That Time Machine Feeling

Days, weeks and months have passed. All of the sudden, it's July. Time flies before anyone's eyes.

And the last sentence rhymed without any intention.

Anyway, quite a lot of things happened these past months since my last entry:

1. A mother cat (different from the one I've mentioned before) gave birth to 5 (!) kittens. And colourful ones too. A month and a few days later, something ate them. Some said a raccoon did it, some said an alpha male cat did. Either way, the kittens were eaten. It happened right after we woke up. It was a Monday morning, 10th of March 2014. My grandma was out in the backyard and saw dry blood splattered on the ground. I already finished showering so she asked to go up the back stairs to see. And I was only halfway up when I saw a furry foot. And I couldn't take it anymore, so I just went down. I also saw a body under the shed upstairs with no head. It's only a silhouette thankfully, but it was still shocking. So before I went to work, we asked the security guard to get rid of the bodies and bury them somewhere outside the house. He told us that only the heads were eaten.

2. The same mother cat was of course devastated. I heard her calling out for her kids for a few days and nights. But some time later, her kid (the only one left from her first 'pregnancy') was actually brave enough to go close to her and allowed to suckle. Before this, the mother was always mean to the kid; hitting and biting the younger cat. But one day, they cuddled together and it was a sight to behold.

3. My co-workers, students and I had an edutainment program on Trans Studio Bandung. It was fun, especially since I finally got to ride the roller coaster after months - probably years even - of craving. But unfortunately, none of my co-workers were fans of extreme rides. So in the end, I joined the students because otherwise, I wouldn't be able to and it would be such a waste when it's free!

4. My parents and youngest sister came to visit us, unfortunately only for a week. They arrived on a Saturday night and went back to KL on the next Saturday. My dad bought me a bicycle for me. To be honest, I wanted a simple one. You know just to take a ride around the neighbourhood. But he was more excited when we were buying and eventually he bought me a bike that's for hiking. It was complicated at first since I'm not used to professional bike (if I can call it that) and the seat is super hard. It's like sitting on a board!

5. Since I haven't been cycling in years, I was left breathless only after 10-15 minutes of doing so. It was embarrassing because I thought I could cycle further. Well granted, we kinda live near the mountains and hills so it was exhausting. But that's no excuse, so I just have to get used to it and cycle more as a form of exercise.



6. I bought a camera! I've been dying to buy one for months and I finally have. I bought a Kodak PixPro AZ251, 16MP and 25x optical zoom. I contemplated between buying a pro, semi pro and compact cameras. But in the end, I chose a semi pro because with that I could learn how to take a photos properly. And maybe professionally? Or in this case, semi-professionally?

7. I could finally ride my motorcycle everywhere. It's been months and it'll be a year old this September. Like I said, time flies.

8. It's Ramadhan all of the sudden. Office hour is now from 08.30 to 16.00. Sometimes time flies, sometimes it's too draggy. But the weather these days has been really great. Not too sunny, not too cloudy. It's just perfect. Although, it gets cold at night and the next morning. And it drizzles sometimes. But it's nice, in my opinion. It feels like the old Bandung all over again.

9. Dora is pregnant! I don't have a current picture of her, because whenever I want to take a picture, she walks away. Sometimes runs away even. Anyway, finally she's pregnant! Hopefully, her kittens would be fine and could grow up until it's at least 6 months old, unlike the others'.

10. The mother cat that I've talked about in the first two numbers is super famous. I think she's the only female around this neighbourhood. Can you spot how many cats there are in the picture below?

11. DORA GAVE BIRTH TO 4 KITTIES! So last Saturday (05.07.14) she came to the house with her stomach not swollen anymore. Grandma was confused because she didn't know where the cat has given birth. So when I got home, I looked around and found out - after waiting for Dora to look for her babies - that the kitties were sleeping inside a flower pot on our neighbour's front yard. Thankfully nobody has found out about them yet. So I took a box and put them inside so we could keep them inside our house.

Goodbye, hello

Time flew really quickly.

I remember watching the fireworks near my grandma's house last year (2012 going 2013). My sisters came to visit because it was their holiday. We didn't plan on going anywhere on the 31st of Dec 2012 because I knew there would be traffic jams everywhere. And to our luck, our neighbour had this firework show going on so it was really great.

This year, or rather the 31st of Dec 2013, I was only with my grandma. My sisters have their passports held by the embassy so they can't go anywhere. Learning from experience, I only slept after midnight because I knew I would wake up in the middle of my sleep otherwise. To kill time, I decided to watch Chuck because it's been awhile since I did.

When it was almost time, fireworks nearby have already started. My grandma woke up from her sleep and walked towards the front door to witness the show. It was pretty loud because it's really near. It was so loud apparently, that one of our cats ran into the house and took cover. She just stayed with me until everything finished at around 12.30 am.

My resolutions? I have so many that I can't even list them here.

Or maybe I'm just too lazy to do it.

Or maybe I just don't want anybody to know about it.

Despair

Not too long ago, I read from somewhere that if you're desperate to find a new love, that means you're not ready to have a relationship.

I was once so desperate to get my motorcycle, now that it's finally arrived, I find it hard to balance.

I guess I'm not ready.

A Friendship Story Between Two Kittens

In the previous post, I've written that I've lost the kittens of a mother cat. The mother cat actually reunited with one of them a few days after that post. A neighbour's maid found one when she was buying some breakfast nearby and brought it home. I took it to the mother and they looked so happy. Then my grandma gave some food to the kitten and I assumed they went out to get the others because my grandma told me that the kitten went missing again (I was already in the office).

Then a few days later, that same maid gave us another kitten (picture on the left). It has a very peculiar colour. It's actually my first time seeing a cat like this. One of a kind. And I still dunno if it's a female or a male. My sister said it's a female because of the colour. But this cat is not afraid of anything. And I mean, anything. Not even a much bigger cat (the bigger one is the one afraid of it) or water. It actually likes it. And it's also very territorial. Every time there's a cat wandering around, it hisses at the newcomer even though the so-called newcomer is a frequent cat that usually visits our house.

Then a few nights ago, another neighbour kids gave us another new kitten. It's much smaller and some mother cat (that used to be ours but is now everyone's) kept hitting it so they decided to keep it at our house. My sisters were here so they of course didn't reject the offer. My grandma unwillingly accepted it but the problem was the older territorial kitty. It kept hissing at the new kitten. So we had to put it inside the house in the living room. We had to do that for several days until we decided that the older one has got used to the presence of another cat. Until one day, they actually shared the same place to sleep. They still fought but it's friendlier than before.

One afternoon, some neighbour kids borrowed this new kitten and brought it to their house. I lent it to them since we were cleaning the house anyway. As the older kitten was alone, it looked pretty lonely. It was usually very energetic; jumping everywhere. But that day, it just slept for almost the whole day. I opened the front door to let it out but it just stayed still near my feet, as if waiting for the new kitten to return home. It was really saddening because the kids still hadn't given it back.

What's even sadder was when it was time to sleep. I put the older kitten on its bed but it just sat there. I almost cried then. I let it in the house again and it actually slept on my lap. I guess it's already used to the new company. But I had to let it out because that's where it usually sleeps.

This whole thing shows me that even cats as small as my older kitten need a friend. Even if they used to fight all the time, when they're already accustomed to a new company, they will miss the presence when they're alone.

Now I just need a picture of them sleeping together.

Same same

Some people hate it when they see someone wearing the same clothes as them. Especially if that said someone is a rival. Each of them would try to sabotage the other so that they would be different like any other day. There have been a lot of movies or series that involve this kind of situation.

But funny enough, I have never seen something like this in real life (or it doesn't actually happen; just the imagination of the movie maker/producer/scriptwriter/director/etc.). Maybe that's because I used to wear uniforms in school, even in Kindergarten. Until Secondary School. College and University required us to wear normal ones so it was a new situation for me to be honest, where I had to choose what to wear for the day.

Anyway I'm used to seeing the same clothes since I was a kid so I guess I don't mind if I'm in that situation. I will even laugh it off because of all clothes that we have, we actually wear the same ones. That's a weird coincidence.

Unless of course, you plan it beforehand with the other person.
And you plan to "sabotage" each other.
Now that's a different whole situation.
You're just asking for attention.

A Love Story Between A Mother Cat and Her Kittens

Last month when we returned to this country, we were greeted by a small family of cats that consisted of a mother and her three kittens. The mother has visited us before so she was quite friendly. The kittens, on the other hand, were scared because it was their first time seeing people up close when for a month they've been alone before this.

Being the nice person that she is, my grandma fed them and soon they're brave enough to approach when we called them to have some meals. Usually during the feeding, the mother would just stay back and let the kittens eat first. And whatever that's left, she would eat it. That's how much she loved her children.

Then, my grandma started putting the kittens outside the house so they would have a different environment from the backyard. The neighbour kids like cats as well so they played with the kittens. But they were overwhelmed by the loud noise and strangers so they mostly hid themselves in the bushes. Getting them back inside the house every late afternoon was a bit of a work because I assumed they were already comfortable playing outside.

But last Sunday, the kittens went missing. We called for them but other cats came instead. We waited a few hours and called but none came. The mother looked for them too but it was a fruitless attempt. Her meow sounds different when she calls for her children and I still hear it from time to time. It sounds really sad. She doesn't want to eat as normal because she can't find them. She usually holds some food on her mouth and calls for them so they can eat it. But alas, nobody comes.

I just hope whoever took the kittens takes good care of them. Although, I do wish they came back because the mother sounds and looks so sad. Even the neighbour kids are sad that they have no kitties to play with.

Family

The other day on my way back home, I saw a little family consisted of two quite young parents and their toddler. I was sitting right behind the driver, whereas the family was in front. I assume the toddler was tired because she kept screaming her hair out. And the parents just ignored her. I was listening to some music so I wasn't really bothered, although the shouting was still heard clearly.

Then, it got me thinking: what would I do if I was the mother? Would I ignore my kid too? Or would I try to calm the kid down?

Until now, I can't imagine how I would look and feel like if/when I become a parent. Will I be able to cook my husband something? Will he like it? How many children will we have?

Heck, will I meet someone? And when will that be?

People always say that everyone will have someone to live with for the rest of our lives. I tell myself that as well, but it's not my fault that I sometimes think otherwise. I can't help but be impatient.

A Small World

Every day, we meet people. Be it in the neighbourhood, market, mall, school, work, or on our way to our destination. Just like my previous entry "Soulmates", they might be our soulmates (if you're not married yet); our one and only, our love.

What if they're also related to us? The people who sell vegetables in the market might be our distant cousins. The security guard at the mall beside our workplace might be our uncle. Our boss might be our nephew. We will never know.

There is a really tiny, puny chance that we're all related. We somehow share the same blood. Just look at your own family chart. You and I might be somehow relatives.

It's a small world.

Observation

The older people get, the more childish they become

Well, maybe not 'childish'. And certainly not 'immature' either. More like 'childlike'. They act like a kid, as if they're getting younger

Examples are my parents

I'm not complaining at all, because they're kind of more loveable now. Although, it does get annoying sometimes

Malaysian English: The Most Colourful English in the World

I came across this video in Facebook a few weeks ago. People have been sharing this everywhere in that site. But I only got to watch it around two days ago. I thought it's very interesting and funny by the way the speaker shared her experiences living in Malaysia (her husband is a Malaysian-Chinese).

soulmates

For the past few months, I always use public transportation. It has its own upsides and downsides. Upsides: I don't have to drive on my own, I can sleep, I won't get lost, etc. Downsides: I have to spend a lot of money to pay for the fees, I can't avoid traffic jam because it's the transportation's route, I can be late, etc. So I have a love and hate relationship with the public transportation. Sometimes I wish I had my own motorcycle at least, but at the same time it's much better to use public transportation.

When I'm inside public transportation, I always have this thought: what if one of these many people inside the car is actually the one I'm going to spend the rest of my life with? We wouldn't know for sure. Soulmates - or the person we're destined to be with - can be anyone. It can be your boss, your neighbour, your best friend, your security guard, or even the driver of the public transportation.

What if my soulmate was sitting right beside me yesterday on our way home? What if he was the one I bumped into in the mall last month? What if he was actually my own friend whom I haven't met in years? Like I said before, we wouldn't know.

But people say that soulmates won't go anywhere. Because we're destined to be with them, they're going to return to us one of these days.

This is so very random, but it just came to me yesterday. And I just needed to let it all out.

creativity

This afternoon, I felt so creative that I immediately thought of writing something in this blog. But the creativity just vanished all of the sudden, so my mind is now empty of creative things

Anyway I don't know if I should be happy or not, to be honest. Staying here longer might be good for me. I have no idea. One thing for sure: even if I might not accept things willingly, things that will happen and have happened are the best that can and will ever happen in my life

Man, I don't know what I just wrote. I guess having been in my hometown for the past few months plays a part in my weird choice of English words :S

the difference

The last time I wrote an entry was 8 eight months and 3 days ago. Should I erase this blog? I haven't updated this for so long and I'm so lazy to write something (and yet I'm writing now)

A lot of things have happened since the last entry. I'm now different. Hopefully in a good way. But the old me is still there

Some of my wishes are still the same. But I have new ones too

Ha, maybe I should just delete this blog

Or should I just let it be? Don't bother?

the long-awaited day: 13.02.12

after all those years of struggling and working like crazy, the time has come. it was the day for me and others to graduate. you have no idea how long i've waited for that event

so since our convocation only started at 5pm, i accompanied my mum to drop my dad off to some place in Puchong. it was still around 8am, so there's traffic everywhere but we managed to get to Chow Kit before 9am (the GPS took us to the Klang Lama road). after my mum's finished with her shopping, we went back home. i promised my friends to be there before 2.30pm because we thought that there would be people lining up to get their studio pictures taken. but in the end, i just managed to get the bus at 2.30pm and to make it even worse, i got blisters from the wedges i wore on that day >_<

anyway painfully, i made my way to the nearest toilet after i reached Pyramid to put the band-aids over the blisters and loosen up the wedges. it was much better after that (lesson learned: never run with the wedges) so i made my way to the Sunway Lagoon Resort since that's where the convocation was held. there's already a lot of people but none of them was my friends, so i went to the toilet to change. it took me quite awhile to look for one because there's no indication

a few minutes later, i found my friend and together we went upstairs to get our graduation robes and mortarboard. it turned out that we wouldn't get the 'hood' because something came up. i don't exactly know what happened, so what we wore was quite plain: a black robe and a black mortarboard like Harry Potter. anyway we took the studio pictures. and since it was divided by schools, the IT 'studio' was very empty compared to the Engineering one

it was 4.30pm already, and we had to get inside the room for the rehearsal was going to start. my mum and sister still hadn't come yet so i had to give their tickets to the people in charge outside so they could come in later on. what i first thought about rehearsal was that we students would come up the stage; turned out that we just had to sit in our assigned seats and watch the people reenact it on the stage

finally the ceremony started with the important people going up the stage; like the Chancellor, the heads of the schools, a guest and others. we had to stand up until the last person took the seat. some speeches were made and finally it was the students' turn to get their certificates indicating that we finished our studies in the university

unfortunately the head of the school of IT got my name wrong (Gula instead of Galuh), so yeah. but who cares right? i got my certificate already. eheh,,

after the ceremony was over, we got out of the hall to meet some other people, took some pictures, had some food, and took more pictures. my mum, sister and i went back home at around 8.30pm

some pictures:

 

this girl 'graduated' twice: last December and March

holiday holiday~

my passport, after 2 months and 3 weeks or so passed, was finally out on the day i had to fly to Indonesia (18th of January). i don't want to tell the story because it's just ... anyway long story short, i cried a lot on the day before i flew because the passport wasn't even out after i waited for literally hours in uni doing nothing but internet (it got boring, trust me). so on the 18th, i had to get up early to get my passport and thank God i could go back home with my sister

we took KLM so we got to Jakarta at around 6.30pm. we had to take the travel to go to Bandung so we bought the tickets and fortunately we're going soon. unfortunately though traffic was everywhere cos it's time when people went back from the office and it was raining too. we just reached Bandung at 11.30pm when it's actually just a 3hr car ride

i can't remember what we did the next day, but we went to eat some Indonesian food of course. we went here and there; bought some kebaya because a friend of the family was getting married. we went to Jakarta again on the 21st(?) by travel and straight went to Thamrin City to buy more kebaya. after going round and round the place, we got some and went to another great aunt's house to spend the night. the marriage was held on the next day in a hotel so it's really nice. on that day itself we went back to Bandung because my mum was going back to KL on Monday late afternoon

being in Bandung with grandma and great aunt was not exactly pleasant. food was great of course because i haven't had grandma's cooking in months. it's just that i had to be a driver whenever they had some business to do outside

one day sis and i went to Trans Studio which is an indoor themepark in a mall. it was amazing! it's not that expensive compared to the themeparks in KL so it was totally worth it. there are 20 rides we can take but we only took 8 because the others were either for kids or we had to wait for the time to be opened. amazingly we got home at around 5pm! and we even had the time to get some lunch and went around the mall

we had to go to Jakarta again on the 28th because i was meeting my friends on the 29th. on that day itself we ate a lot. or actually me and sis ate a lot. i don't know how many times i ate that day.. but it's all good; we go to Indonesia to eat! ahha

something weird happened on the 28th evening. so we slept on my great aunt's house until we had to go to KL on the 2nd. the room where we slept in was quite big but there's a lot of things inside, including 2 mirrors. so around 2am, i woke up and - i don't know if it was my imagination or it was real - saw a face. it's more like a shadow cos it's black. but it reminded me of my great uncle - it was hs house after all. so yeah i saw him and i couldn't sleep for a while. turned out that there's a 80% chance that if you wake up at 2-3am, someone is staring at you >_<

on the 30th my sis, my friend and i went to Central Park by busway. it was really far so i even got the time to sleep on the bus. haha,, we walked around the mall for a while and got back at around late afternoon. we got stuck in traffic for around 3 hours cos it just rained and because it's the time for people to go back home from the office

on the 2nd we had to go back to KL. there was a delay but it wasn't that long so that's okay. the plane was very empty but my sis and i got separate seats for some weird reason -_- apparently the weather was acting up so it felt like riding a roller coaster. but we only got a safety belt, whereas on roller coasters we have more secure belts. or whatever it's really called. anyway it happened twice but we landed safely

the next day i went out with 2 school friends and walked around Pavilion. we watched a movie called War Horse and ate some ice cream. walked around some more and got back home at maybe 9.30pm

on the 5th my primary school friend came to visit so we went out to hang. at first i picked her and her friend up in KL tower before going to the Bukit Bintang area to take their luggage. we went to Masjid Negara to do our prayers before going to Batu Caves. it wasn't as far as i have imagined but we still got there at like 6.30pm. Thaipusam is coming soon so there's a lot of people there. i parked the car really far away from the entrance so we had to walk a bit before climbing up the some-hundred-step stairs. apparently there's a lot of temples even inside the cave so it was amazing for me to see - it was my first time being there after all. we spent some time there - around an hour or so - taking some pictures, seeing what people had to do up there, etc. there's a market at the bottom so we went around and my friends bought some stuff. after finishing everything, we went back to the car feeling glad because 1) the car was still there - as always i imagined the car was towed or someone crashed into it, 2) of air-cond! we had to go meet my friend's friend because that's where they were staying for the night. took us some time to meet but we eventually agreed to meet at KFC because we hadn't had dinner yet. i got home at 11-something pm

oh! i just remember... i am finally eligible to graduate! so i'm going to have my convocation on the 13th of March!!!