Saturday, November 14, 2009

2012

Eka is sleepy because she didn't have her nap today. Alright, gonna stop with the 3^rd person thingy. Had a difficult time waking up this morning because my bed was in the perfect temperature *sigh* It feels rather unfair having to wake up early on a Saturday morning. I remember stupidly telling God something like I don't know what heaven looks like, but thank you God, my bed feels so heavenly. I am that silly. In the end I woke up later and was late today.

Watched 2012 with Yeni today. She missed her yoga class and in the end decided that we should just watch the movie now instead of the initially planned tomorrow. It was kinda funny when we were telling people, how about watching vingt douze? and people didn't really get it. Maybe I said it wrongly :P Anyway, I wanted to watch 2012 because I love John Cusack. Unless the movie is not so interesting or a horror, I will most likely watch any movie with John Cusack in it :P Con Air was the movie where I fell in love with him :P

Watching 2012, I was racking my brain what is another movie that carries similar theme as this one, where a vessel was being made and human being and species of living things were chosen to fill the vessel so that after the doomsday was over, the world could be populated with selected species? I think there's a movie like this, no? The idea of 2012 kinda scares me. I've watched a few disaster movies but I don't recall feeling frightened with the theme they present. Many scientists have said it's very unlikely that doomsday will happen on December 2012 but if doomsday does happen the way the movie showed it, it's kinda too freaky. The special effects are actually what captivated me the most in this movie. It must feel so nice to be able to generate such a catastrophe with all the cool softwares.

Story wise, I can't say it to be amazingly cool. For an action movie there's quite a lot of drama in it, which was not necessarily good. I even feel it was slightly boring. As much as I like John Cusack, he didn't particularly stand out in this movie, or particularly adorable and likeable. If any character stood out, for me it would be Woody Harrelson who played a nutty person who was telling everyone that doomsday is coming. Overall, getting out of it, I wasn't as excited as I was about it going in. It's another doomsday movie. I don't know, maybe I am just really losing interest on a lot of things. I wonder if something will hit me, charge me, and intrigue me. Per favore Dio, per favore?

:) eKa @ 7:43:00 PM

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Merantau

Went to watch Merantau yesterday with Vivy. I went with much apprehension because afterall it's an Indonesian movie :P Seriously I wasn't planning to watch any movie until 2012 comes out. I found out about this movie because Vivy just casually mentioned it. Even then I don't think any of us give it any thought. What changed was, I saw the picture in GV website and then I read the synopsis which was so not enticing (made me roll my eyes) and then I hunted down the trailer. Saw the website, watched a behind the scene video blog and somehow got mildly interested. I asked Vivy if she wanted to watch it. Somehow she said okay maybe the cheap Tuesday was enticing as well. I can guarantee you that if she had said no, I wouldn't have been bothered to watch this. I think she wouldn't have watched it alone either.

So merantau in my definition is when someone leaves his / her hometown to make a life for himself / herself in another place. In a way, you can call me as merantau in Singapore. However I got it easy here. Afterall Singapore is so harmless. Anyways Merantau the movie kinda made merantau sounds like a rite of passage which me and Vivy are doubtful if there's any community in Indonesia currently which takes merantau as a rite of passage. So anyway, it tells the story of Yuda who hailed from Padang (the place which was badly damaged by an earthquake recently) who went merantau in Jakarta. Here he met a girl with a young brother who were living the hard life. The girl was being sold to some caucasian bad guys and Yuda who is really good in silat fought all the bad guys to save the girl. See, the story is not much of a gem but really the trailer which showed the fighting scenes really attracted me. But seriously though, if this weren't an Indonesian movie, I wouldn't watch it. Action-martial-art movies which purely sell actions without an interesting storyline don't really attract me. Well to say this is a purely Indonesian movie is kinda not necessarily true because the director and writer is actually British. However it was done in Indonesia, produced by an Indonesian company, yes they are some non-Indonesians working on it but I have to say that it is very Indonesian in nature.

For the life of me, I cannot recall ever watching an Indonesian movie in a cinema. There were some good ones that I had wanted to watch but somehow it never happened. So Merantau is actually the first Indonesian movie that I watched in a cinema. The first Indonesian movie that I actually paid money to watch! So it's kinda a big deal and I am happy to tell you I was quite entertained with it. I thought it was not bad. I thought it was really really cool. Yes perhaps compared to Hollywood or Jackie Chan movies, there are many things that Merantau is lacking but to know that this was done by Indonesians in Indonesia is just so awesome. You actually feel so proud about it and feel like clapping :D The story though is imperfect. As Vivy said there were many plot holes. Me being the critical one or perhaps you can say being the nagging girl who went to watch an action movie, is going to write some comments on it. So here you go :P These comments may contain spoilers though.

1. Yuda had the same bus take him from Padang to Jakarta. Padang is in Sumatra and Jakarta is in Java. They are 2 different island. So the idea of going from Padang to Sumatra in the same bus is kinda strange for me. I don't know if this really what happens in Indonesia but it's just strange. I wonder how long it takes if people really take the whole land and water way of going from Padang to Jakarta. By the way, the scenes of where Yuda's village was, is so beautiful. I wonder if those places are affected by the earthquake.

2. The scenes in Jakarta is really so Jakarta. Oshie gave me a new word today, dichotomy. He used this to explain how Jakarta is, which is very true. I thought Merantau captured the Jakarta which belongs to the haves not really well. It was pretty authentic, if I can say. So if you're not Indonesian or from Jakarta and thinking they're doing it just for the movie, it's not really just for the movie, it's a good depiction of Jakarta.

3. Along with how Jakarta looks like, the thugs were pretty authentic as well I have to say. In Jakarta we will call these people as preman. In hollywood movies, the thugs may come across as really strong, well built guys but true to the ones in Jakarta, the thugs in Merantau are not really the best physically looking people. They could come in small short skinny sizes :P and they would really fight with steels or with a cleaver :P

4. Some of the fighting scenes as cool as they were, were kinda too dramatic. One was the one in the lift. I was actually quite excited with the fighting scene in the lift because of the small area a lift present. However the timeline is illogical. The fight was supposed to last from the 5th floor to the 14th. Yes one of the bad guy did pause the lift, but Yuda restarted it. The fight and talking after the lift was restarted was just too long. So that's pretty illogical.

5. The bad guy in the lift was in the end shot by 2 other bad guys when the lift opened. This scene was just too dramatic for me. Too many shots were fired. Too many blood going on and even after that many shots and blood, the guy still didn't die instantly!!! Didn't make sense at all. However this scene kinda reminded me of how Hongkong action movies would have done it as well. Too much drama!

6. I have to add also, no Jakartans will not call the police if there's a major fight going on in the lobby of their appartment or if they hear a lot of shooting going on. Another illogical thing :P

7. The last fighting scene was between Yuda and the 2 caucasian bad guys. One of them was actually a martial art artist who in real life trains in China. I was expecting a lot from the fight between them however the fight between them wasn't that amazing. This bad guy even had to die first :( He was kinda handsome by the way.

8. I hate the ending. I don't like unhappy ending and major spoiler here!!! *alert* Yuda in the end died! The way he died was so dramatic. It reminds me of the movie Tootsie, in which Dustin Hoffman's character was auditioning for a part. He played a wounded person and was asked to move to the center of the stage from the end of the stage to be more dramatic in his dying scene. Dustin Hoffman's character said it didn't make sense, if you were dying why would you walk so far, you wouldn't even have the energy to do so. That's precisely what Yuda did however!!! He walked quite far despite of the major wound he had and his dying scene was pretty long that it doesn't make sense. In real life I think one would faint before dying since he lost a lot of blood. This kinda thing gets annoying, really :P

9. Some of the lines the character said were pretty Indonesian (I feel), some of the acting were pretty Indonesian as well. What do I mean with that, hmmm ... sometime I feel Indonesian tend to get unnecessarily dramatic :P However, I thought the casts were great. Great bunch of people. Everybody did really well. I thought Iko Uwais who played the main character, Yuda, was really cool but I think I like seeing him because of the character Yuda. Yuda is such a nice guy. So even though the guy is not the most handsome guy around, you would just fall for such nice decent guy!

I think I actually still have a lot of things to say but I'm gonna stop here. I am totally recommending this to all Indonesian out there to catch it. Non-Indonesians, well I don't know if you would be as excited as me but I would be very happy if you watch it too :D I thought the movie is a really good production coming out of Indonesia :) As I said, it kinda makes me feel proud that Indonesia can come out with something like this :D

:) eKa @ 9:45:00 PM

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Of Life - 07.11.09

Hello peeps. Had a nightmare on my nap today and I really didn't like it. Aaarrghhh!!! My nightmares usually are not about monsters or death situation but about uncomfortable situations and they are so bad because of how they make me feel inside it. The feeling kinda lingered when I woke up so normally I would feel moody afterwards (not like the moody feeling hasn't been happening all the time) *sigh*

Anyway today started quite weird also. You know how when you sleep, it's like the time for your brain to reboot. Well my reboot happened pretty weird this early morning. This has actually happened before. I got awoken and I didn't know where I was and what I was actually doing. I got totally disoriented. Normally then I would first realized I just got awoken from a sleep and then I tried to figure out where I was. Somehow normally I would try to think if I was in my bed in Jakarta and then I got utterly disappointed to know I was in Singapore. This morning however, I didn't get to figure that out. After the location question came, my brain somehow wanted to quickly figure out what day it is. I figured it was Saturday morning and with that information, all were cleared. I knew where I was and what will be happening. I wonder if you guys have experienced similar thing?

Anyways, I had quite a full social week. Kinda good to be meeting different people and be doing different stuff and talking different stuff. Kinda good to be spending time with people who are nice.

1) Went to watch My Sister's Keeper last Sunday with Vivy. Darn it, I cried a lot. I think this is the only movie that made me cry that much. It's like crying from start to end! I read in Wikipedia that the original story from the book differs quite greatly with the movie but I like how the movie ends. I think if it had followed the book, it would have been more depressing. Abigail Breslin was of course great. Cameron Diaz did really well too. You don't get to sense her silliness at all which normally occur in the comedies that she did. I thought the cast were really great. An emotionally draining movie but I thought it was really good.

2) Tuesday I met Oshie for dinner. The last time I saw him was actually on Christmas last year! I think he has physically changed a bit but that's the least of his changes actually. I don't know how informative and helpful I was for him during dinner :( I don't think I helped much. He's gonna go through a big change in life soon. I asked him how it felt. He said he was feeling excited about it. I kinda like that spirit in him. I hope things gonna turn out great for him which most probably will because he works so hard and I'm sure he's not gonna stop fighting. I have a stand that sometime what matter is just you work hard for whatever it is you are doing even though people don't think much of what you do because ultimately I feel it is God that you should impress. Everything that will happen will come from God or at least that's how I want it to be. I want what happen in my life to be from God. I feel sincerity in what you do is very important. Personally I just would like to kick ass in no matter what I do :P

3) Wednesday I went to watch a show by Ennio Marchetto. I got a free ticket courtesy of The Italian Cultural Institute :) I chose to take la Gioia since she took me for a ballet performance during Singapore Sun Festival. Ennio Marchetto's performance was quite funny though I found some of the jokes were pretty crude. Seriously there was one part which I thought was too crude for the conservative uptight me. The least crude but still disturbing for me was when Kermit the frog was stroking Ms. Piggy's body with the tune of Touch My Body from Mariah Carey. Err ... it was disturbing for me. There were some kids in the show. I don't know if their parents had to explain anything especially during the crudest part which I'm not gonna write. The show does make me think that there's definitely a generation gap between the youngster and the older ones. The youngster ones may wonder who were the people, who were actually Freddie Mercurie, Tina Turner, Dolly Parton and such. The older ones may wonder who were the people, who were actually people like Kanye West and Lady Gaga. I wonder if there will come a time as well when I'm not following what's happening currently. Perhaps it has happened actually.

4) Yesterday I met up with Yeni to prep her for today. Got a free dinner out of it :P I really like having her in my Saturday's engagement. I realize it's kinda really nice to have an Indonesian around. Today I see new people. It's always the case that people would just disappear slowly but I really hope the core group will stay for long. It would be kinda hard to keep doing this alone.

On other news. I have been kinda crazy with photoshop photomerge since the photoshop world event that I attended last week. Been playing with my pictures but I don't have much pictures to play with. If I had known how easy it is, I would have taken my pictures better. Unfortunately my vaio will not be able to take all the heavy work. Aarrghh ... is it possible that someone buy me a new laptop? *sigh* You can see what I have been doing here. They are totally far from perfect and I wonder if they are printed if they are any good, but so far on screen, they are kinda nice :P Some of my favourites are below. Julia Child said don't say anything you do is of no good to people. Let them figure it out by themselves. Chances are they may not, so why bring yourself down in front of them. However I am gonna comment on these pictures and maybe it will help you be more critical if you see pictures :P

This one is of Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy. I really like this picture. I really like the pastel yellow and orange houses on the bridge especially since the rest of the buildings wear a light pastel colours. Not really a good composition but really with the angle I had, it's the best I have.

This one is of the Tuscan hills and vineyards. Kinda nice small but its original size kinda look not so nice on my Vaio.

The last one, the longest yet, and most problematic is of the Hongkong skyline. This comes from pictures from different days. There's quite a difference from the part on the left and the one on the right. The right one is actually sharper than the one on the left. The shots from the different days show how different the weather were. The one on the left has clouds while the one on the right has a dark sky. Did you notice that? :P I like the colours of the reflection on the water! Very very nice!

:) eKa @ 8:46:00 PM

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Short Trip Home

Get ready peeps, it's gonna be a long post. I actually prepared some points that I wanted to talk about, can you believe it?!? There are actually some points and opinions here on some issues so maybe this post will get somewhat interesting?

So last weekend I actually went home, as mentioned before. It was a short trip and this trip was totally unplanned. NanSee told me of the existence of cheap tickets from Jetstar and so we made use of it. I think she left for Jakarta today. The tickets were really cheap, it was only $35+ for a return ticket. It's like taking a taxi in Singapore. However, I am not loving taking budget airline, so I am not foreseeing doing this for my Chinese New Year trip.

Jakarta was freaking hot! Mom said it still hasn't rained yet. One of the morning this week, I googled what the temperature was and it was 34^oC. It was so hot that on one of the day I was there, I decided not to go out because I couldn't take the heat. Singapore on the other hand is not so hot, we just had thunderous rain :( I hate the thunder!!! Aarrgghhh.

Anyways, so I arrived in Jakarta last Saturday evening. For Sunday mom has planned for me and my dad to fly to Bangka, which is an island where both of my parents are from. It's on the north west of Jakarta and from Singapore it's on the south east. We were there to check out my father's ill sister. I think this is the first time I had a trip with my dad alone, at least in my adult life. So the flight was at 6 am something and my cousin and aunt drove us to the aiport at 04:30 am something! Yes, it was early. What was surprising for me though was how early the Jakartans actually start their day. I could hear the moslems doing their morning prayer and I didn't recall they did that this early when I was young. The craziest was, my mom switched on the tv and at 4 am something, the tv news were already on air and it was live! That's like crazy! Because that means they are accompanying all those people that start their day early. Now that I think about it, people starting their day that early on a Sunday is pretty crazy! The aiport itself was already buzzing with activities, flights were already getting out of Jakarta and arriving in Jakarta! Can you imagine that if they arrive at 6 am something in Jakarta, they must have flown out from places like Bali and further than that at 4 am something! I really didn't expect that the flight schedule is that happening in Indonesia.

Anyways, so we arrived in Bangka. The flight was like around 50 minutes plus (visualize folks that it's located between Jakarta - Singapore). My cousin picked us up and first stop was my father's older sister (not the sick one). In my aunt's house, we went to their small garden / orchard. They have lime trees, papaya trees, and the most interesting one was a durian tree!!! I have never seen a durian tree up close and personal before so it was interesting! There were some tiny durians and I heard it can take months before it grows to its full size. What was more interesting for me was seeing durian flowers, they were white and they're not really attractive at all! I didn't even notice it at first since it blended with all the green leaves so well. If you're wondering, a durian tree doesn't smell like durian :D Oh I have to add, my aunt's garden has grass on the ground and curiously I stepped on it bare-footed and ran my foot on it and it's so smooth!!! I was thinking it's a grass carpet and it's so nice!!! It's like the nice grass that you see people often lie on :P By the way as we drove to places, I saw a lot of ilalang (I don't know the correct english word for it, see picture below, though it's not a nice picture) with all sort of flowers (if I can say that), white, yellow, deep magenta, that they looked so pretty! The magenta ones kinda reminded me of a bunch of lavenders.

After my dad finished plucking the limes uninvinted, we went to my father's old house where her ill younger sister is. Now I have to explain that my family are not rich. My dad doesn't come from a rich family. They lived in a village growing up and if I say village it's a real poor village (don't imagine Europe or American type of village). I cannot find an English word that can describe a small poor village well. In Indonesian, the word that they used on the board is "dusun". The connotation of that word for Indonesian is like a poor village. To illustrate the point, I think electricity just came to this place around 10 - 15 years ago and even so my cousin said that they still don't get electricity sometime. So imagine using lanterns when the night falls. I actually had a bit of memories of this place. I had stayed there when I was really young for a holiday. So my dad's family had 2 small house within around a few metres of each other and I remembered me and my cousins, we were running between the houses and giggling and saying there's a ghost somewhere when it was dark :P I also remembered when we were young and we had to take a shower, our parents had to take water from the well or take a bath in a real actual pond which somehow I cannot locate on this trip and I didn't ask as well. I don't know how much different the place has changed but it is still a village.

There I saw my cousin's chickens running around and I think those chicken are what they called "kampung" chicken (cannot find the english word). They were quite skinny. They are not KFC fat so you really wonder how come KFC chickens are that fat. There were a lot of coconut trees. Conversation between my cousins was about chopping the coconut trees because they were leaning precariously. Apparently one tree did fell and crashed on my cousin's pig pen! Yes, I saw an actual pig, I think it's my cousin's unless it's some neighbour's which happened to wandered around his place. The first time I saw the pig, it was cooling himself in a mud near a tin mine, it was funny for me when I noticed it. Anyway, my cousins were talking about how one coconut tree was killed and my other cousin wondered if the tree was really dead like that (it's still standing although without leaves). I didn't ask how they killed a coconut tree, I was just amazed at how different our worlds are. I don't get to talk about interesting stuffs like this in my daily life! I have to add that I don't speak the local language, I can only pick up a bit. So my cousin had other trees in his front yard (if you can call it that). I don't know if people there have an actual border for their property. He has mango trees and the most interesting one for me was the cacao tree. When my dad pointed it out to me, it didn't register to me what it was, until he reiterated what it was and I stupidly proclaimed, oh a chocolate tree! Boys and girls, there's no such thing as a chocolate tree, be correct like my father and call it the cacao tree. Unfortunately I didn't see the actual fruit being opened up so I didn't know how it looks like inside but I saw some of the beans were being dried. I thought the beans looked like almond. My cousin said it takes around 35 fruits to get a kg of cacao which he can sells at Rp 22.000 per kg, that's like S$3+ per kg or around $2+ per kg. So yeah, the grower at the bottom don't really get much.

While we were there, we also used the opportunity to pray to the god which was assigned to protect me. How this works, I am really unsure. When me and my brother were bornt, my dad had all our things read and so we kinda have god attached to protect us. For my brother it's the kitchen god and in my house in Jakarta we really do have a small altar for him. For me it's a sacred tree in my dad's village. How is it so and what's the story behind it? I don't know and I know it sounds silly. I have never seen the tree until this trip. So I have never prayed to it myself. My cousin usually does this for me on the yearly occasion. The tree didn't look majestic for me. I saw some wasps (I think they were wasps) on one of the hole in the tree :( My cousin said on the special day when they have to pray to the tree, there are usually long queue forming for it. So anyways, the tree is located very very nearby to some tin mines. Bangka and its nearby island Belitung are a great producer of tin for Indonesia. I went to wikipedia and I found out that the tin in Belitung was the reason behind the name of BHP Biliton (a mine company Rista used to work for), that's how rich the 2 islands are. Now, in front of the tree, a tin mine (which I think is not functioning anymore) has caused a hole which are now filled with water. In fact when I took the plane to Bangka and saw from the air the landscape of the island, I could see a lot of this water filled holes which seemed like lake, but they are not lakes, these holes are non-working tin mine which now collect water. My cousin said the water are clean and can be used. I really hope so. With a lot of these holes around, I wonder if this is a correct and environmental friendly way to do this. I don't think that if you make a lot of holes in a surface of something that it will be good for that surface in the long run :(

Behind the tree, there was a working mine, in which I saw 2 backhoe loaders moving the dirt around (on a Sunday peeps!). The mine is big and these 2 heavy machineries were inside a mound of dirt and it looked dangerous for me because I wonder if they could slip and fall, that would be so disastrous! I asked what does tin look like? My cousin said it's like black sand. Take note that there are no fence around this places, I think if I were to hike for a close inspection, nobody would catch me for tresspassing. I asked who own these mines, are they the government, foreign companies, or private companies. My cousin said some are actually really privately own. Like if you have money and you want to mine for tin in Bangka you can just do so! This is the part where I have issue with. I first asked how do they know where the tins are. My cousin said it's been known since the Dutch colonialized us (which they did for 350 years as we were taught in school). My dad said every plot of Bangka, if you want to do it, you can find tin. My cousin said last time during the Soeharto's era (Indonesian's 2nd president with colourful pros and cons), all the mines were owned by the government, you could not mine privately. I thought that's actually a better idea (I wonder if that makes me a socialist?). However Soeharto's era are known for its corruption so perhaps it's not a fair and just way. But when I saw all these mines being worked on with obviously not much rule and regulation, I wonder if it's a good way of doing it. I have issue with foreign companies taking things from Indonesian soil without much thoughts towards the people living there and the environmental issue, after all it's not their countries :( Like, one time I opened a Grasberg mine photo that Rista once sent me when she was working in Papua and a teacher who was sitting next to me said that the mine is not environmental friendly :( It's really about the profit for all this company. I really have issue with the environmental part of this. The mine doesn't look safe for the workers and the environmental part of it is worrying. When my father spent his childhood there, he said this area used to be filled with trees and it can lead him all the way to the sea where he once worked as a fisherman (he said this a few times but we never bother to get more details). Now this area are filled with sands!!! My cousin being the optimist nice him, said over time there will be plants again. It will take a long time but eventually grass will start to grow again and then plants *sigh* It doesn't seem to bother him even though this place is not so far from the houses. I mean if you walk, it will take you less than half an hour :( Last time Rista also said, yes, all this mines may look bad but it's already the best possible way that the mine company can do it. She works for mine companies all her life so we don't know if they're bias :P Somehow I feel better if the government take charge of these processes, I mean they are the government, they suppose to govern but with the so many things Indonesia have to deal with and since we are so big, the government do have a lot of things on their plate and government all over the world are not perfect and in the case of Indonesia we are still quite far from it *sigh*

Hmm, I guess I have written all the points that I wanted to write. I didn't take much pictures (I took like only 4!) because I didn't want to come across as this snobbish city girl putting their lives under a microscope :( There were so many interesting things but I really didn't feel comfortable taking the pictures :( My sick aunt was not looking so bad. She's old as everyone my dad's generation is, so they are plagued with sickness and they are not as strong as before. The place being a village has a lot of bugs and I know I am so spoiled but I cannot imagine living there :( So sorry!!! The place is really interesting though. There's apparently a mountain or hill nearby (which I recalled a bit from childhood memories) where my cousin found some edible mushrooms which only grow under certain condition (I have confirmed, it's not truffle). On my trip there I even managed to accompany dad to a wedding reception of dad's neighbour which was boring for me, it was for lunch and not many people came yet and I just sat there quietly :( Anyways, we went home that same day at 4 pm something. Landed in Jakarta's airport latest new terminal, T3. It's pretty nice though I did see the strangest thing. A cat was wondering about inside the terminal :P And so my days back in Indonesia were quite packed and tiring but most annoyingly HOT!!! I am praying for rain for Jakarta soon.

:) eKa @ 9:51:00 PM

Friday, October 23, 2009

Off to Rawa Kepa

Hi peeps. Not gonna write much. Actually, I shouldn't be writing at all. Gonna go home tomorrow but only for a few days. Will be back here in Singapore on Tuesday. This trip is gonna be physically heavy, I think. I'm already feeling quite tired and of no energy today, which I want to blame on the combination of drugs I took last night since I was having a bit of a flu :( Tomorrow, I still have Saturday engagement, which I don't know how I'm gonna deal with it since my brain is pretty empty right now. After which, I have to rush back and get to the airport and get on the plane. Sunday morning, I will be flying out of Jakarta. Mom said it would be at 6 am, which I don't know if it's 6 from the house or 6 the plane gonna take off. If it's 6 the plane gonna take off, I'm so gonna die having to wake up early and leave the house at 4 am something, aarrrgghh! Mom also said around 6 pm, I should be back in Jakarta. I hope I have enough energy because if not I'm gonna get so cranky :( With the so little time I have, I don't think I will be meeting any friends back home. It's okay for me. What I'm looking forward the most is to eat! Take care loves!

:) eKa @ 10:11:00 PM

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Julie and Julia

Hello peeps. I'm pretty tired right now. Woke up at the time in which I should wake up this morning but I felt rather annoyed because I thought I was late but it turns out my bleary eyed betrayed me. I read the time wrongly :( It turned out I wasn't that late, I could actually still afford another 10 minutes or so lying down in my bed *sigh*

Went to watch Julie and Julia yesterday. I like it, I thought it was nice. The food was pretty glorious. Maybe I was just hungry at that time :P Meryl Streep spoke in this weird pitch and accent that got me annoyed sometime but she is really an amazing actress, brilliant! Amy Adams is of course the princess in Enchanted but really there's nothing princess-y about her look in this movie. In fact she looks really really ordinary, like some normal girl, like one of us :P I love the husbands in this movie, they were really nice, though I have to say Julia Child's husband was better than Julie Powell's husband, but maybe Julie Powell and her husband were still young, so they haven't grown up together long enough. Totally recommending this movie to you. The food and the cooking were great, kinda made me want to try to cook as well :P

On other news, did something yesterday which if I have to explain, it's like setting my red balloon of hope into the sky. The chances of it coming back to me are almost non existence. So if it comes back to me, if it belongs to me, it truly is God's miracle. Perhaps I should be more excited about it, more fervor in my prayers to God but I found myself not praying much actually. Have I given up even before I start? It's just it feels so out of my reach. I don't feel like hoping for it because the way I see it, there's not the slightest chance that it's gonna happen for me. However miracles do happen, a journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step. I had done that one step. Now I need to wait for God to let me know what He thinks. If he doesn't think it's for me, then I have to keep the faith that He means other better thing for me.

Speaking of God, read a CNN article today with the title, Atheist ads to adorn New York subway stations. My God!!! We are supposed to be tolerant of people with different belief and from different religions. Somehow though, I can't seem to be tolerant of people who say they don't believe in God or in any other bigger power :( I may sound like an evangelistical christian here, which I am so not. If I am, I would go to my cell group (which I don't have) and ask them to pray for the atheists in the world :P Anyway, I just feel sad that these people feel the need to persuade other people into believing God doesn't exist. But I suppose many christians out there also try to get non-believers into their church everyday. Still, as I said, I feel less tolerant of the atheist. For me, if I didn't believe in God, my life would be more depressing, meaningless, and empty than what I feel right now.

:) eKa @ 8:34:00 PM

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Paris 36 & Funny People

Deepavali holiday today!!! I was so excited about it even though I know many people don't feel like today is any special, normal old Saturday for them. But for me it was being able to sleep late yesterday without being obligated to quickly sleep and waking up late today when I felt like it :) I really welcome this kind of free Saturday now and then :) So here what I did with the day off.

Went to watch Paris 36 with Ms. J yesterday. I wasn't actually interested to watch it even though Odile told us about it excitedly some weeks ago. What happened was, Lois was interested and she posted a message in her facebook wall. Ms. J said she was interested as well. I googled and watched the trailer and was quite interested with the colourful trailer so I told them let's watch it. However Lois couldn't make it yesterday and so me and Ms. J decided to just go on with ourselves.

I like Paris 36. There's something about the movie which is sweet and nice. Somehow Hollywood just don't make this kinda movie. I recognized the lead actor from Les Choristes. I also recognized the boy who played his son. He was also in Les Choristes and their characters were also close in that movie. The boy obviously has grown and I must say he grows to be quite a good actor. Anyway, the story is pretty easy and simple but I think the whole thing was well done. I love the performances towards the end, the lead girl sang realy well and the sets and costumes were nice and colourful. I thought some of the scenes were really pretty and nice. Nice movie and I'm glad I got to watch it and spent some time with Ms. J since I haven't seen her for a long time.

Then today, I woke up late and went to pray and then I went to watch Funny People in Iluma Bugis. My first time there actually. I kinda like it because it's new and it's pretty empty. Well poor the people there that's it's quite empty but it's good because well I just don't like many people. Anyway about the movie, Oshie did tell me to give this one a miss then Ms. J told me it was crude. Somehow I was adamant to watch it and I don't think it was amazing. It was crude, most of the jokes were about sex and I found them to be really crude and I didn't find them funny :( I wonder if this type of joke are really what Americans like because if they do, they're kinda pretty screwed up :( The story itself wasn't impressive for me. I think if it's meant to be funny, it wasn't funny. If it's meant to be dramatic, it wasn't dramatic. I wasn't even sympathetic to Adam Sandler's character. I don't even know what to think about it, I guess I got pretty confused. I keep on thinking what is he trying to do. I was thinking that the only serious movie that I saw him in was Spanglish and I kinda enjoyed that but I didn't really enjoy Funny People. I find it to be long as well :( However, I think each of the character were really good on their own. I was particularly amused with the dynamic of Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and Jason Schwartzman as roommates. Their relationship was cute :P Well, that's all pretty much it.

Hmm ... I don't really want to write about other things though it seems I have a lot of opinions on things. I guess ... just take care peeps. Hope you have a great week ahead!

:) eKa @ 8:44:00 PM

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Waiting for Time to Pass - 07/10/09

Obviously I am not supposed to do this on a Wednesday, when my watch is still saying 5:57 pm (it's 4 minutes faster by the way), but as the title implies, I am waiting for time to pass and I have a whole 20-25 minutes of it to go *sigh* Let's do this in point, in chronological order (I hope).

1. Went to watch the International Ballet Galla with principal dancers from the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theatre with la Gioia last Saturday evening. It was part of the Singapore Sun Festival or as I like to call it, festival for the rich. Well as written in the website, The time to indulge in the Art of Living Well is back as we celebrate ten days of premium lifestyle and arts events with the Singapore Sun Festival 2009! Yeah festival for the rich. Well I am not rich for being able to see one of its event. We went because la Gioia got free tickets from her friend. The ballet was interesting and fun. Brought back memories of when I was infatuated with ballet when in my younger days I read the japanese comic series, Mari Chan. Aaah, I just love it! However, we did kinda lost interest towards the end. Maybe we were just hungry. We ended the night with Italian dinner. It's been awhile since I last had pasta *sigh* If you are curious, my safe choice for pasta meal, is anything frutti del mare :P I need my meat :P

2. Went to watch Fame yesterday. Well it's between that or Funny People but Fame timing was more suitable. I loved it when Oshie said I should watch Fame instead of Funny People to help the aspiring artists :P He said in Funny People, there were too many overpaid actors :D I will still watch it though.

Anyway, so I was sitting there and thinking, yes surely with my age, certain things shouldn't entertain and amuse me much anymore but there I was watching Fame which is perhaps more intended for a younger (than me) target audience :P I kinda enjoyed it though, but maybe more because of the act of watching a movie again. The storyline was kinda pretty much non-existence. I mean it was so shallow that nothing much can be said. Kinda a pity though because I remember watching Fame the TV series when I was young and remembered liking it a lot. I even have bits of memory of the teachers and students but here in Fame 2009 the movie, noone is memorable. I can only say 1 guy is memorable and it's because I found him extremely cute and again I am too old to be crushing over some youngster like that :P So, yeah, I am not really recommending this much, unless this is really your thing and you are dying for some easy to digest entertainment.

3. Still keeping to myself a lot but had been somehow cornered to do stuff with people and I don't actually welcome that much. I was cornered to answer a phone call and the conversation was not fun for me. Was cornered to go for lunch with the Saturday peeps but this one ended quite good because it's been a while since I went to Swensens^* and yes apparently I miss it :P Had a good durian ice-cream :D I need more ice-cream!!! I start to enjoy my Saturday morning engagement though I do still get nervous of being tortured. Last week, I was tortured with the word, musculation, darn it! :P

4. A friend told me that he has broken up with his girlfriend. Kinda funny because when I found out that he has a girlfriend, I was kinda sworn to secrecy about it. So things happened and passed and noone knew about it. Does it make it less sad that his relationship ended? He said he needed to take care of himself and in no place to be taking caring other people. I told him, I want to use that line if people ask me why I am so antisocial ... because people who wants thing from me sucks! :P

5. I told a friend, "Hey, this guy (we both know this guy) is married?!!". This friend said he didn't care and I love that. I love how he doesn't actually have perfect relationship with people as well. The thing is in our lives in the past, him and the guy kinda were in the same circle but apparently they have grown so far apart. I know I am so bad for being happy but it makes me feel good to know that other people's relationship can also grow apart. It's not just me!!! That sense of relieved is so comforting :P

Eh, I guess that's it peeps. Nothing much else to say. I am running out of time anyway. Ciao

^*Penso che l'ultima volta che sono stata a Swensens, sono stata con lui. Ma lui veramente non è nella mia vita adesso. Non essere triste, Eka!

:) eKa @ 5:49:00 PM

Sunday, September 27, 2009

The September Issue

I know I just wrote a long piece yesterday but I kinda have something to write about today. Went to watch The September Issue today out of whim-wham. Well I was planning to watch it but didn't really plan it today. When I woke up this morning, I wondered why not and so I did. I am perhaps one of the least fashionable person that the people who know me know of but actually I really like nice dresses and shoes and stuffs. I really like watching tv shows like Project Runway and America's Next Top Model 'cause I really enjoy looking at pretty dresses and pictures. I guess I just love pretty things.

I really love The September Issue even though I have never read Vogue, ever! It's a documentary telling how Vogue prepared their September issue which apparently it's like the bible released every year for the fashion industry. It centered around its editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who is the real "devil in prada". Her ex-assistant was the one who wrote The Devil Wears Prada which I've read, courtesy of Dagi, and was also already made into a movie (not a really amazing one though). So Anna Wintour was described as this difficult boss but watching the documentary, I don't really think so. She just does what she does and establishes her opinions on things. Bosses do that and it's always hard when you also have a strong opinion about something and think your boss is wrong and yet you have to give in because the boss is always right and get the final say :( It's frustrating and it's never easy but it's just how it is in working life I suppose. Seriously I don't see the bitchiness from Anna Wintour as the book The Devil Wears Prada implies. I love the comment of her daughter who said she didn't want to be an editor and she didn't get how serious people think and feel about fashion. It happens, doesn't it? That people cannot get why you are very passionate about something :P Anyways, I love all the creative processes. I love the pictures! I love the dresses and stuff. The people working for the issue are pretty amazing because they really come out with interesting and amazing stuff. Grace Coddington, the creative director, is really creative and her input in the whole spread are amazing! I love the photo shoots she produced and like her, I also couldn't understand why Anna didn't like some of the shots :P I know fashion is not for everyone, but it you are the slightest bit interested, do watch it because it's really interesting :)

Had my lunch / dinner today with the presence of Jenny and like a response (perhaps from God) about my last post, she's criticizing my solitaire lifestyle. Bah! I was really not welcoming the talk but I had not choice but to hear her out. Yeah, I know I should be more social, bla bla bla but I am also a stubborn person and as I said I like to do the things I like, my way and right now I have noone that I find to be interesting enough to spend some hours with. That's all I have to say about it. Okay, I'm still hungry :S but I cannot get my banana chocolate cake with her outside :( aarrrggh. By the way, Sebastian Vettel is so cute!!! Aaaahhh ...

:) eKa @ 7:04:00 PM