The Kite Runner

This is the recent movie which made me cry after watching. So beautifully described. I must read the book!

The sketch

As any other networking web.. facebook is also an extensive source for a self-exhibitionist and show-off things. It allows you to put a sketch of your profile picture. In no chance I would get a painter to sketch me.. so I was thinking that this is the only chance to see my picture.

Week-14 Mar-08 highlight

1. Children Concert and Jazz concert in Cultural Foundation
Amazing moment to se ethe kids playing. I really regret that I don't have any musical talent at all. My favourite show were - 2 siblings, older sister and her younger brother. The brother played guitar, and the sister played piano and sing blues song " route 66".. Her voice... wow.. amazing!!

Then a tiny girl (probably not more than 4 years old - see picture how tiny she is) playing violin with a lady played piano.

2. Lunch Indonesian Food at Bram's - pecel, tempe n tahu goreng, lumpia
Why this is good?

- It's fun to see the boys cooking (good food by the way:p)

- It's nice to gather with fellow Indonesians - altough I get less than 50% of what they're talking about D&M:)

- It's free:)

3. Lazy weekend...no clubbing - still restrain myself not to go.. no accompany helped me achieving this

This week 20-Mar-08 's highlight

1. London Philharmonic Ochestra - Sat 22 Mar 08

2. Al Ain Day tour - Sat 22 Mar 08

3. Thursday 20 Mar 08

- went to Lulu island.. a bit dull, only by myself and not prepared at all... but a good chance to explore. Lulu island is a man-made island, located on the coast of Abu Dhabi. Basically, nothing is in there, but the long white perfect beach, fresh water lake and swimming pool. Normally people come here in groups or family and do bbq at the beach or swimming. The water is crystal blue with lots of fish. I just spent some time there to walk on the beach and tried to catch the pick up bus back to jetty. The entrance fee (inlcuding the tour by bus, boat to and from the island is 15 dhs) add 5 dhs more if you want to take a train ride. too bad that the wheather (and sun) is alreday too hot to be outside within a long time these days)

4. Thursday 20 Mar 08

- Heritage Village. a tourist attraction nearby the jetty for Lulu island. They have a Museum and some copies of old times Bedouin race living - houses, cutlery, weapon, clothes.. as well as authentic camel, falcon, horse and donkey:)

5. One thing notoriously known from taxi driver a.k.a: Pakistani - they treat Asian / phillipines looking woman too general. They think that all can be "bargained". Those things I heard from my friend. But only today I experienced it myself. I hopped in a taxi from Herotage Village, and just after I sat inside, teh driiver asked me "How much?".. I was confused and replied "What?".. and he smirked and said " Dunno, you tell me...". I ignored him since then. It was irritated, but I thought that I don't eed to sweat too much on this.. let them do and think whatever they want too...

Another fine creation from the almighty

Christian Bale... (*sigh*) .. why he has to be taken?

Guilty Pleasure: The Office

the new guilty pleasure and a reason that I could stay at home and spent the whole days just being sloth and staring to the screen and after the discs all finiseh, getting so craving and deperately in need for the 3rd season.

My heart completely melted in a romantic-slash-sad scenes between Jim and Pam.

And I just laughed uncontrollably whenever Jim plays pranks to Dwight or just staring in astonishment and shock to see Michael rude words.

ahh.. just love this series:)

have my first apartment... hiyaaa! scary and exciting at te same time!

My first apartment! ever!

Finally i found my apartment.. well actually, the word "find" will not be that suitable, since I didn't really looked for it. Lady in personnel get me a contact from real-estate and she showed me this apartemnt. It located just in the corner of the street, very near to teh office, in fcat from the porch I can see the entrance to the office. And maybe I am matched with number "7".. since there 2 units available were 704 and 602. For sure I chose the 704, not because of teh number, but because the side. The living room will have sun in the evening. This is a 2 bed rooms apartment, with 1 living room, 1 main bath room and kitchen.. with a tiny porch outside. The thing I like about this appartment is the decoration, all white colored walls with lots of built in cabinets in light yellow color. feels so bright and light, not like my current apartment which feels dark, heavy and gloomy with the yellow light lamps and heavy furnitures.

So.. now the adventure of choosing the furnitures and everything inside begin!

Sun-9 Mar 08

- went to the apartment and take a look again.

Sun-9 Mar 08

Went to Shadow and chose the curtain and the carpet.

- embroidery dark maroon for master bed room, with blackout shade (which i've just known that "blackout" is white color:p).

- embroidery beige color for the living room

- cotton, rugged pattern for the guest bed room (try to get a warm - village type of curtain:p)

- The carpet I plan only for the 2 bedrooms, which I chose the medium thickness and broken white color.

The people from the shop will need to go to the apartment and take some measurements.

I like this shop, since the people there are so soft-spoken and helpful.

The days after:

Explore Home Center for some furnitures and get some quotation as well as the electronic from Costless. This is the time to experiment.. who cares is the choices are bad.. I am the only one who will stare at them (an excuse from my-humble-self:p).

This is the bed and bed sheet that I've chosen for my bed room.

The dressing table.

Tiny dinner table: I will put it in the kitchen since there's no designated room for dining table and my living room is full already.

The low desk.. dunno, maybe for TV set.. or just simply the books and accesorries. I'll decide later.

Suddenly just fall in love with this sofa.. although maybe will not match with the room or else... but I will have to have this:)

I just have to have these 2 as well, shoes rack and the chair to wear the shoes in comfortable way

Chest drawer for my bed room

Who says churches can't make a joke?

This is the strength of email forwards -quoted from Michael Scott - The Office:). Funny things about the churches signs.. really curious if these signs are real or not

This is my favourite:)

I just feel grateful with my life if...

I complained a lot, I always feel exhausted, tired, not satisfied, demanding, need more, jealous, angry....

But it's like God want to remind me with each tiny and almost unseen things which I saw and made me feel grateful and blessed with all the unperfect things I have, when I see these things:

1. I passed a man on the street, we was standing beside a supermarket, in front of him there were several plastic bags which the content can't be seen. He was thin and look cold in the windy night like this. Everytime when somebody passed him, he said in between his cough.."*cough* cough* .. fish madam *cough * cough*"

2. In my location, Abu Dhabi, My company has a school for the trainee, where the trainess from every locations come and follow a technical course. Last week there was an accident, tire bursted and the car rolled over, and 1 trainee died in the car. Thsi girl, just joined Schlumberger for 3 months only and just so sad to see this kind of thing.

3. everytime I saw a tired looking man with worn out dress, carrying a grocery bags....

First hangover in Abu Dhabi

It was this weekend when I went with Beng - a colleague from Pekanbaru who come here for a course. We spent the day in Marina Mall, trying to get something to satisfy his pickiness (well, he's Singaporean.. I can't expect too much for -not-being-too-picky from him, eh?:p).

When we're about to go back home, he said that 2 of his classmates headed to the mall as well, so we decided to wait for them.

So, we met them.. now we were: 1 Indonesian girl, 3 guys, Omani, American and Singaporean. Very normal if you are working for Schlumberger (and UNO as well, I guess:) ).

So, they finished eating and invited if I want to join them.."where to?" I asked.. and they, with their usual guy-ness replied " well, everywhere, we'll check each nice spots". What they meant is to do bars-hopping.

So, the Omani guy, Ahmed drives a car, and we stopped a moment back in my place to change and to their place to change as well.

So, because before, I heard this bar called "Rock Bottom", I told them as one of the idea and we headed there.

This bar located in Al Diar Capitol Hotel, in eastern Ring Road. The bar is crowded and quite big, although still full with people. It is combined with a restaurant as well. The choice of songs are good and nice for dancing, but the band was not really good with his shrieking voice and actually the the DJ session is better compare to the band session. Only the "girls" who were dancing on the floor, so it was not really enjoable for me, since I came with 3-veggie guys who didn't want to move and having "not drunk enough" as the reason and no girlfriend to dance together. Couple of time I tried to scoop in and dance in between the people, but I felt not so comfortable and moved back in to join the guys around the bar table. To get in, each of us need to pay 50 dhs, for 2 free drinks, quite a good deal (compare to another stuff price here - since I need to remind myself not to convert each price into rupiah, or else I will live like a monk:p). The crowd is more to arabs/indians and guys-who-I-can't-identify, not so many "bule" here. One guy tried to tease me, guess he's drunk, I just ignore and look the other direction. Here I really feel midget, since everybody else at least 1-half taller and bigger than me... so, not really nice to be swerved around and also can't be seen.

Good thing here is just the song, and oh yea, the Foster beer and Corona I took (after more than 4 months I didn't drink).Finished with the drinks, the guys decided to move to another bar, I was hesitated for a moment, but hell, I wanna see the other place as well.

So we went to Crowne Plaza Hotel, actually just beside my office, and nearby my apartment. It has "Heroes" pub, which the guys went the day before and they promised me that "everybody on the floor". So we went in, no-cover charge or entrance fee.. which is a bit surprise since this was weekend night, but it's good for us anyway. The place is a bit packed and smaller than the first one. The dance floor was small as well. The crowd is more all bule and almost no ayam around. The bad was good, with a lady bassis who played like crazy but very good. Only the choice of songs are very american-rock stuff which was not really comfortable to dance, unless you want to do head banging in every songs. The guys were standing in front of me and I sat in a bar table, when suddenly somebody grabbed me from the back, when I turned my head to see, it was the guy in red shirt, who I already noticed from before, noticed in a way since he was clearly drunk and passed out. I politely hold his arm to restrain him to go closer and asked if he was okay. He didn't answered only smirk and point out his tongue and saw my friends. Too bad actually that he's drunk, since he was kind of cute:).

Then we moved to the seat beside the stage, the band was singing all rock songs. I was watching the screen which was showing sport games, since it looks like this place is a sport bar. Ahmed got me another drink, Corona, actually I asked for water, but dunno why he came back with Corona. Or maybe because I was too tipsy and said corona instead of water?

The red-shirt guy danced in front of the stage and suddenly he (as what Kelli said in his own word) locked me in his sight, by making some move 2 fingers pointing his eyes and then pointing to me.

I was laughing *sigh*..too bad that he's passed out already:)

It was around 2:15 in the morning and the bar will close in another 15 min, so the guys decided to go out and check this bar,in the hotel called Howard Johnson, Kelli said in US this is wellknown sleazy place. So we went out and walked to teh hotel, were stranded a bit before I finally can see the hotel name from afar. We went in, but too bad (or good?) that it was closed. This place is so indian from outside, so I asked the guys if they really wanted to go, but anyway we didn't make it.

So just walked back and they set me off in front of my apartment.

The story hasn't ended yet, the morning I woke up with a very very very bad headache and this nauseous feeling in my stomach. Herlina called to go together for lunch, so I was thinking that I should have something to eat, which turned out to be a bad decision, since:

- The morning when you have hangover, never see the sun.. you are a vampire. The light will kill you .. literally

- Never set a date, especially a date which involve eating or much movement

-Don't see anybody, since you don't want to hurt somebody's feeling in a way since you can't respond well to his/her friendliness and kindness. The hotel waiter was so friendly and generous, giving us free soup and dessert, yet I can't finish them altough it tasted very good, not only I can't finish them, but I can't touch them at all.

- This headache... this is the reason why there is a symptom called headache, it is meant to punish the hangovers:)

Fortunately after we went back home I can puke.. and after that the headache gone and now it feels like I have a beast inside my stomach with this big appetite:)

So, my second weekend here and my first time hangover.. and still has a lot of work to do:)

To ndutty: I wrote this during my hangover, guess that already is an apology:p