Life oh life..

Sometimes in life when the stars are aligned, everything just falls into place.. Just like today.
Have you ever have that one day that if you could, you would like to keep the day from your memory stored in a video tape so that you can watch it every time you want. Well if I could, I would choose today.
The hardships, climbing slippery and steep rocks and the beauty, a perfect hidden lagoon in the belly of a karst cliff with an emerald color just like a private pool.
The white sand, the two tone of blue colors in the ocean, the warm water and the shining sun surrounded you like nothing else matters.
The perfect blue sky above you as you lying in the sand and while the wind breezes, the best friends are beside you.
The most beautiful sunset with a perfect cloud with a hint of pink and magenta that feels so close that you spread your arm just to feel it.
And the highlight was, as you were lying at your back, floating with life vest hugging you, the stars are spread beautifully in the sky above you and glowing plankton surrounded your body like little green lamps.
It was perfect.
Even the little sting that might be caused by small jellyfish doesn’t bother you. You keep looking up as you said to yourself, you’ve never seen that much stars in your life. When you were looking down, the glowing plankton were stick to your movement and creating a pretty view. That moment right there.. was magical.
I brought a camera with me but I ditched it. There are things that better felt and not captured because sometimes photography won’t do the justice. So yeah, I left you with your imagination..

And here is the beautiful sunset at Poda Beach that creates a pretty silhouette. When nature decides to be this stunning, there is no filter needed.



Hello! Just got back from a very refreshing holiday yesterday and I would like to share with you guys! A round of applause will be much appreciated (here comes the flying tomatoes). Sorry for the cheesy title, the brain still cramped because of post-holiday syndrome (yada, yadaa.. haha). So, the post will be divided into several parts because 7 days, 2 countries, 4 cities will be too overwhelming to be packed in one post. So, expect pretty landscape pictures, well maybe some of them will have one disturbing lady on it (I mean, me), stories of misfortune, stupidity, fun encounters and where sweat, blood and laugh involved. Yep, it was one of the best holiday I ever had.

In school, we learned that a good explanatory paragraph needs to have 6 aspects that simplified as 5W+1H. Not to act like this one is a scientific post and all, it’s just a matter to make the story readable. Let’s start.

1. Who?

This story will have three main stars (ceileh..), yours truly, me. Medina, expect an Arabic looking girl. Cici a.k.a Fani, you can guess, right? So, it was a pretty multicultural party, Indonesian, Arabian and Chinese.

2. When?

June 4th - 11, 2013

3. What?

This holiday involved one city exploration (Bangkok), island jumping-rock climbing-snorkling-mountain viewing (Krabi), cross border from Thai to Malaysia (via Hat Yai) and wasting time till the time to depart comes (KL-Sepang).

4. Where?

Thailand (Bangkok, Krabi, Hat Yai) and Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)

5. Why?

We planned this holiday almost a year before, based on a very random convo about how beautiful that Maya Bay is in Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie, The Beach that Medina adores very much. We’ve been pretty stressed at work so when there’s a promo in Air Asia, we booked it right away and start the planning.

6. How?

We took Air Asia to Thai (Don Mueng), bus to Krabi, another bus to Hat Yai, train to KL, Air Asia to Jakarta. We planned this trip as we wish to suit our taste and budget (of course!) by constantly visiting travel blogs, tripadvisor, agoda, booking.com, and such.
So yeah I can conclude that you can master your own trip to suit your liking just don’t forget the details and I guarantee you, the satisfaction will top any travel agent’s holiday arrangement.

Pranang Beach. All you have to do is lay down and relax. Again, no editing needed. (By the way, that’s not me in the picture. Haha.).

Gue inget dulu waktu kuliah pernah baca di salah satu bulletin board di kampus tentang salah seorang alumni gue yang ceritanya cukup ‘berbeda’, namanya Leon. Yep, just like any other FEUI students, he got a gift of being genius (you need to exclude me perhaps). Lulus tepat waktu, cum laude dan diterima bekerja di McKinsey. Trust me, it’s hell of a competition to get that job, and the fact that he got in, gives us the reasonable assurance that he’s no ordinary man. Yang bikin beda adalah, dia memiliki ‘panggilan’ lain, yaitu mengabdi kepada masyarakat. Singkat cerita dia (di)keluar(kan) dari pekerjaannya dan mulai melaksanakan ‘panggilannya’. Cara yang dipilihnya adalah dengan mendirikan Koperasi Kasih Indonesia (KKI). Untuk cerita lebih lengkapnya bisa cek posting-an Mbak Leila disini dan disini.

FEUI graduates mostly known by their individualist and materialist characteristic. Nggak bilang bener sih, tapi nggak bilang salah juga, karena emang beberapa dari kami lulusan FEUI dapat ‘kelebihan’ untuk bisa masuk ke perusahaan ‘bergengsi’ yang gajinya di atas rata-rata dan ga sedikit yang akhirnya benar-benar mengejar harta. But Leon proves us, that’s not always the case.

Ketika gue baca di bulletin board gue udah cukup terpesona sama Mas Leon ini. Karena memenuhi panggilan hati tentunya ga mudah, seperti yang bisa dibaca di posting-an Mbak Leila yang membuat mata gue berkaca-kaca. Saat itu sih gue belom bisa bantu, maklum mahasiswa kere, tapi sekarang gue berniat untuk membantu walau mungkin belum banyak dengan memberikan donasi dan pastinya, spread the word.

Gue yakin kita semua punya pos khusus per-bulan untuk zakat/sedekah/sumbangan, alangkah baiknya kalo turut memberikan donasi ke KKI. Karena KKI menggunakan donasi tersebut untuk memberikan pinjaman agar masyarakat kecil bisa berwirausaha dan mandiri. Inget pribahasa ini kan:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

Ini salah satu bentuk realisasinya. Bisnis model-nya pun ciamik lah yang masih belom yakin bisa baca lengkapnya, disini. Yang mau ngasih donasi mungkin bisa email dulu ke koperasi.kasih.indonesia@gmail.com nanti lo akan diberikan no. rekening yang dituju dan setelah konfirmasi juga akan dikasih tanda terima plus update bulanan. Keliatannya mungkin ribet tapi sebenernya ga sama sekali kok, dan pastinya lo puas karena turut membantu orang ‘berusaha’ dalam mensejehterakan hidupnya. Ain’t that’s the best feeling?

I like packing. More than unpacking (for sure). Weird, eh?

Ga jarang gue menemukan kalimat ‘I hate packing’ berkeliaran di timeline twitter. Apparently, people love traveling but despise the packing part. But not me. I love imagining things like, ‘I’m gonna wear this pretty dress there, that blue shirt there,’ and so on. Ga mau kan foto liburan jelek gara-gara salah bawa baju atau saltum. Thus, the preparation. Even when I have to travel for work, I get excited. Leaving my usual space is always a treat for me.

I pack lightly and efficiently. Sombong? Biarin, secara kelebihan gue ga banyak-banyak banget kan ya.. Jadi dengan cukup bangga, gue memproklamirkan diri bahwa gue suka, dan jago packing. Muahahaha.. Ga jarang juga temen-temen gue pada melongo liat bawaan gue kalo mau pergi yang biasanya cuma ½ dari mereka, apalagi kalo cewek bisa hanya 1/3-nya.

Rekor gue biasanya:

2 hari 1 malam: 1 tas selempang + 1 tas kecil (optional, biasanya 1 tas selempang aja cukup)

3 hari – 5 hari: 1 backpack + 1 tas tambahan ukuran medium (Backpack yg gue maksud disini tas sekolah gue jaman sma yg emang imut-imut tapi kayak kantong doraemon soalnya semua bisa masuk, hihihi..)

≥7 hari: 1 tas jinjing ukuran besar + 1 backpack (ini buat 2 minggu juga cukup kalo maksa)

Karena kebiasaan ini, akhirnya ketika gue harus dinas kantor (dulu kan lumayan sering ke luar kota +/- 1 minggu ke tempat antah berantah pula!) dan dapet bagasi di pesawat pun gue bingung mau bawa apa lagi di dalem koper haha.. Bawa 1 koper ukuran medium pun isinya cuma setengah penuh. :p Not too awesome for you? You must be a boy! For a girl, I consider myself as packing goddess. *ditimpukin tomat*

So, here is my guide to pack lightly and efficiently (not always effectively):

1. Make a check-list! (Penting banget, biar ga ada yg ketinggalan, sebisa mungkin konsultasi sama orang lain, it’s always good to have another insight)
2. Roll, roll, roll! You can roll almost everything and it saves hell lot of space. But you can make an exception for towel. In most of the case, it is better folded.
3. Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. It’s the golden rule, really. Reuse everything, apalagi baju tidur, celana pendek sama cardigan/jaket, no need to get all fancy when you’re sleep. Reduce the volume of the things you bring by borrowing from your travel mates (such as toiletries :p). Recycle, kaos yg masih lumayan bersih pun bisa dijadiin handuk darurat or the worst case, use side A/side B (you know what I mean, and no! I don’t do this! :p).
4. Share. Kalau pergi bareng temen, bagi-bagi tugas biar lebih hemat dan efisien. Misalnya, toiletries, ga perlu semua dibawa (selama kulit kalian semua badak ya, ga ada yang sensitif) kecuali mungkin pembersih muka karena cocok-cocokan. Obat2an, sunblock? Do share.
5. Do your Laundry. I find this saving so much space because I don’t need to bring too much clothes. Enaknya sih kalo di hotel yang ada tempat buat laundry sendiri, jadi biasanya ga terlalu mahal. Ati-ati juga kalo ditawarin free laundry, pernah waktu nginep di mess perusahaan baju gue dicoret-coret pake spidol buat tanda. Karena gratis gabisa protes, hikss.. Coba bikin tanda sendiri yg lebih manusiawi atau pake clothes tag.

Yang paling penting ya.. paksain. Sebelum nambah tas, paksa! Ubah posisi, re-fold, re-roll, try everything. Pake mindset, harus muat. Kalo ga muat, ya tinggal. Haha.. That’s why I said, not always effectively. Dengan pemaksaan harus muat itu seringnya gue jadi meninggalkan beberapa barang, just make sure it’s the least important in the list. Untuk packing list-nya sendiri bisa cek, disini. And here’s an awesome picture of one of my favorite blogger doing her packing. Not really my style, but sure as hell pretty. And if you can bring your biggest suitcase and all of your favorite clothes… Why not, right?

..writing about everything that’s been going on in my mind, or my life. As I said, in my previous posts, I loveee reading personal blog. Because it’s real. Sometimes it’s funny and the other times, it’s just sad and bad. Reading them either made us laugh or give us chance to reflect on our own life.

I really appreciate people that can write everything that’s been going on in their life, bluntly. I knowww, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. They don’t share everything. But the point is, they do share. It’s not easy (for some people), and I applaud them for that. I want to do the same, and I forget, since when I care too much about people’s eyes, about how they would look me in the eye. This over-thinking finally leads me to delete the drafts. Confession, yeah, I deleted a lot of drafts. If you read my tumblr since the beginning you will find a more truthful me, I write about my life, my friends, my boyfriend, my feeling.. till I stopped.

My reason? I have an image that must be maintained. I don’t want to be judged as an overly-sharing girl who likes cheesy things and caught in stupid accidents in a timely manner.

Well, I don’t really lie. I write what I thought and what happened to me, but I limit them. I screen them. I just want to look good, to someone that might never really care actually (there I said it!). But it’s over now (I guess..). So yeah, I will try to write more in the future while trying to stop this over-thinking brain, HA!

Meanwhile, I’m overly excited for June (please May, get over yourself soon!)

Dimanakah ini? Well, stay tune! Banzaiii!!! :D

I watched this movie yesterday in Istituto Italiano (no misspell there) as it’s presented at Europe on Screen. Besides the drama to watch the movie (we had to circling Menteng since it’s not as well-known as Goethe Haus or Erasmus Huis, yet we arrived early, gone to Izzi Pizza but come back again, late (classic!) but I met Ken’ichi Matsuyama look alike, so yeah, that should be counted right?), it was a pretty interesting experience.

My first comment for this movie is, ummhh, well.. umm.. not bad. You know the feeling when you watch something and thought ‘Man, this is bad! Ughhh can I just walk out from here? Oh my god, it’s been an hour and the story goes nowhere and yes! my head is stiff!!’, well that’s a lot of thoughts, but.. at the end you talk it with your friends (who thought the same way, by the way) and just because some people do applaud (maybe it’s not the movie, it’s your taste, suck it up!) you finally start the Googling saga to find what about the movie, really? You think about it on your way home, and probably wind up in your dream that night, then you finally concluded, Well.. it’s not really that bad, is it? Yep. That feeling!

First of all, you have to keep in mind that the movie directed by a 102-year-old-professional-movie-director, Manoel de Oliveira. If you read the synopsis, well that’s about it, no lying, no twist, that-is-it. A story about a man named Issac that asked to photograph the deceased beautiful woman (named Angelica of course), but somehow the woman opened her eyes and smiled back to the man through the lens and picture (no one can see it besides him), he fell in love, become obsessed, yada yada, he ended up dead! Whoops, spoiler! So yeah imagine my disappointment, the plot is exactly like the synopsis (no twist or even an explanation!), the movement from scene-to-scene is beyond slow, the acting is well.. not worth an Oscar (I guess?), and the Angelica’s spirit is similar to the one in Indosiar’s sinetron! However, the movie was a nominee at Cannes, so yeah I must’ve missed the big picture here.

At the end, I think the movie isn’t about Angelica or Issac, but Manoel de Oliveira himself. About how he insisted to do film the old way, because.. he likes it that way.

So, do I suggest you to watch the movie? Nuh-uh, call me tasteless or Hollywood-minded or whatever, but I’d better watch Iron Man 3 for the second time than this. Despite everything, I had a good time with my friends, and something to talk (and laugh) about, so I don’t really complain, hehe..