...suddenly i see, what you mean to me...

Currently listening to: Love is All Around - Ricki-Lee Coulter

.agreatwaytofly.
Changi Airport, Terminal 2, Nov 25 2008

The Semester 2 results are out, and I PASSED ALL FOUR UNITS!!
*jumps around*

Take that, MKC2210. You thought I was gonna go down, did you? But I didn't. And yeah, who's the winner now? *raises eyebrows*
Hahahaha. I should stop this. But I'm happy! =)
Thank you, Lord.

*kneels down and prays*

On a totally different note...

I know it’s only been three days, but I miss Melbourne already. *sighs*

Was skimming through my always-overcrowded photos archive folder just now trying to look for an accompanying image for this post, and soon enough I ended up looking at random pictures of me and my Melbourne friends doing our usual stupid and ridiculous *cough cough* stuff together.

Truth be told, I kinda miss them. I miss all the fun stuff I do in Melbourne. And I actually miss interacting with people outside my family.

Never thought I’d ever say this, but I kinda miss socializing. Really.

Ever since I got here three days ago, I’d been continuously resting, lazing around, tagging along random family members for mini-reunion sessions, and eating together with my parents. I’ve been dragged around by my parents doing a whole bunch of activities I don’t even enjoy. And I do know that they mean well by that, but after only three days back home I’m already starting to feel suppressed by their constant presence and control over what I do, or what I eat, or where I go and such.

Oh well. Just like old times. *sighs*

Sometimes I wonder why it’s very hard for them to try and accept the fact that this very guy right here *points at self* is just days away to turning twenty and thus is no longer the innocent, helpless boy they often still think he is. But hey, I supposed they’ve just been missing me. I should shut up, be touched, bar with it, and get by.

But anyway. I still love having them around. God knows how much I’ve missed my parents, especially my mom. It’s good to have her around within hugging distance. *grins* I love my mom.`=)

And I’m trying to get used to the life in the Jakartan suburbia once again, so to speak. Getting used to living at home again. Getting used to home. *smiles*

That means waking up in the morning to the sound of the noisy fruit mixer coming from downstairs. Ambling my way down the stairs to see Mom pouring bowls of various fruits into the mixing blender. Giving her a sloppy morning hug and picking up a few leftover fruits as I go. Seeing my maid, the second mom of the house, take off to the morning market near the house. Proceeding to the so-called “pet area” of the house to serve breakfast to my hamsters, paying attention to the direction of my barely-coordinated walking so as not to accidentally slip into the koi pond. Going back to sit on the living room sofa, waiting for Mom to come over and feed the kois. Drinking the fruit juice Mom just made. Then going back upstairs to wake up Dad, then laze around a bit more, or go online for a while, or do some light exercise in the home-gym, or watch TV, or take a shower. The rest of the day will fly by after this “compulsory” morning routine is all played out.

So far I’ve been a stay-at-home goodie. For all the reasons stated above, plus another one that I can't disclose right here. A very important one, that prohibits me from getting out of the house at least for a few days. But I swear I’m gonna go out tomorrow. Staying at home for too long a time can kill me. Boredom is the new cool in my current state of mind. I’ve been so bored that I even took the initiative to clean up my old bookshelf just to get busy over something. I haven’t unpacked yet, though; let me spare that for later. I’ve got plenty of time. *shrugs*

And the heat! Oh. My. Gosh. The heat is just unbearable. I’m conflicted between saving energy to fight global warming and turning on all the aircons, full-force, in my house 24/7 to escape the blistering hot weather. If only it would rain right about now. I could use a bit of a cool-off, and so could the rest of the town’s population. Oh my. Tropical weather, you certainly haven’t been missed. *fans self*

So yeah. Bottom line? I’m dying to get the hell out of the house.

I wanna raid the malls! Especially all the new ones. And I gotta start collecting the stamps for the 2009 Starbucks Planner, since I’m quite late already. Makes me feel anxious and out-of-date. This is one of those rare ocassions of me being a late adopter of anything Starbucks-related.

Whew, JJ, snobbish much? Sorry. *grins bashfully*

Too bad the socializing thingy will have to wait just a little longer.
Most of my old friends here, if not all of them, are still busy with their own uni stuff, since their holidays don’t start until at least another month or so. Christmas still feels so awfully far away here. My friends who’re back in town from overseas just aren’t available for various reasons, and I don’t wanna push them. After all, I’ve still got two months, maybe more, to spend frolicking across this town, so I guess a little extra idle time won’t hurt. *raises eyebrows*

For now, let me continue being whiny. There are some things that an overheated brain can do, but mustering an appropriate form of self-control is obviously not one of them. So please bear with me.

Oh! Guess what, I managed to persuade Dad to convert the Internet connection in our house to FastNet! No more delays and super-sucky connection, yeah! I’m so excited to try the baby out. It’s coming soon, probably tomorrow. *winks*

See you guys! =)

...about the time spent in between terminals...

Hey y'all.
It's precisely 6.30 AM local time and I'm dead tired. *rubs eyes*

Here I am, sitting on a secluded couch at a corner of T2 Changi's Starbucks Coffee outlet. Yawning. Shamelessly Facebooking, and blogging, as you can see *winks*. And absently sipping on my ninth or tenth cup of coffee within the last twelve hours - I gave up counting after my fifth during the flight to ease up the guilt a little.
Now I'm on a caffeine high but who cares. Still sleepy as hell, though, and I've still got about an hour and a half until my next flight departs. So why not slack off and rest a little?

Thank heavens for Wireless@SG. *yawns*
This is why I love Singapore's amazing Changi Airport.

The seven-and-a-half-hour flight from Melbourne was fairly harmless and smooth. The food was decent, the journey was comfortable, and the new-and-improved KrisWorld was so addictive it kept me awake all throughout the flight. The landing in itself was particularly impressive, with not even the slightest amount of turbulence during the touchdown. It was as if the plane was light as a feather, or something.
Oooh. Awkward phrase. Please pretend you didn't just read that. *sighs*

I know its probably far too early to say this, but I'm missing Melbourne already. Big time. And I haven't even reached Jakarta yet.
I really don't have even the slightest idea of what my holiday in J-Town will be like. It's all still in a blur. And as inevitable as it is, I'm already finding it hard to re-adjust to the tropical climate after 11 months of enduring the four-seasons-in-a-day phenomenon that is dear ol' Melbourne. I'm sweating right now, even though I'm indoors. It's gonna take some getting used to.

And just now I checked the weather forecast for Jakarta, and it seems like a bad week, weather-wise, is expecting me. *raises eyebrows*

Oh whatever. I'm still glad I'm going home.

Gotta get going now. Still got some books to hunt before I hop on my next flight!
I'll be in touch when I'm home. Which will be anytime soon. *grins*

See you, Melbourne.
Hello Jakarta! :)

...you are the ending, beginning, of each and everyday...

Currently listening to: Home - Katharine McPhee

.thespiritofchristmas.
Starbucks Bourke St, Melbourne CBD, 2008

Exactly THREE DAYS to Jakarta. Plus a couple of hours, to be precise.
Let the countdown begin, then. *sighs*

I don't know why I suddenly feel all reluctant to go home for some reason.
My luggage is lying open at one corner of my room, already half-full with goodies and other stuff, and I've finally begun to take care of my laundry little by little, but other than that, I have done exactly nothing to prepare for my leaving. At all.

*tugs at hair desperately*

I know I should just be happy that I can still go home. For at least TWO WHOLE MONTHS. I'll spend Christmas back home, with all my loved ones. I'll probably go on vacation with them too, but this is still undecided as of now. And oh, I'll also be flying home with with the amazing SIA. On board the all-new SQ218 nonetheless.
Ideally, what more can I possibly ask for?

Well, I dunno. And it's not my fault that I'm feeling all sappy about this. Hopefully I'll get excited when the time finally comes. Can't wait for Monday night! *grins*

There are some exciting things to look forward to when I'm in J-Town, anyway.
Firstly, I'm really curious about how this year's Christmas decorations at Taman Anggrek Mall will look like. Whoever is behind this decoration thingy must be racking his or her brain right about now trying to come up with an idea to top last year's design:



And this is exactly why I love spending Christmas in J-Town. Dreamy, enchanting.
Can't wait to see what they're gonna do this year.

I'm also gonna go and visit all the new malls in town.
I'm gonna raid ZARA and shop till I drop, so to speak.
I'll make sure that I eat all my favorite dishes for Christmas. *grins*

And of course, I'll definitely start collecting stamps for the super-irresistible 2009 Starbucks Planner straight away!
Omigosh. Exciting, much?


...Oh well. I guess going back home's not that bad after all.
Though the packing part is such a stubborn pain in the ass.

*stares at luggage and stacks of laundry hopelessly*

So now I have three more sleeps to go, as Karin would put in.
Damn. I miss my Melbourne friends who are already back in their respective hometowns. And I'm gonna miss the ones who'll still be here for Summer.

Alrighty. Better get back to tidying up.
Catch y'guys later! =)


PS: A warm welcome goes out to Jeffta for recently joining the blogosphere! Check out his page by clicking HERE, if you like. He's an amusing person by nature and hopefully his blogposts will be equally interesting to read. Welcome! *grins*

...lollipop, must mistake me for a sucker...

.that'smelbourne!.
Southbank, 2008

I find it amusing when people mistake me for an American.

Yeah, shocking, I know. *raises eyebrows*
Figuring out where I’m from should be a no-brainer, yeah? Slanty eyes, brown skin, fobbish hair; full-on Asian, much?
But apparently the strangers that happen to cross paths with yours truly every now and then just don’t seem to agree.

The thing is, this didn’t happen to me once. Or twice. Or even a couple of times at the most. I’m not sure if it’s just pure coincidence, but this is starting to become a regular occurrence for me, even more so lately. Everywhere I go, this baseless assumption regarding my country of origin always seems to follow suit. And as much as I want to feel flattered about it, it also makes me feel patronized, for some reason.

It all started a couple years ago when I was on holiday in Hawaii. I was about fourteen at the time, and my family and I went to Hawaii to start off our Christmas vacation that year. FYI, I’ve got an aunt (who’s a Chinese Indonesian through and through, by the way) who lives in Hawaii, and her European husband was the very first person to point out that I sounded like an American (a Californian, to be exact), when I speak in English. He thought so because I talked fast and used a lot of “like”s and “so”s and “yeah”s in my sentences.

At that time, I just laughed it off, thinking that he was just saying that to compliment me or something. The topic was simply dismissed. Up to that point I had never thought about how my English had sounded like, and what accent I had adopted into my lingo. But since then, the more fluent I become in speaking and writing in English, and the more frequently I use it to communicate, the more people seem to doubt my fobbishness and assume that I’m an American of some sort. *shrugs*

Moving to Australia does nothing to make the mis-assumptions stop. If anything, it only becomes worse.
And it’s probably because the Aussies get confused when they hear me speaking, or something. They probably think, Omigosh, how can an Asian guy who looks like a fob and wasn’t born Down Under speak fluent English with an American accent?

You see, Australians (esp. Melburnians in this case) have their own stereotypical perception regarding overseas-born Asians here. Aussies view fob Asians as eccentric, unlikeable, cheap, and having very limited English proficiency. And hey, I really can’t blame them for thinking that way, since most fobs that I see and interact with everyday seem to live up to the stereotype. But I’m a fob too, technically. I wasn’t born in a Western country, English is not my first language, and I was raised as a true Asian, so to speak. I just happen to be a little bit different from the rest of the crowd, no pun intended. So when Aussies talk to me, they get confused. Yeah? *shrugs*

Take yesterday as an example.

This happened inside one clothing outlet in Melbourne Central. I was just about to pay for the items that I wanted to buy at the counter, and this very friendly Aussie girl was helping me with those items. Knowing that Australians tend to be chatty, it came as no surprise when soon enough she started a conversation with me. So she asked me where I’d been, what I’d bought, when my exam had ended, stuff like that, and I politely responded to her questions, playing along. Then she asked me about my plans for Summer, and I told her that I’d be flying home for Christmas. Upon hearing that, she was like, “Oh, bummer! It’s gonna be cold up there in the States, isn’t it?” and I was like, oh geez, here we go again. *laughs*

As expected, of course, I had to go through the pain of explaining to her that I wasn’t from the States, and that she wasn’t the first person to have thought of that, yadda yadda yadda. The highlight of the conversation happened when, after I told her I was actually from Jakarta, she yelled out “No effin’ way!” and started laughing.

Thank God she didn’t ask me questions about Obama and the US elections. Now that would’ve been awkward. *grins*

I can go all day telling you guys stories related to this issue. My tutor thought I was American once and asked me about "The Star-Spangled Banner". A barista in my favorite coffee shop asked me about how I celebrate Thanksgiving *winces*. Random waiters in Western restaurants doubt my Asian-ness all the time when I order my food. And even my favorite hairdresser’s new assistant insisted that I was shamelessly lying to her when I told her I was an Indonesian.

Funny, huh?
I’ll just leave you guys at that. Hahaha.

And FYI, now I don’t really bother using my American accent when speaking to my Asian friends anymore. I try to be as subtle and as ordinary as possible when I talk to them. It’s much easier that way, enabling me to, like, “blend in” with the crowd. It gets hard to do sometimes, but I’ll get by.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to brag or anything, really. And I’m not trying to renounce my Indonesian-ness or something, not at all. I just needed to get this off my chest. So please bear with me.

Should I play along next time this happens? *grins*

I’m a fob. I’m not from the States. Deal with it. people.
But thanks heaps for the “compliment”. :)

...i can't explain, what's the glue that holds us in...

Currently listening to: Put Your Arms Around Me - Natasha Bedingfield

.whenthesungoesdown.
Queens Rd, St. Kilda, 2008

Ooooyeah. Freedom at last.
*jumps around*

Honestly speaking, the last exam was far from glamorous, to say the least. I knew I shouldn't have underestimated the enigmatic mystery that is MKC2210, and now I've had to pay the price for actually giving in to my insecurity and losing confidence during the torturous two-hour guilt trip yesterday. *sighs*
Yeah. Whatever. I don't wanna think about it. Not now anyways. There'll be plenty of time to mourn.

So now I have exactly thirteen days of Summer to be spent frolicking across dear ol' Melbourne before flying home on the eve of November 25th. Sunnies out, flip-flops on, shorties worn, let the fun begin, y'all!

A couple of things to do:
1. Get a haircut, a redye, and a thorough treatment. Got a 1pm appointment with the ever-reliable Jacob tomorrow, YAY!
2. Arrange a get-together with the remaining members of Genk Nyamuk before people either fly home or start their Summer classes.
3. Shop till drops. DFO, anyone? *wink wink*
4. Start looking for souvenirs and the like. Probably not this week, though.
5. Confirm enrolment for 2009.

And oh yeah, I won't forget to have FUN. Don't worry. *laughs*

I really can't say I'm excited about the idea of going home, though, now that the date's drawing closer. My life's all good 'n jolly down here and I can't imagine having to adjust again to the bustling lifestyle back home. I do miss J-Town, true, yet a part of me doesn't really wanna go back there for some reason. But yeah, you know me, whiny as can be. The excitement's gonna start growing up on me soon enough, I hope. *grins*

Oh. It's 32 degrees outside. Looks like the sun is in a jolly good mood today. Thank heavens for reliable sun-shades and air-conditioner. *grins* I'd planned to go to Borders Chadstone earlier to spend the evening there relaxing and stuff, but the heat really turned me off, so I decided to stay home and do something productive.

And guess what? I cleaned up!
*insert sound of people clapping in the background here*

For the first time in quite a while, I actually managed to clear up the mounting pile of junk that's been lying around the back corner of my room for like, I dunno, a couple of months? I dusted my furnitures, vacuumed my carpeted floor, took care of my laundry, and re-arranged my shelves. I also took the time to organize my uni stuff, putting them together into a pile and put them on a separate shelf. It took me about two hours to do all those things, and now my room's almost as good as new. *grins*

Cleaning up has never been one of the most enjoyable chores to do for me personally, but I gotta admit that it does give me a sense of pride, and achievement, and satisfaction.
Knowing that I'm a lazy-ass procrastinator by nature, I realize that I really have to push myself hard to start taking better care of my possessions. Or my dwelling space, in this case. After all, my room's already comfortable in itself, so why not preserve the comfort and keep it clean?

I dunno. Something that I gotta work on in the future, I guess.

And no, this isn't the end of it all.
For the last couple of days my landlord has been sending borderline-hostile messages to me and my housemates, warning us to keep the common areas downstairs clean and tidy at all times. Those messages start from the most subtle to the most threatening, the latter having been received just a couple of seconds ago. *sighs*

Owh noeyh. Bugger.
Okay that was a terribly lame imitation of a bogan Australian accent but whatever.

Catch you guys later!
And oh yeah, Summer holiday's finally here. Bring it on, baby!
*grins*

Take care!
xoxo

...i need to rest in arms...

Currently listening to: Better Man - Robbie Williams

.lonelylightsonarainynight.
Monash University Bus Interchange, Clayton, Oct 21 2008

Two down, one to go.
*breathes out a sigh of relief*

I really can't assure myself, let alone others for that matter, that I'm gonna pass MGC2120 and MKC3220 with flying colors. But I'm gonna take my time and worry about them later. The ultimate torture by the name of MKC2210 *winces* is waiting to slaughter me next Tuesday, and I gotta be ready to fight and hopefully emerge out of it alive.

Pardon the apparent drama-queen-like thoughts that just emerged right then 'n there.
*shrugs*

Now I'm taking a day off from studying, and it feels really, really GOOD, to say the least.
I finally had eight hours of sleep last night, and this morning woke up with no worrying, or suicidal at the extreme, thoughts at all. The weather's got some sort of, like, a cheerful aura with it today or something, with the blue sky all nice and clear, and I'm gonna be heading to Chaddy later to get a new pair of iPod earphones, since my old one just broke yesterday. *frowns* JB Hi-fi, anyone?

But hey, all is good. I'm in a terribly good mood right now, and I'm enjoying every single second of it while it lasts. Maybe it's the nicely-brewed morning coffee I'm drinking. Or the comforting breeze gently blowing out my curtains. Or the fact that I can actually enjoy a lazy-ass day without feeling the slightest tinge of guilt. I know I deserve this. *winks*

Anyway.

Been wanting to put up this picture for days but I hadn't had a chance to really do it till now.



Long story short?
A couple of days ago, I found writings by an emo broken-hearted soul scribbled all over the bus schedule signs in the Monash Clayton Bus Loop. Those public "letters" (or reckless bits of vandalism, depends on how you look at 'em), were dedicated to some mysterious subject by the name of "darker lemon", who apparently just dumped this guy or something. And the guy took his broken-hearted mournings to a whole new level, by letting the whole of Monash Clayton know about his sadness through incomprehensible writings on each and every bus stop sign around the Bus Loop.

That one *points a picture above* is just one out of many.
As of now, I think some have been wiped off, but some are left intact, probably as an artifact sign of a memorable occurrence, or something. I dunno.
And people do reply to them, you know. Some sympathize, but most people are just plain mean. Reading them while waiting for buses to come is a really amusing form of entertainment. *laughs*

So, yeah.
Hey darker lemon lover, whoever you are. Rejoice, 'cuz you just made history.
And don't kill yourself, please. That would be horrific.

It's fascinating, really, how creative and unique some people can be.
I just hope that this doesn't inspire any other broken-hearted souls out there to, like, come along and do the same thing.

We bus-travellers would like our bus-schedule signs all plain and clean as they were, thank you very much. Those scribbles were amusing for a while, true. But they make the schedules unreadable and blotchy. And that's not cool, not cool at all.
Next time, try the shelters. *wink wink*

Have a nice day everyone!
And oh, good luck for those few people, including myself, who still have exams coming up!