Family by heart <3

Just got back home from a really, really, really great BBQ party with my dearest classmates. We took photos. We threw some friends to the pool because besides the fact that their birthdays took place not so long ago, we just felt like it.
And we talked about lots and lots of things.

One thing I remember is when we wondered why we’d chosen a Friday when we knew we still had to go to school the next day.
Why did we come up with this idea so suddenly?
Why tonight instead of some other day that’s a more obvious choice to celebrate?

We soon found things that could be the reasons for this dinner.
This is to mark the 46th day before the National Exams.
This is to celebrate Lukas and Andreas’ birthday.
This is to prove that the invisible line that separated cliques within our class has disappeared.
But above all, I think,
the real reason why we had this idea of having a BBQ dinner tonight was,
well,
why not?
Because, apart from those mentioned above, which are all true,
do you have to wait for special occasions to create a special moment with the ones you love,
and does a family need any particular reasons to spend quality time with one another?
No, we don’t.
That’s what I call love and friendship — you could just be random and plan random things at random times and create beauty out of it.

So our steak may be a failure for being too well-done that it gave us a hard time cutting it into bite-sized pieces, let alone chewing it (more than 30 chews required per bite, trust me).
Our barbequed chicken may have lacked flavor before the guys came and saved us with the BBQ sauce they brought.
My hair smells like a mix of charcoal and smoke and barbequed stuff.
But I won’t trade anything,
anything,
for everything that happened tonight.

I love my class.
Very, very much.

Attachments: photos! XD

Two wet birthday boys…

some barbequed chicken…

a little bit of narcissism…

and lots of love and camaraderie in the air <3

안녕하세요!

Yesterday was such a busy yet fun day! There were three governmental figures and six students from Busan, Korea, who paid a visit to my school, and I, along with my friends, Athina, Felippa, and Jenifer, got to be the emcees for the day XD

The event kicked off with an energetic performance of Jathilan by our finest dancers. What’s remarkable was, some of them suddenly approached two Korean kids and asked them to dance along on the stage. They were confused, no doubt about that, but their effort to follow what the others were doing was admirable.

As soon as it was finished, everyone went to our library to start the formal greetings session. I opened with a brief introduction about this school — by brief introduction I mean brief history which means I had to have a little kerpekan or, more sophisticatedly, a litte note to help me memorize what happened when. Our principal then gave a speech, followed by Mr. Park Seuk-hwan (I had to ask a friend who can speak Korean to tell me how to pronounce his name. It was such a pain, learning to say it correctly) as the Busan International Affairs Manager thingy or something like that. After that, some dudes from our school’s Magic Club showcased their abilities in, well, magic. I could see everyone, especially the Korean audience, so very fascinated and awe-struck, so kudos to our magician friends =D

Next up, we went to start Le Tour de St. Louis, showing them what we own and everything. It was continued by a superb rendition of the soundtrack of a popular Korean drama soundtrack, Jewel in the Palace, as well as an Indonesian folk song, Walang Kekek by our orchestra. After so many of our showing off talents, it was the guests’ turn to do the same. Three of the girls wowed us with their elegance while performing a traditional Korean dance which name escapes me, and the guy along with two other girls then let us witness their amazing tae kwon do skills. Above all, I think, the most memorable moments were when they sang the famous Indonesian children song Balonku Ada Lima and when they introduced themselves (by when they introduced themselves, I mean when the only Korean dude introduced himself. His name was Kim Tae-woo and he was really good-looking and cool and he said aku cinta kamu right after he told everyone his name. It got me — and hundreds of other girls, including our female teachers — melting <3 <3 <3 *letting out a fan girl scream*).

The event came to an end as we gathered in our school’s canteen and enjoyed BBQ for lunch. Before saying goodbye, we took one last shot together:

P.S. There are actually plenty of photos taken but Tiffany the photographer hasn’t uploaded them yet. Must. wait. patiently!

Well it’s one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, now go, cat, go!

Ahhh~ Me and my class had our yearbook photoshoot session todayyy! It was funfunfun =D

So. The venue was an old train station in Surabaya called Stasiun Semut, and the dress code was vintage. We were supposed to arrive there at like 2.30-ish, but as expected, everyone but me and one girl who I went together with turned up late. Well that’s okay. That meant I could have the photographer dude and his undivided attention for me and only meeee. MWAHAHAHA. Ahem. I mean, him and his undivided attention to take pictures of me, of course. Not for anything else.

The weather was rather unfriendly, I must say, but all fifteen of us thankfully managed to be patient enough to shelter and wait for the rain to be over, go out and have some pictures taken again, shelter again when the rain suddenly comes back, and so forth.

Anyway, I had had my beauty-conscious aunt painted my face for this occasion, and I was pleased to see that the result was exactly what I asked for. I really didn’t wanna overdo it, so she applied only a hint of foundation and powder, bronze-ish gold (or gold-ish bronze) eye-shadow, some dabs of rose blush-on, and some finger-smudged magenta-ish red lipstick. Which already felt like tons of layers for me already.

Oh, and what I wore was a white halter neck dress with dark blue polka dots which made me look like I came straight out from a ’50s movie. This choice of fashion is actually dedicated to my grandma because I have a feeling that she’d like it very much to see me wear the kind of dress she would wore in her prime. As a teen who wears jeans and tees all the time unless something else is really required, I’ve always been a huge disappointment for her and her wish to see me dress more… uhh… properly, which can kinda be translated as wearing pretty tops and skirts and dresses. Sooo this time, I hope she can look at my high school yearbook photos and be proud of me and my fashion sense at last. Most of all, I hope she can see a little bit of her in me <3

Ahhh~ So that’s all for now =] Ciao~

Taken by Regina with her cellphone ^^

You may be a shark and I may look like your prey, but…

Thanks to whoever drew this picture on the wall of our school’s gym hall.

We live, we love, we sacrifice

Sometimes we have to watch the things we love
go away
or
fall into the hands of another.

Letting go is hard,
but sometimes it is necessary
because
it really is for the better
both for us and the other party.

I love my dogs very much,
I really do.
At the same time, though, it’s not easy to take care of seven pooches
when you’re neither Paris Hilton or a ranch owner.
That is why I have to be strong enough
to let some of them go
so that they can have a chance
to find someone who can take care of them better.

Please know
that wherever you are,
whatever you’re doing,
I will still remember to love you,
even if you don’t.
And I sincerely hope you find a new better best friend
because you deserve it.

Love,
spottedmist

The Way I See It #2

Of course we’re all stressed out.
We lose someone we used to call friend.
We meet jerks who try to, or even better, succeed in ruining our day.
We’re a straight-E student.
We’re broke.
Our crush loves someone else.
Our parents keep comparing us to our oh-so-perfect siblings.

Of course we are all in the gutter.
But some of us are looking at the stars.

Credits to this dude for the last two lines

Or is it hopeless?

I am very proud to be part of a class which, after a brain-damaging Math exam, was still able to be so happy and cheerful that we decided to play dolip-dolipan a.k.a. tag and benteng-bentengan for two hours.

Yes, we are that awesome!

P.S. A hilarious thing happened when we were playing the game — as we were running and concentrating on the one who was “it”, one of my classmates, with a rather horrified and embarrassed look on his face, suddenly shouted, “OH MY GOD, MY GIRLFRIEND IS OUTSIDE WATCHING ME FROM THE WINDOW! ISIN PEK!“

He left the game abruptly and dashed towards her, probably trying to explain that it wasn’t necessarily what it looked like. We couldn’t stop laughing XD

And I know I ain’t wrong because it really IS the main and sole purpose of writing a research paper!

In the mock national exam for Sociology that I had this morning, there was this question:

Which, among the options below, is one of the purposes of writing a research paper?

To my surprise, the only thing I thought was the correct answer wasn’t there! Tell me, how could they forget to include to torture students or anything like that in the options?

WiMEC 2010

First of all, please forgive my not updating for days =[ Been so busy with school stuff and everything else… including the story I’m sharing with you below.

So earlier today from 6 AM to 6 PM, me and my friends Athina and Felippa joined a general knowledge + English competition. Held by and at Widya Mandala University, we’re also joined by Irwin, Sianita and Rachel who also participated but were in a different team.

The first round’s format was basically to search the four buildings of the campus to find the correct places as described in the clues. There were ten sites to visit in total, and in each site we were given one puzzle to solve. Just imagine, running around for approximately 4 hours! That’s not to mention our failed attempts, like mistakenly entering room A403 when we were actually supposed to go to D403 instead (which is located far, far away opposite building A!). We were very grateful though, because in the end we came first and thus could enter the next round.

In the second round, each group had to send one representative to compete in separate areas of linguistic skill. Felippa was assigned to join the Reading competition, Athina for the Writing one, and me for the Speaking one. This was the scariest round for me — I had to do a speech with only 30 minutes of preparation, going against nine other talented kids with perfect grammar and pronunciation. It was tough indeed, but eventually we made it through to the final albeit losing the top spot to Petra 1 after this round ended.

What’s interesting is, in my opinion, the final round was fairly easier to handle than the previous one. We only had to answer some general knowledge questions as fast as we could by pressing the buzzer provided for each team. Topping off it all, we had to bet at least 50% of our total score for the last question, so the amount we betted of ours was… exactly 50% — I know, such chickens we were, right? Well, whatever you say, but we brought home the first place trophy ya know =D

So I may have missed dining out with my classmates at Loop;
I may have missed the chance to study for the tryouts;
I may have had to wake up as early as 5 (that’s so not me — I always wake up at 6 during normal schooldays);
my legs may be sore and would cry out loud in pain if only they could;
but the sacrifices I — and my teammates — made, they paid off!

Fearless as Taylor Swift sees it

“To me, fearless is not the absence of fear.
It’s not being completely unafraid.
To me, fearless is having fears. Fearless is having doubts. Lots of them.
Fearless is falling in love again, even though you’ve been hurt before.
Fearless is walking into your freshmen year of high school at fifteen.
Fearless is getting back up and fighting for what you want over and over again…
even though every time you’ve tried before, you’ve lost.
It’s fearless to have faith that someday things will change.
Fearless is having the courage to say goodbye to someone who hurts you,
even if you can’t breathe without them.
I think it’s fearless to fall for your best friend,
even though he’s in love with someone else.
And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things they’ll never stop doing,
It’s fearless to say you’re not sorry and walk away.
I think loving someone despite what people think is fearless.
I think allowing yourself to cry on the bathroom floor is fearless.
Letting go is fearless.
Then, moving on and being alright… It’s fearless too.
But no matter what love throws away, you have to believe in it.
You have to believe in love stories and prince charmings and happily ever afters.
That’s why I write these songs.
Because I think love is fearless.”