What I've been doin

For the past two weeks, I haven't been working at the office, instead.. I've been staying at home, preparing for Christmas and New Year.

Setting up the christmas tree.. this year, its yellow, red and gold for the tree.. To be honest, christmas in Jakarta is pretty pathetic. Coz, there's no christmas spirit AT ALL!! Its just like any other day, but then again.. we can't complain..

Other than christmas tree.. I've also been keeping myself busy with decorations for new year. Me and my extended family have a tradition upon celebrating New Year. 2 years ago, the whole family gather at one of our relative's house and all of us were expected to wear Balinese-style dresscode, since the theme for the evening are 'Jimbaran Barbeque Party'. The males are wearing some Balinese style shirt with knee-length pants and females are wearing tank tops and Balinese sarong. We also ate using the traditional rattan-made plate plus banana leaf at the base of the plate. Not only that, we also put up some torch around the garden and floating candles in the pool. Its held mostly around the garden, with a few barbeque pits. It was reallyy fun...

This year's theme is as fun as the one before.. I promise I'll write about it once its done.. Who knows if you're lucky I'll post up some pictures as welllll...

For the time being.. not only Ashley, I'd also like to wish everybody..

.....A Very Merry Christmass.....

A bit of a confession

I have to admit.. I am a self-confessed shoe addict.

I've been staying at home for a few days now due to me being sick. So I've just been cleaning up stuff, my clothes, books, accesories and...... shoes. I was a bit shocked at how many pairs I own. From strappy sandals to stilettos.. from short to very high heels.. u name it!! Well, I'm not really that shocked since I know about my passion for shoes, but I guess this is the time when I have to admit it. eekhhh...

However, the one thing that I'm realizing was that.. I'm always smiling everytime I walked into the shoe room and see all my shoes sitting there soo beautifully!! And, that thought of having too much shoes actually magically disappear whenever I'm in a mall walking through shoe stores.

Sometimes I wondered at how much people are willing to spend for their hobby purposes. For example, I've heard of people who are collecting porcellain dolls and they are willing to pay millions to have the dolls delivered from an unknown parts of the world just to have the dolls sit in the cabinet in their home. It sounds illogical to me, but when I thought about my shoe obsession, I kinda feel a cringe..

Am I one of those illogical person? How many shoes does a person needs, after all we only have a pair of feet?

But then again, shoes are definitely different from porcelain dolls, they don't just sit there in the cabinet..... we actually wear them every now and then.. and so the money we paid wasn't that useless afterall...

Adaptation

I have been home for a month now, and I have to say that its been a very 'confusing' month. Being home again felt nice, because you're surrounded by the poeople you love and care. Its the sort of feeling that says you're gonna be fine no matter what happen because you have them. But, I have to say, home was not much like a home this time around.

My house doesn't feel as comfortable, my bedroom doesn't feel as warm, the roads that I travel doesn't feel as safe.. as before. Maybe its just my adaptation period. At some point, I thought to myself, maybe I should go back and stayed in Australia instead. My eyes are somewhat open to the fact that Jakarta is an unsafe city to be in, the pollution, the recklessness, and the selfishness of the people who live in it. Those people who does not regards law as something important and thus chose to live and pretend that law didn't exist.

Most of all, the biggest change that I have to go through was the independence part. I feel as if I'm being ripped off my own independence. Its as if you have your legs and feet but u're unable to go anywhere.. just because your driver and car was unavailable at times when you need them. I miss being able to just leave the house and catch a safe public transport or walk at the side of the road whenever I feel the urge to sit in a cafe and chat with my friends. Without having to consider the traffic, or trying to manage the time so that it doesn't clash with the time when my driver have to pick up my sister from school, or my parents from the office.

And right now, I feel as though I have to choose between my family and friends.. or my independence.

My angels

I've officially neglected my blog for a month!! I'm so sorry people.. I wouldn't make any excuses but I haven't been online much since I'm back in Jakarta. Well, one reason why I haven't been writing was because I've started working and on the weekends I'm always with my girlfriends. Last weekend, they stayed over at my place. The three of us went out for dinner which lasts for like almost 3 hours because we just couldn't stop talking!! Throughout the night and the day after, we just kept talking, laughing, and having fun. Sometimes I wonder, how is it possible that we never ran out of topics to talk about? We talked about everything, just before we dozed off to sleep, even when one were in shower and the other one were doing make up and the other one just standing and blabbing on, also when we're making something in the kitchen (although I will never ever go near a kitchecn again when you guys are around - my poor chicken pastry was almost inedible).

To me, friendships are much like relationships too, they won't just grow and stay alright by itself. Like plants, it needs to be watered in order to grow. My girlfriends were one of the reason why I've decided to come back to Jakarta. I just can't imagine like without them. This year has been a very hard year for me to go through, and they were always there for me eventhough we're far apart. The funny thing was, I was hurt so bad before and they hated the person who hurt me much more than I hate him. Now, because of them, I'm better than I was before, although I still need them every now and then to yank me out of my shitty mood and weirgh thoughts, but I know that I will alway need them.

If I were to describe them in 2 words, I'd describe them as my conscience. I will always have them in my heart and head all the time, no matter how far apart we are, or how lonely I will be. Its funny how often we finish each other's sentence, we knew what each other's thinking without asking, we know something's wrong just from a simple 'hello' when they picked up the phone.. most of all we knew each other so well that we can predict what the others would do or say during a situation.

And I know that I will be just find as long as I have you as my friends.

Dedicated to my very special angels who have always spread their wings to keep me safe and warm, Irine and Therry.

Ps: Can't wait to see you girls this weekend, lets party and go man-hunting..