I think it’s summer time

Ini betul-betul sudah musim panas, ya? 😀

Buktinya:

1. waktu pulang, di rak ada marshmallow rasa semangka, dengan bentuk seperti potongan semangka kecil-kecil berwarna hijau muda dan pink yang manis

2. saya mulai terbangun di tengah malam (anggap saja karena panasnya udara, hehehe 😛 ) dan nggak bisa tidur lagi sebelum mengobrol panjang di telepon (sangat menyenangkan, menemukan ada orang yang sama denganmu: tak mau pergi ke kebun binatang dan memiliki hubungan cinta-benci dengan friendster ^^ Terima kasih, sobat!) dan membaca Deathly Hallows sebelum akhirnya mematikan lampu

3. udara kantor tidak lagi sedingin biasa (lupakan dulu soal penghematan besar-besaran di departemen itu)

4. semalam saya melihat kembang api merah-hijau (warna semangka!) ketika saya membuka jendela ruang tengah

5. tiba-tiba saja Febri datang membawakan dua cup es krim rasa mocca dan alpukat (thank you, thank you! kalau begitu kapan-kapan aku akan membawa coklat dan… lunas ya! 😀 ).

^^ ini pasti sudah musim panas, dan oh ya! saya ingat, skorpius sudah bersinar sangat terang di halaman belakang rumah saya beberapa hari yang lalu. Skorpius di atas halaman saya, hanya bersinar seterang itu saat musim panas.

Have a happy, happy summer time, everyone !

ERASING FOOTPRINTS IN MY HEART

Sabtu sore,  adik cowok saya yang kadang nggak keren itu membuat saya harus memindah semua file dari Dell hitam yang sudah menjadi sahabat saya selama tahun-tahun yang kadang nggak menakjubkan itu. Yang sudah jadi teman belajar yang nggak pernah merepotkan, tempat menyimpan cerita-cerita yang tak pernah dipublikasikan, sampai tempat mencurahkan semua perasaan saya di hari-hari yang labil itu.

Kalau tidak dipaksa seperti itu mungkin saya nggak akan pernah membuka folder-folder itu lagi. Yah, berbagai ekspresi muncul bercampur aduk setiap sebuah file dibuka. Dan mama saya yang sigap itu langsung mewanti-wanti: “Mana foto-foto ******-nya? Jangan dibuang lho, moment-nya itu yang berharga…” Implisit, she told me that suatu saat pasti akan ada masanya kamu ingin membuka lagi kenangan itu. Sepahit apapun.

Tapi mama saya nggak tahu kalau ada puluhan file berakhiran .doc yang HARUS dihapus. Nggak ada kompromi lagi tentang itu, dan kalau saya masih membiarkannya dalam ‘status quo’ (dalam artian nggak tersentuh, nggak dibuka, nggak dihapus, nggak diapa-apakan, hanya teronggok begitu saja) maka itu hanya menunjukkan kelemahan hati saya sendiri. Nggak bisa. Hal seperti ini nggak bisa ditoleransi.

Maka, malam itu saya menikmati membuka file-file itu, membaca paragraf atau kalimat awalnya, ber-yeaaks seperti ini –> 😛 lalu (bagian paling heroiknya) meng-klik pilihan yes ketika muncul pertanyaan are you sure you want to delete this file? (Why on earth not??)

Mantap. Rasanya puas melihat sampah-sampah puitis itu menghilang selama-lamanya dari dunia ini hahaha 😀

Ah, saya dan kebodohan-kebodohan saya.

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….

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Pulang ah. Tak enak rasanya memulai tulisan dengan marah-marah begini (kalau dibandingkan dengan tulisan sahabat-sahabat se-celana perjalanan saya, kok rasanya saya ya, yang paling sering marah-marah dan emo begini? Hahaha….)

Kalau saya tak malas, Insya Allah tulisan tentang pulang ke rumah ini masih ada lanjutannya. Dan nggak semuanya marah-marah seperti ini kok. Saya kan udah bilang, “This time I’ll be sweeter 😉 ”

Thanks to my dear little boy.

and the sun is shining…

Hari ini saya ke UI Salemba, mengambil hasil tes TOEFL ITP. Alhamdulillah… Lega rasanya. Meskipun nggak setinggi hasil prediction test waktu di kampus dulu, tapi saya bersyukur dengan hasilnya. Nggak nyangka saya, habis waktu latihan bener-bener parah, hehehe 😀

It’s kinda funny… Di sudut kiri bawah, ada kotak kecil dengan tulisan:

NOT A TOEFL SCORE REPORT

This ITP score record is NOT to be used to fulfill entrance requirements to universities. It is for the administering institution only.

So… It’s not a TOEFL score! ^^;

Sekarang, setelah pengumuman itu keluar (syukur Alhamdulillah…), hasil tes ini bisa dibilang jadi nggak ada gunanya. Tapi nggak juga sih. Bagaimanapun juga, pengalaman mengikuti tes itulah yang sangat berharga (it was my first time, actually). Dan paling tidak, sekarang saya punya pegangan yang pasti di mana posisi saya, sehingga saya tahu apa yang harus ditingkatkan lagi (semua deh kayaknya 😆 )

Meskipun telat, makasih banyak buat semua yang nggak pernah bosan mendengarkan keluh-kesah saya, cerita-cerita nggak penting saya, yang terus memberi semangat, yang terus membantu saya untuk administrasi yang remeh-remeh tapi memusingkan itu, yang mendaftarkan saya, yang nemenin saya, yang tes bareng saya, yang mencarikan informasi, yang marahin saya, yang mendo’akan saya, yang mematahkan semangat saya juga… For everything that you did to me so that I can go back to that place… I deeply thank you.. It’s only Allah can reward… Mohon do’anya lagi ya.. Karena yang menanti di depan adalah peperangan yang lain lagi 😉

for my heart, for some lonely selves besides me… you’ll never see the end of the road when you’re traveling with me. They’re not just some plain, meaningless words. The sentence is just so true..

Tuhan itu, benar-benar memeluk mimpi-mimpi kita 🙂 *sujud syukur*

GIRLS’ TIME OFF!

More Graphics Comment click here.

This evening, my sister and I went to a place. We wanted to do something together but we had to split because something out of our plan had happened. My sister went on with her plan but I preferred to do something else.

I decided to look at small shops around that place. An artificial flowers shop (which made me think that every flower-shop owner is gentle and loving. Maybe I was wrong, but that was the impression that I got.), a shop that sold cute little things girls usually love (you know, like Naughty or Cindy/Yayang), a kiosk that sold pretty boxes in every size and colours, and a book store that gave discount for every item it sold.

When I finally got bored, I went to the food court and ordered some pempek lenjer and a glass of tea. I was surprised to see the pempek. It was cut into very thin slices which were so hard to chew. The noodle was very, very thin also. And it tasted just like plastic. And was hard to chew, too. When you’ve had a chance to eat the real pempek from Palembang, you surely won’t be satisfied with the ones people make in Java.

As I sat there, sipping my tea, I looked around and thought of how that place was full of artificial things. From the leaves hung from the ceiling to the tree in the middle of the room. From the things that looked good from afar to this dish before me… And even what was on teve (you know, Indonesian soap opera with its fake, hyperbolic expressions and dialogues). Well, it was clean, at least. And complete enough, actually.

Not so long after that, my sister came. We went to Century and bought some girly stuffs like facial foam, shower gel… Those things, you know… By the way, I really like the new package of Ponds facial foams. I like its smallest size, so slim you can carry it anywhere you want! Really fits traveler girls’s need. And there, I found my favorite shower gel, the red Palmolive shower gel. I simply love the sweet smell of it ^^

Okay, again I’m that crazy shopaholic *sigh*

And then, we came back to that artificial flower shop. The owner wasn’t there, maybe she was doing Isya’ prayer. The flowers were arranged so beautifully that I kept on saying, ‘Look at that!” and “Ooh!” and “How pretty!” and things like that. But suddenly my sister said, “You’d like what’s on the owner’s desk better than all of these flowers.”

I turned around and there, laying gracefully on the wooden table, was a copy of Edensor.

Beautiful! ^^

After that, we went downstairs. We looked at hundred pairs of shoes there and tried some. Well, some of them were really cute, yet too small.

We were going to get home when we passed an instant karaoke box. “Hey, wanna give it a try?” I asked my sister (why I am always the one with such nutty idea? ^^; ).

“No! Can’t you hear that? Everybody will be able to hear your voice!” answered my sensible sister.

There were two booths there. One of them was like a music box, actually. There was a dangdut music played loudly from inside of it and you could hear the song clearly enough. But that just made me even more curious.

“Ah, come on, just try it, just try it,” I insisted.

That time, there was this couple who got into the other booth and sang. And we couldn’t hear their voice, just the melody faintly. So, it seemed to be safe. And it was cheap (two thousand and five hundred rupiahs per song). And there were hundreds of songs to pick, even Korean songs in Korean letters that I couldn’t read at all.

The next thing I knew, we were picking the song we wanted to sing from the super thick list (I couldn’t stop giggling ^^; ! That’s my habit… When I get too scared or nervous, sometimes I will giggle almost hysterically.).

The instant karaoke box was really a box, with a television on one side, chair on the opposite side, the door, and another side where the mic was hung. On the ceiling, there was a disco lamp with the colourful lights and starry shapes around the surface. And the walls were all painted blue. The impression it gave was like you were in a large, blue bajaj ^^;

But all those bad impressions were pushed aside when the music began to flow. The sound quality wasn’t bad at all. I can even say that it was just the same with the one in Jogja (what’s the name, Dyra? Happy puppy? No… Ah, I totally forgot ^^p M Studio? Whatever.)

My sister chose ‘Fly Me to the Moon’. I don’t know but we sang differently, maybe because I had listened to Utada Hikaru’s version more often than Sinatra’s. And we laughed when we found out that it gave us the score. We got 74 😆 !

And me, I picked my favorite song: All My Life. It’s an old song. I knew it was romantic, but when I sang the whole part of it, oh no… It was just too lovely! I always adore songs that bring together love and struggles for life! And this one’s definitely one of them!

So, the conclusion is: instant karaoke box isn’t that bad. It can be fun. Because it makes you laugh with it’s everything ^^ So, two songs weren’t enough, guys!!

As we flipped through the pages, looking for songs we were going to sing again, the assistant told us that we could only pick one song because they were going to close. So, as final performance *haiyah* we chose Vertical Horizon’s Everything You Want (which drifted my mind to him… I couldn’t help thinking that the song might represent Zakiah Nurmala’s feeling for Arai. How sad!)

Now, writing this, I’m glad that I tried the instant karaoke box. It fulfilled my need to sing *aiya, like it’s my calling or something! ^^; *, it made me laugh, and it gave me something to write here 😀 (not to mention the spirit of Arai it reminded me, ha ha ha..) Today’s lesson is… Don’t be afraid to try something new. You never know what good things it will bring your way 😉