A Getaway

I am chatting with my friend. He’s in Japan. We’re talking about this and that, especially about
"gebetan". And he gave me some advices regarding the summer fling of mine. I know he’s not in a serious mode when he typed it as he’s just mocked me for the way I told the story. Well, in fact, there were no sophisticated words in his language. But I found it so…right… "What a great analogy!!!" I said. Here’s some bits of our conversation :

He says : tancep gas dong
I say : …gue khan decided mo ngejombloe dulu aja
He says : lampu udah ijo
I say : karena gue kayanya masih enjoy living my life alone
He says : o yah? sampe kapan?
I says : ga tau juga seh sampe kapan…
He says : yah udah jangan tancep gas dulu
I say : jadi sekarang, gue mikirnya…ya we’ll see aja…
He says : masuk gigi pere dulu
I say : hahahahahha
He says : jangan pasang rem tangan
I say : yoi
I say : hahahahahaha
I say : jadi pelajaran nyetir gini
He says : kalo jalannya mudun kan maju ndiri
I say : what a great analogy!!!
He says : makannya jangan pake outomatic

I dunno how you guys may think of those words. But when you read it slowly, you’ll find a deeper meaning of them.

perhaps some questions are meant to be left unanswered
perhaps that’s the only way to move on
or perhaps, the answers to my questions are quite loud,
it’s only a mind game, tho,
the heart cannot absorb

not fortunate to know what’s happening
not possible to go back or ask

i only know
when there’s no tomorrow
world will stop spinning for those
to whom my gratitude goes   

Yea, I’ve just touched down Melbourne. Finally!! For now, I am absolutely not a backpacker =)

Cheers!!

I wonder how it feels when it’s time for me to leave Melbourne for good. I can already sense the uneasiness now as I’m packing for the first flight to Hobart tomorrow. Hey, I’m only going on holidays… Come on… It should be fun!! =)

I received an ‘advance’ birthday greeting from a friend. He’s from Brunei. Thanks!! It’s very nice of him. As I said to him, it’s amazing he’s still remember my birthday. I knew him in Korea in 2001.

Time to get some rest now.

failure teaches you to stand up,
to be stronger,
to prove that you are not anymore dissapointing the watchers
dismay teaches you not to hope,
not to think ,
so nothing, and noone, can anymore disappoint you

sometimes running is a choice
despite the privilege belongs to a child
being amongst strangers that are impossible to be the despair of the childish you
being gifted a reason

for you to face the watchers
for shielding the brittle you
for denial
why things are not the way it used to be for years
why things have changed
why some more experienced adults showcase that they’ve already been transported to that point

I’ve just read an email from my friend which reminds me of one of my bestfriends. This partner-in-crime I’m talking about has just been promoted few months ago. I believed she’s managed to accomplish the target that made her officially become a new manager. I’m so proud of her. And now I’m thinking about job and career again. The fear that I’ve been trying to ignore.

I’ve been thinking about it once in a while since the end of last year. Every day I’m living brings me closer to the end of this ‘get away’. In less than a year, I will get a master degree, well, I have to finisih the course by the end of this year, after all. And before that time, I will have to have applied for a job. Meaning…I’ll have to go through all the anxieties of getting a good-paying job again. When I was still working for the bank, though it’s really tough to escalate myself in the company’s hierarchy, or even to develop the inner me, I somewhat felt safe from the hassle of job hunting (at least for some time). I knew I’d been running from the conscience of doing and being the best I could. My k always reminds me that I’m still young that it’s not the time for me be ‘nyantai-nyantai’. "But, at least for some time, I deserve a break," I said to myself.

Where should I apply for a job? Which department/division? What kind of expertise can I offer? What kind of job that I enjoy doing? What do I want? How much salary should I ask? How much do I deserve? Everyone knows that once you’re being in a company, it’s very hard for you to get a salary increase -I know that some people were lucky enough with his/her networking charm when dealing with this kind of salary increase or promotion stuffs. So, the best thing to do is to propose a ‘high enough’ salary when you’re being interviewed. But then, what could make my proposed figures justified? Am I better that the other applicants? There are so many people looking for a job nowadays that they are willing to be paid ’slightly’ lower than the other candidates as long as they can get the job. How can I transfer the bargaining power into my side?

I once said this to my bestfriend. I’m now living the moment as hanging on to the past or the future can take me nowhere except to the state of content. So, I will ‘minimize’ the degree of comparing myself with the past of me or hoping/waiting for the future of me to change. But then, even when I’m living in the present, I will always have people around me to compare myself with. That’s what people do, comparing their salaries with those of people of same age, same educational background, same etc. etc. It’s good in a sense that you can gauge how far you’ve been outperforming others or been lagging behind, or simply whether you’ve been on the right track or not. But it can also be such  discouragement. And surely intensify my fear! Am I too old for that kind of competition?

Temperature : 36.6C
Humidity : 32%
The fluid is evaporating far more quickly than the intake’s frequency. I don’t even need to pee, it’s gone already =)

It’s damnnn… hot!!! Currently reaches 35.2C at my place. Ermm…no, it’s just gone up to 35.3C with 36% humidity. O, God… Even the wind is hot too! The weather forecast says it can go as far as 43C max. But it usually happens to be higher than the max forecast. It feels like a day before the New Year’s day again, when the crowd were lining up, trying to save some place for the fireworks in the middle of 41 or 42C temperature. Urghh…cannot imagine how sweaty and sticky it was. I didn’t belong to that crowd, though, as I was with the elite who’s willing to spend circa 50 bucks per person to wine and dine various ‘royal cuisine’, such as a gaeng kari that tastes like my mom’s. I wasn’t the diner, sadly. But I was quite cheered up by a family who recognized me. They’ve been there before and I served them exactly at the same table…and they remembered me! They’re very nice mom and dad with a daughter and a son. And they didn’t even bother to join the crowd to watch the fireworks. So as consolation, I considered myself a part of this other group, who thinks that a new year’s eve is just another last day of the month which is, by consensus, underlined to be the point leading to a brand new page.

And by the way, it’s climbing to 35.6C now. Err wait…35.7C, I mean.

We still got the back seats though we came around 40 min before the showtime. And…it happened to be a…’biasa-biasa aja’ movie. The way the pictures were taken are awesome, but not the story. I guess what I read (plus my imagination) are better than the story unfolded there. When I read the book, my perception of a geisha started to shift to be positive. I gained an understanding that the world of geisha was a busy and tough one that it needed a high level of self-discipline. I dunno whether it’s because Mineko wants to create that image on purpose (if that’s the case, then she has won one) or it’s because that’s the way it was. Yet when I watched the movie, the intuition was twisted back en aga2 gimana…gitu ya…( I dunno how to translate this expression into English, hehehehehe). Anyway…I had another leisure day today. It’s very hot today and it’s getting worse on Sunday (41 degrees max!!).

from my window…starting from 6:12 to 6:44 am…

Huayyyyyyyyyyyyy…I finally finish the ‘Geisha’ book! What an achievement!! hehehehehehe… I found it interesting at first, then it’s getting very boring in the middle (as I couldn’t imagine the details of the kimono etc. etc.) that I hardly touched the book. I thought I wouldn’t manage to finish it before the movie is on, though I found that the movie is based on a different novel. Yea, silly me!! =) I knew it when I’ve already read half of the book. And I knew it as I read the TIME and wondered why the article told a similar but different story…hahahahahaha…. It’s an interesting book, tho… At least it succeeded to keep me awake until 3am on the 17th just to finish the last chapters. And at least I’ve started reading, he he he…

Hope I can get the ticket today…