hello lover~~

I should stop having love affairs with websites, but alas.. The internet is such a wonderful place.

I can't believe I've neglected to mention Book Depository on my (sporadically updated, and altogether rather pathetic excuse of a) blog. I'm not sure how I stumbled on it in the first place.. It might have been on a hunt for a book, or it might have been fate. I don't know. I'm feeling romantic, so let's just call it fate.

Why do I love it so?

No paypal account needed.
I can pay straight from my credit card. I do have a paypal, and I do occasioanlly use it to purchase things fom ebay of etsy, but the credit card associated with that account is now dead. And I can't be bothered to register another card. I could. But I'm lazy. So this may not be a plus point for everyone, but having the choice matters to me.

Free shipping.. EVERYWHERE.
Seriously. Everywhere. It's not some random promotion or a seasonal thing. It's free shipping. Everywhere. All the time. I'm in heaven. Frankly speaking, shipping is a bitch. Most times the shipping costs is more than the cost of the actual item when you order things from Indonesia, and whilst I don't mind forking out the shipping money - free shipping is a godsend.

The way the books are shipped.
Tax is also a bitch. If I'm not mistaken, if you purchase items worth more than $50 online.. You have to pay additional tax when it gets here. Whilst it is mostly over looked in Jakarta (where people tend to spend lots on online shopping from international websites), I know my friends have had troubles in smaller cities. Even in Bandung. Book Depository sends their books individually, so the cost of each package never goes to $50 - no matter how many books you've purchased. I once purchased around 7 books (not all mine!) and they were all shipped on the same day, individually packaged. Best thing? They arrived on the same day too!

Great customer service!
My last purchase went missing. My stomach was in knots. I waited up to a month before I started panicking. Then Deskynowsky (one my victims from recommending Book Depository. Avid shopper :p) told me it happened to one of her shipments once and she reported it. They immediately sent her replacement copies. I tried to contact them, the response was immediate, polite and helpful. They gave me a choice of my money back, or replacement books. I chose the books! Waiting on their arrival now!

Honest to God, they're not paying me for this post! Haha, I'm just so very, very in love right now.


Seriously, reading is bad for me. I'm such a book whore. Reading is so time consuming, highly distracting (I always get sidetracked by shiny books!) and so frigging expensive. I spent my time reading online stories when I got desperate - It's that bad.

My wages mostly go to books and bras. Expensive hobbies. So Book Depository was a godsend. Aksara is way overpriced with a poor selection of titles, Kinokuniya is also a little on the expensive side for me. Periplus and Times is awesome, but they are ever so tiny, and they don't always have the books I want. Gramedia is cheap, but again - poor selection of books. Second hand book stores don't have the new titles.. etc etc.

Now if I could only find an online bra store that stocks the good stuff with free shipping.....

Crossposted at ficklebookwhore.

like a long lost love rediscovered

I'll admit that I'm as flighty as can be, and my interests wane with the seasons. I pick up and discard hobbies very quickly. My only constant is perhaps my love of books.

(I should write a post about meeting Deska of Deskynowsky sometime. She got me all fired up about posting book reviews on my sadly forgotten book blog.)

Anyway! Earlier this year I got myself a birthday present. An Instax Piano Black. Sort of like a polaroid, but with smaller pictures - for those who don't know what that is.

My DSLR is currently looking forlorn and lonely, and much as I love picture taking, I have to admit, dragging around the bulky camera is a bit of a chore. Slap me, please - I deserve it. But having snapped pictures with my Instax these past couple of months, my general interest in photography is currently rearing it's pretty (dazed) head.

I have a project in mind, and I have a feeling I'll be lugging my cameras with me everywhere for the next couple of months.

Wish me luck.

goodbye boring hair!

Say hello to my glorious mane. My PURPLE MANE! Mwaha! No greens and blues around, so I went with purple, and hot damn it looks good. I'm gonna dye the (normal) top half a brighter colour soon - because I can. And because it looks fantastic.

I'm ecstatic! It looks so good!

Another thing crossed off my bucket list ;)

knowledge is power and power corrupts. so study hard and be evil.

This is probably why my mum is off to school again. She's already so evil though. I don't know how to deal with her anymore. *sigh* Parents these days.

So congrats mum! Out of my hair for at least 3 days a week, out partying with her friends (if the last time she was in school was any indication.. tsk.), and mocking her fellow students (no doubt).

I LOVE YOU, MUM!

Be good, stay sane. And please don't make anyone cry this time.

Seriously though.. I don't trust her. She's gonna come home giggling one day because an idiot classmate got upset because she was snarky. I just know this. She's a menace.

early mornings always leave me rather woozy

Fact 1: Jakarta is ugly. It's too crowded and too polluted. A little too depressing, and a little too frustrating to be called anything other than a mess. And just.. it's too much.
Fact 2: If I could, I'd move away.

Fact 3: I'm a little in love anyway.

It's the way the city wakes up. All moody and unpredictable.

There are times the day starts with a fight. Golden rays rudely invading my room, abrupt and so completely unwelcome. The heat like an angry strike, too much for my sleepy skin to handle and just plain irritating. Fuck you Jakarta, why are you so happy today? The sudden hustle and bustle of the hated city life. Trudging along amongst irritated honks and death glares of fellow drones marching to their individual hells.

But then days like today make me think that hey.. You're all kinds of awesome darling. Lazy and reluctant like the embrace of a lover too soon separated. Sweet and slow, trails of yellows and blue seeping through a dull grey sky. Buildings standing tall, like zombies unsure of what to do. And just when you think the quiet is too much, the silence is broken by the occasional motorcycle or the shout of a street vendor offering hot, steamy, delicious rice congee.

A cup of coffee by my side, driving through the still empty streets, navigating through familiar roads.. I find myself thinking that even hell would have it's own legion of admirers.

I love you (for now) Jakarta, you ugly fucker.

Contemplations

The first three months of every year always finishes too quickly. Soon this feeling of elation and the whisper of brand new adventures will quickly dwindle to broken promises, could have been’s, and ‘shit-why-didn’t-I-do-that’-s.

But luckily it’s still January, and I’m in a fairly good mood. Lots of plans still to come, and many more in the making. And recently I came across some good news that got me giggling like a giddy school girl (although, admittedly.. I do tend to giggle quite easily.)

So while I’m happy.. I thought I’d write about things I’m thankful for.

My two years worth of work experience – yes, in total. Because I’m a lazy bum, and although the idea of part-timing occurred to me, I never needed it so I never went through with it. Ain’t I a privileged b*tch? – will happen in a month and a bit. March 1^st to be precise. I was lucky enough to stumble upon a first job where I learnt lots of valuable lessons and got to meet an amazing group of people who made me laugh, who would skive off work with me, and were hilarious to boot. I miss them all terribly now that I’m not entirely in love with all my co-workers in my current office. But that gripe is for my private conversations, and not the internet’s legion of ghost-faces, and creepy stalkers.

I fully realize how much a lazy-bum I am, and although I do try very hard to change it – it’s not happening quickly enough. So my work experience has largely been filled with pleasant surprises where people trust me enough to get on and work my mojo on various things I’m supposed to handle. Yes, I’ve had mini breakdowns where I thought it’d be best if I quit and never force my incompetent ways on the innocent work-force of Indonesia ever again, and days when all I wanted to do was smear mud all over people faces and stomp on their thighs (because thigh-stomping sounds more vicious than feet-stomping, but not as violent as face-stomping.).. But on the whole, I’ve never been so stressed that I ended up crying in the middle of a busy road, wailing for someone to please save me.. And I think.. I’m pretty chuffed. I’m not where I wished I was, but it’s good. Better than good in fact.. I’m in a great place right now.

I look around at my best friends, and can honestly say that while we’re not all ecstatic about where we are, with varying degrees of frustration.. We’re at least learning to walk on our own two feet. Looking back.. These people I grew up with, who I shared showerless weeks with, who wondered about our vague collective future with.. Look how far we’ve come. :)

Work still surprises me with how fun it is :)

When I'm feeling super tired, I think of all the fun photoshoots I've done and all of the amazing people I've met.. and I slap myself silly. 

One photoshoot which made me super happy lately is with Voelkan, an interior and product design team, consisting of two very cool guys (who I've met) and The Other Guy (this is me being flip and silly, because I haven't met the other guy :P haha!). The house looked.. in short - amazing. It was everything I could have hoped for. It was colourful, fun, and best of all - immaculate! It made my job as a stylist really easy, as I didn't have to do much. Cue big grin and high fives with my long suffering photographer who usually gets roped into moving the furniture around with me.

I have to say it was one of my favourite shoots. And so soon after my last fave shoot! Lucky girl indeed!

As ever, in the midst of faffing about, procrastinating because I just don't want to write anything right now, I found Met's blog. He's one of the guys from Voelkan, and I knew he had mad crazy sk1llz from the artwork displayed at The CrazyCoolAwesome House (as I've taken to calling it in my head), but his blog is just too cool.

 

This is the entry he did on the shoot we had (visit here)! His illustrations journal is worth peeking as well - like I said - mad crazy sk1llz.

I should stop blogging about work. I really should. But sometimes I find stuff that's just really nice, and I have to share.

Sometimes when a friend says "I think you should face your fears," what they really mean is "I want to see you piss your pants/puke your face off"

As I've mentioned many times in this blog - I'm a coward. Like srsly. I go green at the mere thought of being strapped in and being turned any which way in those death traps. Oops. I meant 'RIDES'. And I still maintain that those rides are highly unnatural. If humans were meant to have their legs up in the air, and heads on the grounds, we'd be walking with our heads. Not our legs.

But I went to Dufan. And I conquered all the rides! Halilintar.. Hysteria.. Kicir Kicir (watch the videos!).. I did it all! (Tornado was under maintenance, thank fuck.).. Cheshire cat grin on my face, voice sore from screaming, hair in a tangle from everything. I did it! I'm even rather fond of Kicir Kicir.

I'm feeling rather proud of myself. One fear down, about 99 thousand to go. Haha!

(Okay, so sometimes some friends mean well when they say "face your fears..!", and maybe I should say thank you. So, thank you, K!)

Door-knocking

So.. I wrote this over a week ago, with the intent of posting it on this very blog:

*

"You know when you’re heart is beating so hard that you can feel the veins in your neck grotesquely pulsing, and just about every part of you is in pain as your stomach clenches nervously..? Yes. That.

By nature I am not a very brave person. I’m actually rather like the cowardly Lion. I’d rather hide behind the ginger kid, serving her up as a sacrificial lamb rather than face anything remotely scary head on.

To be fair, I’ve been told ginger kids are supposed to be sacrificial lambs.

Aha! Forgive me, I’ve just broken my fast, and my inner snark is itching to be released.

But to be serious..

I am rather cowardly."

*

The feeling of being petrified passed, but I thought it'd be a shame not to share my utter terror over sending a simple email. Yes. Sending an email.

To be fair the email may or may not change my life for the better, but still - it was only an email.

Change does terrify me though, which is weird.. Considering I moved a lot as a kid, and saying hello in front of a large classroom full of curious eyes happened at least once every three or so years. But it seems that along the way, the mere notion of change freezes me up.

It's one of those things I'm trying to deal with - wish me luck!

Knocking on doors shouldn't be too hard, right?

I'm really sorry that I occasionally serve up really annoying, cryptic posts. ;)

A random awesome person in this random awesome world

Around 2 years ago, I was faffing around on the internets, all broken hearted and sad and generally not feeling all that great, and I stumbled upon An Awesome Book.. click the link! In fact.. look at the cover of the book, and you wont be able to resist clicking this link!



I don't remember how I found it, but I was there and it cheered me up infinitely. It's such a wonderful little book about dreaming, and dreaming big, and never stopping. I loved it so much that I stalked the author to his blog and wrote an email to him, saying I hope he never stops. And he apparently never did (nothing to do with my email, I'm very sure!)..

A day or two ago I received a notification from twitter of someone requesting to 'follow' me, it was Mr. Dallas Clayton himself! Not sure what I clicked, but I declined his invite, but I went over to his page anyways, and I was reminded once more of how much I enjoyed his writing, and short illustrated poetry on his blog. So off I went once more, and it was just as fun as it was back then!

I like finding random awesome things on the internet :) To everyone who finds only misery on the web, it's obvious that this is because they never go about looking for the fun and wonderful things it offers! I'm constantly stumbling over absurdly creative people, whose brains I want to pick, and gorgeous, gorgeous minds that I end up befriending.

So yes. Dallas Clayton. And his Awesome Book. I want to buy it, and the cute dinosaur poster up on his site.. Which I'll definitely do next pay check.

Jimmy Eat World, Mousey Eat Liver

*cough* That's a very lame joke by the way, 'eat liver' is an Indonesian saying which basically means 'annoyed'.. It has nothing to do with this post, I just thought I'd share the very lame joke which I keep putting up because.. Drum roll please!

JIMMY EAT WORLD IS COMING TO JAKARTA!

F*CK YEAH!

.. Pardon my French, but yes. I'm super excited, because I'm a huge fan. I'm dragging along my evil twin to the gig because he's an awesome guy who said yes when I begged him.

Jimmy Eat World brings about the happy memories of listening to tapes at at a deafening volume, riding my bike after school, angsting over silly teenage things. They stayed with me as I spent nights driving with the music blaring (still at a deafening volume), while I drive through the cold, empty roads in Bandung at night.. Every album has it's own meaning for me, so yes.. I'm just a tiny bit excited.

.. The gig is April 3rd, and my heart has been beating a little faster at seeing them live ever since I first heard that they were coming.

Yes, I'm prone to exaggerating, and being dramatic. See this huge smile -> =D ..? It's 100 times larger in real life.

My life in books: How it all started.

Yesterday I read a fantastic book. It was.. amazing. I'll talk about that one another day, as it deserves some special attention. It had many fantastic passages, and so many lovely tid-bits to quote, but one that made me think was this tiny bit about people never forgetting That First Book.

You know - the one that started it all. That got you thinking that this reading lark is fun. It mentioned that you'll never forget that book, and it got me thinking about my very own First Book, and how I could mark out my life, in books. So this will be the first of many posts about books, and what they mean to me.

I've been an avid reader for as long as I can remember. I remember rushing home to read Donald Duck comics under a shady tree, or sneaking into my brother's room to grab his copy of STOP, and Archie comics, and reading encyclopedias by torch light (I know. Geek.).. But my First Book was this little gem:

Jacqueline Wilson's The Suitcase Kid.

It was the start of winter, the year was 1994, and I was 8 years old, estranged in this wonderful new place, with lots of pale kids running around. My perma-Asian-tan was a novelty, and so was my accent. It was Reading Time, and since I didn't have a book with me, I was given a trip to the library and this was the first of many books I would borrow from the school.

I don't remember who recommended it to me.. Was it Amy or Hazel (my first friends at St. Sid's!) or was it the lady helping out at the library? Either way, magic happened the moment I sat down in my little plastic chair in front of Mrs. Bushin's table. I picked it up and was immediately thrown into Andy's world. A child of divorce, Andrea (ANDY!) bounced from one home to another, dealing with step-siblings and strange family dynamics. The book is divided quaintly into 26 chapters, each starting with a letter from the alphabet.. A is for.. B is for.. etc. And I couldn't get enough.

My own parents were happily married, so I couldn't possible understand what this girl was going through.. But as long as I had that book in my hand, I felt like I knew exactly what she was feeling, and I was her friend.

The book had given the key to this whole other world, and upon finishing the book, I couldn't wait to get another chance to visit the library. If I liked reading before, I was positively in love with it after this book. It's not 'the best children's book EVER WRITTEN!!one!11!one!!', but it was one that opened my eyes to this whole other world where literally anything could happen.

I don't think I realized the significance this book would hold in my life, but looking back now.. The stuff I read before were probably not age/reading-ability-appropriate, and so I couldn't digest it as well as I could Ms. Wilson's book. And revisiting my old haunts now, I still love them very much, but The Suitcase Kid has a Very Special place in my heart as my First Book.

After Ms. Wilson, there was Mr. Dahl, Mr. Lewis, and Ms. Smith to occupy my time, and after that there was a whole brigade of authors, but The Suitcase Kid had been my key to the world of words. And I'll be forever grateful.

And I have to ask - what was yours???

.. to be continued .. :)

Oh 27th of Feb, you were fantastic this year..!

Whaddap ma hommiiiieeesss!

Said in my accent, it sounds kinda.. off.

Anyhoo.

Relaxing on a gorgeous Saturday morning with a steaming mug of hot cocoa. Wish I had something stronger to lace it with. Mmmm.. *cough* Where was I? Oh yes. Sun. Sun is shinning all bright and pretty, the water in the pool is glistening deliciously, and it's just begging me to come on and take a dip. And where am I? I'm blogging in my parent's air conditioned room, because I really don't want to go to my untouched, super duper messy, shipwreck of a room.

Why am I blogging?

Because apparently I don't do enough writing at work.

No that's not it..

Because I can..! I'm reveling at the luxury of being able to do what I want to, when I want to. Oh the joy of weekends! That, and I have a laser-tag game to get to in about an hour or two. Baby cousin's birthday! I say 'baby', she's 10.. And she's turning into quite the little terror. I love her to bits, but I didn't own that much make up till I was.. 11? 12? Haha. I was going to say 15, but then I realised I started to wear nail polish and make up to school everyday when I was 12.. That stopped when I came back to Indonesia *waves fist at oppresive schools around the country*.

So really we're not all that different. But wait! I didn't have two super awesome 20-something cousins when I was her age. Ah well.. Hugs baby girl, you're all grown up..!

I realize I'm rambling.

But Saturdays are warm and soft and safe. You can't help but be a little wistful, and ramble a little, spitting out every single thing you can think of.. And really, this whole writing out my thought as-they-come-by thing is uber nice. Maybe not for those who end up reading it, but certainly for me.

Yes, my thoughts are really quite inconsequential most of the times.

You should feel lucky that I'm just rambling and my brain isn't serving up some inane questions that I have no answers too. It does that a lot. The significance of cheeseburgers in friendship for instance..

No. I won't go there.

I think I shall go forth and shower now.

Ciao! Adieu! Goodbye dear hearts!

So. Feckin'. Tired.

I think I'm starting to develop this bad habit of enjoying my job just a little too much.

I'm swamped. I run around all day, calling people up, setting up interviews, setting up photoshoots, looking up prices, looking for stock photos.. etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

An (un..?)fortunate side effect is I've begun to have favourite.. things. Chairs, lamps, designers.. etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It feels quite bizarre to be walking along and then suddenly coo at tiles. I coo. At tiles. I'll say it again - I coo at tiles.

This may be my exhaustion taking over me, but I just can't stop laughing at this fact..!

And this.. this is my favouritest most favourite chair. I want one so bad..!

Eames Eiffel Plastic Armchair.

But this being tired thing is ridiculous. I have no time for anything.. And it's stand-up comedy DVD season! I MUST FIND SOME STAND UP DVDs SOON!

lucky break for the lucky b*tch

I'm one of those annoying people who always manages to land on her feet, gracefully, in a pair of gorgeous Louboutins, not a hair out of place, not a drop of sweat on my face.

Well figuratively. Because in person, I'm rather ungraceful. I have two left feet, and my idea of landing gracefully is just about managing to stay upright, with my limbs intact (my knees have a nasty habit of dislocating itself).

But I digress.

A long time ago, when I was a wee highschooler, I wanted to get into English Lit. or Interior Design. My mother dissuaded me from English Lit. because 1.) I knew most of the lecturers from the faculty of the uni I wanted to get into. 2.) Not only did they know me, they were also my babysitters, as mum had a habit of dragging me to work so we can spend time together. And 3.) She thought I'd get frustrated if asked to dissect books and/or authors I love (I don't see why, we do this anyway!)..

And Design.. Well.. My brother went into Product Design. He managed to drill into me that Product Design was way cooler than Interior Design. And one day I sneaked into his room while he was working and realized I didn't burn for it the way he did. My brother was (and still is) a cranky person when forced to do what he doesn't want to, so to see him so.. happy and excited bent over a pile of papers, surrounded by books.. Well. I knew it just wasn't for me.

But all I wanted to do was write. All I ever wanted to do was write (and be an archeologist, but that's another story all together)..

So I chose Product Design. And put 'writing' to the back of my mind. I didn't get accepted though. D'uh. (I can't draw or create for shit).. Luckily I had International Relations as a back up plan. Well not so much a 'back up plan' as a 'I-accidentally-applied-because-my-friend-said-it-was-fun' kind of thing.

When I saw what would be in store for me, I was terrified. And absolutely horrified. Economy? Law? Politics!? It just wasn't me.

So imagine my surprise when I enjoyed the classes. I was still crap at economy, and barely managed to pass those classes, but I was surprisingly pleased with all the subjects that contained 'law' in the names. A's all around for law. And politics.. politics was fun. The analyzing, the poking and prodding.. FUN. I ended up loving it.

It took me a while to graduate though, and yes, at one point I was so frustrated that I wish I never touched politics at all. But hey - I got through it.

Then comes work.

I stumbled into a job as an editor (slash photographer, slash stylist, slash art director, slash anything they can make me do, they'll send me off to do it).. Met some amazing people, got into a truckload of interesting situations.. And lamented the pay.

Anyone who works in the media in Indonesia will confirm how shit the pay is. Especially for fresh grads.

But I was writing for a living! WRITING. And get this - I was working in an interior design magazine! How frakkin' awesome was that? 15 year old me would be so impressed. And 9 year old me would just be shitting herself. WRITING!

The thing is, I worked two magazines, the interior design and the other one is a men's fashion magazine. I never thought I'd be into fashion, especially men's fashion.. But it really is fun! And I don't know if I should be proud or ashamed of the fact I can recognize the brand of certain bags, and the season in which they came out.

Yes. Well. Anyway. Here comes the super duper lucky b*tch bit..

My ex-semi-boss dude recently 'migrated' to another magazine, and I went along with him. With a pay increase.

Super duper lucky b*tch indeed. :)

My new job starts in November. So wish me luck dear hearts. I'm living my dream.

Things I learnt in uni..

I wrote this ages ago, but I never got around to posting it.. So here goes! Enjoy!

***

Move in with people you don’t really know. Because it might be hard to stay friends with someone once you move in with them, but it’s inevitable that you befriend the people you live with.

Pay your bills on time, and move out before your lease runs out.

Establish lines very early on. If you don’t like sharing, it should be known from the start.

Thin walls and thin floors make for funny stories.

Being drunk in public is never as fun as being drunk in your own place.

Midnight talks are reserved for those stories which involve the opposite sex. And the absence of at least a shirt. Oh yeah, you know what stories I’m talking about.

If you can’t drive, don’t be a bitch to the people who can. Seriously.

Roadtrips should be short and sweet, and the routes never repeated.

Know when to walk away, and when you should open your mouth and call someone out on their own bullshit. Pick your friends carefully.

Painting a room is always fun. DIY brings people closer together.

Don’t get stuck in one ‘circle of friends’, jump around and meet as many people as possible. You won’t feel obliged to be nice to everyone that way, and you’ll have this awesome group of friends you can’t wait to introduce to one another.

You don’t need to be friends with someone from the beginning, and you don’t have to know every single detail of someone’s live to adore them, and think of them as your best friends.

Good friends tell you things will be alright. Awesome friends tell you that you’ve been a complete idiot, and things are shitty because it’s your own fault. So get off your fat ass and do something about it.

Leave when you need to. Come back when you’re ready. People will understand.

You don’t need to spend three days on an assignment as long as what you’re writing is structured, and gets to the point straight away. (I rarely meet the target amount of words. Mine are always missing 500 or so words. And the only time I got a B was when my Granddad died.)

Pick a subject to be sucky in, and then excel on the others.

Noodles are delicious. Especially when eaten with eggs, cheese and corned beef. But eating it every meal time for a week will get you sick.

Midnight runs for food should be appreciated. You will never have as much fun, eating out at ungodly hours as when you’re in uni.

IKEA is a bad place to eat “cookies”.

Good boyfriends make awesome exes. Shitty boyfriends should be drowned at sea.

Sugar highs are really as bad as getting drunk.

Food always tastes better when you’re fighting over it.

You should skinny dip at least once. Hot springs are better than normal pools.

That's Life Coffee

So today I did a quick photo shoot of That's Life Coffee, a cool place owned by kak Arris who's a friend of my brother's. Look up his blog - it made me melt. I wish I could create stuff like that.

ANYWAYS.

I've been hearing about That's Life for a while now. First from my brother (obviously), and from my friends as well, as they seem to regularly hang out there. And for some reason or another, I've not found time yet. Until today.

image: MINE. I took it! Will appear on the November edition of Home and Decor Indonesia, in the Food Notes section.

Oh oh oh. It was perfect. Small and cosy and warm and friendly and just.. lovely. The decor was neat, unpretentious and pretty. I did a long slow exhale the moment I stepped in. A really happy long slow exhale.

I was afraid I wouldn't be able to capture the atmosphere, but I think I did a pretty good job. And a huge part of it is because of Aldy, the designer that works with me on the mag. He did a fantastic job editing! Don't the pictures just look perfect? I have the biggest EVER smile on my face right now.

image: again, MINE. Kthxbai! :)

The food was good, the price affordable. And the coffee - exactly the pick me up I needed. And the cherry on top of it all? I absolutely adore how the pictures have turned out!

Thou shalt not complain

I have it pretty good, what with doing a job I like 90% of the time, with people I adore 90% ofthe time. Work buddies I can hang out with after work, drag out to see movies and plays and music gigs, eat out with, and kidnap for quick weekend getaways.

Can I do better job-wise? Probably. But emotionally, I'm in a good place.

Idiots who bother me shall be ignored, and the hardships endured.

I have it good.

Other than my salary (oh lordy the salary..), this was my choice. I applied, I accepted.

Suck it up darling. Life is good.

I shan't complain. :)

EID MUBARAK!

To all and sundry, if I have wronged you in any way, please forgive me :)

So.

Today I count my blessings.