Krishna’s Kaleidoscope

8 months. That’s the time that’s passed since i last put my thoughts down in a blog entry. While it’ll be banal for me to try to even start describing all the things that happened in those eight eventful months, the title of this entry can provide a glimpse: this has been a year of blessings, or, in Latin, Anno Benefacio.

Before anything else, I’ve graduated!!!!! After eight tumultuous years of studying in Singapore, including the last three and a half at SMU, that is. This Saturday I’m heading home for Christmas (people who know me would know how much my family and I lIove Christmas ), and by new year’s eve, I’ll be back here, full-steam to gear up for SMU Arts Festival 2009. If God’s willing, work starts right after Chinese New Year (this can easily be another post by itself, trust me)

Let me start with Summer break. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, my Eurotrip!!! The SMU Chamber Choir went to Poland for Mundus Cantat Sopot festival. We flew on Air France to Paris, then changed plane to Warsaw. Sopot was this beautiful small town at Gdansk (Danzig), which now holds so many wonderful memories for everyone of us who went there. In the five-day festival, we clinched two silvers in the sacred and folk category, a pretty amazing feat considering that the choir’s only a year old. One of the high-points of Sopot was meeting, among 20 other choirs, the University of Philippines Singing Ambassadors, who were simply amazing. They walked away with the Grand Prix, not just in Europe, but in so many other festivals they went for all arounf Europe.

Because the return trip had to be via Charles de Gaulle again, I decided to break from the group and do a small extension myself (Sylvia came with me on this leg). The first thing that i had to do was to visit Opa Harry and Opa Henk in Rotterdam, so after spending a day in Paris (which is of course still amazing for tourists), I caught the night bus to Rotterdam. It was 5 in the morning when I reached Rotterdam’s Kruisplein. The extremely chilly winds didn’t provide much of a help in finding Oma Jose in the darkness of the morning. It involved a several phonecalls to Indonesia before I found them and had a wonderful homecooked meal for breakfast, Holland style. It was certainly very nice to meet them after so long, getting proper rice and even authentic Manadonese food (which I can’t get even in Singapore!), after a week long of interesting Polish food (again, this can be a verrry long post, but to be short, let’s just say that when in Poland, you should feast on their Pierogis and gulp down their beers!).

The last three days in Europe were spent in Paris, where, on top of the standard Louvre, Eiffel, Notre Dame, blah blah, I tried to taste as much shopping as possible. I went to Saint Ouen for the flea market. I managed to bag a very interesting old-school poster a few souveniers. Rumaging through Lafayette was fun, especially for the ever-so-amazing H&M, but the highlight was still a visit to the tres chic Longchamp flagship store at Rue Saint Honore where I bought my mum her birthday gift. For me, the check-in counter at Charles de Gaulle almost charged me for excess baggage, even after me giving Kevin some of the things I didn’t need to be brought back to Singapore earlier. Let’s just say that I got my essentials :)

Bleah. I’m getting tired. Shall continue this another time (please, somebody, remind me to do this, just in case Arts Fest takes the toll on me ;p).

It’s never a bad time to say: MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!! Have a blessed time with your family and loved ones in this joyous season, and may it be for us a good start to another year of blessings, Anno Benefacio.

God keeps.

If you’re reading this post some time on this beautiful Sunday evening and you’re just a phonecall away from me, can you please please FORCE me to write something on securitization. The paper’s due Tuesday 12 o’clock by the way.

Right. This is the second time that this is happening this term. Note to self: Get back the old me who used to finish everything early.

Most of my my subjects are done for the term, my second last term if God’s willing. It’s just surreal how from about 40 courses, I’m down to 5.5 more.

This term is again, eventful, with me having a lot to thank the good Lord for. January-February was filled with big events. End of January was the inaugural concert of the SMU Chamber Choir, where we performed something like aroud 10 songs. Interesting, really, because the choir’s dynamics are different from other choirs I’ve been in, in more ways than one. The show turned out not so bad, and next ones are sure to get better. Positive.

When it’s over, it was time for GaYa 2008-Gajah Mada. It’s my second time directing a musical, and hopefully it won’t be the last of this sort. Come to think of all the processes, from day 1 to the performance day, there were so so many precious learning experiences. I can’t list them all here, but trust me, working with an average of 40 people on stage (at many parts of the play, that is!) is one helluva task. We had the show at Raffles Hotel’s Jubillee Hall and the turnout was good. The guest-of-honours were His Excellency and Mrs Wardana (the Indonesian Ambassador and his wife), and Dr Della Lee of the Lee Foundation. Lord knows how we’d been trying to get Dr Lee to grace our event, and when I get to play host to her that night, I was just beaming. The overall production team is really great, and I hope they had as much fun as I had.

If we re-wind to about a week before that, you’ll get one of the nicest dates in the entire year. 21/02. Ha!

I remember being dead tired the previous day since I had been cramming too much stuff for a mid-term right on my birthday That’s really one way to celebrate! All I remembered was watching American Idols and having Ferro and Arizki in my room when the clock stroke twelve. But then again, with every year, it gets less exciting. Wait, that just makes me sound so old.

Nothing much happened that day, but for the challenging paper. I decided that I didn’t want to remember 21/02/08 as the-day-I-sat-for-a-very-difficult-paper, so I took those two aforementioned to CoffeeBean for supper. Then the next day. Fenny (my ever so wonderful hair&make-up manager) asked me to accompany her to our sponsor salon. I thought nothing much since she had been asking me to go to see so many people. Being more free than I was on other days, I thought ‘why not?’. How could I guess that this is one of the dirty tricks SMUKIans do to birthday people. So there they were, at School of Business’ concourse with a little cake and candles for me to blow. Fun.   

Then came the celebration. This year I used Kristia/Yenny’s place at Anchorage. Food was superbly done by our very own Ms Caressa Tampubolon (if you’re reading this, you just have to know how many poeple complimented your cooking). She served baked pasta, wings, garden salad, and even made me a tiered cake made of her delicious cupcakes in turqoise and orange! The theme was ‘Black, White & Bling’. People turned out in interesting outfits, while I only found my bling at 12 that day. In Mustafa. Triple ha’s.

Anggi and I bought the decoration stuff the previous Saturday at this quaint shop near Arab Street. Really, it must be one of the most quirky shops I’ve ever been in. And one of the cheapest too, I must add. On the day itself, Ivan and Fendy helped setting up the place, while I had to run around getting drinks and cash to pay for things. In the end, I entered the function room drenched in sweat. It went well, until they threw me into the swimming pool right after I blew the candles. I so knew it was coming, but somehow was too busy to remember to pack change of clothes. Adit was the kind soul who lent me something to change into.

Boy. this is really long, considering I was trying to to pack four months into one entry.

I’ll spare you the rest, which hopefully comes soon enough (and god forbids, that may just be when the next semester’s over ;p)

I’ll get to writing something, I promise. God keeps. 

Too many things have happened since my last entry (duh! Aug 30!) that if I even try to write them all down here, I can go on forever. It’s been one whole term: thirteen weeks of lessons, one study week, one week of exams, one debut recital in between, one holiday trip to Jakarta, a shift to the new Hullett block. And so the list goes.

First, the justification of why I haven’t been blogging. Busy (as much as a cliche as it may sound, I was, though not entirely with schoolwork) is one, while the other factor is the non-existence of internet connection in my room since about a month ago. Basically, the two year contract that we had ended on a lovely morning. I was still happily roaming the virtual world the night before, but when I woke up, it’s gone. Like a dream And so I’ve been dependent on school’s internet connection to do basic stuff like inbox checking.

Now that fifteen weeks of term had just ended today (I had my last paper this morning), I really feel that I enjoyed studying all four modules. (Refer to the post below for the list of my modules). I’ve always loved Statistics, so learning was not so much a chore as it would be otherwise. That’s why, if God’s willing, I’d like to pursue my graduate studies in Stats. I’ve been looking at the programmes that different universities offer, and so far I’m liking ANU’s and Columbia’s. People have been telling me to at least try working before I carry on until doctorate (actually it’s quite fun applying for entry-level job with a PhD behind your name. Ha!). I don’t know. I’m still asking the BOSS to take me wherever He wants me to go. And I know He will

MY RECITAL. (this should’ve been one long post on its own, but well) It happened on a Friday, October 5th 2007. It has always been a dream. Thank God for He’s made it a milestone in my artistic portfolio. People who know me well would easily testify that I’m such a sucker for performances. One of my earthly joys is stage+lights+audience. A phrase people have used to describe me that I still like the best to this day: ‘Spotlight Junkie’. 

And so it happened. After almost three months of preparation, with a lot of people helping and supporting me along the way, I performed about 20 songs to a 160-strong audience. Maybe I didn’t get to enjoy the night as much as I could because there were just too many things that I needed to take care of, but it was indeed a bliss.

Alright. Too long a post may render this entry unreadable. So I’ll stop now. Just wanted to let you know that I’m having my holiday from tomorrow onwards. (you know what, at this stage, there is very little difference between holiday and not. but at least I get to be where I can’t during term time: home!)

In the meanwhile, I’ll be watching Asian Idol preliminaries tonight. May the most popular win.

God keeps.

My procrastinating self has not put writing anywhere near top priority. And before I realise it, almost two weeks of school have passed. That’s two out of fifteen weeks, or mathematically 13.3% (to nearest 3 significant figures) of one whole SMU semester.

Talking about Mathematics, I’ve been having so much fun with it. Now that I had declared Business Statistics as my second major, I can go back to that first love of mine: Mathematics in general and Statistics to be precise. This semester, I am doing four modules, all of which are Maths related. Mondays are STAT201 Probablity Theory and Statistical Inference. Tuesdays STAT 203 Financial and Actuarial Mathematics in the morning and ECON 107 Econometrics in the afternoon. And my last class of the week is ECON 205 Intermediate Mathematics for Economics, on Thursday afternoons.

So far, so fun. I haven’t had any Maths homework (or any homework for that matter!) in such a long time, that I readily devoured  anything and everything that came my way. So much so that I’m done with my assignments almost for the next 2 weeks! Ha. Bliss

The only setback that I came to realise since the first week of school is that all Mathematics professors, or at least those teaching in SMU, are either Hongkonger (of which two are teaching moi), Korean (one is my Econometrics professor) or Singaporean with just as incomprehensible English. But actually, after 2 weeks of lessons, I found all of them interesting in their own ways. Well, maybe I’m just biased towards the subject, but in any case, I still enjoy all my classes. Hmm.

Last week was filled with singing rehearsals and performances. I had to perform for Boarding School’s Formal Dinner (once again) on Wednesday, and perform twice for Voix and the Chamber Choir for CCA Day on Friday. For every night that week, I had at least two activities taking place at the exact same time. Thank God that I could shift things around to make everything sort of work out perfect in His arrangement. Monday I had Voix and formal dinner rehearsals. Tuesday choir rehearsal and Boarding Duty. Wednesday Formal Dinner and Choir checksound. Thursday Voix and teaching. Friday, finally, singing all the way from the afternoon to evening.

Formal Dinner went quite well. Food was unexpectedly quite good and aplenty this time round. I sang ‘Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off’, which makes it also a mini run-thorugh for my recital. As usual, the audience loved the song. I guess the Gershwins were a tad more cheeky when they wrote this song. All the encouragements simply made me more excited for the recital Then CCA day. Considering that the Atrium was as noisy as Hall 603 of Suntec during Comex, Voix and Choir did more than okay. For the Choir, it was our first real performance (Convocation was acting, so it doesn’t count) and we were relatively in tune. Maybe we should just specialise in singing in front of a noisy crowd ;p

To come back to the title of this post, throughout these two weeks, I’ve been thinking more and more about friends and how to manage them. One thing’s for sure, we’re all humanbeings who have complicated thoughts and feelings. Not to mention that some are just unexplicably weird for no apparent reason.
I think each of us have to walk around in life wearing that sign you put on airfrieght baggages: Fragile - handle with care.

I have a very good friend (or so I thought) who went missing for months. My other friend and I got so worried that we played detectives to look for her (Don’t ask!). Everyone we know had no idea where she was. And so thousands of questions keep popping in our heads on what had happened. Surely she knew that her close friends would miss her, or did she?? Well, after waiting for weeks, this friend rang me up. All the questions were left unanswered, but I was simply glad to know that nothing bad happened. At least nothing that was so important  that she had to tell me.

I met a German exchange student in my Econometrics class. Both of us were pretty bored that we started talking nonsense in the middle of the lecture. During the break, we went to Subway, and while queueing, he told me that he needed new shoes because the one he was wearing had a hole in the sole (it rhymes :D). I immediately asked him how many pairs did he bring with him to Singapore. The answer was two. Followed by the remark "yea, because I only have two pairs. You know, my ex-girlfriend always had like twenty, or fifty pairs. I could never understand her." I could only cringe.

On another occasion, I was pretty upset over some people (may just include yours truly) who are too shallow at times. We laugh over something that seems funny at that particular instant, only to find a moment later that there was nothing fun about the whole thing. The next day, to remove all the upset-ness i had, i went to Tangs to look at their fabulous men’s shoes collection. I went home a much happier boy that day, with a pair of new Italian shoes in hand

The more I think about it, the more I feel that friends are like shoes. No matter how much you despise people who have a lot, you’d need to have a few basic ones. You simply need them. Now I have about thirty pairs in my about-to-explode rack, and as much as I love all of them and think of each of them as special, but I can’t help but almost always wear my favourite ones. Which is very much like friends, I think. I may have a lot of interesting friends out there, but there’s just a comfort to be with the ones I feel most comfortable around.

Think about it.

So here I am, sitting behind my office desk, on my last day of internship. That means that I’ve been here for three months and three days! Although I’ve been preparing myself since it dawned on me that I would have to close another chapter in my life and move on to the next, the reality can never be so simple.

Sidetracking for a while, an uncle of mine passed away when I was in Jakarta (this is the second time that a pretty close relative passed away while I was on holiday at home!). He was a pastor, so the whole church mourned with the bereaved family. We, being Christians, never take death as losing a loved one, for it’s just a passing on to a much better place. So I thought that the wife was pretty calm the first few days. Until the time they had to close the casket, that is. She totally went hysterical, screaming on top of her lungs in a packed church, when she came to realise that she was never going to see her husband in person anymore for the rest of her life. My legs went weak that moment, as there was so much anguish in the air.

So the lesson is that grieving is a natural and, hence, necessary process. We have to grieve for a loss, lest it’ll bottle up, and let me tell you that the consequences will not be pretty.

Now I am preparing myself for a transition from my work routines to the usual school life. There would be things that I’ll miss, of course. I’ve gotten used to walking from the Tiong Bahru MRT Station to Peng Nguan Street, vice versa. The lunches at Tiong Bahru Market, the drink stall auntie and the hokkien mee uncle (both of which need no ordering from me), and ultimately the people.

The colleagues (Wei Loong, who has been in the same room as I was for three months, giving me little tips on things ranging from writing thesis to office politics), the boss (Fook Wai, who gave me the opportunity to work here in the first place, gave me the best guidance I can ever ask for, believed in my capabilities, gave me the trust that I could handle things well yet always provided the support I need). Thank you.

The IAC Trainees, whom I got to know quite well. Irene and Bee Lian, especially with their super strong will power to learn and not let their disability hinder them from achieving great things in life. Just seeing them come every morning to the class with such high spirits always reminded me how often I had dreaded going to my morning classes. And I don’t even have to go thorugh the things they do just to come to school. These people are my inspiration, and for that I salute them!

Many have I learnt for the past three months. Not that many are technical (as I had expected), most are management skills (how to handle people you work with in the office) and general life lessons (how to be thankful and persevere no matter what). As I have written three months ago, I always knew, and still do, that GOD put me here for a wonderful purpose. I may have learnt more than if I had been placed in a company which could probably make my resume look more impressive. But at the end of the day, what matters to me is the satisfaction and whether I’ve brought light to wherever He’s put me. I hope I have. 

[may still be continued]

I have so many things that I want to share in this post, but my instinct’s telling me I’ll either a) ramble incoherently until I lose focus; b) not be able to persevere; c) run out of time; or d) all of the above.

Today’s Wednesday Aug15th, my second last day of internship at SPD. Why tomorrow’s the last day, you may ask. It can be attributed to the fact that I have to report at Suntec at 7 in the morning (!!!) on Friday for Convocation rehearsal. Whoever set the schedule must be either an insomniac or masochist. By the way, I fell (somewhat) sick two days ago. It started on Sat night where I started feeling itchy. I didn’t think much about it, until the next day when I noticed that I had these rashes on my hand. Panic kicked in. But I was due to return to Singapore, so I was praying that it was just a repercussion of my stress from having to leave home once again.

Well, once I arrived at RIB, there was no doubt that I had developed a quite bad allergic reaction from something I must’ve eaten during the one week I was at home. Not this is something unusual. Since I moved here seven (!!!) years ago, everytime I go home, I would crave for the yummy culinary products. And those cravings have caused diseases ranging from typhoid to liver infection (don’t ask me how) to, apparently, allergy. 

So well, on Monday morning I decided to visit the doctor. After waiting for two bloody hours, the doctor said that most probably i had an allergic reaction (minus the ability to prescribe drugs, my diagnostic skills are as good as his!). Just when I thought that everything was going fine, he took out a horrendously big needle and a tube thingy. "Just to be safe, let’s do a blood test, coz sometimes people with dengue have similar symptoms as these rashes". Said with the calmness like the one you experience right before a storm. I went: "What?!?!" He said that once the result’s in, he’d give me a ring.

Once I told my parents about the blood test and the small possibility of dengue, they went from worried to unreasonably panicky. They kept calling every hour or so to check whether the result’s in. In the afternoon, I went for choir practice in school until 6.

Highlight of my Monday: meeting Anggi after more than three months! That must be the longest period that we don’t see each other in the past seven years! Anyway, after the short nostalgic dinner at Taka foodcourt, we went to Spinelli for a loooooong talk. There were so many things we needed to talk about that I had to set an agenda at the beginning just to make sure that all topic’s covered.

It’s so nice to be able to talk to her again, about the things that I wouldn’t have told anyone else. The thing is, the talk we had confirms something that I learnt for the past few weeks. The problem with me is that I easily envy what others have, although in fact, I may already have what it is they have. So when I look at other people’s online pictures/blog entries about their best friends, many a time I would ask myself whether I have such buddies. What I was forgetting is that I have them, only that they’re so all over the place at the moment. But the best of friends will always be able to pick up things right from where they were left as if no time has passed. And I thank God that I have such friends.

[to be continued]   

So it’s been almost three weeks since that wonderful Friday afternoon. Today’s wednesday, which is my second best workday after Wed. You see, wednesday is mid-week where work starts to pile up, yet you have the hope of the impending weekend. Anyway, I have tried for a few times of making Wed my go-to-the-office-looking-slightly-more-fabulous day. During the first few weeks of internship I decided that I shouldn’t be attracting too much attention by wearing the usual clothes i wear. Not even waxing my hair. (ok the latter is just an excuse for my utter laziness for waking up 5 minutes earlier to make my hair. 5 minutes, not half an hour like some people have speculated!) Anyway, about the hair part, I have acquired the ability to do my hair without even looking at the mirror. What happened was I, despite being late for some concert I had to attend, wouldn’t want to be even found dead at the concert sporting my lion-king-lookalike hair. So what I did was to put on the wax while walking to the train station. I can still remember me strutting a la julia-roberts-in-pretty woman-after-she-got-all-the-nice-stuff, crossing the traffic light while applying wax to my hair a la david gan. Oh, the stares! Anyway, coming back to the wednesday thing, I’ve put on more bold things, like my ultra hip ‘white guess? belt with giant buckle+white loafers’ combo. I’m telling you, those are just my new stylo discovery. And not to mention that the loafers have such soft heavenly leather which makes it one of the most comfortable pair of shoes I’ve owned.

ok, so the first paragraph sounds a bit bimbotic. but well, the weather has been so nice lately (read: not hot). that allows me to put all my clothes on display without getting worried that I’ll perspire like sh*t two minutes after I leave the green gates of 1 Raffles Institution Lane. And plus the sale has been ok so far. There was a period of about two weeks where the only thing I bought was one tshirt from Topman. (i have too many stuff from that shop that I’ve been approached by fellow shoppers there who asked me for sizes! sheesh.) But last week, considering I’m going back this Saturday (big HOORAY!!) and am going to be extremely busy last weekend, I started buying stuff for my parents and sis. Since i’m going home for my sis’ bday, i allowed her to have a wishlist. So I got her the new Anna Sui’s Dolly Purple, a fantabulous retro looking semi-dress from this japanese designer Tsumori Chisato, and a pair of magenta flats. May be getting some more things if I have the time before Saturday. My mum’s getting a lovely 5incher Nine West and my dad BLV by Bulgari. Well, as every other member of my family had gotten something, I was thinking that I needed to get something too. So, I spent quite a fair amount at G2000 with a couple of shirts and pants (hey, I’m stocking for the next few month! oh,ok. who am I kidding?!)

On the 21st I went to catch Urban Pulse, a production by SMU’s Eurythmix. After pondering for days and nights, I decided to go in an all black ensemble, my white belt_loafers combo, a vest and a white tie. At the end of the show, Jaenny was saying that I could easily pass as one of the dancers from one of the numbers. Anyway, overall it was pleasant to be in Victoria Theatre again after such a long time. Met HongKing before I went into the theatre and had a fifteen minutes-or so catch up. Overall, I would give the show a 3/5. There was a 5/5 item, which was choreographed by none other than our talented Filomar Tariao. He’s such a genius with the lights. And the moves were by far the most neat and crisp. Of course, there was a bit of latin in the beginning. I’m even more excited that he’s agreed to once again choreograph GaYa. Although I must admit that there were a few items which were too avant garde for mere mortals, the audience was unreasonably juvenile and rude. There was this superb number with the people looking like zombies (in an artistic kind of way), which has a scene where everyone stood in a line and ticktocking. During the priceless ten seconds, people were laughing!!! They should have a rule on the ticket that says: "Those who can’t appreciate art and have a tendency to laugh inappropriately are not going to be admitted". Then there was the opening number. The gold costume was actually very nice, looking like what RJC dancers wear for the 2003 syf dance judging. But they didn’t consider the fact that the stage is so near to the audience. So, instead of seeing the effects, what was obvious were the messy-ness. So, it kinda gave a disappointing start to the programme.

Now, time to move on to my concert’s preparation. I’ve just set up a blog to showcase the concert and all its preparation. It’s at http://mytribute-concertbykrishnaworotikan.blogspot.com. Do visit. More importantly, do come! Will be starting the ticket selling once SMU’s term open.

Since I last wrote, myriads have happened. It’s been an emotional roller-coaster by definition. The bottom was really deep that I was at one of the lowest points in my life, while the opposite also holds. Now that the whole thing is over (I so hope it is, and will never happen ever again), it may just be that no one will ever find out, but rest assured those who’ve been a great support, that your deeds will not be forgotten. So here’s a huge thanks for all the unexpected smses, facebook wall messages, phonecalls, conversations, taxi rides (;p), shopping sessions. I thank GOD for giving me angels like you guys. And really, through all of this, I am more and more convinced that I have a Helper that makes everything good in His own time.

While all this was happening, life goes on. I’m now on my last assignment at work, which should be the most exciting one. I’m just hoping that I’ll have the courage to say that 5 weeks is a tad too long for one assignment, and they should just release me earlier so that I can somehow go back to Jakarta for  a decent holiday.

Oh, talking about holiday, I realise I haven’t shared anything  about my last trip home. First, I think I’m falling in love with Valuair. It’s not Cathay with its nice planes and all, but I’m talking about the timing. I took the first flight at 840 to Jakarta, which means I could just wake up at 530, make my way to the train station, and arrive at Changi with enough time to roam around the duty free shops. When I arrived at Soekarno-Hatta, there weren’t long queues at the immigration and it took me only around 15minutes to get out of the place. It was early enough for me to go straight to my orthodontist and get my braces fixed.   

Lunch was at this place in Kemang which serves the most heavenly konro (think ribs, very succulent ribs), served with rice and coto Makassar soup. Oh, just thinking about it makes me salivate. Then from there, Mum and I went to PIM2 to have her choose her own birthday present. We went to so many places like nine west, sogo, metro until we ended up in zara. Which, nota bene, has up to 50% discount (beat that, zara Singapore!). Not only she found the bag she liked, I also ended up with a pair of white loafers (that was always at the back of my mind) and a tee. In short, we went home happy. Oh, on our way down to the car park, we saw that Krispy Kreme was having a promotion. Mum thought of buying some for the party the next day and I thought of buying for people in singapore. As extreme as it may sound, we walked out of the outlet carrying 9 dozens of donuts. Yes, that’s 108 pieces of donuts. At night, we went to the salon. She to get her hair done for the next day, me to get a long-overdue haircut.

I got to enjoy my Saturday morning with all the cooking shows on Indonesian channels, while tasting my mum’s own baked macaroni and potato souffle. At noon, we went to Grandpa’s villa (I refuse to call it a house since it sits on a land that can fit two soccer fields). The afternoon started with a thanksgiving service, followed by lunch. The 200 guests-or so who showed up sat under a beautiful white tent in the garden, and enjoyed a fusion of Manadonese and western food. The only thing missing was pork, but we had to cater to the needs of the non-christian guests.

I met a lot of my mum’s and dad’s relatives (my family is so chaoticly intertwined that it’s not that straightforward anymore how we’re related), but it’s my aunts and cousins that I missed the most. Staying true to the Manadonese style of parties, there was non-stop eating, laughter and of course singing. One of my Grandma’s brothers got drunk before night fell and we had to leave just to escape from the torture.

Sunday was church in the morning, followed by breakfast at my Grandpa’s place. There was so much leftovers from the day before. It was only then that I could have pleasant conversation with my Grandparents.

In the evening, we were supposed to watch a choir concert at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta, which included auction whose proceeds would go towards the church renovation fund. Since we had time to kill, we decided to pay EX a visit. If you’re familiar with the Bundaran HI, you’d probably know that the policemen there are notorious for giving you tickets for obscure reasons. So I was exxxxxtra consicous when I had to make a turn there. It was until I saw a policeman signed for me to pull over. Dang.

My heart stopped for a few seconds before I asked my mum what to do. She told me to play along.

me: Yes, officer?

officer: Good evening sir. Do you realise that you did not give a sign when you made the turn?

me: (thinking: huh? there were so many cars in front of mine that did not give the bloody sign! why me??!) I see. Sorry for that.

officer: Now how do you want to proceed with this? (read: how much are you willing to give me?)

me: (thinking: huh! I won’t give you a cent. Gotcha!) I’ll just give you my driving license and you give me the ticket.

officer: Are you sure about that? (read: what?! you’re not giving me a single cent?! shoosh, I should’ve the car in front of you..)

me:Yeah, sure. (thinking: Woohoo!)

In short, we got to ex, and GKJ afterwards, on time. I just love concerts in concert halls. Being in GKJ again after about ten years (I used to perform there with my choir) brought such great joy. It reminded me how grand the architecture is (it was built by the dutch and still maintains the colonial style), and how crisp the accoustic is. It only inspired me even more to do my own concert! That night, I also participated in the auction and won My first auction.

On Monday I flew back to Singapore with the last flight at 930, reached RI past midnight and went back to work the next day. I made people happy by giving out Krispy Kremes at work, at choir practice and in boarding.  Then life goes on per usual.

Now that I am in the last few weeks of my internship, I want to enjoy everything that the Almighty has given me. The opportunity to experience working life, the company I have in the office, my current two students who will be facing their O levels this year, everyone at Buckley House, wonderful friends, time to rest and relax, and even preparing for the coming semester.

I am so thankful. You should, too. God keeps.

Now that Thursday was so happening, Friday was not as fun as it usually was. Nevertheless, I still concur with those saying TGI Friday. I was once again ‘banished’ to the Training Centre to supervise the Trainees. And what else could I do but to watch more re-runs of Friends online??? Well I have always discounted Friday whenever I count the number of workdays in a week since it always passed by so fast. After work, I went home, had dinner, took a long hot shower and waited for Indonesian Idol on tv. The theme was ‘percussion’, and as I had expected, nothing near greatness ever happened. Everytime I think of a criticism for the contestants, I reminded myself that afterall, this is just another tv show. I must’ve fallen asleep right after it ended.

Saturday morning saw me waking up early enough for choir practice. Me being in choirs almost all my life, practices and performances are what kept me going.
Let me just say that it was a good start to a good weekend. Went home with Siska,theo,ernest since we were having Whynote practice at my place that afternoon. By 3something, Mike,Yenny,Wati ((for the first time!) had joined us. Managed to get almost 2 songs done, and I even thought of a Balinese intro for Cantik. Heehee, hopefully it’ll sound good.

When i was walking the rest to the train station, I saw a couple of RI juniors in the tennis court and asked whether I could join them. The last time I had a game of tennis was like centuries ago, so this came as pleasant twist to my already good weekend. In the end, Theo and I played for slightly more than an hour and it felt superb. At nite, Rio joined us for dinner at J8.

Now, the best thing that happened during the weekend. Upon consulting some of my friends, I decided to hold my first solo concert/vocal recital that I’ve been dreaming of since forever. The first venue that came to my mind was the YMS since it’s small enough yet accoustically and aesthetically decent. Those who know me well would have guessed that the super-excited me would get into action asap. To keep it short, by Monday, I’ve already made a booking on the place and came up with the repertoire. Ooh, I’m so so praying that this will work out.

Sunday was the only time I had to buy presents for people at home. My Sunday morning class got cancelled, had a lazy morning, lunch at Boarding, went to the Indonesian service, then Orchard for shopping. Something good happened to me that day which made me soo happy that I was jumping up-and-down in Paragon and knocked-down a tiny kid which I obviously did not see. The grinning me bought Guess stuff for my Dad and Mum and Mango for my Sis. By Tuesday I had bought other things from Marks and Spencer for my Grandpa and Grandma.

Just a short note, on Monday I met my sister, who was en-route to Amsterdam for a folkdance competition representing Indonesia, at Changi. Oh, how I envy her who get to go to Europe! Well, I’m so proud of her and her dancing talent. Hope the competition goes well, and she can meet my Granduncles and Grandaunties who will be armed with red packets ;p

Now’s 2pm, 4more hours to end of work-week, 18hours to my flight to Jakarta. 18hours to good food and company at home. About 48hours to the combined birthday party of my Grandpa, Mum and cousin at my Grandpa’s Villa near Bogor.

More than just happy, I feel sooo blessed. GOD has been too good to me!

So, now, I’ll just enjoy what’s coming my way (it’ll end much faster than I think) and be grateful for it.