Vday

Hey.
Happy Chinese New Year to all the Chinese people. Thanks to them I got a day off college. Yay!

I've been feeling gloomy lately. Probably because I went through the 14th of February valentineless. Not sure if that's even a word but yeah you got my point.
They say it's normal to feel unwanted, unloved, whatsoever. But I don't want to be normal. I want to be the girl who is brave and careless. The girl that doesn't give a shit about things that don't matter. I want to be abnormal... in a good way. But no. Here I am being all pathetic and sad.

I know all about the "You don't have a Valentine on Valentine's day? Some people don't have a mother on Mother's day" crap and I know it's supposed to make me feel better but it didn't.

Funny thing is that not a single person on earth knows about this part of me.
In real life, I give love advises, well more like me preaching about how sucks love can be and how one does need to be in love to live a happy life. I give people reasons to move on from their break ups and they would think I'm this cool girl with a cold heart. Right, I am a strong woman with no romantic interest who guys don't mind to hang with because I'm practically just like them.

But they are wrong. I don't have cold heart, in fact, I am the most hopeless romantic person you will ever meet. I have crushes, I might have been in love a lot more than you think. I read romantic novels and manga, I love romantic comedies and I listen to a lot of romantic songs while fantasizing over my love life.

The only reason I never talk about it is because my love life kinda... sad? Suck is probably the best way to put it. No guys has ever liked me back. The guys who actually like me were either taken or too much a coward to do anything about it. Sad right? I mean, I'm asking much. I'd take any guy who would take me for the way I am.

That's another problem. People don't seem to like me the way I am so I constantly try to be someone else and yeah that leads me to act around new people. Once a guy got to know me he'd be too comfortable to even start a relationship.

You know what, I'm feeling pathetic just writing all this. You might think "Damn, this girl sure is an attention whore. Acting all strong and revealing how fragile she really is. What a bitch."
Well fuck you. No one even read my blog so be it.

Year and A Half

After almost year and half of abandoning my long forgotten sweet escape, I am finally back.
For sure.
Well, not really.

Anyways, hello!
I'm not sure what brought me back here. I was just randomly looking at my old pages on the internet and voila! I stumbled upon my old blog where I used to blab over almost everything—random thoughts, exchange year, love life (can't remember if I had one) and other experiences.

But hey, a year and half is a long time, right? Thank goodness I didn't lose my account 'cause I'm pretty sure it's proven that I have a short memory for passwords.
Now that I'm here I'm gonna do a makeover for my blog because, damn, it's hideous! I mean, I can't believe I put my own close up picture as a background! It's like people had enough of my meaningless blabbing and then they also have to bear with such a background? What a narcissistic bitch!

And.... what the fuck is wrong with Blogger!! It won't change my god damn background picture. It says there's an 'internal error'. Well sir, I'm sorry but I don't see how that's my problem. Ugh.
Whatever. I'll just go with the default background for now and figure things out later.

Now bloggy, we are going to do some catch up.
A year and a half. That means, I finished my exchange year in Belgium and I've graduated high school. Yep. I am now a mature adult living in da real lyfe. *snorts* yeah ya think?
I'm just an ordinary university student majoring in Naval Architecture and Shipbuilding Engineering in Surabaya. An hour by plane from Jakarta. Before I left high school, it always occurred to me how fun it would be to be away from home. Well, it's not that bad. I kind of enjoy being away even though I don't really have issues at home. It's just that I felt like I was breaking free on the day I left Jakarta for college.

No, I'm not gonna sing Break free from Ariana Grande. Get over it.

Enough of that. I went to Saudi Arabia last Christmas break. My family and I went there to do the Umrah. We visited Nabawi mosque in Madinah which was beautiful and then Masjidil Haram in Mecca.

Quba Mosque

Quba Mosque

Floating Mosque on the Red Sea, and a random photobomber.

The only thing I disapprove in Arab is that most people there are inpatient. I mean, we all are aware that there are thousands or maybe millions of people wanting to pray inside the Nabawi Mosque or near the Ka'bah, but that is no reason for you to cut lines or being disrespectful to other people who are doing their prayer. One time I was waiting in line like a normal person with etiquette does and then I got pushed by an old woman who just can't control her patience and I almost fell over! I'm not being dramatic. My mom said I was being too cynical and everyone is just being enthusiastic because being able to do Umrah is like a miracle sent from above.

Well no shit, Sherlock!
I'm not the most diligent Muslim you'll ever meet but even I know that you should respect others at all time especially in God's home, or so it's called.

Regardless the things above and that my mom thinks I learned nothing from it, I still think the journey was quite pleasant.

Happy Birthday To Me

Birthdays are cliché.
No, I didn't mean to sound like an anti-mainstream bitch.
You may and you should cherish being a year older, well, if you want to.
It's just that from the day I turned 14 (if I'm not mistaken) I've stopped taking interest in my own birthdays. Now, four years later, I still haven't changed my mind.
I'm not saying birthday is a bad idea, not at all. I still think there are advantages that I could take from getting older, for example, now that I'm 18, I can buy my own god damn cocktails. Hell yeah.

I'm thankful for those who had wished me a happy birthday, who had tried to make the best of it, and I'm also grateful to be given a chance to live probably for more years in this world despite all of the stupidity I've done in my past.

Anyway, the point of this post wasn't about giving my shit opinion about birthdays but to show one of the sweetest birthday wish I received from my best friend, Bila.
It's written in Indonesian, but I'll try my best to translate it.

"Happy 18th birthday, Ray. I'm probably not the best friend ever, and I'm not always there while you're scratching people's wall or getting their sink wet, but I'm sure that I'm the only person that could make you run all the way to the front of Labschool's gate just to buy a bakpau for me to eat when my stomachache attacks. Thanks for everything. I haven't known you that long, we started out chatting via BBM and we were typing in capslock. Thank you for being my friend, the one who's always sad when the clock shows 23:29 because that means my wifi will be off in a minute and we have to wait 'til the next morning to talk again. In a month, we'll be back with the bakpau in Jakarta. <2"

I'm not 13, I'm just used to using pads.

There is something about wearing your first tampon.
Good music is required to calm your nerves.

Mirror Maru - Cashmere Cat

Timberlake-ing

Anderlecht vs Lokeren

Being abandoned is one of the worst feeling ever, and I assume you know how it feels 'cause I haven't posted anything since last March.
I was quite busy the last couple of days, not that I suddenly turned into a social butterfly, I'm just trying my best to enjoy every minute of the rest of my stay. I have a lot to share but I'd rather do it one by one.

Last Tuesday, my host dad surprised me with a ticket to a football match between Anderlecht and Lokeren on Wednesday, April the 17th.
Excited? Totally. I love football match but never been to one 'cause it's always a riot with hooligans back in Indonesia, so watching at home or in a café is always a better option. I'm not a fan of RSCA but my host dad and his friend sure are. Although they didn't really wear any RSCA's jersey and merchandise, I could somehow see that they are devoted supporters.
There were already bunch of fans in purple walking down the road when we arrived in Anderlecht at around 7 pm.

What is life without a drama? Especially mine?
On that day, I was being me, and 'me' was being clumsy as hell.
My host dad handed me my ticket before we left the car and I was probably too excited that I lost it on our way to the stadium.
Yes people, I lost it, it was gone, with the wind.
Here's the chronology:
I put the ticket in the back pocket of my jeans. It was quite a tight jeans and I didn't have a bag with me so I thought it wouldn't go anywhere.
Certainly it didn't go anywhere, duh, I probably dropped it somewhere and someone picked it up, sold it or even used it.
My host dad told me that RSCA's tickets are always sold out so I felt terribly bad I couldn't cry. What is even more stupid is that the thought of the chance of losing the ticket has crossed my mind when I was about to put it in my pocket. And I did it anyway, great job.
For me, sorry wasn't enough, it was really generous of my host dad to even treat me to a football match.
If I were him, I'd be pissed and... I don't know, report my clumsy behaviour to AFS and send me back home. He didn't, I guess he tried his best to stay calm 'cause I sure was freaking out.
I cursed myself and couldn't stop hitting my own stupid head but of course it didn't do me any good, while my very optimistic host dad tried to solve the problem.
We talked to the security about everything and suddenly colorful rainbow appeared. I received another ticket from the help center and voila! problem solved.
It's definitely a miracle 'cause this wouldn't work for a ticket to Justin Bieber's concert or anything similar to it. I was just very glad that I didn't ruin the day.

So, we watched the whole game in peace and the score was 3 - 0 for Anderlecht. My host dad and his friend were happy, and so do I.

I think it's really awesome that you could see a user's online status on soundcloud, like, my fucking god Skrillex is now online!!!
He's right there in front of his screen, I'm here with mine, we are like, connected by soul... or the internet.