This article caught my mind : 23 Things Not To Write in an Email. During the Lehman Brothers’ investigation, apparently, the examiners found suspicious emails by specifically searching for these 23 phrases:
So, just between us, be very careful when you include any of the phrases above in your highly confidential emails. The damage may be unsalvageable and you can get into serious trouble >.< . In fact, I think very sensitive issues should not be communicated via emails! That’s just so dumb.
This song never fails to remind me of my friends, especially now that I cannot meet them on a daily basis anymore. I kinda missed the days where we can knock on each other’s door to talk about all sorts of random things or kidnap each other to go to Strawberry Cafe for some screaming session.
Here’s the lyrics so you can sing along:
So no one told you life was gonna be this way
Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s D.O.A.
It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear
When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even
your year, but
I’ll be there for you
When the rain starts to pour
I’ll be there for you
Like I’ve been there before
I’ll be there for you
‘Cause you’re there for me too
You’re still in bed at ten and work began at eight
You’ve burned your breakfast so far, things are going great
Your mama warned you there’d be days like these
But she didn’t tell you when the world has brought you down to your knees, and
No one could ever know me
No one could ever see me
Since you’re the only one who knows what it’s like to be me
Someone to face the day with
Make it through all the best with
Someone who always laughs at
Even when I’m at my worst, I’m best with you
Yeah!
I’ll be there for you
I’ll be there for you
I’ll be there for you
‘Cause you’re there for me too
We celebrated by going to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (Beautiful Indonesia Mini Garden). Taman Mini is located in the East of Jakarta, quite far from where we live, but since we were determined to have a frugal anniversary celebration, I thought Taman Mini would be a cheap and fun solution. Why? Taman Mini has a cheap entrance fee of Rp 9000 (US$ 1), easily reachable with public transports, we can take lots of pictures there since this mini garden is not that small, 165 hectare to be exact. And we heard there’s this must-try , world’s best Pecel Madiun there. Taman Mini also has an IMAX theatre, museums, bird park, they have everything ! Sadly, we could not walk to visit everything that Taman Mini has to offer. We left exhausted but very happy at 5 pm, just before the closing time.
Good choice, Taman Mini sure was fun !
This is the ultimate Pecel Madiun, it’s located near Taman Melati. Great for your tummy and your wallet. Lunch there costs us just Rp 34,000.00. This pecel is so famous that you’ll see all sorts of awards on the wall and pictures that the owners took with former President, the late General Soeharto.
Lots of traditional houses to take pictures in, like this wooden house from North Sulawesi. Actually we’d like to take more pictures, possibly in every house from every province ! But there were so many kids running around at that time, it was hard to take photos 
I wonder if there were termites living there…
This is hubby trying to break a fight ><
And we had our most fun in...
Transportation Museum !!
This is an actual old train used during the war circa 1930.
An old 19th century spotlight.
Hubby was chasing his train
This is a cabriolet aka oplet , a form of public transportation used in Jakarta from the late 50s to early 70s. I want one !
Hubby on a strange looking pedicab, a tandem pedicab?
I never knew hubby was a fan of Indonesia’s transportation minister ! He insisted that I took pictures of him with Mr Freddy Numberi’s cut out 
This was a seriously fun trip. We were too tired to so we decided to watch a movie called T-Rex in the IMAX theatre.
We made a short visit to the Pecel stall again to have some snacks and icy cold drinks before going home.
For those who wants to go to Taman Mini by public transport, this is our route : we took Busway from Bunderan Senayan , transferred at Dukuh Atas 2 heading to Ragunan. From Ragunan we took an angkot (S 15A) that goes from the Ragunan Zoo to Taman Mini ! Now I think we should visit the zoo ^^ .
I found our first year of marriage was fun and difficult. It’s great that we get to live together, learn about each other and ourselves, plan the future together and do lots of crazy or boring things together. So many things happened in a year, moving to Jakarta, jobs change, etc. Hubby taught me how to ride a motor scooter and next , swimming. Hubby taught himself some new and cool magic tricks. I taught hubby how to have fun ^.^ I’m glad to find that we share similar life principles, that makes it easier to create the bigger map for our tiny family.
The not so fun part?
Financially, we are currently on a super strict budget because we’re still struggling to pay off the apartment.
Mortgage shouldn’t be that hard, no? Actually, we’re paying by installment loans. Soon after the wedding, we found this awesome opportunity to purchase a tiny apartment (40 sq.m) in West Jakarta. Initially we thought with what we have, we might have to resort to living in the suburbs and dedicate about 4 hours everyday for commuting.
They offered us to pay by 25x installments instead of mortgage, so instead of paying to the bank, we’re paying directly to the developer. At first, I thought this is crazy and kinda risky. But then, we thought, hmm.. this payment scheme also frees us from having to pay that stupid 11% interest rate. So, we jumped in anyway. Now I only get about a quarter of what I usually have every month, and I have to carefully slice it for transportation, insurance, groceries, saving and emergency fund ! We still have 16 more payments to go, nooooos ! We’ve been monitoring on the development progress and hopefully, we can move in to our new apartment by the end of this year.
On living together , finding someone willing to put up with me for his whole life is awesome , but that also means I have to be willing to put up with him. That’s the difficult part. Subconsciously, I think we all have a picture in mind on how things should be but the reality doesn’t match that.
One day Hubby told me that actually he wished I would prepare all the clothes for him to wear for work. Because his mom always prepares all his dad’s things in the morning. I never did this! It never even occurred my mind that he would want me to choose what clothes he should wear ! I always thought he knew how to dress himself . And honestly, I think he dresses better than I do, he always knows how to coordinate his attire while I’m the type that wears whatever is available in my wardrobe. I use that excuse to sorta get away from this “task” 
.
And day to day living is quite a struggle for me. After work, with all the traffic jam and such, I reach home by 7.30 and I have to quickly prepare dinner for both of us. It’s not exactly possible to cook decent Indonesian meals in such a short amount of time, so I have to prepare carefully. After dinner, I prepare for tomorrow’s dinner (cleaning and cutting vegetables, marinading stuffs or whatever), wash the dishes, and by the time it’s all over, it’s already almost 11 pm! Very little time left for TV or reading.
(Update on this matter: I brought up the topic that I really really need help dealing with the kitchen chaos ><, and hubby said that he doesn't mind helping , provided he's given some basic kitchen training. It was a good day ^^.) So honestly, I wished sometimes Hubby would help me up in the kitchen. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a husband that cooks together with you? Or offer to cook sometimes?
Hubby hardly ever stepped into the kitchen in his childhood, kitchen is like an unfamiliar territory for him. So I never had any success asking him to cook with me . I think he prefers to be fixated on his PS2 and Kamen Rider series.
However, he often surprised me too. When I was sick with dengue and what not, I was worrying about the dirty dishes that I haven’t washed yet. To my surprise, Hubby swept and mopped the apartment, he even scrubbed the bathroom and toilet, and he washed the dishes too. He took a day off to take me to the hospital. He accompanied me in the hospital although it was very uncomfortable for him since my hospital ward roommie was screaming in pain all the time.
Hubby also develops this rather cute habit of waking up very early in the morning to turn on the water heater so I can enjoy nice warm shower, then goes back to bed. He also fixes my blanket when I was sleeping. Hubby also endures my crazy singing, although he often complains that I’m ruining lots of good songs, and I made the bad ones sound worse. Hubby’s a good man after all, that’s why I married him ^^.
Then there’s the work-related stresses. Hubby’s job is a lot more stressful now, so there were days when he returned home looking all depressed. When that happened, whatever I did to cheer him up failed miserably and I felt terribly lonely. Thankfully, things are looking up now! No more days of depressions!
Without sugar coating anything, I think marriage is tough for both of us. Marriage has this steep learning curve, and sometimes I doubt if I’m cut out for it. But hey, we’ve made it for a year!
Congratulations !
How smart is this solution from our Agriculture Minister !
“Agriculture Minister Suswono has suggested Indonesians reduce consuming steamed rice to 1.5 percent by implementing a No Steamed Rice Day program”.
He seriously believes that we can help the decreasing rice production by eating less rice and he even suggested that we switch to flatus-inducing sweet potatoes! And why has our rice production decreased? I thought Indonesia exports rice!
I recently learnt that an institution I used to work for (not naming any names) was bad-mouthed in several online forums. One of the bad-mouther was clearly a disgruntled employee (or former employee) and he/she was happy to share lots of ugly facts as well as exaggerated ugly facts about the institution.
At first, I thought what he/she did was beyond terrible, but then I realised something.
When I was working there, me and my colleagues tried so many ways to make the big bosses up there to realise that there were so many things that were not right! We brought them up in the meetings and all sorts of aimless workshops but nothing real was ever done. We were so ethical that nobody has ever tried venting them out in a public forum until now. That disgruntled employee on the other hand, seemed to focus less on the ethical side and more on what really works.
Bad-mouthed in a public, online forum burns so bad that the big bosses are more likely to do something to put down the fire and rebuild the good reputation. So there’s actually a positive side to that reckless ranting. But do we have to wait until we’re burnt to realise that we’ve been keeping lots of explosives?
When I first read the synopsis, I was convinced that this movie wasn’t worth watching. The story revolves around Li, a plain Jane trying to find the love of her life. Sounds too Bridget Jones-ish to me. But hubby watched it and somehow he loves loves loves this movie! So I got curious and watched it too. And what a pleasant surprise it was. The story was – as I predicted – that simple, but somehow it made me smile hours after the movie concluded . I didn’t even get that from Bridget Jones. It was funny, romantic, bittersweet, and in the end, sweet but not overly sugary. I think it’s probably because it’s easier to relate to Li’s life rather than Bridget’s.
The story is about Li, a middle class Thai Chinese girl who can barely speaks her grandma’s dialect. On her best friend’s wedding, she got drunk and crashed her dad’s car. Her dad confiscated the car key and without it, she has to take 5 different transportations just to get to work. And that’s where the fun begins.
I smiled when Li had to take the motorcycle taxi (in Indonesia it’s called Ojek) and hurt her knees as the motorcycle tries to make its way through the traffic jam recklessly, oh my…I hurt my knees because of reckless ojek riders all the time but I would have never expected to see it glorified in a movie.
I almost cried when she expressed her loneliness and disappointments. She reminds me of myself in my moments of insecurities. Throughout the movie, I found myself hoping that she will eventually finds her happy ending! In the end, it made me feel like I should give hubby a hug. Crazy huh?
I seriously think Sirin aka Chris Horwang deserves an award for this. (I just checked, she already won several awards! Way to go Chris! )
So my conclusion is, Bangkok Traffic Love Story is definitely worth watching !
I’m giving it a 7 out of 10
my country oh my country… haaaaa… oh my country
The whole story began last Friday. I knew I didn’t feel too well, but I thought it was just a cold or something. I thought if I had enough rest over the weekend, I would be back up and running by Monday. How wrong I was. On Monday, my whole body ached and I felt horribly feverish. I tried to go to the bathroom and suddenly I lost my vision. I passed out for a couple of minutes. Luckily hubby was still at home he took me to a nearby hospital.
I spent 4 days in the hospital for a combo infection of measles and dengue fever. By Thursday, my fever is gone so I begged them to let me go. With the help of my uncle and aunt, they were convinced that I’ll make a speedier recovery at home.
Then I spent the rest of the week curled up at home trying to recover without the aide of IV. This week has been a very very bad week. I guess it could’ve been worse, the words dengue fever had always strike a certain fear to me because a long long time ago, during my primary school years, I lost a classmate from dengue fever.
Being sick felt like the world came to an abrupt stop. When in reality, it doesn’t really happen. Only your world came into a halt. And you learn to value things you don’t always appreciate when you’re healthy.
I’m back at work now !!
