Gosh, where did time go? I've been such a bad blogger and blog-hopper. It can be pretty tricky to get back to the swing of things after a long break from writing in a blog. It's not that I haven't had anything to say, but I've felt less the need to share it in my blog, I guess.
Anyway, last month we had our winter break and we went to London. It was my second time going there and I was planning on meeting some friends again. While waiting for our flight to London at Helsinki airport, I had to turn off my mobile because I felt like it wasn't working properly. When I turned it back on, I had to type in the four-digit code to activate my mobile. I punched in my usual numbers, but my device said that they were the wrong ones.
Uh oh...then I realized what had happened. You see...R2 had changed my provider to a better one about two months prior to our London trip and I had forgotten to change the activation code. I hadn't memorized the new one, either (I tried punching in 0000, but it didn't work, either). The third time around my guess was wrong, so my mobile was locked and I had to enter my PUK code to activate it. Luckily R2 was there with me and since he was the one who ordered the whole thing, he had access to the PUK code. Phew!
I was panicking for a while before R2 found the PUK code, because my mobile had everything necessary for me to contact my friends easily (the ones I were planning to visit in London). Imagine if I had been alone and then my phone was locked like that. There are no more payphones in Helsinki airport these days, so I would have had to borrow someone else's mobile phone to contact R2. Geez...it reminds me how much I rely on my mobile to do so many things these days and how different it was back then when I was growing up. I remember lining up in front of public phone booths in Bali during our High Sschool trip to contact our parents and let them know that we had arrived safely. Dang, the memory makes me feel old HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHHH...
Anyway, I had the pleasure of meeting Nikki again in London. YAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!! We spent half a day together and we even visited the same cafe we found two years ago. We visited the British Museum (free pass!) and we found a really strange statue that Nikki found disturbing. It was a statue of a woman who was carrying a weird-looking figure in her arms. If the figure was a baby, it would have been understandable, but the small figure in her arms looked like an old man who was pouring some water or something like that. We couldn't find any description regarding the weird-looking little old man in her arms LOL!!!
P.S. Did you notice that I was wearing the same red top, Nikki? :-D I'm glad that the blogosphere brought us together. :-D Until next time!
They were getting ready for bed and he was fumbling for his mobile phone. He let out a curse, seemingly to have trouble with something on his phone.
She asked, "What's wrong?"
"I need to change my morning alarm sound."
"Oh, why's that?"
"Your sleeping sound has kept me awake."
"My sleeping sound?" she asked, confused.
"Yes, you know that I've been using the sounds of waves to wake me up in the morning and lately your breathing during sleep sometimes resembles the sounds of waves on my mobile phone. So just like last night, I thought I heard the waves, so I woke up and then realized it was your breathing. Went back to sleep and then after a while I woke up again to the sound of the waves, but I realized it was still your breathing."
"Oh my, no wonder you've been tired. Why did you pick that particular sound in the first place then?"
"Because it's the least noisy one. Now I've changed it to the sound of birds chirping."
She laughed. "But what if I end up making sounds like birds chirping in my sleep then?"
"Then I'll just have to change it again."
"Fair enough," she replied.
glitter-graphics.com
In this modern age where kids start using computers at such a young age, it seems that my childhood was like a "caveman period" for the new generation of kids. The other day in Facebook someone posted somebody else's picture that made me laugh so much.
It was a picture of a cassette and a pencil next to it. Below it is written: Kids These Days Wouldn't Know The Link Between These Two Objects.
It took me a split second to realize what it meant, then I started laughing. I remember the first time I had ever bought my own cassette. It was a NKOTB (New Kids on The Block) cassette which my cousin and I played over and over again on the tape recorder. One time it was jammed and the roll of tape got entangled inside the tape recorder (see the pic below). I had to stop it and take it out manually and then roll it back neatly using the help of the pencil. However, the second time it happened, I had to actually open the case of the cassette and roll it into place by hand VERY VERY slowlyyyyy so that it wouldn't slip 'coz then I'd have to do it all over again...
Today I've also been talking to another hometown girl who's just married a Finnish guy and has just moved to Finland two months ago. They also met online, but I realized how different it was back then when I started getting to know Arttu and the time she spent online with him.
She told me that they spent a lot of time sending messages via Facebook because it was cheaper than sending SMSes. When I first got to know Arttu better in 2000, mobile phone providers had just started their SMS services. Back then I still had my 56 Kbps modem to connect to the internet (yeah, so very slow!), so for me it was much cheaper to send SMSes compared to being online all the time. These days in Indonesia there are so many internet providers with faster connections and cheaper prices, so it's natural that it's getting cheaper to connect with people via Facebook or Blackberries compared to sending SMSes.
Talking to the younger generation makes me feel like I came from a distant age and time ha ha ha ha...It doesn't necessarily mean I feel old, though, but it's such a huge contrast that happened in just a few years (I was still using the 56Kbps when I left Indo in 2007 and nowadays the internet connection can be as fast as 1Mbps or even faster than that - depending on what kind of services you subscribe to).
When I look back to my childhood, I remember so many wonderful traditional children's games that we had with my friends and neighbours. Kids these days don't know those wonderful games anymore 'coz they grow up with Wii and stuff like that. These are some of the wonderful games that we played in the olden days:
Congklak
Bola Bekel (explanation can be found in the middle of the page)
Hopscotch
There are also some running/jumping games, but I don't really remember the rules anymore nor could I find any info in English. All I knew was that we had so much fun!!! :-D
1. The other day R2 not only cooked pizza for us (he made the dough, the mince meat/tomato pureed topping), he also did ALL the dishes after we ate (we have no dishwasher!!!). I only helped spread the toppings he he he he...THANK YOU, Babyyyy!!!
2. This morning I saw TWO little squirrels in the trees (they kept on moving about and chasing each other) in front of our apt. building.
3. I also saw a big type of bird I'd never seen before. It flew down and sat on top of one of the tree tops. Mmmmm...I feel like living near wilderness he he he...
4. Being forgiven!!!
5. Being able to send SMSes to my Mom. My brother bought her a mobile phone and now she's learning to send SMSes to me. The first SMS she sent me was a BLANK LOL LOL LOL!!! The second one, she only wrote one word. After that she could send me "proper" SMSes, though she writes without a dot or a comma HA HA HA HA HA HA...At least it's now easier for me to contact my Mom in another way than just using Skype.
6. Heard from my Mom that my brother and Shen (his wife) are going to buy a car on a loan. Since my bro works in a bank, he can get a loan with a lower interest rate. So next year they're going to have a car. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYY!!! I'm SO happy for them!
7. EXCITEMENT to start my training next Monday. Gimme lots of job to do, please HE HE HE HE HE HE...
8. Dreaming of owning our own place (apartment or small house). GLAD that R2 and I are on the same page. Though we don't know when we can make it come true, still it's nice to daydream hi hi hi hi...
9. The other week R2 visited his cousin's place from work. When he was there, his cousin's daughter (I think she's 4 years old) was asking about me. This time she remembered my name HI HI HI HI...I think that's SO SWEET!!!
Max and Angela tagged me to do this meme. At first when Max tagged me, I told her that I did a similar one already, but after some thinking, in that other meme, I didn't get a chance to take a pic to show you everything inside my bag. So, this is a picture of my bag (bought on sale for about €8) and what I put inside it. This is the bag I bring everywhere he he he...It's not too small and it's not too big. Perfect for me! ;-D
As you can see, I have my passport, a copy of my marriage certificate, an umbrella, mobile phone plus its casing (the casing's made personally for me by a friend of mine), sunglasses (I don't always bring them, depending on the weather), a pink comb, a pink wallet (bought in Indonesia), a pencil and two pens and an eraser (still with the price tag on it HA HA HA HA HA HA), a sanitary napkin with a funky package (bought in Indonesia), two lip balms, one lipstick, and two lip glosses, and the package with Y on it is my birth control pill package ha ha ha ha ha...I put it there to make sure that if we ever stay a night or two in some place, I won't forget to bring them.
There you go! Hope you're happy enough to see my bag and the stuff I put there. ;-D
