELECTION CRITERIA:

1. Sentimental K-pop songs with joyous vibe in it so you feel safe and happy when hearing it but not too upbeat
2. Songs that I feel like listening as of writing hahhaha

#Random 17: K-pop wrecked my playlist!!!

My K-playlist

It has been going on for quite some time --the trend of me discovering so many good K-pop songs, but now K-pop literally is the theme of my playlist... It now comprises 204 out of 647 of my liked songs, almost reaching 30% of it!

As you can see from the image above, I started collecting K-pop songs in 2016. At that time, I actually used YouTube a lot more than Spotify. While doing my school work at night, I usually shuffle my YouTube playlist and was so happy singing along to the songs. At one instance, my YouTube recommended me so much of K-pop songs and it just.... grew on me.

I remember the first non-mainstream K-pop song I discovered was I Am You, You Are Me by Zico (only recently I found out that the song is actually SOTY 2016 material, up against Cheer Up and Blood Sweat & Tears, no wonder). I was recommended that song by one of my friends (who has just started being an early ARMY hahaha I see u chingu) and I quite liked the song. Somehow, the song was played on V-Channel (RIP..) and I finally noticed the K-pop segment there, searched some songs myself on YouTube, and this started the K-pop recommendation frenzy in my channel lol you now how persistent YouTube can be once they decided you like some topic. I was not even mad.... they were gold!

#Random 16: Why I have been writing so much here (and how I have always been so extra about publicizing writings)

It's because of work-from-home!!!!!!!

I got so much time for me to open my laptop and not opening work-related decks that I was kinda inspired to type things that are personal to me. I think the newly trending again Twitter also plays a role. I have loved writing and expressing myself in text since forever that sometimes I find it hard to articulate my thoughts on limited characters on Twitter (funny that I was one of those opposing the idea of extending the 140-char limit to 280-char limit!!!). The emergence of people making thread really boosts the popularity of Twitter. It makes reading so much easier since the passages are divided into 280-char chunks. I mean, it's back to microblogging again!

Then why do I blog instead?

Aside from the character limit, I just find it quite exposing to write on Twitter. I felt the pressure to write things that are expressive of me rather than these random thoughts. My twitter has become just like another internet personality that I have to maintain and I felt more limited to express anything that I want there. It's like your personal wall magazine! However, blog is just like a public diary for me. The platform is 100% for me to handle and I do not need to worry about whether other people care or not. My blog posts won't trespass other people's lives by showing off at their feed because no such thing exists in this blog thingy!

I really want to start writing longer stories of myself here though, like my last trip to UK just for memorabilia purposes. Wish I had the time (and will of power)!

Oh oh oh and another thing why I like to blog, I know it's weird of me but I like reading my own blog posts over and over again, especially on mobile phones. HAHAHA it's just some weird pride seeing myself write a long piece that has sentimental value to me and mobile-format texts just looks... amazing! It's hard to describe but I think that's that, I like reading my own writing especially when it's personal and not cringey. Mobile-format look adds the coolness of it.

(my random mind got me writing about literally another topic on how I was always being extra about getting my writing publicized in an enjoyable manner)

This must explain why back in junior high I made a blog about our class (HERE!!!) and twitter accounts of my classes (I made three: this is for my junior high class, though the blog was much more memorable; then this second one, I swear THIS Twitter handle was such a bop back then with me sharing our daily quirks with #X5lol, no one ever had it before and even followed me after!; and THIS ONE for my 11th grade class). I swear I was fucking extra.... honestly being a journalist or writer could be a passionate career path for me. I always loved taking extensive notes during classes or even debates in uni (wtf right). When I was bored during school holidays when no phone existed I write stories on notebooks! It's a wonder why I haven't tried being a Wattpad writer lol.

#Random 15: it's 9.43pm

I was watching Netflix on a calm night. Everybody's sleeping already (I live with my grandparents so they sleep early). Then suddenly I got curious at the time, what time is it?

It's 9.43pm.

It's only 9.43pm!!!

Wow, at just 9.43pm (below 10pm is SUPER EARLY for me), I was already enjoying myself watching some Netflix....... It was surprising because it felt like time has passed so much ever since I closed my laptop and cooked and ate dinner. I have done so much after work! And it's only 9.43pm!

Just yesterday I was pondering to myself, God I was really afraid on adjusting myself to work after this work from home thing ends. I was sooo used to, for the whole two months, of not spending hours commuting, of not spending hours under the glaring sun and on a bad traffic. It was a new normal and I'M LOVING IT! I can even cook when I want to at night and do not need to eat cold dinner because I need to spend 1-2 hours on traffic before I can finally get home.

I knew just how much time I had been wasting on commuting all this time and it had been the normality for me. I have never thought of any other way of living, then this absurd situation came. Suddenly I knew how much was lost and taken from me.

You also don't know what you don't have til it's there.

#Random 15: Preferences

When we were little, filling out personal information or biodata on our friends' binder was such a trend. I remember this suddenly because yesterday one of my friends posted her binder on Instagram and wow it did bring back memories!

This is yet another random thought from me.

I was just scrolling Instagram and I realized that during this WFH, I did buy or do a lot of things that I like. I like pasta a lot, so I buy so many pasta ingredients and explore so many recipes to make pasta on my own. I like noodles so much so I was almost always spontaneously buy noodles when my friends sell them (during WFH, so many people become sellers haha). I like dimsums and just now I bought dimsums from my friends!

Today, my idol has just released new songs. I can tell that I like their b-tracks but I haven't really
become obsessed with the title track. I can also tell that even though their MV is superb, I still prefer other groups' MV concept.

Linking this back to my introduction, growing up I wasn't someone who has strong preferences of something. When I filled the MaFav or MiFav part, I just add food that I tried before or sounded cool, I didn't really have something favorite that time, though.

I realized that now, I can finally have preferences over something. I am still a very agreeable person to the point that I think that this is my weakness. I don't know, is it my pacifist self over compromising things? Or just like favorite foods or favorite drinks or favorite MV, probably I should just try to explore more things so I can have better opinions on things, thus being less agreeable and more critical on things?

And like other #random tagged posts should be, this is where I will end this random self-reflection.

(Wow, WFH really gives me time to reflect on things and actually write them here!)

BONUS (added per June 4)
You know I love to re-read my own writing and suddenly I found this page on my blog where I talked about myself. You can see the cringe page here and if you are wondering why it has '(2)' that's.. because I have the original About Me version that is much much moreeeeeeeeee cringey. :)

SO I dare myself to ready that cringey post and oh what the hell how.. could.. I.. even.. think.. of writing that!?!?!?! It's soo sooo bad and self-conceited omg I don't know 10th grader me was THAT pathetic. Ew.

Why I decided to add a bonus part here after rereading that page is because I found this part:

excerpt from my About Me (1) that was so so so so cringey

EXACTLY! I wrote myself a biodata! And you can see there just how basic and mainstream my favorite things were... duh I clearly hadn't been exploring the world. Also 'profesi yang ditetapkan Tuhan Yesus' what the hell man hahahahaha it's like I gave up in actually deciding things on myself and wanted to just accept anything my parents wanted but justifying that it was all God's fate lol. Though not gonna lie that following what my parents wanted worked quite okay for me now, but just I really did not look up into any other choices at that time! Hahahaha.